As I pulled onto my drive, I saw a man mowing the grass at the front of Penny’s house, which is a couple of doors up. He was wearing shorts and one of those T-shirts without sleeves. He certainly had a good physique, and he was easy on the eye as he mowed back and forth. He was using one of those old-fashioned mowers, the sort they use at Wimbledon: the green ones with a roller at the rear. His work was leaving stripes in her grass.

I shook my head and collected my shopping from my car boot and headed to the house. Inside I slipped off my shoes and went to the kitchen and started putting my purchases away in the cupboards and then flicked the kettle on to make a coffee. When I am out, I only buy coffee when I am with someone; it is too expensive when I am alone. I wait until I am home and can flick the kettle on.

I took my coffee and sat in the dormer window watching the gardener. He had finished mowing the grass and was now edging the lawn, his buttocks rippling as he pressed on the edging fork. After about ten minutes and my cup of coffee, he picked up a tote and started going around the edge, picking up the trimmings, bending forward, his shorts tight over his buttocks, a prominent bulge beneath his thighs as he bent.

Oh my goodness. I got up and went outside and called over to him.

“When you have finished, could you come and have a word?”

“Yes, be about ten minutes.” He replied.

I went back in and made myself another coffee and sat back watching him through the dormer window. He wandered around the edges, pulling the odd weed and putting it into the tote, and then he tipped the contents of the tote into a black recycling bag which he tied up and dropped into Penny’s wheelie bin. No one would know what was in it, clever.

He went to his pickup truck and did a walk around and checked that all his tools were secure and then walked to my house. I got up and went to the door, opening it as he was about to knock.

“Hi, I am Tim the garden man. You wanted to see me?”

“Yes. Do you take on new clients?” I asked.

“Why, the easy answer is yes; the difficult one is, yes, it depends.”

“Oh, what does it depend on?”

“What the client wants, how often, that sort of thing.”

“I see. And may I ask what you charge?”

“Shall we look at what you might want me to do first?”

“Yes, you will have seen the front, come through, and we will go to the back.”

I led the way through the kitchen to the back garden. “Here is the back,” I said. “It needs maintenance and keeping tidy, the same with the front.”

He wandered around, looking at my borders, inspecting my lawn, looking at the shrubs and bushes, and then came back to me.

“Twenty-five an hour, a budget of an hour and a half, maybe two hours for the first week, and I would suggest fortnightly at first, then going down to four weeklies in the autumn.”

“Sounds good. When could you start?”

“I could start Monday week, say, at nine in the morning. You don’t need to be here as long as I have access through to the back garden. I usually would do the front garden first; that way neighbours know what I am about and are not concerned when I go around the back of a property.”

“Oh, has that been an issue before?”

“I have had the police called on me more than once.”

“Crumbs. Well, okay, no problems. If I am going to be out, I shall ensure that the side gate is unlocked. See you Monday next week then?”

“Yes, I just need your name so that I can book you in.”

“Mica Yolanska.”

“Thank you, Mica.”

And with that he was gone. I shut and locked the door behind him and went and sat on my sofa, my mind full of images. Up close he was a lot of man. He had muscles, but not from gym time; these muscles, honed by hard work rather than gym time, were impressive. He worked. His skin was clear, with no breakouts, and his aroma was not of stale sweat; it was more heady, almost musky. His fingernails were clipped, his fingers long, his nose slightly bulbous, his chin sharp and chiselled.

I wanted relief; my body was tensing. I could feel tightness in my groin. He had raised feelings, urges even, in me that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I went up to my room and sat on the edge of my bed just thinking, imagining, and remembering. It had been a long time since I had enjoyed a man, and my imaginings were mostly replaying distant memories.

I undid the buttons on my blouse, slowly taking it off, and then I put my hands behind my back and unhooked my bra, letting it fall forwards down my arms. I looked at my breasts reflected in the wardrobe mirror; they had drooped a little. Gravity does that, but still they were nicely rounded. My nipples are large, a feature that I had always enjoyed, as had my lovers.

I stood up and undid the button and then the zip on my skirt, lowering it and then placing it beside me on the skirt as I sat back on the bed. In the mirror I could see my groin, covered in knickers. My knickers were loose across my crotch, their hems tight, but the fabric between was not taut; it revealed nothing of me, not that there had been anyone to look. I resolved that I would have to change my knickers; I would go shopping.

I raised my hips and pulled my knickers down, kicking them over my ankles. I looked back in the mirror; what I saw did not appeal. It did not look attractive. A mess of brown and grey hair, and beneath it I saw my crease heading down underneath me. Who would find that attractive? No, I needed to sort that out. I would buy what I need when I was shopping.