He turned on the landing leading to the fourth flight of stairs and wearily hauled himself round and up on the wooden banister... The three cardboard boxes of cakes slid across the bottom of the wicker basket, crooked in at his free elbow, as he mounted the stone steps.

It had been a long morning, cycling on the heavy old bike with its iron basket-holder on the front, making it so hard to manoeuvre. But now he was finished. Nearly.

He always kept this customer to the last. For months he'd fantasised about her inviting him in because she was lonely and her husband was away for the week-end. Fat chance! With a wife like that he'd never be away for the week-end. Lucky bugger!

He reached the top landing and laid the basket down. Balancing the cake boxes on top of each other he walked to the far end of the landing, and, taking a deep breath, he pushed the buzzer. Music from inside the flat was the only sound - and then he heard her. Bare feet running along the hall. He felt the warmth in his groin as the chain rattled against the door, and he adjusted his sweaty hands on the boxes.

The door was flung wide and she almost tumbled out and into him. But she got her balance and stood there, panting. He drank in the sight of her. He had put her down as about twenty-two or three. She'd only been married about six months, he knew that, for Mrs. Jessman at the baker's shop had told him when he had first been given her as a customer.

Now she stood there, in a silky pink slip that accentuated rather than covered her body, her round melony boobs practically falling out of the thin garment, while nearly the all of her plump white thighs were visible beneath it. Her hair was tousled and her face quite red, her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

'Sorry! I... I. was asleep... We... I... We... slept in', she barely suppressed a giggle.

'Slept in my foot', he thought. She said this every Saturday.

He reached out to her with the boxes. He was about a foot taller than her and as she stepped forward to take the cakes he could see right down her cleavage. He glanced up and their eyes met. She knew what was going on alright. Of that he was convinced.

She put her hands round the sides of the bottom box and pulled them towards her, causing the backs of his hands to press into her breasts. Through the silk he could feel her hardened nipples and the yielding soft flesh of those delicious white mounds. She made no attempt to disengage and he could feel her heart beating - while his own hammered in his chest and his erection stiffened against his trousers.Then she moved away. Smiling. Her eyes shining. The door was shut in his face and he heard her padding back along the hall. Giggling.

'Padding back to another shag', he thought ruefully as he turned back to pick up the empty basket.

He raced down the stairs two at a time, the basket swinging on his flailing arm. As he shot off the third step before the first floor landing, he suddenly saw, in the gloom of the dark stairway, the figure of a woman standing at her doorway immediately in front of him. He desperately strove to alter course in mid-air and missed her by inches, then crashed into the wall on the far side of her door.

He slid down the wall into a sitting position, gasping for breath, gazing at the woman. She stood in the doorway, the dim light from her hall way barely enough to allow him to see her. He recognised her as 'the foreign woman' Aitken the lorry-driver had brought back as his wife - from Italy or Spain or somewhere like that.

Aitken had been killed in a bad smash on the M6 a year or so ago. His union had proved company negligence on the maintenance of the lorry and the local gossip was that his widow had got a tidy sum of compensation. She however kept herself very much to herself, although he'd heard his mother say she was very pleasant and always polite.

'But not like us', his mother said, " she goes to the shops up the town for all her stuff - and always on her own. She's a Catholic too. I've seen her coming out of yon big chapel at the roundabout."

And that was about as much as he knew of 'the foreign woman' who now peered anxiously down at him.

'Are you 'urt?', the voice was odd to his ears. It had a soft kind of musical quality, 'Let me 'elp you?'

She reached down and held out her hand. He grasped it, noticing as he did so, the olive-oil coloured skin and the long slim fingers. Her grip was strong and she pulled him to his feet with remarkable ease.

'You are in too much 'urry. Your Mamma 'as your dinner ready, I tink.' She smiled and he noticed how remarkably white her teeth were in the tanned face, while her black hair was drawn back in a bun that accentuated the high cheek-bones and large browny-black eyes.

She stood looking at him. and he realised she was much shorter than he was, but oddly she seemed to be looking directly at him, not up at him. Her clothes were dark too and she wore a striped dark blue bib-apron. Her body seemed to be quite solid, even fat, but her hand and wrist had seemed slender. He reckoned she was a few years younger than his mother. All of this flashed through his head in a second as he stammered out a reply:

'No! My mother's not in. She's away visiting my auntie - with my Dad.'

He felt a fool and tried to make amends: 'I'm just finished now - I was in a hurry to get back to the shop with the bike.' He hesitated, 'I'm sorry if I gave you a fright. I didn't see you.'

'Is okay', she patted his arm, ' how you say? No bones broken. Eh.'

He smiled sheepishly and looked at his feet. She spoke again, ' You pass 'ere on your way 'ome from shop? I know your mother. She is kind woman. I know your 'ouse. Maybe you get message for me - from baker shop? Yes? I pay you.'

'No! I mean, yes.' he blurted out the contradiction, ' I mean I'll get your message. But you don't need to pay me. It's not out of my way.'

She smiled and again patted his arm. 'You are good boy. I know. I watch you. You very 'ard working - and so beeg and sta-rrong!' He blushed furiously and shuffled his feet. Glad that the dark was hiding his confusion.

'I like you get me two - no - tree pies. een-dee-veedual, 'ow you say?'

'That's okay', he said, 'individual pies. Mince or steak?'

'I like meat', she said, 'steak, I want. And two vanilla cakes. Is okay?' She handed him some notes. He gave her one back.

'That's more than enough', he said, 'I'll be as quick as I can. It'll be about half-an-hour. Okay?'

'You take care on bike', she said, 'I see you soon' He turned to set off down the stairs when she pulled on his arm. ' What I call you?' He looked puzzled. 'Your name? What ees your name?'

'Oh', he laughed, ' my name is David. I am David.'

She smiled at him as he stood on the second step down, his face now on a level below hers, and he thought he glimpsed a girl in her middle-aged face. ' Dav-eed. Is a nice name for you. Like Michelangelo. Dav-eed. I am Maria. You call me Maria. Is okay? You say?'

He was puzzled about Michael whats-his-name but he smiled and said, ' Yes. It's okay. Maria.' Without thinking he said it again. It had been a nice name to say, ' Maria'.

She laughed and turned away. Outside the rain was just starting.

By the time he reached the shop he was very wet indeed. He put the bike away in the shed and collected the pies and cakes. Mrs. Jessman expressed her concern at him getting so wet, but he pooh-poohed her worry, saying he'd be home soon to a hot bath.

The wind and rain were in his face as he trudged back along the road. Twice he splashed into deep puddles he had not seen because of the rain lashing into his eyes. He couldn't run for fear of breaking the pies and cakes, now wrapped in a poly bag and sheltered under his jacket against the teeming rain.

At last he reached the close and dragged his soaking feet up the stairs.

She must have been watching for him at the window, for she opened the door before the bell sounded.

'Mamma mia, Dav-eed, you are drown- ed. Oh! Come! Come in, I get you dry.' Ignoring the bag he held out to her, she pulled him into the house and shut the door.

'My poor Da-veed, mother of God, you are so wet, you will get to die. 'ere! Take off wet shoes.' She paid no heed to his protests but knelt at his feet and began to pull off his sodden footwear. David was so cold and wet he made little resistance. Now in the warmth of the house, he was shaking with cold, his teeth chattering so that he could hardly speak.

He allowed her to propel him along the hallway and into her livingroom-cum-kitchen. A huge coal fire blazed in the old-fashioned fireplace, filling the room with light and heat. She manoeuvred him past the ironing board set up in front of it, and placed him close to the blaze. Steam began to rise from his saturated clothes. He began to feel a bit faint. She started to pull off his jacket. He tried to protest again but she shushed him.

'I not let you go 'ome like-ah thees. Your Mamma she find out, she very angree.'

He was so cold and shaky that he just let her do it: pulling off his jersey and shirt till he stood there, stripped to the waist, trembling with cold and not caring about anything except how awful he felt.

Taking a towel from the wooden clothes horse at the fireside, she began to towel him so vigorously he felt she was taking the skin off him. At last she stopped and, panting with the exertion, she handed him the towel and pointing to his trousers she instructed,

'Take off! I go get you somesing dry to wear. You dry good. You 'ear?'

She did not wait on a reply but marched out of the room closing the door behind her.He stood there after she had gone,shaking with cold still Not thinking straight.

Slowly he began to unbutton his trousers, his movements slow and lethargic. He was on a kind of auto-pilot, his brain not able to focus. Standing with his back to the door, he towelled and rubbed himself until he was glowing all over. Then he wrapped the towel around himself and stood warming this body at the roaring fire, holding onto the mantelpiece while the steam from the damp towel rose in front of him. His teeth now gave only the occasional chatter. He felt woozy and not able to think. He just wanted to be warm.

Maria returned at last with an armful of clothes and without a word she pushed him into the big armchair and fed his head into a large grey flannel shirt - like the ones his father wore sometimes.

He tried to help to pull it down and in doing so discovered that it was far too wide for him although the length was about right.

"'Ees too beeg. My 'usband he more fat than you.' Saying this she slapped his belly playfully with the back of her hand, causing him to gasp at the unexpectedness of the blow.

'He dead', she said. He didn't know what to say to this but as he mumbled something, she thrust the rest of the clothing into his hands and turned away towards the cooker which stood in a little doorless cupboard at the far end of the room.

'I put on pies', she said, 'you dress and stay by fire. Get warm. Be queeck! Queeck!'

Making sure she was not looking, he slipped the towel down and pulled on the voluminous white Y-fronts then the trousers - which could have gone twice round him. He puzzled over the necktie until it dawned on him that it was to hold up the trousers. He was negotiating his feet into the big woollen socks when she appeared at his side and held out a mug of steaming liquid.

'You drink now. Little at time. Drink all. Make you warm.' He took the mug and mumbled his thanks. The whisky, scarcely diluted at all by the hot water and honey, hit the back of his throat and caused him to splutter and cough. She laughed and then ordered:

'You sit at fire. Drink all up. But slow. Sit!' He sat down again in the armchair and sipped the drink, feeling the warmth of it spread through him. He was beginning to feel a bit better. But it was as though he was floating in a kind of dream with his brain in a warm fog.

Later, sitting at the table with her, he ate the hot pie and beans and the mashed potatoes as though he had never seen food for a week. She urged him to eat up and insisted he have the extra pie.

He found the wine, ruby-red and slightly warmed, strange at first but by the time he had started on the plate of custard and pears, he was sipping it with enjoyment. And all the time she talked, asking him about himself, and smiling and chuckling at his replies. Poking fun at him about his reticence and refusing to believe he had no girl-friend.

'An 'andsome beeg boy lik-ah you? I no beleeve. You break-ah the girls' 'earts. I teenk you no-ah tell Maria truth!'

At last the meal was over and he spoke of going.

'No! No! Why you go home a-yet? Nobody there. You stay at fire and be warm. Anyways, your clothes they no dry yet. Sit! I do ironing. You keep Maria company. Yes?'

He mumbled and smiled assent, and so found himself back in the big chair by the fire, full of food and wine - and very sleepy.

He must have drifted into sleep almost immediately and he awoke slowly, hearing at first the radio's music but finding himself unable to open his eyes. He had to will them open and at last they obeyed. He was slumped sideways in the chair, his head resting on the padded armrest with one arm trailing down the side so that his hand was touching the carpet.

The window curtain had been drawn and a small lamp was lit on the sideboard over at the far wall. The fire itself glowed brightly red, filling the room with flickering shadows. The ironing board had gone and the wooden clothes-horse stood festooned with the results of Maria's work.

These things registered in his mind as he emerged for sleep but it was on Maria herself that his eyes quickly focussed. She sat in the armchair opposite him, with one foot in a basin of water while the other foot was drawn up to rest on the edge of her chair with her knee fully bent to allow this and to enable her to dry between her toes.

She was totally absorbed in this task and he drank in the sight of her. She had discarded her dress and was wearing a white under slip. Her raised knee had caused the slip to hike up her thighs exposing them and giving a glimpse of the vee of her black knickers. David felt his cock begin to harden as he looked.

She shifted her foot the better to dry her toes, and his heart gave a thump as he realised that what he was seeing was not her knickers at all but the black triangle of her pubic hair. She wasn't wearing anything apart from the slip!

David had never seen a naked woman before. Hardly daring to breathe, his heart racing. and the tip of his growing erection rubbing through the reinforced opening of the borrowed Y-fronts, he gazed at her through slitted eyes, Finishing one foot, she shifted to do the other and in that movement her plump thighs opened and he glimpsed for the first time in his life, the pink-lipped mouth of a woman's vagina.

'Whatah you do?' Her voice crashed into his brain like an explosion. She leapt to her feet, smoothing down her slip. 'How longah you peek me? Uh? You lie there an' watch me long time?'

She had jumped up and was standing over him, her anger pressing him back into the chair where he now sat upright, speechless, hands gripping the chair-arms, frightened by her fury.

'What your mother say, when I tell her you spy on-ah me, after I treat you good? What she say when I tell her you, how you say, you a peeper? A bad person?'

'I... I'm sorry... I... I... was sleeping... I just woke up... I... I... couldna help it... Please don't tell my mother. I... won't tell anybody... ' He was stammering, near to tears.

'Huh!' she snorted in disbelief, standing between his feet, arms akimbo, her breasts heaving, ' I know you tell. You tell all other boys, yourah friends. You say, " I see old lady's body. I watch 'er wash 'erself in 'ouse. I see 'er... 'er..." she halted, her face working. ' I knowah what you say. You boys.'

Into his mind came a scene he had often witnessed and had never liked or took part in: a group of teenage boys standing bragging about what they had done with and to, girls they knew. He had known, as they laughed and joked and as each claim became wilder and more unlikely than the last, that it was all rubbish. But he had found it distasteful.

A kind of calm came over him. He looked straight at her.' 'I would not tell anyone about you", he said, coldly.