Salome's Garden: A MILF's Tale

By Ivan Latham

It's a new year that promises little but the same old shit for thirty-something Rowena Swift. Then a chance encounter with high-class escort service, Salome's Garden leads her life in a new and wholly unexpected direction. Fame and fortune are hers for the taking -- in return for the delights of her own body!

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Erotica
• Release date: Aug 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781782341895

Book preview

1988.

New Year, Same Shit

Bobby had called at lunchtime with some half-assed excuse for forgetting that she even existed last night. He’d been half-drunk, apparently, his semi-comatose brain bedazzled by the spectacle of the Thames-side firework display. Rowena wanted desperately to believe his version of events. New Years Eve had been remarkably unremarkable for her: some tasteless microwaveable mush pretending to be lasagne in the company of Jools Holland and a crap Indie band hailed as the new Oasis. She had lost interest in the dawn of the approaching New Year long before three million of the taxpayers hard-earned cash went up in smoke down at the river. It was little consolation to think that she had helped turn the London Eye into some huge pink catherine wheel straight out of a Katie Price nightmare.

And then, when it was apparent that Bobby had forsaken her yet again for the bed of the latest girl to fall for his slimey spiel, she had switched off the TV and sought solace in Smirnoff-induced slumber. She had finally regained consciousness just ten minutes before Bobby had tried out his hundredth meaningless attempt in the last six months to get back inside her pants after remorselessly cheating on her. Her splitting headache had only served to harden her resolve not to give him any more chances. She was sure that they must have heard her furious demand for him to ‘Fuck Off!’ down in Birmingham!

God, if this first day of the new year was anything to go by, then she wondered if she would ever be able to reach December without throwing herself off a motorway bridge or something!

She was glad to be back at work the next day. It dawned gray and damp, reflecting Rowena’s sullen mood as she caught the bus for the four mile journey from her flat to the pharmacy where she worked as a dispensing assistant. The prospect of a day spent doling out advice about which haemerrhoid cream was the most effective hardly promised to help her current mood, but at least it got her out of that damned flat and forced her to focus on more than her thoughts, which veered from depressed to downright psychotic whenever she dwelt on Bobby’s most recent infidelity.

Her first morning back was as uneventful as she had expected it to be, but after the long and tedious Christmas break, even pricing up boxes of aspirin was a welcome relief. She managed to push Bobby to the back of her mind for most of the day, and then buried her head in the local newspaper for the evening bus ride back home. As she slowly turned pages filled with accounts of war, famine and other examples of global desolation, she tried to take solace in the fact that there were millions of people whose lives were shittier than her own. Tried, but failed.

Past the sports pages and a glum report about the slaughter of the local team by Chelsea and Rowena arrived at the singles ads. She scanned them ponderously, drawn to the ‘Athletic Forty-something Seeking Good-Time-Girl’ ad before concluding sceptically that this was doubtless nothing more than a post by some waste-of-space married mid-life crisis with a list of inadequacies longer than your arm. As she turned to the penultimate pages, she was met with column after column of adult service advertisements, such as ‘Blow Your Load With Britney – 1.50 per minute.’ Her lips curled in wry amusment at the Shania’s, Kylie’s and Montana Skys all offering to help any caller attain sexual Nirvana for the cost of a years television license!

She was about to close the newspaper when her eyes alighted on a larger advert close to the foot of the page. But the whine of the bus as it braked at her stop saw her look up with a start, scrunch the newspaper together and hurry for the doors which were already beginning to hiss shut.

Sorry, she gasped to the driver with an apologetic smile. Sorry.

It was cold, dark and had started to rain and she ducked out from under the bus shelter and into the narrow residential street towards home. She reached the door of her apartment building, fumbled her key into the lock and tried to blow strands of wet hair from around her face as she checked her postbox. Finding nothing except the usual takeaway flyers and an open letter inviting her to give blood the following week, she stuffed the mail disinterestedly into her bag and climbed the three flights of switchback stairs to her flat.

Ten minutes later, she had her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming hot chocolate and, ignoring the three new insincere messages from Bobby that the red light on her answering machine had drawn her attention to, she settled back onto her sofa to watch a Deal or No Deal New Year special.

Less than five minutes later, her phone rang again. She ignored it and turned up the television until the ringing stopped and her machine kicked in for the fourth time that day.

It’s Bobby. Pick up if you’re there.

The voice of Noel Edmonds rose to drown out that of her unfaithful boyfriend as Rowena depressed the volume button on her remote, her full lips set in a firm line.

Rowena? Bobby was barely audible.

Piss off! she hissed.

She heard Bobby’s latest message recording faintly as he unwittingly complied with her ascerbic demand, and then she was left in peace again. She hurriedly returned the TV to its normal volume level before she could give the demented old bat downstairs any more reason to indulge in her favourite