Billie walked back from the beach along his normal route. Though waves had been non-existent, as they usually were on the Gulf coast this time of year, he carried his board. Even an opportunity to fruitlessly paddle was better than nothing. Plus he thought it looked cool. Just like he thought his OP baggies, his long scraggly sun-bleached hair, his checkered Vans, and his perpetual shirtless state looked cool. As he approached Mrs. Sommers’ house, about a third of the way home, he saw her waiting by her mailbox. Waiting, apparently, for him. She was staring down at an old lawnmower. Ah, jeez, what is this about? He thought to himself.
“Hi there, young man,” the old woman said in her thick, lilting southern accent, her voice crackling and rasping the way old people’s voices did. “William, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Billie is what people usually call me,” the seventeen-year-old replied.
“Yes, Billie. Now, I remember. We met at the cul de sac barbeque,” she said, though they had met many more times than that.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I wonder if you might help me. My yard man quit on me. I thought perhaps I could get this old mower going myself, but the pull cord is too much for me. Could you give it a try?” Mrs. Sommers asked.
Billie set his board against a palm tree and gave the decrepit mower a few hard pulls. He looked at the disappointed face of sweet old Mrs. Sommers, and immediately realized his quick kind gesture was going to turn into an involved chore. So much for getting home for a wank before dinner.
Indeed, it turned into a tortuous comedy as Billie fetched gas from his house, pulled and cleaned the spark plug, fiddled with the choke, and pulled the cord a couple dozen times before the mower finally coughed to life with a huge plume of noxious blue smoke. After a minute of revving, he shut it down, then restarted it to make sure it was truly working, then shut it down again.
“Oh, you’ve been so kind, my handsome young friend,” Mrs. Sommer said. “I can take it from here.”
Billie looked at her, in a cotton dress, already wilted from the heat, looking shaky in a pair of plastic gardening clogs, and chuckled to himself. Then he looked at the yard, a hayfield after what had probably been a couple weeks of inattention and knew he would join an all-time list of shits if he let that happen.
“You know what, Mrs. Sommers, I can probably knock this out pretty quick,” he offered to her obvious relief. After thirty minutes, he was done, and Mrs. Sommers was waiting with a tall glass of iced tea.
They sat on the front porch as Billie drank down the cold drink as quickly as he could. Mrs. Sommers -- “Evelyn” he was invited to call her -- thanked him profusely. She stuffed a wad of bills in his fist, and before he had time to deflect, Billie found himself committed to a weekly grass-cutting gig.
And so it began. His weekly visits turned into twice a week, as she had a long list of backed-up projects she wanted to finally tackle now that she had a helper. Billie needed the spending money, and, much to his surprise, he found he enjoyed the old lady’s company. And she clearly enjoyed his. Indeed, it sometimes seemed as if she invented a project or two, or made the task as inefficient as possible, so that he’d be there more often and longer. She was sweet, and she was full of great stories.
Evelyn and her husband -- an Army Air Corp officer -- had been coming to the island for over sixty years, from when it was practically empty. Hard to believe given how developed and crowded it had now become. They had come here for the first time, during the War. Mr. Sommers -- Stanley -- had met Evelyn at a local county fair. She was the local “Orange Blossom Princess,” and he became smitten with her immediately. Evelyn’s father was not too pleased with the tall, handsome flyboy, but he allowed for a couple chaperoned dates and, finding Stanley an apparently harmless young man, left them to their own devices. He’d be gone soon enough, Evelyn’s father wrongly surmised.
On leave days Stanley would pick up Evelyn in a Company jeep and they would drive through the citrus groves and sparse ranches to reach the little hamlets on the Gulf to picnic and play in the ocean. Many of the islands were accessible only by boat, and they would hop on a tiny ferry or hire a rowboat for the trip across the bay. What became their favorite island was the one that both Billie and she lived on now. Easily accessible by bridge by the late fifties, in 1942 the only way to get there was via a rowboat rented for twenty-five cents from a toothless former sharecropper that ran a bait shop on the bay.
A vivid storyteller, Mrs. Sommers stocked Billie’s imagination with near magical images as she described the crowded place he had grown up as instead a virgin paradise with nothing but scrub oaks, wind warped pines, and palmetto trees. By Mrs. Sommers’ telling, rolling dunes and sea oats occupied the space now filled by condos and sea walls, and tortoise and pint-sized beach deer outnumbered people one-hundred to one.
“There were a few houses out here, if you could call them that. A couple of hermits lived in shacks made from orange crates and driftwood, and the family that owned the grapefruit grove across the bay had a little cottage they used as a day refuge. And on the far north end on the inlet some Indians had a camp they used for fishing. That was it. When Stanley brought me out in those days we almost never saw a soul. We didn’t even wear bathing costumes.”
Billie reddened at Mrs. Sommer’s comment. He couldn’t imagine the gray-haired, wrinkle-faced, matronly, sweet old lady doing such a thing. He wasn’t sure but Mrs. Sommers seemed to enjoy his embarrassment. Billie found he looked forward to her reminiscences and that his stays on the porch after his work was done extended to longer and longer.
Mrs. Sommers had a collection of scrapbooks which aided in the reconstruction of her life for Billie. It started with pictures of her grandchildren, then her kids when they were children, and kept rolling back through time. After a few visits, they got to scrapbooks filled with black and white snapshots of Evelyn’s and Stanley’s time as a young married couple in Europe after the War. From the sound of it, Stanley had some kind of job interrogating Nazis that turned into a career at the State Department, and so they spent time in Italy, France, Austria, and Greece for many years after the War had ended.
Billie realized from the photos that the woman he now knew as the elderly Mrs. Sommers had been a beautiful and fashionable young woman. There were striking images of the couple in Paris cafes and Monte Carlo ballrooms, always featuring Evelyn in stunning dresses and outfits. There were pictures of them hiking in the ruins of Greece, and Billie found himself lingering on a particular image of Evelyn in culottes shorts that showed off toned calves and even a bit of thigh. Shots from their travels to the Mediterranean coast continued his path toward a most unexpected excitement, as even in a bottom fringed one-piece, Evelyn’s sexy body was evident as she lounged on yachts and beaches. The shock came with the final page, as there was a photo of Evelyn and another beautiful woman sunning themselves on the beach -- in bikinis!
“Do you know who that is?” Mrs. Sommer asked. Billie shook his head. “Ever heard of Bridgette Bardot?” Billie shook his head again. Evelyn rolled her eyes and pursed her mouth with apparent disappointment. “Well, she was a young actress then and a friend of ours. A photographer put us up to wearing those bikinis. It was very risque! France banned them entirely the following year!” Mrs. Sommers explained with pride and a hint of a mischievous smile. Billie nodded along, and struggled to tear his eyes away from the photo of the beautiful young women. When Evelyn stood to get another book, he took the opportunity to adjust his growing erection.
The last scrapbook was the smallest and most worn. There were pictures of Evelyn on her parents’ farm. And some highschool photos and pictures of her from the Orange Blossom Fair, complete with a sash and crown. And then there were pictures of Stanley, a strapping young man in an Army uniform as well as shirtless, rowing, or swimming. And there were many pictures of the island. While not as vivid as Mrs. Sommers’ Technicolor memories, they validated her stories. The place was unrecognizable to Billie. Verdant paths through large trees, dunes that stretched for a hundred yards, empty, wide open beaches. And, there was a picture of Evelyn. She was sitting against a bank of one of those large dunes. Blonde hair seemed tousled by wind and water. She was smiling a Mona Lisa smirk and giving the camera a penetrating look. She clutched a dark blanket -- probably an Army blanket - to her. A shoulder was exposed, as was a long, toned leg. Somehow, Billie knew that Evelyn was naked underneath that blanket. The image of Evelyn, the young Evelyn, staring out with an imploring look, consumed Billie. Mrs. Sommers seemed to notice. “You’ve seen that image before, I would guess. Stanley had it turned into a painting when we moved into this house after he retired. It’s in my bedroom.”
Billie, not quite able to look away from the faded black and white photo, said, “Um, I don’t think I have.”
Mrs. Sommers took the scrapbook from Billie and motioned for him to follow. Above the ornate, four poster bed was, indeed, a painting. A young beauty of cornsilk hair and brilliant blue eyes stared out at him. The artist had replaced the drab olive army blanket with a flowing white dress, but the imploring gaze remained. Billie stared back. Awestruck. He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring when he was startled by Mrs. Sommers carrying in a refreshed iced tea.
“It’s beautiful,” Billie said, still looking up at it.
“My kids hate it.”
“Why?”
“They say it doesn’t look like me. But Stanley thought the artist had done a marvelous job. And I think the kids have a hard time thinking of me as anything other than their middle-aged -- and now old -- mother. They think I only had sex the three times.” Mrs. Sommers laughed. Billie nodded without acknowledging the joke.
“I think your husband was right,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “The artist did do a marvelous job.”
Billie returned the next day. It was a project he had been dreading: trimming the overgrown run of dense jasmine bushes that formed the boundary of Mrs. Sommers’ backyard. It involved borrowing his Dad’s clippers and ladder, and tediously and strenuously going around the entire perimeter of the yard. Up and down, up and down to trim ten or twelve inches from the seven-foot bushes, then stooping to rake and bag the clippings, then doing it all over again. He was at it for hours, with Mrs. Sommers bringing him a steady stream of water, lemonade, ice tea and snacks. It might have been the hardest he had ever worked in his short life, but the time passed surprisingly quickly and painlessly. The images of Evelyn looking back at him from the old photos and that ethereal painting occupied his mind the entire time. At last, he finished the final corner and turned to take in the whole of his work. He was pleased with himself until he saw what appeared to be a gaping hole in the very center of the back row. What the fuck? He asked himself.
Billie carried the ladder over to the offending area, climbed it once more, and leaned to peer into the hole. What the hell could have caused the entire center to collapse? Mrs. Sommers probably isn’t going to like this. He couldn’t see anything but a black void. He risked another step on the ladder and leaned further out. Suddenly, the void itself seemed to spin and Billie could feel the back legs of the ladder tilt off the ground, and before he could recover Billie fell headfirst into the hole.
Billie awoke perhaps seconds, perhaps minutes, later, staring up at blue sky from under the bush. He wiggled his fingers and toes and moved his head from side to side. He seemed ok, and then wormed his way along the ground back onto Mrs. Sommers’ lawn.
He half expected to see Mrs. Sommers there with a worried face and yet another glass of tea, but she was nowhere to be seen. Everything was very quiet. He could hear the sound of surf far away, something that was usually washed out by the white noise of suburbia until you were actually on the beach itself. He sensed he was still a little out of it, mentally. He walked toward the house.
“Mrs. Sommers? Mrs. Sommers? I fell and I think I should take a break. Mrs. Sommers?” he called. But no response.
He unconsciously rubbed his feet on the floor mat in the kitchen and then walked through the house. It was unlike her to leave with him there. She was not in the Florida room. Or the Living room. He checked her bedroom, somewhat excited to see the portrait above the bed again. To his shock, it wasn’t there. He rubbed his neck in confusion and then turned to seek out Mrs. Sommers on the front porch. When he did so he caught his image in the full-length mirror on the closet door.
Reflected back at Billie was not a scruffy long-haired surfer boy in cut-offs and a hole-ridden Sex Wax t-shirt. His hair was cut short, with a careful and neat part, a hint of oil holding it in perfect form. Instead of raggedy shorts and t-shirt, he was in creased khaki pants, a crisp white t-shirt, and leather oxfords instead of Vans. Billie tried to shake it off, but his reflection remained unchanged. Now a little freaked out, Billie walked back through the house to the front porch.
No Mrs. Sommers. In fact, no nothing. Well, plenty of something, but nothing of what he was used to. There were no other houses, There was no paved street. No mailboxes. No power lines. No cars. Just the sparse weathered forest of an undisturbed barrier island. A small, sandy path led from the porch in the general direction of the beach, and Billie stepped off to follow it.
He had no usual frame of reference, but the winding path and the sound of the lightly crashing waves of the Gulf led him to dunes that were fifteen to twenty feet high. He pulled off his oxfords and olive drab socks and ran up and down the little hills through sea oats and long grasses until it sloped down to the beach. The water was a spectacular blue-green, and strikingly clear. Blue heron, egrets, and birds he could not even identify dotted the shoreline. And then he spotted a woman, swimming with strong strokes, about a hundred feet out from the shore. She raised her head and apparently noticed him, as she stopped and stood in chest high water, waving in a long, slow arc. They moved toward one another. Billie, walking awkwardly through soft, white sand, as the woman lifted her legs high stepping through the water. The late afternoon sun reflected in such a way that he could not see her in detail, just the outline of a young, shapely woman. At one point she lay back into the sea, closed her nose with one hand while arching to return to standing so that her hair would be pulled neatly off her face and neck by the cascading water. As she did so Billie realized that she was naked. He stopped, shocked and embarrassed, but the woman continued in her undulating walk up the slope of the shoreline. She grabbed a towel that lay at the edge of the wet sand, shook it, and wrapped it around her. Now within fifty feet of one another, Billie realized that this was, Evelyn.
“Hi Billie. I see you found your way here. I love your hair. Want to join me for a swim?” the gorgeous blonde in front of him asked. Billie looked down at his unfamiliar clothes and back at Evelyn. She gestured with a nod of her head toward a pile of clothes lying on top of a blanket in the dunes. Billie understood her wordless instruction and walked over to strip and add to the pile of discarded clothes.
Billie was wildly confused. Was he going crazy? Was he dreaming? Everything felt very real, and yet not at all. He was excited and turned on by the naked Evelyn, but also somewhat horrified that this -- seemed to be -- Mrs. Sommers. But, as with all seventeen-year-old males, in the end his penis did the thinking, and he followed his half-inflated cock back to Evelyn, who dropped her towel and took him by the hand to lead him into the warm saltwater. They waded out, diving through the one small line of curlers, then swam until they were treading water.
“What’s …happening?” Billie finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Evelyn answered, in a southern accent even thicker than Mrs Sommers’. “But I’m too old with too little time left to question things. I have no interest in fear or regret at my age.”
“So … what’s going to happen?” Billie stammered.
“Oh, I don’t know that either, dear. I’m just going to live. That’s all I know. So we are going to swim. And I’m going to kiss you. And, I think we are going to make love. And after that, your guess is as good as mine.”
She was true to her word as she closed the distance between herself and Billie and wrapped first her arms, and then her legs, around the fit young man. As Billie paddled and pedaled to keep them both afloat, she kissed him. He felt her smooth legs around his hips and ass, her hard nipples against his chest, her hairy pussy against his now very hard cock, and the wet, warm, soft feel of her lips and tongue against his. She broke away and took a few strokes back toward shore. “ Let’s try a little shallower, shall we?”
They held each other in an embrace and slowly spun in four feet of water, as if dancing, with Evelyn leading their sea waltz ever closer to the shoreline. Billie was beyond nervous, but between his cock doing the thinking and Evelyn taking all the initiative, he muddled through. She held his face and kissed him, gently, then deeply and firmly. She stroked his muscled stomach, sinewy arms, and firm ass. She teased his incredibly hard penis and peach fuzz-covered balls with light, brief touches. She cupped one of her perfect breasts and presented the hard nipple for Billie to lick and suck, and when he did so she moaned as if she’d never felt anything so wonderful before.
“What’s this,” Billie asked, referring to a silver chain with a porcelain and silver pendant in the shape of a flower.
“Ha!,” Evelyn gasped. “It’s an orange blossom. I got it for being Princess at the Fair. I haven’t laid eyes on it in sixty years. When Stanley went to war he gave me a locket with his picture and I put this in a drawer. How amazing,” she said before directing Billie to her other nipple.
When they reached the small break, Evelyn pulled away and stepped through the knee-deep water and up the steep wet sandy portion of the beach, ahead of Billie. He tried to keep up, his young turgid cock bobbing awkwardly with each step. From behind he admired shapely apple backside, tiny waist, sinewy back, and her firm legs moving in ever lengthening strides as she ran across the beach toward the dunes. Evelyn threw herself onto the dark green wool blanket and waved Billie toward her. He dropped to his knees and took in the gorgeous figure before him -- as beautiful as any super model or centerfold. Her breasts heaved slightly as she caught her breath from her sprint and she stretched her arms above her as she angled her face and body toward the sun, letting it dry the drips of the Gulf from her skin.
“My God, I miss this body,” Evelyn said, her eyes still closed. “No pain. Mind and body as one ... Not enemies of one another. My farm girl muscles. So strong. So flexible. And my heavens, the blood! I swear I can feel it coursing in places that haven’t felt it in decades. Just walking in this body, just breathing, is sensual.”
She opened her eyes and saw Billie kneeling before her, a worshipful gaze in his eyes, and his teenage pecker weeping for attention, and she smiled. “And then there’s your body,” she laughed and reached to pull him down to her. They necked and fondled one another, exploring their youthful bodies.
“Have you … been with a girl before, dear?” Evelyn gently asked. “I mean, have you gone all the way?”
Without thinking, Billie answered, “No.” This was not true. A friend of his older sister had taken him when he was sixteen, and he’d fooled around with an on-again, off-again girlfriend a few times. But in that moment some part of him thought that if he’d said “yes,” Evelyn would expect him to actually be good. And he didn’t really know what “good” was.
Evelyn smiled and kissed her way down Billie’s fit form. The boy startled when she nuzzled his member, gently rubbing her lips along its length, then kissing it, then licking it, then lightly sucking. She took his head in her mouth and swirled her tongue across it, looking up with her eyes at Billie’s awestruck face. His mouth was agape, and immediately upon making eye contact, Evelyn could sense that the young buck was going to lose his seed. When Billie squinted his eyes, arched his back, and clenched his thighs, Evelyn was ready for the thick shots of briney cum across her tongue and into the back of her throat. It had taken less than a minute to bring young Billie off.
“Mmmmmm…” Evelyn moaned as she swallowed him down. She smiled as she crawled up next to him. “Well, that’s pretty much like riding a bike,” she said with a laugh. She used an outstretched index finger to sweep a small dollop that had escaped her lips back into her mouth. She looked over at Billie, who stared utterly astounded.
“Well, dear, I did spend most of my twenties in France,” Evelyn said with her mischievous smile, though Billie didn’t seem to quite understand the reference. Evelyn didn’t bother to translate. She lay back on the blanket and with a look of expectancy in her eyes combined with the parting of her legs, made it clear that it was now Billie’s turn.
“Um …” Billie said as he rolled to straddle her, clearly unsure of himself.
Evelyn pulled him against her and kissed him. “Just do what comes to mind. I’ll tell you if I want less or more,” she encouraged him.
Billie returned to Evelyn's breasts, kissing and nuzzling their firm, round perfection, pushing the orange blossom necklace out of his way with his nose. “Don’t forget the sides, sweety. And the rib cage is surprisingly receptive to lips and licking,” she encouraged, “And yes, the tummy of course … a little firmer … otherwise it tickles … yes. Oh no, don’t ignore those hip bones. Yes. That makes me crazy. And, ooh, go straight to the thighs, yes, and now … ”
Billie eventually got to the thick mat of soft, curly, apricot down that was Evelyn’s bush. No shaving or waxing in 1942, apparently. Her hair was still damp and salty from their swim. He was a bit afraid. Not of tasting pussy -- his sister’s friend had practically sat on his face and he hadn’t minded it a bit. He was afraid of doing the wrong thing. Evelyn’s long slender fingers softly directed his face and eventually his tongue to the right spot. She pulled her lips apart to make it easier for him. He lapped tentatively, until Evelyn pulled his head into her, and he ground his flattened tongue against her lips and the hood of her clit, not really sure what he was supposed to be hitting. Something seemed to work, as Evelyn let out a wondrous, happy sigh, delighting in her own wetness and the feel of tongue against her. Perhaps if she had let him search around for a while longer, she might have even cum, but she was too impatient for that.
“Come up here, dear,” she said, pulling at Billie’s shoulders. She wrapped her legs around his back, nodded and smiled, and reached down to help Billie’s renewed penis find its way between her folds. She threw her head back in joy as he entered her in short strokes until his thick six incher was fully inside her. She rocked against him as he moved within her, taking in the look of splendor across his young face.
When she felt something stirring in both of them, and a bit concerned that he would finish for a second time before she had her chance, Evelyn pulled Billie to her and rolled the both of them until she was on top. She raised herself up, placing her hands on his muscled chest as she posted up and down. Feeling the rush of her own pleasure, Evelyn arched backward and cupped her young breasts, then pinched her nipples, as an orgasmic wave overtook her. She slowed to a stop when the feelings passed and looked down at Billie. He was enormously pleased with himself. She chose not to inform him that she had done all the work and that, especially given her state, a firm breeze might well have brought her off. Instead, she put her hands on the young man’s shoulders and fucked the stars out of him.
Smack, smack, smack, her full muscled ass and wet cunt pounded down against Billie’s groin and around his cock.
“Ho-ly, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck, Ev-e-lyn!” Billie moaned in time with Evelyn’s pounding, until he released again with a very manly growl. The two cuddled on the green blanket, watching the sun lower itself over the rolling surf of the Gulf of Mexico, until they both fell asleep.
When Billie awoke he was staring up through the hole in the jasmine bush, once more.
Fuck. That was weird. I must have blacked out or something, Billie thought to himself as he wriggled himself free of the bush. Despite the fall, he felt fine, but for a wound to his pride and some dirt on his shorts and old t-shirt. He dusted himself off and went in search of Mrs. Sommers.
He found her on the front porch, dozing on the blue-green cruiser. Things were as they had always been. Her front yard was grass and palm trees. A car motored past on the paved street. And Mrs. Sommers was eighty years old.
“Ah, Billie, I’m sorry. The heat got to me, I must have dozed off. Are you finished? Let me get you a lemonade,” she said.
“Um, you know what, Mrs. Sommers, I think I’ll finish up tomorrow, if that’s ok. I have some clippings to pick up but I’m really tired. I’m just going to head home.”
Mrs. Sommers waved goodbye and Billie stepped off the porch and headed toward his house in a daze. Such a weird dream. I wonder if I have a concussion or something, he wondered. He walked slowly, processing the details of his dream. He lazily shoved his hands into his pockets and felt something cold and weighty against his right hand. What the hell? he wondered. He pulled out his hand, and when he opened his fist he found a polished orange blossom pendant.
