Veronica Page had always been what convention described as “faithful” to Ken, and had never strayed from their marital bed; yet in recent years she had, with growing frequency, felt passingly tempted. But never by men; it had always been women for whom she had at first been surprised to feel stirrings of desire.

Those feelings had been thrust into dormancy during the few weeks between Ken’s belated diagnosis with terminal cancer and his death and the months it took to sort out his posthumous business affairs. But once she was comfortably settled at fifty-five in what had been their family home in the small Bedfordshire town of Sandy, she felt those suppressed stirrings coming to life again - in spite of the pain of loss. Alone in the house, she was now free to indulge her burgeoning fantasies whenever the mood took her. It increasingly did.

At first she felt guilty when lying in the bed she had shared with Ken for thirty years, watching videos of women making love – either to each other or to themselves – or looking at images of young, nubile, big-breasted women, imagining herself having sex with them, and bringing herself to orgasms of an intensity she had never known with him. She solved that problem by giving the bed away to a charity that helped needy families and buying a new, bigger bed in which she could spread herself with imaginary partners.

Among the videos she sought out on the internet, her favourite kind featured what she called “milfs and sylphs” - older women with younger female partners (either seducing or being seduced by them). But it was not only the women she watched on the internet that triggered her erotic imaginings; she found herself developing feelings of attraction to women in her circle of acquaintances – as well as the daughters of some of them – even to unknown women who caught her eye in the street, the supermarket, and other places she frequented.

Well-meaning women friends, some of whom peopled her erotic fantasies, would tell her she should start dating, offering to “fix her up” with eligible men. If only they knew! Veronica began to discover that there was an oppressive side to living in a small town and being the widow of a man who had been a well-known citizen of it. The stronger her feelings of attraction to women became, the more afraid she felt of what those who knew her would think if she were to act on those feelings. Desire was building up a pressure within her that she struggled ever harder to contain.

Sometimes she was disturbed by the growing intensity with which these feelings seized her. Once, on a trip into Bedford, she had seen an attractive woman in Sainsbury’s, and the attraction had driven her to stalk the woman all through the store, then out into the street, following her obsessively for well over an hour, all the time berating herself, terrified that the woman would become aware of her behaviour and make a complaint, yet unable to wrest herself away, drawn helplessly on as if magnetized.

Since then there had been several more such stalking incidents, which usually ended with her rushing home and locking the front door, trembling with a mixture of lust, frustration and panic, masturbating to three or four orgasms in a row until she collapsed, sobbing and exhausted, and stricken by the fear that this time she might have been observed – perhaps, worst of all, by someone who knew her.

For a few days, or even weeks, she would resist the temptation, but gradually she would become aware of the urge growing anew within her, teasing her senses with mounting insistence, until at last, despising herself, she would surrender again to the obsessive cycle of temptation, lust, fear and self-contempt, and set out in search of a new quarry.

It was a late Friday afternoon, and she was sprawled face downwards on her bed, recovering from a frenzied climax after one of her “incidents”, when the phone rang. Automatically she picked up the bedside receiver.

“Ronnie, darling!” It was her friend Angela Postlethwaite, a widow of about her own age and a pillar of the local Women’s Institute. “I was – gosh, are you all right?” She had obviously become aware of Veronica’s laboured, post-orgasmic breathing.

“Er, yes – I’ve just been having a session on my exercycle and I’m…a bit out of breath…”

“Sounds as if it was a pretty vigorous session – for a moment I wondered if I’d dragged you out of the arms of a gorgeous lover at a critical moment…”

“Oh, I wish….”

“That’s the spirit – you’ve been going to waste for far too long. Anyway, what I was ringing about was that I’d like you to come round for lunch tomorrow if you’re free. There’s a nice lady I’d like you to meet. She’s recently moved into the area and needs to make friends, and I thought: who better to start with than you?”

“That sounds nice, Ange – yes I’d love to. What’s she like?”

“Oh, forties-ish - but you wouldn’t guess from looking at her. Divorced. Has a figure to die for – I got to know her at my gym, which explains the figure, I suppose. Good, so you’ll come. About 12.30?”

“Lovely. What should I bring?”

“Well, yourself of course, darling – but if you can find the time to rustle up that lovely brown rice salad you make, that would be marvellous.”

“OK. What’s her name, by the way?”

“Jennifer. But she likes to be called Jen. I’m sure you’ll like each other.”

Veronica hung up, rolled over and lay back on the bed, stretching out sensuously as she thought of Angela, and of how she would like to undress her and…if only… kiss and fondle the magnificent breasts she was sure were hidden beneath the stylish clothes she usually wore.

She had known Angela for years; Ken had been the Postlethwaites’ family solicitor. Colin Postlethwaite had preceded Ken in dying of an aggressive cancer, and Angela had been a wonderful source of support and advice in the time leading up to and following Ken’s death. A living refutation of the notion that to be involved with the Women’s Institute was by definition to be a stuffy old bag, she was smart, vivacious, fun and – in Veronica’s eyes – sexy, with a figure she worked at keeping delectably trim. It was, Veronica thought, one of life’s painful ironies that the Angela who had been endeavouring to pair her off with men was a woman whom she herself often thought of as a milf - someone she longed to fuck. If only…

“…a nice lady I’d like you to meet...” Veronica wondered what this Jen would be like. Would she be anything like the woman she had spent more than an hour that afternoon shadowing as, together with a beautiful late-teen-looking girl (a milf and sylph couple? she wondered), her quarry shopped for lingerie?

Her hands began to move caressingly over her body as she let her mind drift back to the woman whose statuesque beauty had so captivated her. Form-hugging jeans tucked tightly into knee-high boots, emphasizing the delicious contours of calves, thighs and buttocks; white sweater tucked into the jeans, blatantly showcasing the ample roundness of voluptuous breasts…

Her nipples began to tingle in anticipation as, with deliberate slowness, she let her fingertips trail up the inner surfaces of her parted thighs, pausing to tease apart the still-moist lips of her smooth-shaven sex, then moving on, tracing leisurely whorls on her belly and over her ribcage until at last she lovingly cupped her breasts and played five-finger exercises on nipples that were now stiffly erect and radiating delicious currents of pleasure.

Soon her left hand made a downward return journey to slide into the abundantly welling wetness between her thighs. And now the need to reach orgasm again gripped her with sudden urgency; she turned over again to lie face downwards, humping her hand with ever faster, stronger thrusts, two fingers plunging deep inside her vagina, her ring finger, liberally lubricated with her copious nectar, doing the same in her anus. She came, violently, loudly and convulsively, and dissolved in tears of relief.

On Saturday morning she rose late, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and an equally leisurely bubble bath, then set about her preparations for lunch with Angela and Jen. The brown rice salad had been made the night before, and she gave it a final thorough stir to ensure that the soy sauce, raisins, cashew nuts, capsicum and other ingredients were as evenly mixed in as possible. She selected a bottle of her favourite New Zealand pinot gris and put it in the fridge to chill, then turned her attention to the matter of what to wear. She finally settled for simplicity with a touch of understated sexiness: a silk turquoise blouse, matching bra and panties, a black skirt that clung to her hips and flared out just above the knees to a scalloped hem, flesh-coloured hold-up stockings, and three-inch heels.

She arrived punctually at 12.30. Angela beamed delightedly at the salad and wine and led her through into the kitchen-dining area of her house. As they exchanged pecks on the cheek, Veronica melted into their mutual embrace, guiltily aware of an instant pleasurable tingle on feeling the contours of Angela’s body against her own.

There was no Jen to be seen. “She’s coming a little later,” Angela explained. “Gives us time to have a drink and a chat. There’s something I want to talk about with you first.”

She opened the wine Veronica had brought, and poured. They clinked glasses, perched on stools at the breakfast bar. Angela took a sip, gave an appreciative mmmmm, then put down her glass with an air of deliberation, and Veronica became aware of a scrutinizing look in her friend’s face.

“Ronnie, dear,” Angela began, in the solicitous tone that Veronica remembered from the days when, faced with impending widowhood, she had turned to Angela for comfort and counsel. She paused, then went on: “Here I’ve been, trying to pair you off with nice men, wondering why I failed every time, and it never even occurred to me that it might be women you were interested in. But you are, aren’t you?” There was no one like Angela for coming quickly to the point.

Shock struck Veronica, and she felt herself blush furiously in shame and embarrassment. Looking down into her lap, close to tears, she drew in a long, shuddering breath and then, exhaling, nodded helplessly. “How…did you…guess?”

Soft hands took hold of her own. She looked up into gently smiling eyes.

“Darling, you’ve been noticed,” Angela said quietly. “On your stalking expeditions.”

“Oh god, has it been so obvious?” Head in her hands, she surrendered to the tears welling up inside her. “I feel so ashamed!”

Angela reached over to embrace her. “Sweetie, there’s no need to feel like that. Only a few people know. And they – we – have nothing but sympathy for you. Sisterly sympathy, if you will. We’ve been concerned about you bottling up your needs and wants. We’ve actually debated when and how to help you. And yesterday I decided that the time had come.”

“How? Why?”

Angela picked up her cellphone, tapped a few times, then turned it around to show a photograph. “Someone emailed me this.”

Veronica recognised herself immediately, as she had been yesterday, sitting in the Costa Coffee shop to which she had riskily followed yesterday’s quarry and her beautiful young companion. One of them must have quickly snapped her when she wasn’t looking. “Oh my god,” she heard herself moan. Then: “You said ‘we’ – who are the other people?”

“Well, darling, you are not the only lady in and around this little town of ours who has the same desires. Most of us are widowed or divorced, some single, some the same sort of age as you and me, some younger, some older. Some have partners and in most cases don’t want them to know, which is one of the reasons why we’re all ultra-discreet. You could perhaps call us the Secret Sandy Sisterhood.”

“You too? Ange, I had no idea…”

“I’m glad to hear that. Shows that our discretion is working.”

“Ange, I’ve been so afraid…and I’ve felt so alone…”

“Well, you’re not alone any more.”

At that moment the doorbell rang. “Quickly,” Angela said, “pop to the bathroom and freshen your face. Don’t want Jen to know you’ve been crying, do we?”

No sooner had Veronica returned than another shock confronted her. Turning a warmly smiling face towards her was the woman she had been shadowing the day before and had fantasized about while masturbating.

She felt her hard-regained self-possession begin to dissolve again as Angela performed introductions.

“Jen, I…I don’t know what to say. I owe you an apology, don’t I?”

Jen leaned forward and kissed her. “No, Ronnie,” she murmured, in a voice whose slight huskiness sent erotic tremors through her. “I took it as a lovely compliment. If my daughter Louise hadn’t been with me I’d have been very tempted to chat you up. It was she who noticed you. When I told her I’d be meeting you today she said ‘Remember I saw her first!’ The cheek of her!”

“She’s very beautiful. Does she live with you?”

“No. She’s at Cambridge, in her second year at St John’s.”

“Really? That was my husband’s college...”

The ice broken, Veronica’s embarrassment melted away, and conversation over lunch became warmly animated. Jen, it turned out, had moved from near Birmingham to be closer to Louise – “but not so close as to cramp her style…” As the wine flowed, she and Angela shared the recounting of how they had met and recognised each other’s sexual orientation and their mutual desire, of the first time they had made love…

When they had finished their strawberries and ice-cream dessert, Angela put down her spoon and extended a hand to each of them. “Well, darlings,” she said, “I think it’s time to party. What do you think, Jen?”

Jen nodded.

The two women drew her to her feet, each taking one of her arms, led her to a bedroom dominated by a bed that was even bigger than her own, laid her down on it, removing her and their own shoes, then lay down on either side of her, gently kissing and stroking her.

“Ronnie, darling,” Angela purred. “Don’t be alarmed, just relax and enjoy.”

“Ange, I’ve never… I don’t know what to do…”

Jen closed her mouth with a deep, softly searing kiss. “Never mind,” she murmured, “just let us pleasure you.” She unbuttoned Veronica’s blouse, slid a hand inside and began to tease first one nipple and then the other through the material of her bra.

Angela rose to her knees, shuffled down the bed, and unzipped Veronica’s skirt. Surrendering to the two women’s ministrations and to their murmurings of pleasure and endearment, Veronica obediently raised her hips to allow her skirt and knickers to be removed, then shuddered with pleasure as Angela began to remove her stockings, trailing her fingers, lips and tongue down each thigh, and then up again. She clenched her buttock muscles and raised her mound towards Angela’s mouth, and an electric spasm flickered through her as Angela gently pried her smoothly shaved labia apart and slid her tongue in between them.

“AaahhhhAAAGHHH!!!!!” The new sensation of the warm wetness of mouth and tongue enveloping and playing with her clitoris soon wrung a scream from the core of her being. Muscles all over her body seemed to go into convulsive spasm. She became dimly aware of wetness on her thighs and belly, of Angela making greedy lapping noises. “God, girl,” she hear Angela exclaim, “that was one helluva squirt.”

“Never… done it…before,” she muttered in between laboured breaths.

“Mmmmmm…” Angela murmured. “If I’d known you had such a gorgeous cunt and tasted so lovely, this would have happened long ago.”

Hearing Angela of the Women’s Institute utter the word cunt, especially with such relish, was a delicious shock.

By now Jen had removed Veronica’s bra and was devouring each nipple in turn, enveloping each areola with her lips and sucking rhythmically while swirling her tongue round and round. Veronica stretched out an arm and her hand found its way to Jen’s hot, wet core. She was rewarded by a growl of pleasure and intensified attention to her nipples. With her other hand she pulled Angela’s hair, drawing her mouth back to her own gaping, yearning, pulsating sex…

Afterwards she realized that she had quickly lost count of how many orgasms she had experienced and given, and couldn’t remember when it was that Jen and Angela had paused to undress. But the finale was unforgettable.

Jen and Angela had lain down side by side, and Angela had directed her to lie on top of them straddling so that each of them had one of her thighs sandwiched between their own, and her mound nestled between Jen’s left and Angela’s right hip.

“Now,” Angela had commanded, “start humping.”

She had begun slowly, with Jen and Angela each pushing back at her. Soon they were all thrusting in perfect synchrony, gradually harder, faster, breasts rubbing against breasts, clits against thighs, voices mingling in cries of mounting ecstasy, three bodies bound together in an upward spiral of frenzy that culminated in a screaming explosion of mutual animal lust, leaving them intertwined in a sweating, panting, loving tangle of limbs.

After such unimaginable joy it seemed inadequate to say thank-you, but she did, kissing each of them passionately in turn.

“I feel like I’ve turned into a different person,” she murmured wonderingly.

“I know what you mean, “ Angela said.

Jen nodded. “A bit like being reborn, isn’t it? A sort of renaissance, if you will…”