Maybe

It was when she was 16, the same age as my eldest son, that I first noticed her amongst the crowd of youngsters who seemed to make our house their club.

She was sitting at the piano in our dining room playing, well, goodness only knows what - that part of the moment escapes me. What I do remember is her smile - and her breasts, bulging gently above her shirt, rising and falling gently as she drew breath, looking soft as thistledown, but firm enough to thrust proudly upwards and forwards.

And she wasn't just pin-up material; she was intelligent and talented as well - the piano was just one of the instruments she played.

A year or so passed and some of the crowd were pairing up, and if I was reading the signs correctly, not just for conversation, but she was still on her own. My wife, a friend and I had subscriptions to the orchestral concert series held in our city and if any of us couldn't make one of the dates we had taken to inviting her to go and fill the empty seat.

The better I knew her, the more I wanted her.

My wife understands me. She knows that I'll love her and live with her for ever; but that doesn't stop me falling in love - OK, in lust - with other pretty women. To us, 'faithfulness' means 'no deception': keeping no secrets from each other. So I told my wife about my desire for this beautiful girl. My wife's reaction was what I hoped for: "She's a woman now, not a schoolgirl any more - if she says 'yes' then it's OK with me."

It was in a restaurant after one of the concerts (just she and me that time) that I asked her...

My wife was right: she was quite grown up enough not to be at all offended by my improper suggestion, but her answer was a refusal: "What about your wife?"

I wanted to explain that my wife and I understood each other, and that...

But I couldn't - I mean, there's only so much you can explain over pasta!

To cut a long story short, the result was a 'no score defeat'.

Time went on and my feelings didn't change. Other things happened and - well, other things happened.

As I said, she was the same age as, and hung about with the same crowd as, my son. Maybe our liberal attitudes were the reason, but our house was the place where they all hung out. Some moved away to college or university and the farewell parties and reunions were sometimes pretty wild. At one of those she had far too much to drink and - well, I won't say what, but she did something she shouldn't have done. Actually, it didn't matter much to me - I've been young and drunk myself. But to her it was the ultimate sin - she was too embarrassed to face me. All I knew was that she didn't show up any more. Mind you, by that time our two had also fled the nest, so it was only at the reunions that we saw any of the crowd.

Several years passed. It seemed like very few to me, but it must have been something like a decade. This time the farewell party was for my younger son who was going abroad - but this one was at my elder son's house not ours. Then, suddenly, there she was. She came over to me and after a conventional greeting she apologized for her behaviour so long ago. She told me that a couple of weeks after it happened she'd seen me in town and was so embarrassed that she ran away before I saw her! Of course, I told her that was OK and gave her a hug to prove it.

And I looked down at her...

Of course, it wasn't the same shirt she wore back then - this one was blue while the other was black - but once again her cleavage showed, just as it had when she played our piano. Her breasts looked just as soft, just as firm, and just as tempting - and they had just the same affect on me as they had then.

I let go of her and she told me what had happened in her life: mostly down to three marriages to men who treated her like dirt. The last divorce has almost finished going through the courts. "So I'm single again," she said.

I've seen her several times since that and met her young sons - she's a really great mum - and she's coming with us to the next season of concerts...

She's nearly twice as old now as she was when she played our piano, but to me she still looks as fresh and beautiful as when she was 16.

Of course, she met someone else instead - on the Internet. He's a nice guy: I've met him...

But she's told me that they won't be an item in the long term - something about houses and all the kids from previous pairings.

Just maybe, instead of being a father figure, I might - one day - get to make love to her as I think I could.