Triple Play Three
Copyright© 2026 by DDMarshall
The Gardener
Fiction Sex Story: The Gardener - Can age or social standing deter true love? Read these three short stories and tell me what you think. “Smoking with Miss Franks”: a teacher-student romance. “The Woman Next Door.” She’s divorced, older, and Bill is hopelessly in love. “The Gardener” He’s blue collar, she’s upper crust. (Additional codes are below the story title.)
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual
( No sex)
During the summer, he worked in the neighborhood, cutting lawns, cleaning flower beds and trimming shrubs. He could not be more than twenty-two years old. Several of my female friends in the neighborhood teased each other about him, myself included. We often made crude suggestions about how our friends paid him for his labor. None of which was true. He was a handsome young man who would remove his shirt on very hot days while working. The sweat enhanced his well-defined muscles, and when the sun hit him just right, you could clearly see his six-pack.
Our neighborhood is very affluent, inhabited by older couples with grown children or empty nests. Our husbands are often off on business trips, taking care of business in the city or fighting the good fight in courtrooms in the name of justice. Yes, a neighborhood filled with over fifty-year-old lawyers, bankers and CEOs.
Young James Carpenter was a pleasant distraction as we sat on our terrace or backyard patio, sipping gin and tonics while we watched him work. It was a silly thing for us to do, but you were expected to invite a couple of your friends over when it was your day to have him work in your backyard.
James Carpenter certainly was not from the neighborhood. He drove a ten-year-old pickup truck, for Christ’s sake. None of the kids in this neighborhood would drive anything less than a two-year-old BMW. Much less drive a truck, or do manual labor. When they came home from boarding school for the summer, they were often shipped off to camps to further their experience in the world. The lucky ones around my daughter Amanda’s age were off to Europe to expand their cultural awareness, doing drugs and getting laid.
It was an especially hot afternoon, and I was sitting on my second-story terrace with Carol Morris and June Woo. We were enjoying the view and trading risqué barbs when my daughter Amanda came out of the house with a tray, two glasses, a pitcher of what looked like lemonade and a towel over her arm. I sat frozen with my gin and tonic halfway to my mouth as I looked down onto the patio. I watched my daughter put the tray on the table, walk over to the hired help, and offer him a towel to wipe the sweat from his torso. One of my limited edition Ralph Lauren towels, no less.
When she invited him to the patio table to sit and have a lemonade with her, I could not believe my eyes. Of course, June had to rub it in. “Well, it looks like someone from the neighborhood is going to get up close and personal with that stud.”
I immediately retaliated, “Stuff it, June.” June and Carol had a good laugh at my discomfort and embarrassment.
June came over and gave me a hug and an air kiss. “I should be running along. Please don’t take it so hard, Grace. She is young and will learn her place soon enough.”
Carol came over, gave me a hug and an air kiss, and said something that sent a chill down my spine, “I’m sure we all had a crush on a handsome poor boy at one time or another at that age. Some of us even fucked them.” I fumed over being so embarrassed in front of my friends.
That evening, I spoke to my daughter about disturbing the man while he worked, “After all, we are paying him by the hour.” I told her. I thought she got the message.
A week later, James Carpenter came to work on the shrubs. I invited my friends even though I knew they might tease me again. To make matters even worse, my daughter again took him lemonade and a towel. Instead of returning to work after finishing his lemonade, he sat with my daughter at the patio table and talked. Carol and June had another good laugh at my expense.
I confronted my daughter as soon as the gardener left. I ranted and raved about how he was the hired help, and I expected her to show a little more decorum while my friends were over. I explained how socializing with the hired help only encouraged them to become more familiar and take liberties when they should be working.
Amanda showed no remorse at all for embarrassing me in front of my friends. When I wound down, she asked, “For god’s sake, Mom, you and your friend sit up there and ogle him like he’s a piece of meat. Didn’t you ever talk to him?”
I had no idea why she would ask that. “My god, Carol, why would I talk to him? Our accountant arranges his schedule. He submits an invoice and is paid. He is nothing more than a pleasant distraction from the boredom.”
“Well, you should, Mom. Stop being so stuck up. He actually is a very interesting guy to talk to.”
“What the hell could be so interesting about a gardener?”
“Oh, you mean the gardener who goes to Cornell on a scholarship and has to work for a living.”
My mouth hung open with no answer for my daughter.