Chapter 9

I carried the little girl in and up to her bedroom.

‘Are you stopping for a while?’ Donna asked as she began to prepare her daughter for bed.

‘Do you want me to?’

She smiled and said, ‘Yes please.’

Although the old Donna regularly surfaced when we were out, I now, happily, rarely saw it when we alone together.

‘Then of course, but while you put Lisa Marie to bed, I’d better do the same for my girl.’

She giggled. ‘Bring a bottle of wine back.’

I raised my eyebrows. In the months of seeing Donna, I had only seen her drink alcohol once and that was little more than a sip. ‘Red or white?’

‘White please and not too dry.’

I leaned down to kiss her and told her I’d be back soon. I took Aggie for a short walk before taking her back to my cottage and selected a Pouilly Fume, an excellent Sauvignon Blanc based Loire wine.

When I got back Donna was relaxing on her sofa, and much to my surprise had changed and was wrapped in a big woollen dressing gown. On the coffee table before her were two glasses and a corkscrew. Although much of the world’s wine producers, especially those of whites, had switched to screw cap, the French maintained their preference for traditional cork.

I did the honours and filled the glasses. I handed one to Donna before sitting down beside her. She immediately cuddled up close with her feet tucked under the way all women seem to do. I wrapped my free hand around her. For my first glass and less than half of Donna’s we sat there comfortably silent. I felt as if all was right in my world and that my proposal was the right thing. Almost simultaneously we turned to each other for a kiss. It was one of tenderness and for me, love; something that emphasised the closeness I was feeling.

‘David!’ Donna said softly with more than a hint of nerves. ‘Take me to bed.’

This was totally out of the blue. I was sure that it would happen one day, maybe even one day soon, yet I had expected an extended period of build up. ‘Are you sure?’

I could see the nerves suddenly evaporate. ‘Oh yes! I’ve been ready for a while, waiting for you to make a move, until I realised that when you told me that you would wait, that is exactly what you meant, no pressure, no attempts to check if I’m ready, just wait until I gave you the sign.’ She then giggled, ‘No that’s wrong, I’ve been giving you signs but you have been to blind or too noble to see them.’

‘I have noticed that you felt a lot more comfortable around me but no more than that. If you are that sure than I’d be stupid to say no, especially as it is something I’ve wanted for a while now.’

‘Is it?’

‘Is it what?’

‘Something you want.’

I pulled her to me and kissed her deeply. ‘If that kiss doesn’t answer you then I’m doing something wrong.’

Donna giggled. ‘I think I can take that as a yes then!’

‘I need to pop back home first, just to check on Aggie. I’ll be two minutes.’ I said as I stood up.

Donna gave me a fabulous smile. ‘Two minutes and no more.’

I shot out and hurried over to my house where I topped up Aggie’s water bowl and grabbed the ring, which was my real reason for coming back.

Donna was sitting where I left her but there was no doubt that she’d moved. When I’d left she had been wearing a nightdress of some type under her dressing gown. The latter was open slightly at the top and all I could see was bare flesh. I could feel my body starting to react.

I immediately knelt in front of her and handed her the wrapped package that I’d intended to give her the next day. ‘Donna, I had planned to give you this tomorrow, but I think now is more appropriate.’

I was amazed that the scream that she emitted didn’t fetch half the village out. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ She stammered excitedly.

‘Will you marry me?’ I asked as a confirmation.

She looked at me in bemusement at least she looked at me for a few seconds before she was opening the box and studying its contents, ‘Are you sure David? Don’t you want to sample the goods first in case they aren’t up to your satisfaction?’ The second question was asked half in jest and half with a very nervous seriousness.

‘I am more than happy with ‘the goods’ as you call them. In some ways I hope you are as bad as you make out.’

That surprised her, shocked her even, as her expression showed.

‘Yup, because then I’ll have the excuse to keep you practising and practising until you’re perfect.’

The relief showed when she understood I was only joking. ‘I’m sure we’ll need to practise whatever the reason. In fact I think you should put this ring where it belongs and then we should start right now with an extensive evaluation.’

Her last statement showed just how far Donna had come, okay, she still had moments of self doubt when we were alone but they were becoming rarer and even when we were out she was a lot more confident. According to what I’d heard, she wasn’t anywhere near as self confident when I wasn’t with her. That could, and would, be worked on.

I took the ring and slipped it over her finger thinking of the Martha Reeves song ‘Third Finger Left hand’. It was just a little bit too big but that didn’t matter for now. The look on her face as she held her hand up was alone worth every penny of the ring’s cost.

Upstairs, she was a bundle of nerves held together by the determination that had brought her through her earlier problems. We started off very slowly and it was probably thirty minutes before we were naked in bed, although ten of those were taken up by Donna studying the ring I’d given to her. Her body, now that I had chance to see it was glorious, her breasts were average in size but firm with no sag whatsoever and her legs were divine. To my biased eyes she was perfect, slim but not skinny; shapely but not carrying any excess fat.

Our lovemaking was intense, I started out slow as not to scare her but I soon found that given even the slightest foreplay Donna became almost a nymphomaniac. I had no idea how she thought she was no good in bed, for me she was one of the best lovers I’d ever been with. I’m sure that my actually loving her helped, but it was more than that. I was drained after just our first session and wanted to just fall asleep.

Donna, ever the mother, reminded me that it was Christmas Eve and little Lisa Marie was expecting a visit from Father Christmas. I’d forgotten the excitement I felt for the ritual but it soon all came back. At Donna’s insistence I ate the mince pie and drank the milk that Lisa Marie had left out, whilst Donna laid out all the presents under the tree.

Once we were back in bed I said, ‘Donna, what on earth made you think you were poor in bed?’

‘My husband told me every time and I soon began to hate him touching me, which made me worse. He always complained that I only ever thought of my own pleasure, never his.’

She started crying at that point and I pulled her to me and caressed her hair. I told her just how good I thought she was and as we talked I gradually realised the problem. Donna was actually a very sexual person, but like just about any other woman, she required stimulation first, though in her case surprisingly little. Her husband, whose name I didn’t know, as Donna refused to use it, thought that was selfishness on her part. Foreplay was something done to him and certainly not by him. Because she was usually dry when he entered her it was painful and not in the least enjoyable. To him this made her lousy in bed and he rarely missed an opportunity to tell her.

Before we finally went to sleep I showed her just how much I enjoyed her body, spending almost an hour bringing her almost to her peak and keeping her there, before we finally joined together. She was astonished that I would go down on her but ecstatic at the results.

Another thing I had forgotten about kids and Christmas was just how early they got up that particular morning. It seemed that we’d been asleep only an hour before a shrill shriek woke us up. Lisa Marie was too excited to stay in bed beyond four o’clock and had come in to tell her mother that Santa had been. The scream had been when she saw someone else in her mother’s bed. Strangely she was happy when she realised it was ‘Mr. Aggie’ and when questioned about her scream, said that she thought her father had returned. We managed to persuade the six year old to go back to sleep for a couple more hours but only at the expense of her crawling in between us. Another thing about young kids that I was going have to get used to again.

Given the wonderful, yet exhausting night I’d had, six o’clock is still far too early to be getting up, although it is far better than four. Lisa Marie seemed to accept my presence as natural, her only worry seemed to be who was looking after Aggie. Once I’d explained that my collie was still asleep and I would see to her in a short while, the subject was never mentioned again. The little girl surprised me again when she wanted to forget her Christmas presents in order to come with me when I took Aggie for her morning walk. Because of that, my fiancée was also able to join me. That walk was probably the best one of my life, walking hand in hand with the woman that I loved, watching her delightful daughter and my mad collie running about before us. I couldn’t help but smile each time that Donna checked her ring finger, which was often.