3 comments/ 6685 views/ 8 favorites Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 01 By: TaLtos6 *** The goddess in this was known to many people by many names. In this chapter, she prefers to be known as Astarte, while many others knew her as Ashtoreth. Same-same, and she had many other names. This story came about partly because of my humorous thought that it must have been a bitch to be someone like that and try to figure out what you were supposed to be and to whom. :) Anyway, I found this the other day. Couldn't believe it had been three years since I wrote it. Oh there are things languishing on hard drives and zip drives .... 4 chapters total, trying to post them all in one sitting. ~snicker~ Gawd, I hope this works. 0_o ------------------ Hmm, I dunno, maybe 2000 years, BC. She was drawn to it out of disbelief and a strong desire to learn that it was a mistake; drawn to the burning refuse pit in the valley set aside for the purpose and specifically, to one part of it - about the last place where she'd have ever wanted to go, Tophet – a place mentioned in many scriptures for a few cultures and many sects. The drums and the chants of the priests and priestesses, the songs of the temple prostitutes, the din which assaulted the ears. And all of it there, all of that sound being made to cover the high, thin screams of agony which came from the poor unfortunates who were the sacrificial offerings. When she'd first heard of the practice she'd been doubtful, not believing the talk from her sister goddess Ba'alat Gebal. "Who would do such a thing?" she asked, "In the name of one of us? Even for them, it is hard to believe." "Worse still than that," her sister had said, "the name is different there, but the offerings are to you, Astarte. As with many of us, we are known by many names to many of the humans. They know you as Tinnit there. To them, you are the wife of Hammon." Astarte's jaw fell open, "But I have never been there; I have had my hands full finding out that the three of us sisters are wives to our brother. These humans with their incessant din; wanting this, pleading for that. How did we become a part of this? They imagine something and then they chant that it is what is real. Some of the things that they fight and go to war over, I tell you, Gebal. There are times when I go to a battlefield and learn that BOTH of the kings claim to sleep with me every night. Once denounces the other as a prevaricator, and then armies clash. I have come close to smiting them all a good blow behind the ear." Her sister nodded, "Worse than children." Those words had brought her to see this abominable thing for herself. And that was what she saw. She turned away and walked off through the dust and blowing ashes, her nose assailed by the sweet and sickly smell of burning human flesh. These fools, she thought, they possess only a tiny margin of intelligence above the cattle that they keep. She snorted in disgust; wanting the stench to be gone from her mind and knowing that as long as she remained here, maybe even long afterward whenever the thought crossed her mind, she'd remember this smell. The foulness of one of the worst acts that she could imagine caused her mind to reel. The breaking of perhaps the oldest and most profound trust and responsibility that these stupid creatures could possess made her want to vomit. That took some doing in her case, she admitted to herself. Besides a lot of other things which these idiots and others like them had assigned to her, she was a goddess of war to many. As such, it took a lot to affect her sensibilities, but she found them affected now. She preferred the smells of the battlefield to this; the scent of freshly-spilled blood in the air along with the sweat – even if it was sometimes the sweat of men's fear. The shit and the dust - even that was far better than this. She didn't know these ones. She heard none of their prayers, knew nothing of their beseeching words to her and yet; it still affected her. Worse that she'd seen it now with her own eyes. Children thrown alive into the roaring flames as sacrifices to her. By their own parents. And for what? The hope that she'd be so pleased by this insanity that their unimportant little lives might go a little easier in any of the areas which their priests told them that she ruled over? As though the self-important little animals knew anything of this. She'd never spoken to even one of the bearded fools, yet they told that she often spoke to them and demanded this of them. She spat in disgust, hoping that it would get the taste of the stench out of her mouth, and knowing that it wouldn't. To have this done in your name – as though you were supposed to be pleased and honored by the practice ... She wanted to weep. She was drawn here in disbelief, and now that she'd seen it, all that she felt was horror and revulsion. And a slowly rising rage. She looked up at the sky, seeing what these cretins could not see. Demons. Great circling flocks of the things wheeling overhead, darkening the sky for miles. They were drawn here by the sounds and the suffering. They fed on it. "Ah, so you have come this time," a rasping voice grated in her ear. The goddess turned to find one demon who was a little familiar to her – one that she loathed for what he'd done to her while she slept. He'd slipped his thin little thing into her and had his way and she'd known nothing. He'd done it many times, until she awoke one time and she'd very nearly killed him. If she'd known that she was pregnant by then, she'd have torn him to pieces. The child that she was raising was his and she loved her son because the thing was her progeny too. But she didn't have to like the father. She saw him, but didn't look twice, "Can you understand these idiots? If so, you can explain things to me. If not, then come just a little nearer so that I may give you my love properly." "Not likely," the foul one chuckled, "the memory of the pain that you caused me the last time is still fresh for me. But I can understand their words, yes. It is a great day for us, my kind. I would not have missed this for anything." She stomped her foot down at her next step to turn and the valley echoed with the thunder of it. Enough. She walked back, seeing the humans paused in uncertainly over it. They saw nothing and looked to their priests – who immediately exhorted them to throw their progeny into the flames even faster. Her eyebrows knitted together and she gritted her teeth. They wanted a sign? Well she'd give them one then. She appeared before them all just as the priests said that she looked; proud, angry, and in all of her naked and horned splendor, fifty feet tall and stamping her feet in her rage. The parents of one small girl fell dead by her thought, just as they were stepping up to the precipice to commit this crime. The child fell to the ground in a little wailing ball, and a high priest ran up to grab the child and throw her, desperate now to appease the goddess. She couldn't believe it. These snakes. These filthy vermin, they even believed their own lies! She flung out her hand beside her and the ones in the flames and not already gone fell dead then, ending this for them. She seized the man before he could do any more harm and lifted him up. His jewellery and the finery that he wore disappeared as he flailed screaming in fear with a long trail of the urine of his terror flowing out of him. "LOOK!" she roared at them in speech they could not comprehend, "He is no different than you! His kind grow fat from not having to work. They demand that you give them food and gold because they lie to you! And you ALLOW this?" She held him up higher and she looked into his eyes. He raised his hands in supplication and prayer, beseeching her. She spit into his face and turned to the demon that the people could not see and she spoke in a tongue which only his kind understood and the humans knew nothing of. Her words slid from between her teeth – to the absolute joy of the demon, "How many of his own children has this pig burned in his offering to me? Speak, oh flapping filth!" "I so enjoy your rage, my dear, "he laughed, "I think it is why I love you so." But he drew away a little all the same. There was no gain to be had in raising her ire if it was to be directed at him. "He has seven; five by his wife and one each with his mistress and one of the temple whores. The children of the priests are exempt as offerings in their cult to you." Astarte sneered, "Tell them that it is not so. Tell them that the children of the priests who lead them are the ONLY ONES which I want. Tell them this." She tried to keep a straight face, doubting that her remark would result in many offerings now. As the voice of the demon spoke to them all, seven people of various ages, four of them small children, dropped to the ground, their young live snuffed out painlessly in different places in the crowd. Three women began to wail. After a moment spent in her seeking to know who the women were, they fell dead as well, though their passing carried with it the knowledge that they were dying. She'd stopped their hearts, and that was all, so there were the few seconds, ... "Tell him that his observances to me are almost sufficient now." There was no reply and she looked over, seeing the shock on that infernal face. "Tell it to him," she seethed through her teeth. She waited as it was said to the upset man and the rest. When it was done, she noticed the way that the demon had gotten a little too close to her and not seen his own peril. The priest still hung in the air, though what held him up could not be seen now. What could be seen easily however was the large demon suddenly there in her grasp as she began to tear pieces from him. He managed to croak out a one-word question when he asked her why. "Why did you use me as I slept?" she retorted. "Someone must have told them to do this. You can understand them. Perhaps it was you, who would fuck a sleeping female with a prick so pitiful that she would sleep right through it. Do you feel pride for it and how you leave me to do the work of the raising of your child?" He saw him shake his head feebly, but she went on until there was one less of them. Good things come to those who wait, she thought to herself. If they wait for their chance long enough. There were screams from the crowd and she could see that they were about to panic, but she raised her hand and no one could move then. She drew a breath, needing to think. She knew that she was too upset right now and frustrated that they couldn't understand her. She turned to the man in her grasp, still needing an outlet for her revulsion over this barbarous practice. She held him in the air while the flames of her wrath licked over him very slowly. For his part in what had been done in her name, she intended to let him hang there and scream in agony for the rest of the day. Whenever she thought of it, she'd allow him to die, but not before he felt the agony of many fiery deaths. But now she was just getting started. "RUN!" she screamed at the people and the stampede began. She knew that they didn't understand what she'd said, but she'd had little doubt that their reaction was predictable and of course, they ran for their lives. Scores of them were trampled, but by then, she didn't care. It made her smile a little, feeling just a little bit better now. The noise from the fool in the air beside her faded as she moved him off into the valley. The hottest part of the blaze would be his home for the next several hours. She wouldn't allow him to pass into peace, oh no, ... Not for a long time yet. She looked down as the sound of the exodus faded, hearing one sobbing voice still. The goddess bent down, thinking to use a soft voice to calm the little one, but it was all too much for the child and when she looked up, she still saw a vision which caused her to reel backward as she jumped to her feet and backpedaled. Right off the rocky edge. Before her little body landed on the heated rocks below, the goddess had her in her hand. She drew herself down to the right size for these creatures and she patiently held the child and spoke to her. It took a long time since they couldn't understand each other, but eventually, the soothing tone got through and the weariness in the aftermath of her terror overcame the youngster. She set the girl down where she stood weeping. The goddess saw a little waif whose trust had been shattered and yet she didn't understand why her parents were dead. She was too young to comprehend why they'd been trying to throw her from the cliff. The goddess saw this and took the memories from her in a little mercy. The little girl sat down confused, still a little upset and now not knowing just why. She began to settle down at last and the goddess did the only thing that she could think of and picked her up again, cradling her gently as she brought that tired and distraught little face to her breast. The child was too old for this, but it was working; since after a moment, she felt the little one begin to suckle uncertainly. But the milk of a goddess can change many things, ... She slowly walked away holding the girl, wondering just what she'd do with this one, who'd done nothing in her innocence to deserve the horrific fate from which she'd been spared. At least she'd saved one. Thankfully, the sensation of nursing a child soothed her wrath. But it did nothing to stop the hardening of her resolve that this stupidity be ended. Thirty minutes later, she sat the little one down in the temple which had been erected in her name – one of her names anyway, she smirked. These people were Phoenicians of a sort. It was a long way from here to where she'd first been worshiped, she thought. But then, she knew that there were other groups who prayed to her, though these ones were the only ones who sacrificed their own to her and in her name as far as she was now aware. She doubted that there was anything that she could do to get them to stop, but she knew what she was going to do to these ones. She wrapped the girl up in a soft blanket and put her to sleep with a warm thought. Then she stood up and turned. All of the doorways in the large temple were sealed shut – even the open archways which had no doors. Astarte strode through the halls and the corridors of the building, seeking the priests and the priestesses, looking now for every single attendant and temple prostitute. One by one she ended their foul lives in various horrific ways. All of the leading members of this cult to her – even the ones not there presently perished in agony. When she was done an hour later, the walls and the floors were red and sticky with their blood. When she came back to the child, she found her awake and standing next to her son. The two young ones smiled as they looked at each other for a moment. The little girl, not more than four years old, walked to the goddess uncertainly with her hand on the back of the four-footed little monster which the goddess had given birth to and when they reached her, the girl lifted her little arm and held onto the flank of the goddess to lay her head against the deity's lower belly and suck her thumb. Astarte smiled because she was a mother and she couldn't help it. She eased herself down to her knees and reached for the unlikely pair. "Come then," she smiled softly, "my little family has no business in this place anymore. Take what I have for you first and then we may go home." The young pair each found a blood-spattered breast and she closed her eyes as they suckled, each one hungry and yet straining their eyes to look at the other. ------------------------ Hammah grew to be an olive-skinned beauty, a source of pride to her adoptive goddess mother Astarte as the years passed. Graced with long black hair and a lithe and perfect build, she was the envy of even other goddesses, though she was not one herself. The fact was that she wasn't human anymore either. The years passed her by with almost no effect at all, and other than being given to moments of wilfulness the odd time, she never once gave her mother cause to regret taking her as her own child all that time ago. Astarte hadn't given it any thought back then on that foul day, but there had been effects to what was done. Hammah had taken to the breast again easily, and it gave the goddess a little time of a week or so to plan on weaning her son Jorret and re-weaning Hammah, feeding them both solid food at the same time and quite easily then. She remembered the time fondly when she'd nursed the two and spoke to them of many things. Her milk gave Hammah a few godlike qualities and of course, the changeable Jorret already had them, but there had been another factor that day. It had only happened twice that first day, but that was all that was required. What coated the body of the goddess lightly that day was a mixture of dust, ash, sweat and the blood of her many victims. Her breasts ran with it more than once – several times, actually. Astarte had been a nursing mother back then and sometimes her nipples would weep a little milk if she was overfull and exerting herself. What came to Jorret was nothing more than he already had, but what Hammah got in with the other things was the essence of a demon's blood from when Astarte had slaughtered Jorret's father. Along with the milk of the goddess, a few of the latent tendencies of a race of demons known to the various Mesopotamian tribes, for example as gallu came to the little one. She only nursed at Astarte's blood-covered nipples twice. When the goddess took them to their home, she bathed them and herself before she went further in integrating the little girl into her life. But it was done then. Hammah grew a little ill for only a day, but after that, Astarte wasn't the only one with horns on her head which could be hidden from everyone but those with the sight to see them. She learned the languages of gods and demons with the ease of a child. The two children became inseparable – whenever they weren't squabbling. Hammah' strength and abilities grew, but until they waxed as she came into her own, her sibling Jorret kept her from harm in the dark places and scrapes that the two often found themselves in. He could easily pass for a human as well, but oftentimes, he found that his quadrapedal form was often 'handier'. Like that, he was still changeable, but for the most part, he padded along beside Hammah looking a little reptilian and yet he wore some fur over his back. The face then wasn't human at all and his jaws were studded with long teeth and the finishing effect was the long tail. Wings were an option for both of them, but weren't often used, unless there was no other choice as a means of transportation. A lot of the time, Hammah just rode on her adoptive brother's back. Something which had bothered the girl a little and her sibling not at all was the knowledge that for them, there likely would never be anyone else for a mate. Jorret just never gave it a thought – he could see himself living for Hammah, since he pretty much always had from the first time that he'd laid his demonic eyes on her dirty little tear-streaked face that first day. Hammah knew – somewhere inside herself, that they'd be together, but she tried to look elsewhere now and then. Her luck at times like that was often spectacular in the measure of its failure. No god-child wanted her, the adopted human daughter of a goddess known to have lain with a demon. Not that it had happened that way, but the god-kind can be just as stupid as man in these things. No demon wanted her – other than for one thing, not that Hammah minded that too much, but there were times when she wanted a little conversation and a male who was fun to be with. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 01 Humans were right off the list. She'd tried that twice and killed the men both times, once by riding the unfortunate hard enough to break a few bones and the other time, she'd just taken a fool's head off the first time that he'd hit her. So somewhere inside her she always knew and accepted that the one for her would one day just be the one who always had been for her. But she was in a mood one day and said a few things which had stung Jorret rather badly. Hammah had so much time to want to smash her head against something in her bitter regret over what she'd said, but at the time, it wasn't a thought to her. But it had been to Jorret. He wandered away for a time – a couple of weeks, it had been. While Hammah had gone merrily along, still seeking someone where there was no one for her, she'd meant to seek out her brother and apologize. She'd just been distracted. But in his heart, Jorret had been wounded by words that he'd never expected to hear from Hammah and the hurt festered slowly and grew into despair. Not being the sort to dwell on things, he'd made his adjustment. He assumed that one day his sister would find someone, while he was a ... Well he was a, ... He was a freak, was what he was. Demon females, most of them, weren't interested and the final stroke for him came when he was told by a demon cousin that Hammah had chosen a full-demon and had declared it. It was a lie, but Jorret had no reason to doubt then. Jorret didn't bother to ask Hammah, not wanting to hear it from her lips. He left home and went to the underworld to seek out his relatives there. Talking to them, he learned of a way that he wouldn't have to smile and nod when Hammah announced one day soon that she'd found the one for her. He thought it over for a day and then he went back to ask for help. There was a way to forget and he reached for it, telling the others that it was what he wanted. "Know then that this cannot give you mortality," one of his powerful uncles said, "You are what you are and that is long-lived, Nephew." "I know that," Jorret sighed, "I just want to be gone and forget. I want the bliss of forgetfulness now. How do I do that?" "You may choose to forget in the mortal life of the humans, "the demon rumbled, "To be born, to live and to die, never remembering what you seek to leave behind you. But you will die, Nephew; again and again. Each time, you will perish from any of the things which can cause a mortal man to fall. Each time, you will be born again, elsewhere and to another set of parents and one thing, Nephew: What you seek is not the way of things. You will become an aberration – a bit of grit in the smooth workings of fate. As such, each time, your life will be a hard one. Think on it. If you remember at all, you may return through any portal at intervals of every fifth life. You may go back to the human world the same way. Each time that you do, you will go back to a human man and forget again as you pass outward." "I do not care," Jorret replied, "I do not want to remember anything. I just want to forget." He pulled out the purse full of gold that he'd managed to save and he set it down before his uncle. Three minutes later, Jorret was no more, and somewhere on a tortured world, somewhere in the over 250,000 human births which occur each and every single day, one child was born who knew nothing of his heritage. There were two beings in all of the universe who had ties in their hearts to Jorret. At the instant of his departure, they both felt it as one of the lights in their lives winked out. As was told to him, Jorret had little thoughts to remind him, but each time, he pushed them away and stayed on earth. It took a few centuries to find out what had happened, but Astarte and Hammah learned of it one day as they stood in a pit speaking to the one who had helped Jorret. "I cannot say where he went then or where he is now, "the demon smiled, "I counseled him against it, explaining what would happen as best I could. I did not make it sound better than what he had and I told him that each life would hold suffering for him." He chuckled then, enjoying this, "You have done well – whatever you did to him. I have waited a thousand years, but at last, I have my revenge for what you did to my brother, his father." The old one drew himself up and grinned, "I know what you will do to me now and I don-" He lay in a spreading puddle of his own blood and filth then as the mother and sister of Jorret wiped their blades and walked off. ---------------------- 2013 She awoke in a tangle of confusion; of flailing limbs and heaving ribs, thrashing in a thicket. Edwina looked around frantically. She must have fallen somehow and she didn't know how long that she'd lain here like this. That cruel drunkard Bruster had been chasing her with an axe handle, bellowing that he'd kill her for certain this time, now that he no longer needed her for anything, since she wouldn't 'come across' in her lawful duty as his wife. He'd been right, she thought. She never would. Once had been enough. He'd come home drunk again, demanding and shouting that he wanted to avail himself of her affections. He'd bellowed that it was a wife's duty to her husband. She'd had no intentions of submitting to what amounted to rape at the hands of a cruel man ever again - and an angrily drunk one at that. Fate could be such a cruel lady, Edwina thought as she'd watched those words sink in through Bruster's thick skull. She'd been born on her family's farm, two sections of fifty acres each started by her grandfather. A pretty, but shy little thing, Edwina grew up a farmgirl in a part of Upper Canada to the north of the town of York, a place now better known as Toronto. Her grandparents lived the second half of their lives there, being helped by their son, Edwina's father and the woman he'd taken to wife. She'd had one brother, but neither of them had ever married. After the deaths of their parents, the two siblings had just gone on for a long time running the place since it was all that they really knew to do. But Edwina's brother Reginald had taken ill and died one winter. It left Edwina all alone in the world on a farm which by then was no longer working and at thirty years of age, Edwina was a spinster whom no one had wanted enough to ask anything of her. She'd needed at least some money and with no other or better plan, she sold off half of the acreage to Armbruster Gibbons, a single male neighbor who'd just moved up from the Ohio Valley. At that time, he'd seemed so polite and well-spoken and all, and well, Edwina had been prepared to listen as he slowly set about courting her. That had taken two years and then it was done. So was Bruster's playacting all of a sudden and the man that Edwina found herself with became just as abrasive and abusive toward her as he was to his dogs. She wondered how she'd been blinded by his charade. It would have been a joke to anyone who knew him as she did then. Armbruster had never had so much as a hound who had survived past puppyhood. He'd beaten most of them to death for the slightest error. Those few with a bigger brain than a sense of devotion to their master had all run away the first chance they'd had of it. Edwina's head throbbed and then she remembered. Bruster had gotten only one swing at her because she'd seen the axe handle there behind his back beforehand. She'd turned and he'd only just managed to clip the back of her head with it once and then she was gone out the door, stumbling briefly at the bright flash of pain in her head before she recovered her stride and was running for the woods. Thank Providence that it had been night and was raining so hard that one could barely hear one's own thoughts in the cold downpour. But who knew how long she'd been lying here witless? -------------------- 1858 What Edwina didn't know was that Armbruster Gibbons, after years of heavy drinking most nights had gone to fetch his horse with the intent of riding Edwina down before spinning his tale into a plausible alibi for the benefit of the constable. His head throbbed with the blind anger that he felt and if he'd stopped for only a moment to look at things a little, he'd have seen the way that his vision pulsed at the periphery. His blood pressure was sky high, not that he cared or even knew very much about things such as that. But as he yanked open the barn door and ran in, his large mare had also had enough of him and her kick sent him reeling against a post in the barn. Something had happened then inside of him and he'd staggered out into the rain. He wanted to get control of his feet and stumble to his home then, all thoughts of killing his good for nothing wife gone from his head. But he went in the wrong direction and the stroke only almost caused the end of Armbruster. He'd awoken at dawn or not long after, cold and wet to the bone, barely able to move his limbs more than feebly. He'd struggled for a time, but then it became clear that he had other troubles. The wolves had seen it and had waited through the night in sight of him from the trees. He also saw a man there who was working at packing a little tobacco into a pipe as he leaned against a nearby tree. What struck Armbruster as more than a little odd was that the man knew that the wolves were there and even more odd – the wolves seemed to be well aware of the man's presence as well, and they certainly didn't appear to be bothered by him in the slightest as they began to circle the stricken man slowly. The angle was bad and Armbruster had difficulty just looking over – and up at him. What he saw was a man of perhaps thirty, but he looked very strong and fit in a pair of well-made walking shoes – since they were the only parts of him that Armbruster could see without effort to crane his neck a little and look at him. The rest of him was clad in a pair of workmanlike breeches, suspenders which the man quite obviously didn't need to hold the breeches up, and a red plaid shirt open enough to allow one to see his muscular chest and for that matter; the sleeves were rolled up a good distance to display his strong-looking arms. "Morning, Gibbons," the dark-haired man said evenly and a little pleasantly at the same time, "You in some bit of difficulty are you?" "Yes," the bellicose man said, not knowing the man from anyone and struggling more than a little to force his mouth to make the correct sounds for speech, "Something's the matter with me and I can't seem to get up off the ground." The man finished packing the little pipe and nodded as he bent down to pick up a twig from the ground. Armbruster blinked and then stared as the twig lit on fire and flared briefly before the stranger used it to light the pipe. "It does seem that way," he said, beginning to puff a little contentedly. "Well, if it's not too much trouble, "Armruster said a little testily and with difficulty, "do you think that you could help me up?" The man smiled thinly for a moment, but he shook his head, "I'm afraid not, Gibbons. You see, ..." He pointed with his thumb, "It wouldn't really be fair to them, would it? I mean, they've been waiting for you over half the night. If I helped you up now, they'd be a little disappointed, after all. It would be a little mean of me and awfully cheap, since I called them here to take you in the first place. Your brain is damaged. I mean, even more than usual," the man chuckled as though pleased with himself, "They're here to separate you from your life, since they're a little hungry these days and at the right time, I'm here to take your worthless soul. We're going on a little trip, you and me, Gibbons. Where I take you will be a memorable place and you won't ever forget it – since you'll never be leaving there." He looked up into the trees for a moment to listen to the song of an oriole. Then he looked down at the man lying there half on his face and his features turned very cold to look at. "I believe that some of your kind refer to it as 'Eternal Torment and Damnation'. Armbruster didn't know what the fool was talking about, but then he began to strain and struggle to get to his feet. He just couldn't do it. The man waited for him to give it up after several minutes and then he took another puff on the pipe before he spoke again – and this time, Armbruster heard the sound of his own doom in the words. "You're a really weak and worthless turd, Gibbons. Just a loud, walking arsehole who finds joy in spreading misery among his fellow men. Well I'm not one of them and you ought to be a little glad of it. If I were, I'd beat your self-important life out of you and be very pleased to do it, but instead, I saw a chance for your valueless body to provide a little nourishment to these creatures for a time." He looked over at the pack, who had been using the time of the discussion to draw a little closer to the meal of a kind which they very seldom had; the flesh of a human man – and there was enough here to feed their empty bellies for a few days at least. As Armbruster tried to strain and keep his eyes on the stranger, one of the animals slipped past in his field of view. He felt the hot and damp snuffle against his neck as the animal performed his nearly final test of this creature's helplessness. Armbruster Gibbons tried once more to get up, and failing it, he began to try to strike the wolf, who only danced away just far enough to watch for another moment. The air around the large man was suddenly filled with the low and steady growls of seven ravenously hungry wolves. "I'll be right here, Gibbons," the stranger said, "You be sure to tell me when you've had enough and would like me to take you along with me." He laughed then, and the sound fell deeper in tone. "I won't do anything to take you early at all. I just want to hear it." As the first of the wolves began at his throat, two of the others grabbed Abrmbruster's flailing arm and began to try to rip into it. Three more started the process of exposing the fat belly and the softer organs which must lie under that bloat. Armbruster Gibbons began to scream, but it only spurred the animals on as the stranger puffed on his pipe and chuckled, "Louder, Gibbons. Oh please, cry out louder for me." When the one whom he'd come for passed from this life, the man took his soul and walked off, leaving the wolves to their meal. He looked around and then he let himself into the barn. With a thought from him, the livestock all sank to their knees and fell over, since there was no one around to care for them and wouldn't be for many days. As who he was, and if he had the time at all, animals were taken painlessly if there was no other way. The horses were the hardest for him, but, ... He walked outside and looked off to the ramshackle shack a few hundred yards away which Armbruster Gibbons had built on the land bought from Edwina. Like the man who had built it, all that he saw was an eyesore. The livestock there fell dead the next instant and the house burst into flames. He watched for a moment and as he did, his appearance changed markedly. What stood there a moment later carried a really demonic appearance; which was alright, he thought, since that was pretty much what he was, after all. He spread his large wings and flew off, still chuckling to himself. ------------------------------------- 2013 Edwina knew nothing of what had happened so long ago. Right now, she was terrified that her husband might find her and finish what he'd started. She had to get away. She had to run for her life before she fell unconscious once more. She had to, ... Edwina looked around then, hearing songbirds singing in the early afternoon. She looked around again, this time in a bit of wonder. It was daytime and the ground all around her was dry. She slowly stood up. She was dry, her dress as well and – and it wasn't muddy at all. The thicket where she was looked much the same as her last view as she'd fallen with her head pounding from the blow. She stood there blinking for a moment before she reached up carefully to feel for the bit of torn scalp and the dent at the back of her skull, the one which she remembered. She was a little amazed that there was no dent now. Her head felt the same as it always had all of her life. There wasn't even any of the bloody wetness. She lowered her hand after looking at her fingertips. Dry. No blood. She tried again, feeling perhaps brave enough for it now to press a little gingerly. There was no pain now, no dent, no dried blood, and as far as she could tell, she didn't have a broken skull. She was astounded. When she'd run for her life, careening dizzily, she'd had a broken skull. She'd felt it. But this was all different; she realized as she looked around a little. She'd been running through the dense woods that she'd known all of her life on her family's farm, what was left of it anyway. But there was no forest around her here. She stepped carefully out of the thicket and saw that she was in a long grove of trees, standing in deep shade. But the grove only went about a hundred yards in its length. It was only about sixty feet at its widest, and outside of that distance, the world was ablaze in the brilliant light of a sunny day, a hot and close (humid) summer's day. She didn't know this grove. Looking out from under the boughs as she walked to the edge of it, she saw fields and more woods. She came to the eaves of the last few trees on one side and peeked out uncertainly, looking for people and hoping not to see her tormenter as she did. She saw no one, unless one counted cows. After a few minutes spent in trying to remember ever seeing any of this landscape before and failing utterly at it, she stepped out into the sunshine and walked toward the animals. They paid her no mind as she approached. "Whose are you?" she asked the nearest one, seeing them all as large animals, all of them clad in hides of black and white and nothing else. She saw a glint of sunlight reflecting off something small and silver-colored. She reached out and touched that ear, feeling that it was warm. The sensation helped Edwina. It made sense to her where nothing else had thus far. She looked at the metal disk and saw only that it was imprinted with letters and numbers, as though it was a marker of some sort. Who marked their cattle by giving them earrings? That must be what the disk was. She saw no other markings. No collars, nothing – not even a brand on any of these animals. From where she stood, she saw that she was on a bit of a plateau and that the land sloped away from her gently. Her gaze followed until she saw a gray ribbon stretching over some of the landscape in her view. What was that? She wondered about it as she began to walk in that direction. As she did, she began to hear a droning sort of sound, which grew slowly louder and it reminded her of the noise such as a cicada might make when it emerged from the earth on its last day as a pupa and crawled slowly up the bark of a tree to find a safe place for the final transformation to its adult form. This sound was a little like what those creatures made as they beat their new wings to dry them, though what she heard now was much lower. She looked up and what she saw then almost made her fall onto her backside there in the pasture. There was something there in the sky which made that sound as it flew on wings which did not beat or flap. She'd never seen the like of it before and she stood watching its progress across the sky. After it was gone from her sight she carried on, though in the full light of the sun, she was feeling it now. When she got near to the fence she looked at it and puzzled over another thing that she'd never seen before. It was made of wire, fashioned in a way which gave it the appearance of a lot of square openings, about 9 to 10 inches across and about four and a half to five inches high. All along every horizontal strand there was a bump rising upwards and then back down to its former level every few inches. It was held up at intervals by posts, so at least that was a little familiar. It still made her wonder though. She looked across the gray ribbon and she saw then that it was a roadway of a sort. On the other side of the road, Edwina saw fence of a much more familiar nature – a split-rail cedar fence. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 01 It took a bit of doing in her dress, but she managed to climb over the strange fence. That brought her to a ditch and on the other side of that, she saw gravel on either side of the ribbon. As far as roadways went, she decided, she didn't care so much for the ribbon. She'd lost her shoes when she'd run terrified from her husband and now, her feet were bare and the thing was too hot from the sunlight for her to walk on. She didn't like the gravel either, so she was forced to walk in the weeds which grew to the side of the gravel. She didn't know where she was and she had no clue where she was going, either. All that she knew was that she thought that she ought to walk along the road, hoping to meet just about anyone but Bruster and she knew that she stood a better chance of meeting somebody if she was on a thoroughfare. The day grew even warmer as time went on and Edwina found herself with the same age-old issue; the slow roasting alive of a woman in a checked blue gingham dress. She could already feel the way that her undergarments stuck to her sweat-covered skin underneath. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 02 ***Well, ... Edwina is lost and wandering through the wilds of her township as she's never seen it before. What next? Horseless carriages? You just know someone like her is going to come up against the details of the modern age and I enjoyed writing those. And just how do they find people who are small enough to fit inside those boxes to speak with the patrons in a fast-food drive-through? 0_o ---------------------- 2013 He walked north along the township third line almost muttering to himself. He'd given in to the urge several times that day already, not that it had helped even a little. He didn't know just what was wrong with him today, but somehow, ever since he'd woken up a little late that morning, he'd been scatterbrained. First it was that he'd hit the snooze button on his alarm clock the first time that it had taken it's usual joy in screaming him awake at quarter after four that morning. He usually groaned to himself about how working for a living sure wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but he usually got up then when he was on dayshift. The first time. He didn't know what had happened, but he'd wanted just a little more sleep, so with his one lucid thought, he'd hit the snooze button. Then he'd hit it again. And again. Each time, it bought him ten minutes. The next thing that he knew, he had just barely enough time to jump out of bed and hit the ground running. Barely making it into work under the wire, he'd spent the damn day feeling as though he must have left fully half of his brain back at home on the pillow. He knew that it wasn't what had actually happened, because if it was, then he was in deep trouble, knowing that his dog would just eat the thing without a thought while he was at work. Things which related to his job function – things that he'd known for years just didn't come to him today. He forgot things left, right and center the whole day long. He hadn't made his lunch and didn't have enough in his pockets to buy more than a cup of coffee. Thank Christ it was Friday, he thought. Another day like this and he'd be disgusted enough at himself to beat himself to death with a flyswatter. It might take a little while, he thought, but it would feel so good when he got done. He wondered at times during the day if this might be the onset of Alzheimers. He reasoned then that it seemed to just be the day, so at worst, it might be Partzheimers. But this, ... This just had to be the crowning touch to the day. For the first time in his life, Tommy Bryce Anderson had run out of gas on his way home. And not just in any place a little handy, like a four minute walk to any of the thirteen fucking gas stations which lined the route of his commute, oh fucking hell no, ... He ran dry AFTER he'd turned onto the backroads to his home, miles up the road, ... Just not close enough to home to have walked the rest of the way so that he could get the can of gasoline out of his shed. That would be too easy, right? He'd mown the 'lawn' the evening before – all three acres of it, noticing that he was using the last of what was in that damned gas can when he'd fuelled up the mower. That's why he'd had to walk back down the road. Magically, he'd not seen even one other vehicle the whole time. So here he was, humping along almost in the woods on the hottest afternoon of the year yet this summer with a half-full plastic gas can banging against his lower thigh and calf every other step. He'd walked all the way back to the nearest gas station and he'd had to pay what amounted to the cost of the half-can of fuel PLUS the cost of the container – just in case he didn't come back, the attendant had said. Thank God for debit cards. He swung at the horsefly which had chosen to torment him for most of the way. Thirty-two and he was back to walking down a road in the middle of nowhere, he thought. He'd bought the 'century farmhouse' seven years before when he still had a wife. He smirked to himself. He hadn't been one bit brighter back then either. Right in the middle of the recession, that's when Mandy told him that she didn't want to go on married to him for another minute. Two weeks after that bombshell, he'd lost his high-dollar job when the company that he worked for pulled their operations back to the states. Since then, he'd found that he suddenly couldn't find a decent job. He was able to move mountains, but his age was seen as a sign that he'd want a ton of money where somebody newer to the workforce and with less in the way of credentials would do for a lot less. Fuck, he thought; his life sounded like a country song. At least his truck still ran – when he remembered to put gas in it. Now he was working a shit job in a factory making structural frame assemblies for cars so that he could buy his house again for the second time. But he was almost done with it now and his dog still loved him, so that was something. On balance, Tommy had it together. He could have come out a lot worse. Mandy had just wanted out pretty much and he was able to swing something so that he could pay her out fairly so that she'd get what she wanted and he could still keep most of what he had. He knew that he could wallow over trying to find a cause, but what good would that do? From what she'd told him after it was done, she wanted a fresh start, hopefully with somebody new, that was all. She'd said that she just felt too strangled to go on as she had been with him. Tommy remembered the conversation and the way that he'd felt too wrung out from having to piece things together so that it wasn't all just a smoking hole where two people had lived once. Afterwards, Mandy had said goodbye and wished him the best. He'd gone home and slept for fourteen hours straight. It had taken that long to catch up. But before that, he'd been dog-tired and feeling like too much of a zombie to feel much more than the vacant hole in him. But he hadn't been totally stupid. By happenstance, his truck was in for service and he was driving a loaner. He left by a different door and a minute later, he was pulling around the back of the bank in town. He'd watched as Mandy met Mr. Right at the Moment and they shared a hug and a kiss. He'd driven off then. It wasn't his business anymore anyway, but he'd gotten a look and that was enough. So rather than waste time trying to figure out what he'd done wrong, he'd just hung it up. There was no point in wondering, because he couldn't see what it was that she'd wanted or how he'd failed her. The only reason that he might have wanted to know was so that he'd maybe learn something and try to do better the next time. Only there wouldn't be a next time. Tommy had no intentions of ever working that hard to please somebody else ever again. Where was the sense in that? He'd done his very best for his woman for almost ten years and the grand prize was that he'd had to refinance what he'd already worked to pay for. Nobody in his shoes could have seen that coming. So this time, .... He still lived on the hobby farm that Mandy had just had to have. The only difference was that he liked it now. The truth be told, other than sleeping with her and the way that he missed that, he liked his solitary life better. He supposed that he'd have to make a few calls to try to find and get to know a few of his younger relations so that he could have his will re-written, wanting to have somebody to leave the trappings of his mortal life to after he passed on. But he guessed that he had maybe a little time for that. He'd had Mandy written out and that was good enough for the moment. He was older than he used to be, but he was still in good shape for his age. Actually, he was in fine shape for his age. The kind of work that he did now was very physical and repetitive. The first few months had felt as though they were killing him but it passed as he knew that it would. For a little over the first month, Tommy ate a pair of Advil capsules for lunch to get him through the second half of the shift. Whenever he got out of bed say, on a Saturday morning those first few weeks, he'd groan to himself a little quietly for the way that things hurt then. But he'd always laugh at himself after a minute. There he was moaning as though he'd been slogging at some impossible task which was killing him. There were a lot of women working at the same place, he told himself, and at similar jobs, after all. They might be a bit younger and they might have been there long enough to get over what bothered him at the time. But if it hadn't killed them, well he'd just better suck it up and forget about it. What he was feeling were the complaints of a body grown long used to sitting in an office or a car. "Welcome to the working world, asshole," he'd tell himself then with a smile. This was just temporary discomfort as his body toughened up. It was long past now and he actually liked the way that it felt to him now. There had been a time, long before when he'd worked a summer job when he'd been in high school. A part of that job was that every so often, not every day, but maybe once or twice a week, the garden supply place where he worked would get an ancient gondola style rail car dropped off at a short rail spur out back. He'd always groaned to see one arrive to wait for him. Each one was full of smooth, round river gravel - tons of it, and they waited silently for him. The place had no facility for the kind of car which could be dumped out through a hopper in its belly. He had to shovel the stone out, using a pitchfork with steel balls welded on over the ends of the tines. Each car would take him two days of back-breaking work to empty. That had been dog-work, not like what he was doing now, which was just a little bit physical. So he knew the difference. Thinking of that summer always made him feel better. He'd left school in June a tall and scrawny kid, but he'd come back with the build which had always lain there on him since. Suddenly no one had wanted to mess with him. Suddenly girls noticed him. But that was another hairball from out of the past so he never went past the railcars and the way that he'd ridden home to collapse onto his bed after dinner every night. The first rail car that he'd had to empty out for three dollars an hour had made him want to cry. But his father had told him that it was good for him. What a fucking crock of shit that had been to hear at the time. Now, he was just an older version of the young man that he'd been once. He still had the build and he was healthier for it. Other than being already tired from work, this walk wouldn't kill him any faster than the mood that he was carrying would. Oh yeah, his waking up stupid had made for a painful day. Now he was walking up the road, sweating and swatting at his new buddy, the horsefly. He judged that he'd be at this for maybe another half-hour to an hour, tops. He stopped and set the gas can down long enough for him to take off his sweat-soaked T-shirt. With that in his hand, he figured that he stood at least a fighting chance at his personal flying pest. After a few more minutes of it, he remembered a time long ago when he'd had to hitchhike to the cottage that his parents had, since he'd gotten a ride down to the city the week before and left his motorcycle there. He smiled a little as he remembered. There weren't that many rides for him that day either, only a couple, but they got him most of the way and he arrived in the dark late that night. He'd done all of that for a girl that he'd just met named Mandy. All that he had for wheels then was his motorcycle, but the girl didn't like them much. In between the rides that he'd gotten he'd hummed and whistled and sung a song, already old then. But he'd always liked it for times like these, so he tried to remember it now and soon, he was walking along feeling a little better as he sang an old Allman Brothers song to himself as he went. The motorcycle was long gone, and Mandy was too. The song was still there and there was a new motorcycle in the shed now - and there was no girl who was gonna get in the way ever again. ----------------------------- Edwina felt like an old mop from walking in this heat. She'd been trying to think of what to do, and it had occurred to her to go to town to speak to the constable. She doubted that she'd get very far, but she was determined to swear out whatever she had to against her husband for attempted murder. She knew that the tide was against her no matter what, but she'd see to it that she was heard out just the same, thank you very much. Women might not have the vote, but it was still illegal to try to beat one to death with an axe handle. She began to hear someone whistling up the road from behind her. It was still faint, but she could hear it, and it after a moment, she was sure that it was growing louder. Edwina began to fret for a moment, worried that it might be Bruster out looking for her, but then she realized that he never whistled; he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. The whistling stopped then and she heard a male voice singing. The words were still a bit hard to catch, but she liked what she heard a little, and the melody seemed to help with the way that she felt. "Don't fly Mr. Bluebird, I'm just walking down the road," Edwina didn't know what to do all of a sudden. She looked to her left and she saw the way that the heavy and thick growths of pines there hung over the old cedar fence of the farm which must lie back behind it somewhere. She ran down into the wide ditch and then back up the other side, stepping over the old fence railings where they'd fallen to hide herself in the trees. She suddenly wished that her dress wasn't the bright gingham pattern that she wore. It would have gone better to have worn a dark dress today. Then again, she thought, she was frying her brains as it was and what she wore was what she'd had on last night. She tried to gather it to her, hoping that it would be enough as she waited and watched. After a few more minutes of waiting, Edwina saw the head and shoulders of a man coming over the rise. She had to stare a little, because she didn't think that she'd ever seen anyone quite like him. His very short hair was blonde for the most part, the way that blonde hair eases its way into gray rather reluctantly. If it hadn't been for the angle of the sun, she might have missed that. He wore what she knew as a Van Dyke – a mustache and a little goatee, cropped short with nothing over his cheeks. Above his mouth, she saw the mustache with longish ends that reached the beard, and under his lower lip, she could just make out the little tuft of whiskers which connected the lip to the beard. To her, it gave him a rakish look, and she was a little glad that she'd hidden herself, not certain whether a man like him could be trusted. Especially given the way that the rest of him was attired. He wore boots of some sort under rather longish dungarees of what looked to be denim, so he certainly wasn't a member of the wealthy classes. Indeed, he looked like more of a working man to her. He wore no shirt at present, though he carried what might be one in his hand. In his other hand, he carried a bright red container, obviously laden with some form of liquid from the way that he seemed to be a little burdened by it and by the wet sounds from within. Her gaze fell on his shoulders and his chest then. She saw that he was no stranger to work and his build reflected that, being very muscular indeed. She wondered what he labored at to have that sort of body. She'd heard tell of some logging going on to the north of her, but she'd never been there. Overall, she quite liked what she was looking at, but at the moment, she was little inclined to have any dealings of any kind with any sort of man. As he came a little closer, still singing up a storm, she saw the markings on him and it gave her even more cause to fear a little. From what she knew, sailors had these things done to them, these pictures marked into their very skin. She planned to just hold herself still and wait. He'd pass her by soon enough and then she'd wait a little longer to give herself a good distance to him when she stepped back out onto the road. But she so liked his little song and his voice as well, listening as she was to him while he walked abreast of her the thirty or more feet away. "You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day –" He stopped singing abruptly just as he came to a halt opposite her there. After a moment, he turned his head to regard her a little oddly. He was looking at a lovely woman in a blue patterned gingham dress. She had long, honey-colored hair and slightly piercing bright blue eyes. As beautiful as she was to him, she looked far out of place to him standing there that way – about a hundred years out of date, to be specific. He thought that she must be dying in that much cloth. He knew that he would have been. "Um, excuse me, Ma'am, are you alright" he asked. She didn't reply for a moment and then she nodded, "Yes sir, I am alright, I believe. Why do you ask?" He looked down a little and she watched a small smile flicker across his features for a moment as though he was thinking of his reply to her. He looked up then, "Well, I come by here twice a day, five days out of seven most weeks. I'm usually driving then and it's dark for one of those trips every day. Even so, I try to be observant, since there are deer around here. This is the first time that I've uh, ... been forced to walk this road, but I can say that I've never seen a woman in a dress like that out on a hot day and trying to hide by standing in a bunch of trees. That's not exactly the sort of thing that most people do out on a day like today. Are you sure that you're alright?" Edwina wanted to ask him what 'sort of thing' that most people were supposed to wear on a day like today, but she was much too nervous for that. As well, she'd been walking for a good long while now and she was feeling the heat of the day to a great degree. She was also rather thirsty, her feet hurt, and she didn't know how far it was to the town. It affected her to a degree – that, and the fact that when this furnace of a day cooled down later, it would be night and she still didn't know quite where she was. "Sir, I wonder if I might ask for a bit of help. I wish to go to see the constable in Rosemount, but I do not know how much farther it might be. Could you tell me if you know?" She watched his eyebrows rise a little then, "Rosemount? Ma'am, if that's where you want to go, you're walking the wrong way. It's that way," he pointed, "a good five or six miles. And by 'constable', I assume that you want to speak to the police? There's no detachment there at all. The nearest one that I know of from here is in Briarvale, and that's got to be maybe ten miles. You won't get to either place before dark and there are no street lights out here. I don't think it would be a good idea to be out here walking at night all alone. I know I sure wouldn't want to." He watched her face fall a little. "If it's not too impolite to ask you, why do you need the police? If it's an emergency –" Edwina didn't know what to say then. To hear that she'd been going in the wrong direction all of this time, ... "You would have to think that I'm a mad fool," she said, "but I swear that last night, my husband tried to kill me with an axe handle. He did hit the back of my head, but today, it doesn't feel injured to me at all. Last night, I ran out into the woods in the rain, but I must have fallen. When I woke up a while ago, it was early afternoon and it's bright and sunny and hot. I have no recollection of how long I lay there." Tommy thought that it sounded serious enough either way. She was either telling the truth as she saw it and her husband had tried to hit her, or, ... she was still telling the truth as she saw it in her mind, being deranged or something. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 02 "What's your name, Ma'am? I live up the road a ways and maybe I know who you're running from. I don't think you ought to go back there, and you probably should talk to the cops about it no matter what. Are you hurt now? I mean other than where he might have hit you?" "My name is Edwina Gibbons, but you might have heard of my family. I was born a Rosemount. There are many of my relations hereabouts. The town is named after my great uncle because he founded it." In all the years that he'd lived in the area, Tommy had never met even one person named Rosemount, though he had a recollection of the name. He wondered just how many gears she might be slipping here. But then, if she'd received a head injury, ... "I'm, ... well, my name is Thomas Anderson, Ms.Gibbons, but I've never liked it, so I was always Tommy all of my life. I know Rosemount as a town. I pass through there every day on my way to work and back, but I don't know of anyone by that name. I usually carry my phone with me, but I'm afraid that I've left it in my truck up the road a little way. I'll tell you what though, if you think that you can, we can walk to my truck and once I put this gas here in the tank, I have to go back to return the container since I've only borrowed it. On the way, I can call the police for you, maybe even get you an ambulance ride to the hospital and they can see how badly you're hurt. I do know that there's a women's shelter in Briarvale; so I'd suggest going there as well. They can put you up in a safe place for the night at least and I know they'd be happy to get the police involved as well. "Or, ..." he said, trying to look at this the way that she might see it, "You can just stay here, and I'll come back for you. I'd be happy to make the call in any event. It's your choice." She looked at him as though one of them had just fallen from the moon, "I'm sorry, Mr. Anderson, but I don't really understand most of what you've just said. What are cops, and how can you call anyone from out here any better than I can call out myself? No one would hear either of us. And just what did you mean when you said your 'truck'?" He was trying to figure out the depth of her delusions. "What uh, ... what time period is that dress from that you're wearing, Edwina? Were you going to a party or something when this happened?" She shook her head, "I ran out of my home in fear of my life, sir. What do you mean, period? This dress is what is worn today. It is not from any period, as you say, other than the present one." Hoo boy, Tommy thought. How to deal with this? "Alright," he smiled carefully, "What year is it, Edwina?" She looked a little annoyed then, "That is a strange thing to ask someone. Why it's 1856 sir, as you must know and –" He was shaking his head, wondering what was supposed to happen when he burst her little bubble, "No it's not. Not even close." Edwina was about to get angry, but the hand in her pocket had been holding a few coins as they'd spoken. She stepped over the rail of the fence and walked up to him, forgetting for the moment that she'd been nervous about him earlier. "Here," she said, holding out her hand, "This ought to put an end to your foolishness over the date. Look at these coins." Tommy stared. Most of them were the larger in diameter than quarters. They were copper – all of them and most said 'Half-Penny' on them. The dates were mostly in the 1840s, too. He reached into his own pocket. After a moment to look, he held out a coin to her, "Here. This was minted last year. It's 2013 now. I don't know where you got those. I've never seen anything like them before. They say half-penny. Well they're phasing out the penny this year. I don't know how long it's been since there were half-pennies. I've never seen one in my life before now. You couldn't buy a thing with one of those these days. The metal it's made of is worth far more than a half-penny." The two of them stared at each other's hands and they looked up at each other then. "Look here, Edwina," he said, "see what it says on your coins? I mean the place?" She nodded, "Of course. It says 'Province of Upper Canada' on every one of mine, for that is where we are; are we not? They call it 'Canada West' now, however." Tommy shook his head at her slowly, "Read what it says on mine – every one – as you say." She read 'Canada' on every coin. Not 'Province of' and not 'Upper', they just said 'Canada'. "Where did you get these?" he asked, "they might be worth something to collectors of old coins." "These are the currency of the land," she insisted and he shook his head again. "No they're not. We're not in the province of Upper Canada, Edwina. There's been no such thing for a hundred and , ... seventy-two years. You're right, though. From what I remember from back in school, Upper Canada became Canada West in 1841. It remained that way until Confederation in 1867. There is no Province of Upper Canada." He reached back and pulled out his wallet, showing her every piece of photo ID that he had as well as the ownerships to his vehicles. Every one said "Province of Ontario'. "Canada ceased to be a British colony in 1867. We're our own country now, well, ... as much as we want to be, I guess. Our money still has the British monarch on it." She stared at him and then down at the coins in his hand again, turning one of them over, "Elizabeth?" "Elizabeth the Second," Tommy said, "She's been Queen for over sixty years now. Look, Edwina, this isn't getting us anywhere and it's certainly not getting you what you need. Let's at least walk to my truck. I can get you all the assistance you'd ever want right from there – and it's air conditioned." They began to walk together up the road, a strange pair to say the least. "What is air conditioned?" She asked him and he sighed, wondering just how whacked out she was to pretend like this. "That means that I can make it cool inside. It'll feel a lot better than this." ---------------------------- She sat in the passenger seat of his truck, still wondering just what this was. She was even sitting here with the door open, leaning a little to watch him pour the contents of the red thing into it somewhere. "What does that do, Tommy? You said that it would be cool here, but it is hotter here than outside." "This is fuel, and I'm almost done," he said, "Then I'll start it and it'll get cooler inside, trust me." He closed the fuel filler door and then he closed the container, setting it in the bed of the truck. He walked around then and she watched as he put his shirt back on. It was a little entertaining for Edwina to watch, because it was damp and he was sweaty, so that made it a bit of a struggle. Still, she enjoyed it. He was very good to look at, she decided. Why if Bruster looked like this and if he wasn't such an ogre to her – and if he could keep his snout out of the bottle every evening ... She sighed to herself. Bruster was a fat swine compared to this man; he was a lout, often drunk and loud, and he seldom bathed. And there had been that other thing in it to her mind. He'd been trying to kill her. Edwina began to cry. Tommy sat in the driver's seat with the door open, trying to let a little of the heat of the afternoon out. He thought that she might have gotten upset over the way that he was doing exactly the wrong thing by politely sweeping aside her fantasies, but after he'd asked and she began to tell him of her life and the way that it had all happened... She told him again of what she remembered, the way that she'd run out into the rain and – He very gently told her that while the weather in the area could become rather localized; he assured her that it hadn't rained in a week. He could see getting knocked cold for a night, but not a week. She turned when he'd offered and he looked at her scalp for a moment, "I can see a long scar, Ma'am. It's about an inch and a half long and it was obviously never seen to properly in that it doesn't look to have been stitched up. But it's not bad and your hair hides it very well. Something else," he said a little uncomfortably, "From what I see of that scar, a head wound like that must have been would have bled very freely. Head wounds do that, but I see no dried blood on your pretty dress there. He asked the name of the township where her family's farm was located. She answered and he knew the name, but it had become amalgamated with the one to the south of it in 1993. She'd have known this, but she plainly didn't when he'd told her that the names were hyphenated together now. "You never told me," he said, "What's your husband's name?" "He always wanted me to call him Bruster, everyone does who knows him," she sniffled a little," but his name is Armbruster Gibbons, and I won't ever go back to him. He'd kill me." She looked over, noting his silence. Tommy was staring at her. "Armbruster Gibbons," he said, "A man from Waverly, Ohio?" "Yes," she nodded, "that's where he said that he was born. Why? Do you know him?" Tommy still looked over at her, though he was not staring now. He was wondering a lot of things. "I don't know him," he said, "I guess that I can say that I know a little of him. I've been living in my home for seven years. At first, it was myself and my wife, Amanda. But we split up a few years ago now. I just live there alone, well, my dog and I. But I've always loved history, Edwina. Loved it all of my life. So when we bought our home, I looked into as much of its past as I could find anything of, since it had to have had a lot of living in it and it cost the moon to renovate to my wife's satisfaction. The house where I live is an old one, and it was built in the 1830s by Keith Rosemount." Edwina shook her head, "Keith Rosemount was my grandfather, but he only built one house. It was on his farm. I was born there, Tommy. It cannot be the home where you live." Tommy went on in a quiet voice, "The deed was passed to Stephen Rosemount shortly after Keith's death." Edwina began to stare back, "This is not humorous in the least to me now, Tommy. I do not know how you came to know of it, but Stephen Rosemount was my father." Tommy turned to sit in the driver's seat, since he was hearing the approach of a vehicle coming up the road from behind them. He closed the door and the car sped past. Edwina's eyes looked about ready to leave her head as she watched it motor on, "What – what is that?" "It's called a car," Tommy said looking out through the windshield at nothing for a moment. "That's how we get around these days, most of us. As soon as I start the engine," he pointed, "we'll be driving along just like that one." While she was trying to fathom it, he completed his thoughts aloud in the same quiet voice, "Edwina, I know a couple of facts further. Some of them, I gleaned from the land registry office for the county, some from the records of two county museums and also from the files of the newspaper in Briarvale. I just don't know if you'd want to hear what I know of it all." She looked at him, "Well, then say it, Tommy," she said, "I am already well upset again now, aren't I?" It reminded him of something, so he lifted the armrest on top of the center console to remove a small box of tissues, "Here," he said, "Use these to dry your eyes and maybe blow your nose, if you need to." "What are they?" she asked as she looked at them. "Just tissues, like very thin and soft paper. They're made of the same thing, but they're for this, among other things." He pulled out a couple of the tissues and handed them over. "Anyway, I know that when Stephen died, the property was bequeathed to Reginald and Edwina Rosemount. I thought that I recognized your name. But Reginald - " "Reggie took ill and died," Edwina said, amazed that he knew of it, "That left me alone there, but I sold off half the land to Bruster before he began to court me. But how is it that you know of these things?" "What I've been telling you is history to me – though for some reason that I can't understand, they are much more recent things to you. "Armbruster Gibbons was found dead in the laneway to the house. It was guessed that he'd been dead for about a week, and there had been animals feeding on his body, ... " Edwina shook her head, "No. That is where you are wrong, Tommy. I ran from Bruster only last evening." "No you didn't," he said, "If you are Mrs. Edwina Gibbons, then you were missing when they searched the house and the lands around it. No sign of you was ever found and it was assumed that you killed Mr. Gibbons somehow and then left the area. No cause of death was ever determined in Bruster's case, due to the predations of the animals on his remains. They never mentioned that you were wanted in connection with the death, though you were listed as a person of interest who was never found." He looked over, "So if I was as sure now as I almost was at the outset of this, Edwina, I'd reach for my phone and dial three numbers. A little while later, the cops – ok, the constables would come, probably with an ambulance to take you away so that they could find out why the woman here with me keeps speaking things, telling me that I'm wrong and that she ran from her husband who was trying to murder her one night in 1856, and she acts as though she really believes that it is that year. But I'm not going to do that. I had my doubts earlier, but the way that you plainly don't know what it is that you're sitting in is not possible if you were only pretending to be Edwina Gibbons. There's just no way that you could have been born here and gotten to the age that you appear to be and yet never seen a vehicle like this one. I saw it in your face when that car drove past, Edwina. You've never seen anything like these vehicles, you don't know what a cellphone is, and you've never seen or touched a paper tissue before in your life – from the way that I saw you looking at the ones I gave you when you weren't even aware that I was watching you. You didn't even wipe your eyes at first, and you still haven't blown your nose – probably because you were raised to think that it's something that a lady doesn't do in front of a man. And for your own good, Edwina, a lot of the way that people were raised then is all just a big pile of horseshit." Her eyes opened even wider at that and Tommy grinned a little. "Sorry if I've offended your fine Victorian sensibilities. Horse dung then. She nodded slowly, "What then,Tommy? What are we to do?" He smiled, "Edwina, I haven't got a clue – yet. But I know that I have to return that gas can and put more in the tank. After that, I'd like to introduce you to the way that coffee is drunk here today. I believe that both of us need to think." She looked at him, "I have never had coffee. It is a very costly thing." He shrugged, "Not here, it isn't. Turn yourself around to face the forward, Edwina, and we can get going." As she swivelled her legs inside and closed the door, he had to tell her to close it a little harder. He also realized a danger there, so he warned her to always be careful not to close the door on her fingers. He put the ignition key into the lock and started the engine. While Edwina looked to be ready to jump right out again, Tommy saw that he faced another issue which would only happen to someone who had never known about these vehicles. The dreaded seatbelt. He got the AC on and cranked while he explained. It took a while and it ended with him helping her to get the belt out of the retractor and buckled. He did his best and showed her how it worked on his side, and that the purpose was not to restrain her under normal circumstances, but to protect her by restraining her in a collision or mishap. At one point, he had to lean across her a little to help and he apologized after he felt her turned cheek against his own for a moment. Edwina smiled in a rather embarrassed way and nodded that it was alright. For a sweat-covered man, she thought, he did smell rather nice to her, not the way that Bruster had and not like her brother Reginald. It was a slightly strange smell to her which came to her as being a little foreign, like the way that she noticed it once as a girl when she'd brought her grandfather and her father some lunch when they were out with the horses ploughing. The sun on the backs of the horses brought out their scents to her nose markedly. This was a little like that. He smelled good to her; it only came to her as a small shock. It came to her as an even bigger shock when they began to move by a means which she could not see. She sat with wide eyes for a few moments as he drove to the entrance to a field and used the space to turn around in. While she'd been having these thoughts; he decided not to tell her about the even more dreaded airbags. After that, Edwina stared out through the windshield, knowing that she was now traveling faster than she'd ever gone in her life. She'd been on a train once, and this beat that madcap clip easily. "Try to relax," he advised her, "This is normal. Absolutely normal, everyday usual now. I'm going slower than I'm allowed to on this road for you. Do you feel a little cooler now?" Edwina noticed that it was a good deal cooler in the truck now. "Yes, "she nodded in a little amazement, "This is remarkable!" "Well," he smiled, not looking over, "be sure to remark on it if you begin to feel cold." In minutes, it seemed, they were at a strange structure, where Tommy advised her to remain seated while he filled the tank and returned the container. "I noticed the sign as we came," she said, "It said 'Rosemount' on it, as plain as day, but this is nothing like I have ever seen before." She pointed to a large house-like structure with old fashioned writing on the side of it, "That was the Rosemount Hotel. What is it now?" "That has been a restaurant for at least the last two decades and likely longer than that." She didn't understand at all. The building that she'd seen had likely been her husband's favorite place on earth for as long as she'd known him. Nothing made sense to her. Then they were off once more, Edwina quite liking the comfort of this way of traveling now. They drove into Briarvale and she couldn't believe the sights. "Take a look at the people and what they're wearing for clothing," he said, "Look at the women, specifically, Edwina, and you might understand my original comment to you when we met." She saw what he was talking about after only moments, "Does no one dress like me here?" she asked. "Oh there are some few which do," he nodded, "but not here these days. A good deal farther west, there are communities of people who dress that way, the men wearing outdated styles of clothing as well, but to them; it's done for slightly religious reasons. It has to do with their faith. So they shun the trappings of modern life. What you're seeing here, this is the way that most people who live in what might be called 'western culture' dress themselves today." "I do not see any horses," she said and he nodded, "Pretty much no one uses them anymore, other than the relative few who keep them because they love horses. But even the vast majority of those people use cars and trucks to get around in their lives." She sat staring at everything and he turned into a large lot, "Over there," he pointed to their left, "That's what's called a grocery store. It's the modern version of the town store that you might go to if you want to buy food that you don't grow yourself. But unlike what you might be used to, you can't purchase clothing and other things that you might find in one of those shops." "Well, where does one go to purchase something like that?" she asked. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 02 "A clothing store," he smiled, as they came to a stop in a curious sort of driveway behind a line of other vehicles. "Where are we now?" she asked, and Tommy slowly began to see that he'd been correct in his assumption. This woman had no clue or idea of anything going on around her because she'd never seen it before. It was going to make things a lot harder for her in many ways – and he still didn't know how this was possible. He pointed as he slid the truck forward a few feet, "That place there is a coffeeshop. Rather than take you in there and have you feel even more strangely as the people in it stare at you over the way that you're dressed, we're going to make our purchases right here in the truck. People today are all about convenience. Some of the degree of that makes even me shake my head, but that's the way it is. I usually get out and walk inside to buy my coffee." Edwina sat astounded when he pulled up to a large box and a voice began to speak with him very loudly out of it. There wasn't the room inside of it for any person to be in there. He placed his order and then they moved ahead. She asked him about it and he laughed a little after thinking about it and it took a little explanation. When they got to the window, Edwina had more to stare over as she watched the transaction. He set their cups into round holes between them and explained that it was what they were for. Then they pulled off to a vacant place to stop and he turned to her to explain that he'd bought her a very hot beverage and he opened the lid for her, "Sip this very carefully, Edwina. I bought you a large cup of coffee and it's hot enough to burn you. The cup is made of cardboard –another kind of paper, so be very careful." He showed her how to drink it and she tried some, almost scalding her lip, but when she hurriedly set it back in the place before she burned her hand, she said that it was good and that she quite liked it. He nodded, but got to a point that had come to him the minute before. "The money that you showed me, I think that there might have been ten or eleven pennies' worth there, all told, am I right?" She thought about it and nodded, "I guess, why?" "I just want to show you something about money,' he said, "As far as you seem to know, it's one hundred and fifty-eight years ago. The money had a certain value then. I might imagine that you could buy a loaf of bread for a half-penny or maybe a penny, right?" She nodded, "For a penny, I could by a large loaf of very good bread, but I always made my own," He nodded, "I thought so. But in the system here, one hundred pennies makes a dollar. We measure the worth of things in dollars. The cups of coffee that I bought for us cost about a dollar and a half each. It's called inflation. The prices slowly rise because the worth of the money slowly lessens. Judging by your expression, you must think that I've just spent a fortune on little more than something to drink, but I assure you that it was little to me, and thought I'm not a rich man; this cost was nothing to me. This truck that we're in cost well over twenty thousand dollars; closer to thirty, actually. One can't buy a house around here for much less than two hundred thousand dollars currently. I doubt that it's even possible in this area." "Tommy," Edwina said very quietly, "Tommy, I do not know what to say at all of this. This," she waved her hand and struck the glass of the closed window, "This is Briarvale? Tommy, I went to Briarvale not two years ago and it looked nothing like what I see around me. I do not understand." He nodded, "I don't either. I had a thought that given what I knew to have happened, then maybe you might be the manifestation of a spirit – the ghost of Edwina Gibbons. But Edwina, while I don't particularly believe in ghosts, I think that I can understand, given the things that I've read about them by other people. Ghosts – if they exist – exist where they lived, and wander in only a small area. I've read of ghosts who appear where they died, and in buildings where the floor was raised a little in renovations. Those ghosts look very short, since they are still walking on the original floor. They don't know or understand what happened since. Buy you're here and – lean forward just a little, if you wouldn't mind." She leaned and Tommy saw the way that she seat reacted to her shifting weight. He felt the damp warmth on the material from her sweat-soaked clothing. "Alright, please sit back again. All that I know is that you can't be a ghost, Edwina. You interact with me – that is, we can converse with each other. If you were to unfasten your seat belt, and I started my truck, we'd hear a warning buzzer that your seat there is occupied, but the belt is not fastened around you. If you were a ghost, you'd have no weight and the truck wouldn't notice, so no alarm would sound." He sighed then, "but I already know that you are no ghost. I can say that as a certainty." He pointed to the dark plastic lid of her coffee cup. "See that shiny spot? That's where the end of your nose touched the plastic lid. It's shiny because you're a living person. We all have oils in our skin as often as we might wash them away. It leaves us with a problem. Either you are a woman who suffers from delusions of living in a time long ago – and I've seen enough to think that it's not the case, just from observing the way that you've clearly never seen the things that you've seen in the last hour – or you are Edwina Gibbons, back from somewhere and in the same place where you once lived." Edwina looked a little frightened then, "Then, ... Bruster really is dead? And, ... if I am to believe you, then my home is no longer mine, but it is yours now? He nodded a little both times. "It gets worse. To live in the present age, you might say, everything is about an identity. Governments back in your day had no way to keep track of people, other than written documents. You saw me buy these beverages, but you did not see me use any money – and yet the value of the coffee was purchased by me just the same. Things today are done lightning-fast, and the world seems a much smaller place. To get to England – if you wished to go there in 1856, it would take you a couple of weeks just to get to a port so that you could board a ship and then sail for a couple more weeks to reach England. Today, Edwina, anyone with sufficient money in any form could be standing in front of the gates of Queen Elizabeth's palace being turned away by the guards by tomorrow afternoon. " He looked away while he let that sink in for a moment. "You see that thin white line up there in the sky? That's caused by the water vapor in the engines of an aircraft very high up, over five miles above us. It burns fuel; something like this truck does, and doing that releases water vapor, which freezes instantly into tiny ice crystals in the cold air up there. They hang up there in a long line for a while. You could be on that aircraft and flying almost anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours. There's a police station here at the other end of town. Today, the constables are both male and female because women are more equal today than they were in your time." "Can women vote here?" she asked and he nodded. "Yes. Women today are the equals of men in most places on earth, even more than equal in some ways. But that wasn't my point. If you want me to, we'll drive right over to that police station and after asking me all sorts of questions which will try my patience in many ways, they'll start in on you, wanting to find out how you came to be here when you plainly cannot have just risen from wherever you were for a century and a half. Somewhere, they'd have to believe, there would have to be a record of your birth, and you can't be nearly two hundred years old and be living. I have a ton of paper which proves who I am, where I was born and when, where I've worked, where I've lived, and live now, how much I paid for the property I own. I could take you to that women's shelter. It's a place for abused women to run to for safety. Things like you said to me about Armbruster still happen, though a lot more rarely that they once did. Things like that are against some very strict laws today. They'd take care of you well, and they'd get the police involved because they'd have to." He turned to her with a soft smirk, "These things are what have been breaking my tiny male mind for the last little while, since I can't understand it either." His expression changed into something a bit more serious then. "But I'll take you there if you say that you want to go, right now, if that's what you'd want. I guess that after tons of questioning, they'd eventually see that no matter what; you're here and alive, though I doubt that they'd believe that you're the same Edwina Gibbons. Sometime after that, they'd see that you have no clue about any of this either, and they'd have to get you set up as a person with an identity, so that you could begin living your life." "That does not sound terribly attractive to me as a choice, Tommy," she said, "You are the only person that I know here, quite plainly. Must I do this now?" He shook his head, "Soon. You ought to do it soon, Edwina, but I don't think a day or two would make much difference. I have a thought, but you'd have to agree with it. I was thinking that I could just drive us to my home and we could have dinner together. As I said, I live alone with my dog. The house is large, as you might recall, and before we spilt up, my ex-wife moved into another room for a couple of weeks. She left a few of her clothes and things there when she left, and you look to be about the same size as close as I can tell, anyway. I guess that I should have cleaned it all out a long time ago, but the whole thing was a lot of pain for me. I just go in there to dust now and then. You might find something more comfortable to wear and you could stay the night, so that we can try to think of the best way to do all of this. I can offer you a clean bed and you won't have to think of how you'll get food. You do eat food, don't you?" "I never thought that it would ever be anything that I'd ever have to wonder about, Tommy," she said, "but I am a little hungry, and I think that I would like to see the house and farm again. But you're sure that Bruster is gone? He's really dead?" He nodded, "That's about the only thing that I'm sure of. There is only one Bruster in that house and he's my dog. I got his name from an old song. I never thought of your asshole husband when I named him. If I'd have known then what I know now, he'd have a different name, for damned sure." "I'm not sure that I understand why," she said. Tommy fought it, but he found himself blushing a little, "I'm not what you might call a lady's man by any means. I knew some girls back when I was just a kid and I had a few girlfriends in my time. But then I met Mandy and things changed for me." He sighed as he reached for his coffee, "I've never understood about a couple of things in the way that people are sometimes. For me, it was hard enough to find someone to spend my life with." He looked out at the sky again, "Why some men have to be the way that they are is beyond me. If you love somebody, then know your good fortune. If it comes apart, then it comes apart. That's what happened to me and Mandy, but I never had the thought to hit her over anything." He took a sip then and she watched his eyebrows rise at a thought in his mind, "Then again, I never had the thought that if I did it right and put everything into loving my woman, that she'd ever tell me that she wanted to leave me and not ever really tell me why, either." He turned then, "So I guess the choice is yours, Edwina. We can go to see the, uh, constables, or the nice ladies at the shelter who will likely stare daggers at me wondering what I did to you," he chuckled for a moment, "Or I can just take us to that house where we can try to think of the best thing for you to do. It's early on a Friday evening and most of the services that you'd need to access are closed for the weekend, other than the police and the shelter. I can take Monday off from work and get you in contact with whoever you decide on then. I can offer you some company between a man and his dog, clean clothing, and a way to wash the sweat of the day off, and a few meals. Bruster and I won't mind." He chuckled after a second, "Hell, he'd be thrilled." Edwina thought about it and then her next questions threw him. "Were you ever a sailor, and are you now a gentleman, Tommy?" He almost spilled his coffee as he choked for a moment. When he had it together, he looked at her quizzically, "A sailor?" She pointed to the tattoos on his arm and he felt her fingertip touch the side of his neck for an instant, "Where I am from – or the time of it, perhaps, no man wore things such as these on his skin but sailors perhaps, or ruffians. What I have seen on you are fair wonders to me in a way, but it makes me wonder. Whence did you get them and why?" He shrugged, "Many people have them now, women as well. I think I understand your question, though. When I was a kid, the only ones who had them might not have been people who you might have wanted to know. I got these over time because I liked them, and I'd have to say that it wasn't really for anyone other than myself. My wife didn't much care. As far as being a gentleman, well I know how to be polite in company and I even know which hand holds the fork when I eat, if that's what you mean." Edwina found herself smiling a little, "Well then, let's have a few days at a house that I hope does not affect me too much to be in. It was a prison to me for a while, but before that, it was the most important place in the world to me for all of my life." Tommy nodded and started the truck. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 03 ***I was trying to imagine what a cautious and slightly traumatized woman might do if she found herself with an attractive man who showed her a lot of care and concern. The thoughts led me to a few places. Then I wondered what might happen if she found herself lacking in what she thought that a lot of women might have and not even think of too much. After that, I wondered what might happen if she had the thought that she was now a widow, ... Ok, then I remembered that I had been writing this to put on Lit and things went to Hell pretty much right after that. 0_o ---------------- "Are those tobacco barns?" she asked as their journey took them past many old and tired-looking structures. They weren't much larger than perhaps twelve by twenty feet and he nodded, "This area used to grow quite a bit of tobacco. Nobody grows it here anymore at all. I found what I thought was one out back a ways one day and I cleaned the crap and junk out of it. I didn't do much with it for a while, but last year, I got to thinking a little. I still had to pay taxes on it as an outbuilding, so I fixed it up some. I guess I could always use it for storage or something. There was an old propane furnace there and I even found enough parts to fix it and get it to go. Maybe it might make a half-assed stable if I ever get a horse. I've seen a lot of them that are just falling down. I don't think anybody's grown tobacco around here in about eighty years now." "We grew some," she said, "Not much to sell at first, but my father grew it and Reginald as well. I never smoked very much of it, but I have always liked it once in a long while." Tommy looked over at her and opened the center console to remove a pack of cigarettes. He took one out and handed it to her, "I guess that back then, they used pipes." She nodded as she regarded the little cylinder, as though wondering what one did with it. He reached for it and she placed it in his hand. He pressed the cigar lighter on the lower dash, "Used to be that every car had a lighter and an ashtray. Now, they're only an option." The lighter popped back and he pulled it out to light the cigarette before handing it over to her, "I don't smoke very much anymore, but I still do, whenever I forget myself or if I'm in the middle of divorce proceedings. These are old and stale, but ..." She inhaled a little and smiled at him, "Not the same as Father's or Reggie's pipe, and not ladylike, I suppose, but I don't mind this for the moment. Thank you, Tommy." He nodded as he drove, deciding not to tell her that at one time, the industry had done its best to make the habit as socially appealing and 'ladylike' as shaving legs. "What was that song that you sang as you were walking?" she asked him, "I thought it was very nice. You sing very well." He smirked a little, "It's just an old song that I've always liked. There have been times before when I've found myself having to walk a good distance and that song is just a really good walking song – if it isn't pitch dark and in winter. It's a good song for a nice day. It's not about much more than walking in the sunshine and feeling alright. I didn't start out feeling that way when I found that I was looking at a long walk, but I always feel better if I hum or sing that song." ------------------------ The house amazed Edwina. It looked so different to the way that it had seemed to her only the day before from her point of view. Still, she felt some reluctance to step inside of it. There was a lot of noise coming through the door at them. Whoever this Bruster was, Edwina decided, he must be some largish beast, though he seemed happy to know that his master had returned. Bruster turned out to be a huge mutt of some sort, and after a short period where he looked at Edwina and sank to a growling cringe, he came to decide that he liked her after all and was fawning to her as Tommy led her into the place. Nothing looked the way that it had to her before as she stared after Tommy excused himself to open every window that he could on the ground floor, telling her, "I'm hoping that the breeze from being at the top of this hill doesn't fail me now." "We gutted it and renovated," Tommy said, seeing the look on her face," That sunroom is not the one that was here before. It was in bad shape when we moved in. I did find something when I tore it down, though." He led her into the kitchen, which was very bright and modern in its appearance, though to her, it looked nothing like a kitchen anymore, since she didn't know what any of the appliances were or what they were to be used for. "Where is the stove?" she asked, "There was a large wood-burning stove right there." He pointed to a smaller one about eight feet away. "I took it out, since I could see through the sides in a couple of places. That one there is about six years old and it's airtight for safety. I just use that to heat most of the place by airflow in the winter." She stood in the living room looking at his TV. She turned to him and pointed, "What, ...?" He turned it on and explained as best he could. To his slight surprise she wasn't bitten even slightly with the fascination that he'd expected. "A lot of people see it as a window on the world," he said, "Just don't ever put one in your bedroom." She caught something in his tone and waited, not looking or going anywhere else. He shrugged, "Mandy insisted, so I put one on our bedroom. It instantly became a dining room/entertainment center. Romance? Forget it. I only use mine to watch movies with. Down here." "A thing to waste lives with," she decided and while he chewed on that, she was back in the kitchen, wondering how people cooked. He stepped over to the wall there and he took an ancient-looking firearm down, "The original sunroom didn't really have a proper foundation. The floor joists were just laid out on the flattened and leveled ground. Between a pair of them, this old thing was lying on the ground. It took me a little while to clean the crud off of it. The hammer action is locked-up solid with rust, but I got it looking alright enough to hang on the wall." He held it up and Edwina's eyes widened, "This belonged to Bruster," she said, "Everyone around had at least one. You could purchase one at the store for about four dollars. Reggie was a fair shot in his day and we always had some deer meat in the fall, but Bruster was no hunter. He only stumbled and crashed around in the woods when he tried to hunt." She chuckled a little, "Well, he was always at least a little drunk and he had no patience to be still, and you need to be able to do that if you hunt for deer – even I know that. Bruster would just use it as an excuse to walk around for a day with a bottle or two in his pockets. He'd come home and complain to me, as though it was all the fault of the deer somehow for not walking out of hiding to step up to him asking nicely to be shot. We would buy the meat in town, sooner or later. I never rubbed his nose in it for fear that he'd want to shoot me. He threatened to do it often enough." She looked down then, "I never had much choice in men, but I made perhaps the worst choice in even speaking to him after I sold half of the farm's land to him. I should never have done that, I know it now." Tommy filled the kettle and turned it on, indicating a seat for her in an old-fashioned spindle-backed chair, "I think this place must have been fairly remote back then, Edwina. Either that or the men surely must have been blind. I guess that you couldn't have gone to town much. If I'd lived back then, I know I'd have been interested." She looked at him and he smiled in a friendly way that Edwina found herself liking about him very much. "Thank you, Tommy. I must say that it's the first compliment that I've gotten in many, ... well, it's been some time. Thank you very much. No," she said, "If there was a reason for it, other than my poor looks, I'd say –" He was shaking his head, "You're not going to argue away what I can see for myself. I don't want to sound forward – especially with you feeling what must be a great deal of apprehension and confusion at the day and night that you seem to have had, so rather than leave me feeling frustrated that I can't give you a list of what I like about you, let's just leave it alone and you tell me what the other reason for it might have been. I sure don't see a thing wrong here." The remark would normally have caused Edwina a fair bit of shy discomfort, but for some reason, she felt a little pleased to hear him speak this way and she smiled at him. "I have always been a bit timid," she said, "and after, ... well, you see, I had no long line of suitors coming up the drive to court me the way that some girls did. After Mother and Father passed on, well, ... there were rumors in the town. People always seem to have to need someone to spread things about, and it was widely known that Reggie was a bachelor and I was his spinster sister, and, ... " She looked down and sniffled, "There was talk that we, ... I mean, ... that he and I, ..." She turned away then, walking to a window. She said nothing more for a minute; she just stood there blinking hard to try to drive the tears away. "After that bit of gossip made the rounds, nobody would even speak to Reggie much anymore and the very few men interested in me just disappeared altogether." She held her hands to her face and began to cry again. Tommy was a lot quicker with the tissues this time. "Come sit at the table with me, Edwina," he said, "Forget about all of that and I'll make you a coffee myself and we can struggle over our choices for dinner." She wiped at her tears and she even blew her nose then. He praised her for finding the courage to do that and she laughed wetly a little bit as she sat down. Tommy set a steaming mug in front of her and sat down, "I can't say, never having been in the situation, but I'd have to think that for someone with a dirty little mind and a naughty thought toward their own sibling or siblings, something like that wouldn't have been a very long leap to make." Edwina looked up, thinking of the ones who might have originated the story. She smiled a little then. She could even see it easily. Tommy seemed to have a way about him that could make her feel a little better somehow quite often. "Besides," he said as he sipped his coffee, "If there was nobody way the hell out here then, and there was nobody who expressed an interest, well I can't think that something like that was all that rare a thing out here, likely the same as anywhere which is a little remote. Human beings all have the same needs, and to some of them, I'd guess that something is better than nothing." She was a little shocked at what he'd said, but she didn't show it. She just smiled at him, "Well, you live alone 'way the hell out here', Mister Anderson. You are a rather strikingly handsome man to my eyes. What is your solution to those needs, if I may be so bold?" The truth of it was that Edwina was now about being about as bold as she'd ever been in her life just to say this, but she found that she was enjoying it a little. He looked a little distracted for a moment and then he said, "Well, I have no outlets in that regard at present, but I am not completely helpless. I have the Palmer twins to help me," he grinned. Edwina didn't get it, so he held up his hands and wiggled his fingers at her, "These dedicated friends have never let me down. I'm a little partial to the affections of one more than the other, but there's no jealousy between them. Besides, in the dark, it's pretty normal for one hand not to know what the other one's doing." The light came on then and Edwina shrieked quietly with suppressed laughter from behind her hand. "I think it must be a very prolific family, "she grinned, "I have a pair of friends just like them." A silence fell over the two of them for a few moments and in that time, they both felt that a lot of the awkwardness between a pair of people in a strange situation fell away somehow. To Tommy, Edwina was a very lovely and interesting person in a hugely strange predicament in some ways, but he found himself liking her as a person. Edwina saw Tommy as someone that she now needed as a friend, since in their time together thus far, it had become clear to her that she couldn't begin to know how to navigate the complexities of daily life here. She knew no one and it was readily apparent that she knew nothing, or next to it. Aside from that, and under, over, and in just about any way at all, Edwina found herself liking Tommy very much. Though she'd been nervous about him at the outset, she guessed that things were now a lot different between women and men these days, and he seemed to have a way to set her at ease, having some thought in him for the way that the strangeness of everything must seem to her. Besides that, he was so much more of a man in some ways to her than any man that she'd ever met, if she was honest with herself and she found that she really liked that. These days, it seemed to her, men and women seemed to have found ways to be together or at least nearer to each other than porcupines might be able to get. It came to her as a sudden shock to realize that if Bruster was dead and she quite obviously wasn't, then her vows to the boar were as good as dust. It was quite a thought to have and it preoccupied her thoughts a little as she carried on their conversation. "Well, it was all a load of hogwash, that talk in the town – just a pack of lies spread by - " "Front-row churchgoers, I'd bet any money," Tommy remarked, "fine upstanding pillars of the community with too much time on their hands and not enough problems to make then want to keep their mouths shut under their snooty noses." He smirked at her, holding it just for a moment, "I doubt that's changed since the eighteen fifties." Edwina stared for a second and then she laughed, "I believe that you are a very astute judge of character, Tommy." He shrugged, "It's nothing new to read about somebody – even people in the public eye, getting caught with their hands down somebody's pants where they shouldn't be. A lot of them would surprise you, righteous evangelists carrying on their staff, elected officials of all stripes. Hell, at one point, even a past president of the United States had to admit to some hanky panky, though to his dubious credit as a fast-talking politician, he maintained that he never had sex – but you just had to have your doubts, no matter what he said to the contrary." Edwina was shocked, "Really?" She chuckled for a moment, "Well, they say that where there's smoke, ..." He nodded, "Things like they said about you and your brother don't even raise my eyebrows. I've got my hands full living my own life. I don't have time to get all giggly over who might be doing what to whom. It's none of my business, and anyway, I think that it only has some impact if there are children from it. That complicates things and affects lives then. Look, I rent out most of the acreage here to a beef farmer. He gets extra feed lot acreage, and I get some cash and a couple of sides of good beef a year out of the arrangement. If I were to suddenly hear that he's fooling around with his sister in the dark of night, I doubt very much that I'd care. As long as I'm getting good beef now and then and he pays as we contracted the arrangement, it's none of my business." He sipped his coffee then and said, "I probably would look twice the next time that I saw the sister, but after that, I doubt that I'd give a flying fig about it all." "What if it were true?" she asked, "What if you were to stumble across them as they did it?" Tommy leaned forward, "None of my business. Though something like that would sure be an awkward moment for somebody. Probably me, most of all," he smirked as he raised his mug, "But as long as he didn't want to change our agreement – which is my business, I could care less." "And we weren't doing that," Edwina said, "we didn't begin until long after the damage caused by those rumors. There was nothing for us, otherwise, so we gave up. We never did much of anything or, ... often." Tommy didn't show any sign that he'd heard her, she thought, or he was just maintaining his 'none of my business' front. "In light of our meeting this afternoon, and the troubles that you face – and I will want to help just as I said, would you consider me a friend in some way?" He asked. "Yes," Edwina said, nodding, "I do not know a soul here but you. Your generosity and charity astounds me, Tommy. I feel very thankful to have met you." "That's the way that I'd have seen it if our positions were reversed," he said, "so as your friend and guide through the canyons of modern rural life, I want to tell you that what you've just told me stays hidden. Don't you ever mention it to anyone when we go to figure out your options, Edwina. It's nobody's business, not even mine, so nothing said about that, ok?" She reached across the table to touch his arm, "Understood, Tommy, but will you make no comment on it? I had to reach down very deep to make an admission such as that." He looked over at her, "I don't know the year, but sometime before the turn of the last century, there was a lost group of settlers trying to go west in America. Winter landed on them with both feet and they had little shelter. Some of them died and there was no food for the rest. Rather than die, they ate the flesh of the dead ones. It might mark a sad tale, and we all exchange horrified looks if such a thing comes up in conversation, Edwina. We all shake our heads and make the right sounds over it in company. But I believe that I know a bit about the human animal and I believe further that any human faced with death would do the same fucking thing. What you and uh, Reginald did is nowhere near as severe since no lives hung in the balance, but it shows that humans have needs, whether to stay alive or find a little comfort in the dark. I can't say that I'd have ever wanted to do it with my sister, but then, we weren't in that situation. I guess I'm saying that I refuse to judge you for it." Well, Edwina told herself, she'd wanted to test Tommy and he'd shown her the sort of man that he really was. Tommy looked away across the room, "Besides, my sister is as ugly as sin." Edwina burst out laughing at his remark. If they weren't here with a table in the way, she'd have hugged him for it. They decided, after a bit of discussion, to have hamburgers and fries. He had to explain just what these things were to her, but she liked the sound of it. Edwina was keen to see just how these things were prepared, but first, ... "Where is the privy, Tommy? It used to be there," she said as she pointed out through the window. "or it was yesterday, a hundred and fifty years ago, as you say. Was it moved, or, ...?" He shook his head. "Long gone, Edwina. I have all the latest conveniences, which is to say indoor plumbing. There's a washroom right over there. I guess that you might not be familiar with flush toilets, though." He led her and then explained very quickly, pointing to the handle as well as the roll of toilet paper. "You can use it to blow your nose if you need to, but this variety of tissue paper is for the other end," he smiled and he closed the door after him to go on puzzling over things in the kitchen. There was really nothing to puzzle over at all, but he knew that Edwina wanted to watch the cooking. But he caught a bit of the scent of his own sweat then and decided to ask her about what he had come into his head as a thought then. He'd been walking out in the sunshine of a hot afternoon. So had Edwina – but he'd been able to at least take his shirt off where she'd been pretty much trapped in a superheated oven of fabric. He tried to imagine it and it didn't sound like anything that he thought that he could stand for very long. Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 03 "I've been thinking," he said as she returned to him, "When we met, both of us were sweltering in the heat - you far more than me, I'd guess. If you want to, I can show you the clothes if you think you'd like to wear something cooler, and I can offer you even better than that if you're only half as wilted as I'm feeling. She nodded and he took her to the main bathroom upstairs. "This has the same things as the one that you were in downstairs a minute ago, but there's the bathtub there and over there is the shower. I doubt that you've ever used one, but come over here a moment, and I'll show you how to work it. There is real hot water here, so you can have it as hot or as cold as you like." He had her familiar with it in a minute, so he turned to go, "There are towels on this rack right here, so you just shut off the water when you're done and then step outside to towel off. To the right when you come out into the hall, is Mandy's room. I'll lay the clothes out on the bed and you can decide what you might like to wear. None of it's fancy and there isn't much, I'm afraid, but I'm sure that you'll be more comfortable in anything that you think fits you. We don't have to go anywhere, so you just try on what's there if you like and check out how it looks in the mirror there. I'll throw out everything next week. I should have done that ages ago, but I never really go in there but to push a dust mop around. I'll be downstairs, so just call me if you need anything." Edwina nodded and she went back into the bathroom, looking around and trying to recall what this room had been and she realized that it had been her mother's sewing room. Tommy heard her terrified cries a moment later. He came up the stairs at a run and found Edwina just about naked and almost beside herself in fright. She saw him and lunged for him, crying as she hung onto him. Her skin was flickering. He put his arms around her and tried to get her to calm down a little, "It's ok, Edwina. I'm right here. What's going on?" "I – I'm afraid," she stammered, "I tried – tried to take off my dress, but as soon as I tried to set it down, it was on me again – with every button done up all over again! I'm afraid, Tommy! A - a – and look! Look at my skin! I'm disappearing or something." She began to bawl and Tommy suddenly felt afraid that she just might disappear somewhere. He was suddenly astounded that he was afraid for her – and for himself, knowing at once that he now wanted to be near her. "Ok, ok," he said in a quiet voice, though he was feeling a little terrified as well. "Let's try to think this through. Let go of me just a little, Edwina. Keep holding my hand. I'm just going to lean back and shut the door. That way, if you vanish or something, just stay here and don't leave. I'm not going anywhere, alright? We'll just stay here and keep talking, so even if you disappear, we'll still be here together, ok?" She was weeping in fear against his chest now, but she hung on and nodded, easing her death grip enough to take his hand as he did just as he'd said and closed the door. She threw her arms around him again and he hung on for dear life. "I don't want to g-go away," she stammered against him, "I don't know anybody but you here, Tommy. Oh, please help me. Please let me stay, Tommy, I'll do anything, I'll-" "Whoa, whoa, slow down Edwina. You don't have to go anywhere. Just calm yourself, honey. I'm right here." She hid her face against his neck and she cried as he stroked her back and looked down as far as he could at the dress there on the toilet seat cover. He felt some of it as it trailed up his body a little, still attached to her arm by the cuff and he wondered about the relationship. "Edwina? Hey, just listen to me for a minute, alright? I need your help to think about this." Her voice sounded small and a little tormented from down where she was, "I need your help in everything." She sniffled, "I'm so lost." "No you're not, Edwina," he said, trying to bolster her courage a little, "I'm with you. I'm no hero and I'm just as scared as you, but I have a thought, so just listen, ok? That dress is what you had on when you woke up, right?" He heard her sniffle and she looked up at him. The sight of her almost hurt him to look at. Her fear was written all over her face. He said nothing for a moment; he just held her, stroking her back a bit. "You said that it was dry when it was pouring down and you fell. There's so much material to one of these dresses that I'd think that at least some of it would still be wet the next day if you were lying on it. And here's another thought. This dress is light with a nice pattern of blue squares. If you were a ghost, that would mean that you'd died out there, and a hundred and fifty years or not, no piece of cloth would last that long in the elements and - " "But Tommy," she whispered with a shudder, "You told me that I'm not dead. What are you saying now?" He kissed her forehead for a moment, wanting to make them both feel better, "I'm still saying that you're not dead. But I think that you might have been for a while. You said that you unbuttoned the dress and took it off, but just before you set it down, it was on you again?" She looked up and nodded, "Yes. That's what happened. I tried a few times." He lowered his head and just spoke softly to her, "Think about this from outside of yourself. Think about how I'd sound if it was me telling you this. You wake up in a dry dress, and you've been somewhere else for over a hundred years. We know that much, right?" She nodded and he went on, "But no dead person can lie for that long and not well, ... I'm saying that no dress can either. But you woke up with a pretty and bright dress on. I think that maybe you're making that dress in your mind. It's all you've got and you're afraid to lose it." It came together in his mind as he said the words to her. "I think I have the answer. I'm just not sure. You trust me, don't you?" She sniffled a little and nodded up at him, "You're all I have. I trust you, Tommy." He stared at her for just a moment and then he smiled and kissed her very softly once. "I think that you're all that I have too. Don't ask me to explain that, Edwina, I just know it somehow. Do you want to hear my plan?" She nodded, "I'd listen to anything that you tell me, just, ... just kiss me again? That felt so nice and I felt better then." He kissed her for a long minute. There was no urgency to it; it was just a long, soft kiss. They smiled at each other afterward and he said, "You go on and have your shower. Just leave the door open a little so you know that I'm right here. I won't go anywhere. I promise that I'll stay right here. I'll watch your dress for you, Edwina. I won't take my eyes off your dress the whole time. Want to try it?" She thought about it and then she nodded, seeing what it was that he was trying to tell her. She stepped away from him a little, suddenly so surprised that she'd been against him quite naked for all of this time. "I haven't had a thing on all this while," she said, forcing herself to look at his face, "I, ... " She looked down at her undergarments there on the floor in a bit of a heap. Then she looked up at him again. "I've only had this dress buttoned to my wrist. The rest of me, ... " Tommy smiled then, and she could see that it wasn't anything but just a little hopefulness from him. "The rest of you is wonderful to me, but none of it means a thing if you're upset and afraid. Now go on and have your shower. The soap is there and you have a choice of two shampoos." "What is shampoo?" He smiled, "It's a liquid soap to wash hair with." She nodded and held up her arm. Tommy stepped over and unbuttoned the cuff from her wrist. It fell to the floor and she slid the door to the shower almost, though not quite closed after her, "Is this alright?" "I only care that you feel comfortable and that you don't get the floor covered with water. That's fine with me. And I also promise that I'm not going to stand here and stare at your body, though I almost wish that I could. But I'll be busy," he said as though he was talking to himself as he jammed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, "I'll be just out here watching nothing but your dress." "Thank you, Tommy," she said and the difference in the sound made him look over. She was standing with her face at the opening and he willed himself to look only there at her face. "You're welcome, Edwina, " he smiled back and then she was turning around, adjusting the water. He caught just a glimpse of her backside before he forced himself to look back at her dress. There were female asses that could be termed magnificent. Hers wasn't like that. Her bottom was just what a lithe girl would have, the kind that seldom showed the effects of age and gravity. It wasn't much; not anything like magnificent. No, he decided, it was a wonderful ass. She had the kind of bum that he'd always preferred if it was left up to him as a personal taste. Mandy had once had a magnificent ass, though her time in an office chair had managed to erode the magnificence of it. Edwina's was small and absolutely perfect. Just like the rest of her, now that he could see a bit of her. What came to him then was a bit of a judgement. He knew that he shouldn't make judgements on others, but in this case, he felt that it was both true and well called for. Armbruster Gibbons had been an idiot. The dress didn't just lie there damp and wilted. As he watched, he saw it change in one go – from a discarded and sweaty piece of fabric on a partially wet floor to a clean and freshly folded garment on the toilet seat lid. He wondered if he ought to tell Edwina, but he decided against it. By anyone's standards, she'd had a hell of a day. "Is it still there?" she asked a few minutes later. He turned and nodded, "Yeah, but, .. well, it's a little strange what's happened. While you were in there, I watched it dry clean itself somehow and now it's folded neatly on the toilet lid. I swear that I didn't touch it the whole time. I don't understand it." "I think that I do," she smiled, "I think that you were right about me making it up in my mind. I thought about wanting it clean and folded. I don't know how any more than you do, but that's why I looked. I wanted, ... " She sighed then, trying to keep up the bit of courage that she'd felt in herself, "I wanted to ask you if you would want a shower. You were as covered in sweat as I was. I think that I'd like it very much if you had your shower in here with me. I'm very nervous and a little afraid, but I think that I've seen that I can trust you. So, ... if you're not shy about a lady seeing you without anything on, I'd love it if I could be allowed to wash you for all of the things that you've done for me today and, ... Do you think that you could wash my hair for me? I'm not really sure how it goes around here. I read the little words on the label, but it says that I have to wash it twice and I think that would just use twice as much, wouldn't it?" He smirked, "That's why they put those words there. I swear they do that just so everyone uses twice as much. My own hair likes just one pass with the shampoo. If I do it twice, it's just too dry afterward. And I think I understand the way you might feel, Edwina. I would absolutely love to shower with you." Edwina tried not to, but she couldn't help staring at him just a little as he took that shirt off again. As he pulled it over his head, she decided that she liked it this way better, seeing him take it off. He took off his pants then and he wondered about his undergarment there for a moment, but then it was off as well and by the time that he stood up straight, she was smiling a little, and that was the best that she found that she could do and she was a little proud of herself for managing it, too. She'd fought herself down from wearing the most foolish grin. He stepped into the shower with her and found her against him again. Before he could even say a thing – or even get to wondering very much, Edwina put her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. When they were both done with their soft groans, she pulled back a little and saw the question in his eyes, so she smiled a little and shrugged, "You let me hold onto you when I seemed to be fading from here. I was so afraid then. I still don't know what that was, but you held me when I needed you to do that for me. It was not because I was naked against you. It was because I needed it. You have been very kind to me, Tommy Anderson. Oh, and I heard it when you called me 'honey'. I cannot know what would have possessed you to say that to me, but I want you to know that if felt wonderful to have a man such as you say a thing like that to me. I do not know where I would have gone if I'd disappeared. I only know that I didn't want that. I only knew afterward that I wanted – and needed - to be with you. I still do. You said that I am all that you have. It may have been a want in you, or it might have been the same sort of need that I am finding in myself for you." She looked down at his chest, not daring to see his reaction in his eyes for the moment. But she made her decision then and looked up again. "I find that after a mostly empty life, now I have a want in me to be all that someone like you has. If you do not mind being that person for me, then that is all that I'd want to be for you, Tommy." She kept looking up, but after a second, what she saw there showed her all that she needed to see and she just laid her head against him with a sigh which was just barely audible over the hissing of the shower. She felt Tommy's hands on her then - one around her back and one much farther down. In all of her life, she'd never felt a man's hand on her bottom where it meant anything other than his want of her for the moment. She felt his thumb moving as a gentle way to say what he could not bring to his lips just yet. He was stroking her haunch so very gently, and that in itself told her that this man was so unlike any man that she'd ever met before. Now, it felt so good to her to feel that it was his sign that he'd accepted her and it was more than enough for her. "This soap that you have smells so good to me," she said taking up the bar from the soapdish. "That's supposed to be a male fragrance," he smiled, "I can help you to choose one that you like." "Well, I like this one," she laughed a little, "especially on you." Edwina had never really washed a man before, never having had the opportunity nor the desire of it. But she was well into it before long and found that it wasn't an onerous task and it gave her great opportunities to examine his tattoos. She decided that rather than pester Tommy with questions relating to each one, she'd do this piecemeal if she got the chance of it. She worked her way over him and to her pleased surprise, she found that he wasn't shy in the least and was very obedient to her requests so that she could get everywhere on him that she needed to go with that bar. She'd only glossed over his genitals at first, but he stopped her then. "Are you doing this out of just a desire to have me clean, or could there maybe be a little bit of uh, hopeful exploration to this?" Edwina felt herself blushing, but she fought it down as much as she could. "There is," she admitted, "I am a mature woman, but I must admit that my education in this regard has been sadly lacking. I enjoy washing you, Tommy. I admit it freely. I just wish that I knew what to do better than I do." "It's not such a big deal," he said softly next to her ear as he took her hand in his, "A lot of men my age are circumcised. That means that this skin here," he said guiding her fingertips, "was removed not long after birth. It's done for religious reasons by several groups and it's also done out of a sense that it was what was done before. I won't speak to that. But what's here on me is what's there naturally. With that said, it raises issues of personal hygiene and just, ... well, a want to be clean, the same as anyone, I guess. So watch carefully. This is what I do to get clean. " It was rather a lesson for Edwina and she was a little afraid to try it, and she felt a little sorry for Tommy when she heard the sharp intake of his breath and then the tight sound of his voice as he whispered, "Gently please. Try to think of your own sensitive parts. These are mine." Edwina apologized, but he shook his head, "I can see that you're enjoying this for the most part and I am too. I've never had a woman wash me other than my mother and that was a hell of a long time ago. Unless you plan on shoving a soapy facecloth into one ear and then pulling it out through the other one a few times, I'd love to do this with you any time that you like." "Well this certainly is a challenge, isn't it?" she asked, peering closely as she worked carefully, "How far back can this go? "Until you can't move it back anymore and a good indicator that you've gone too far is the appearance of tears in my eyes." Edwina wanted so much to laugh at his joke, but she saw her own chance at one, "This job never gets stubborn like say, a similar task on a stallion, does it? I remember that Grandfather had the devil's own time getting a similar job done on the prize draft stallion that he had. I recall the conversation coming up over Sunday dinner and when he mentioned having to scrub with a stiff brush, I thought that Reggie looked about to faint from it." He didn't answer, but when she looked up, the wide-eyed expression on Tommy was priceless, though he did laugh along afterward. The really difficult part was moving his foreskin forward again, since he'd hardened some during it all, but they managed it and Tommy told her that she'd done well. "I was rather surprised at all of the little places to wash. I'd never given it a thought before. But then a girl has a lot of folds and things as well. I enjoyed that a great deal." She suddenly found a hope in herself to have him wash her. It was something that she'd never have had the thought of before, but she was feeling rather brave with him now. She announced that he was 'done' and then asked if he might wash her hair for her. Tommy nodded with a smile, but he warned that he had little experience at washing hair as long as hers was. She stood before him smiling up for as long as she could, but he had a little trouble keeping the suds from running toward her eyes. He was more worried about it than she was, but then she had a thought and sank slowly to her knees before him. "I'll keep my eyes closed, and you can concentrate on washing my hair and not worrying so much." Tommy did his best, and Edwina looked at his tackle from rather close up for as long as she could before she felt the advance of the suds again. "What did you use for this before, Edwina?" he asked. "Well, if I didn't have anything," she said, "I'd boil water and melt soap shavings into it. I'd need to add something to keep my hair from looking dull then, since that is what soap does to hair all by itself. Usually, I'd add a little perfume and scented oil if I could get any. Sometimes, I'd add little chopped pine needles, but it can be hard to strain them out. This – what you have here is pretty nice, I think." He chuckled, "There is a whole industry to this stuff, so there are only about thirty brands for men, and perhaps twenty for women." She felt that her eyebrows were still up to the task of diverting the suds, so she risked opening one eye carefully. What she saw pleased her, since he was a little hard and what was there looked so nice to her. She wanted to, ... Edwina's Second Chance Ch. 03 She sighed and was surprised to see it twitch a little bit. She knew that she was likely backward in terms of sexuality, but she'd never heard of something like this. She did it again with the same result, so she wanted to remember to ask him about it sometime. She wondered if it might have been that he'd felt her breath. "O-only twenty?" she asked, "I would have thought that there would be a larger demand from women. We tend to look for something which appeals to us in a feminine way and yet offers us something which will allow our want to be a little individualistic and personal." "Sorry," he grinned as he worked, "I should have said it a little better. I meant like thirty for men and twenty thousand for women." "Much better," Edwina laughed a little, and then she said, "Oh!" once very quietly when she felt her lips grazing his shaft as she'd spoken. She decided that she liked that as well, so before he finished, which would likely make it more difficult to be on her knees in front of him this way – at least she had a pretense for it now, she thought – she leaned forward just a little and when she felt that part of him brush against her lips from his movements as he worked the shampoo, she kissed it softly. It caused Tommy to stop abruptly. "Please don't mind me," Edwina said a little gaily, "I am only exploring a little – that is, if it is alright for me to do so." He spoke quietly, but she did hear it when he told her to explore to her heart's content. Feeling emboldened now, and not wanting to lose the edge of it, Edwina slipped her tongue from between her lips and licked the end of his foreskin, making sure to push in far enough to touch the small slit that she'd seen earlier as she'd washed it. Even to a girl like Edwina, the sudden realization of just how backward she must be to his standards was unsettling. She'd pleased her brother many times in several ways over the years, though never from this close up. It hit her then. She'd never gotten the chance to explore this part of a man before. Things such as that were always done on the dark. He kept washing her hair and she just leaned in so that her face was against everything that he had before she reached with her hand and used her lips to push the skin back. Her deep groan surprised Tommy when he heard and felt it from her. It was the sweetest distraction to him to wash the rest of her mane like this, but he did it manfully, rather taken at the time by the way that she went at him purposefully and well. He was thoughtful enough to reach for the spray nozzle, taking it from its hook to very carefully rinse out her hair and hang it back up before he held her head gently and only as he came. He was even more careful in the way that he did it, not wanting her to think that he was holding her so that she couldn't get away. Tommy didn't know it, but the way that his thumb felt as it brushed the rim of her ear told her the same thing and he rose in her esteem for it. She lost a little of his semen, but he saw it when she caught some with the tip of one finger and he was truly surprised when she used that drop to rub into one of her nipples. She hadn't opened her eyes as she got everything from him that she could. She stood up with a very soft and pleased smile. "We've probably only got a few minutes of hot water left," he said, "and that tells me that you need to be first the next time." She didn't understand until she found him on his knees before her. As in anything else about him, Tommy astounded her, apologizing and yet washing her pubes very carefully and well, though fairly quickly. "It'll be a sad ending to this if you suddenly get cold water running down on you before I'm done," he said with some regret, "Otherwise, I can tell you that I'd like nothing better than to do this for an hour." Before she could reply, Edwina groaned loudly again and allowed it as he pushed her back against the tiled wall. He took her hips in his hands so softly to begin and then she watched as he brought his face to her mound to begin his kisses and licking. Edwina was astounded when she felt him begin to suck as well as everything else. The only man who had ever kissed her there had been Reggie, and only because she asked for it out of her want and a little curiosity. He'd only done it once and he hadn't sucked at all. Tommy appeared to have quite the repertoire to draw upon. "Tommy," she sighed softly, "Ohhh, Tommy, I donnnn't knowww. I donnn't, ... know if I cccaaannnhh ohh, keep my hhh- my legggs from g-g iving – " His left arm snaked around her bottom instantly and she found his right hand against her breastbone, pushing her back gently but firmly against the tiles. Edwina looked down in surprise and shock. Down below the horizon of her breasts and the long muscled strength of that arm, she watched as he tilted his head up a little and leaned into her hungrily. She felt her eyes closing as she watched and she bumped the back of her head into the tiles a little the next instant, but Edwina got it then. Hungrily was the operative word here for the way that he was doing this. He pressed his face against her and his tongue made her almost want to rise on her toes, but she couldn't. She couldn't because he had her wanting to buck against his face, and she couldn't help but do that. She felt the surprise in herself as her hands almost clapped themselves to his head as she tilted her hips into his face, rubbing her sex wantonly over it as she held him there tightly. She wouldn't fall down, not with him holding her up this way, like a ... like almost his victim as he fed on her so ravenously. She couldn't stop herself. Edwina cried out again and again, moaning his name in between the delicious crashes that he brought to her this way. She couldn't fathom how he did it, but she had no time to think on it or even care much then. She was about to try to push him away – and she knew that it would have only been a weak attempt on her part – at best. But then she felt the way that he sucked her lips out and ran that sweet tongue along the seam between her inner and outer lips as though it was her own wetted fingertip in a way so very similar to how she sometimes teased herself there. And then he was at the other side, and oh Lord, how that man could nuzzle his face against her, needier than a starving infant at a mother's overfull and weeping nipple. She only hoped that she could feed him well in this craving that he seemed to have of her. She felt it as the next wave of her moisture left her. It had never happened to her before to her knowledge, but she felt it and she heard his hungry growl as he found it there for him. She felt, .. she felt, ... "Oh!, OooHH!, AHHHHHhhhhh, Tommyyyyeeeeeeee!" Edwina felt weak. Weak and limp as she hung there, still held to the wall with her head hanging forward under no more muscular control than any ragdoll. She had nothing left. Nothing to stand with, nothing to even hold her head up with and her arms felt as though they weighed several hundred pounds each. She heard him saying something over and over at intervals as he reduced his affections to soft and gentle kisses. He knew that she'd be slow now. He just knew somehow, so he was patient with her, just as he knew that she'd be sensitive. His kisses were wet, so very wet and soft, just impressions of comforting warmth that she couldn't even be sure had happened at all, but for his quiet groans. "Turn, .. the shower, ... off." He may as well have been speaking Spanish to her. Edwina couldn't have lifted her arm to save her life. He stood up quickly then and he slapped the water off with his palm. As the last gush left the faucet, Tommy held his open hand lower to catch what he could and then he rubbed it over his face. He kissed her then, smiling at her, "You taste better to me than anything, Edwina. Thank you so very much to have allowed me that." She wanted to ask him several dozen questions, but all that she could manage to get out was, "Was I, ... that good ... for you?" Tommy almost snorted in his happiness, "It's been years since I've been allowed what to me is one of my very favorite things to do. And anyway, I think that I ought to be asking you the same thing." "Oh, you needn't –oof- worry, Tommy," she said weakly from over his shoulder as he carried her, "No one has ever pleased me like you in your very intimate way." He laughed softly then as he walked past the towel rack and scooped a bath towel, snapped it out to fluff and unfold it, and then lay it most of the way over her back with a few gentle pats in about a second. As soon as she indicated to him that she could stand on her own, he was toweling her so gently and well. Edwina was amazed. Edwina's Second Chance Ch.04 ***Ah, so much fun to write this pair. This is the last bit where things ought to make a bit of sense if I've done this right. 0_o ---------------------- It changed things after that. From then on, they just fit somehow and they were both very pleased and relaxed together. The thing of it was, that Edwina felt the oddest sense that she knew Tommy somehow. But that clearly was not possible, was it? The strangest feeling of familiarity kept coming to her, and even during their interlude in the shower it had been there. Edwina knew that she faced all sorts of issues in getting along in the modern age. But at the same time, she knew from his actions and also from that sense, that she could always depend on him. She could have fallen over when he put on one of his favorite compilation CDs and she stared, wondering what made those sounds. He explained it all and she absorbed, but there was one song, .. "I like so much of what I have heard," she said, "but please, Tommy, could I hear the one about the black magic woman again?" While she enjoyed it, the music and the lyrics reminded her of something in her family's past and the second playing of it cemented a plan for her. Black magic had always been a bit of a family specialty on her mother's side. "I must say that music seems to have changed a great deal," she smiled, and he nodded, "Yes and no, Some things have and some classics always remain. Would you like to hear what has been called the greatest piece of music ever written? I don't have it in its original voicing, but I have an old copy of a rather dramatic version, voiced by instruments which didn't exist when the piece was written, but I like it anyway." She nodded eagerly, "It must surely be something. I play the harpsichord. You have probably never heard of my favorite composer, but I used to buy sheet music of anything by the man that I could get my hands on. They would order it in for me at the store in Rosemount." Tommy dug out an old vinyl recording and ten minutes later, Edwina begged him to play it from the beginning, even though it wasn't done yet. "That sounds like – " He nodded, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in D minor, the final movement, finished in 1824. This was done on synthesizers – even the choir - and recorded in 1971. That's why you can't understand the words, since there are none. They only sound like people's voices." "I thought they were singing German or something. Oh, again please!" Edwina begged, "And can it be played louder?" The house shook and Edwina wept in joy. She'd never heard a symphony. Bruster hid in the bathroom. Later, Edwina watched as he cooked their burgers and then watched as he struggled over her question of why, when as he'd said, there was a perfectly good stove there in the kitchen and it was already in use for the oven fries. Their talk became a lot less strained between them, now that they'd been intimate. After Edwina had noticed the guitar leaning in the corner, she managed to get him to play and sing that old song for her as well as thrill her with the way that he could play so many other songs that she'd never heard or heard of. And they did all of that in and around an old farmhouse, a little hidden by a few trees, situated on the top of a hill – without a single stitch of clothing between them. Bruster looked as though he didn't know whether to be interested, confused, or what. He settled on confused and happy. It was still hot. Swelteringly so, and though Tommy had about all of the upgrades, he lacked one thing which would have been a little nice to have had that day. The old house was not air conditioned. --------------------------- "What is that thing?" she asked, looking up. She'd told him plainly that she wished to sleep with him, rather than in any bed once used by his ex-wife. He'd said no; that he'd think of something else, such as her sleeping in his bed and him sleeping in the other one. She very politely told him that he was being an idiot and he gave in then. "It's a ceiling fan," he chuckled as he patted the bed next to him, "Come over here where you can get the most benefit from it." She got onto the bed and lay on her back for a moment, "Well this is very pleasant, but I think that I'd rather kiss you instead." He rolled onto his side and looked down at her, "Really? You aren't going to tell me that it's too hot to do much more than try – and fail – to go to sleep?" She shook her head. "No. I have spent so many nights, an endless line of them; spanning years and years, alone in a bed. The last ones, I was not alone, but wishing that I was anywhere but in bed with a drunken, snoring brute who bathed less than a tenth as often as I am sure that you do, to judge by the scent of your clean-smelling sweat. I love the way that you smell, Tommy. Even with a sheen of wetness on you, I feel pleasantly aroused when I smell you, not offended at all, but aroused. I have never had anything like that happen to me before in my life. Your body is like a dream to a lonely girl such as I always was. To be allowed to touch that – to find myself lying next to you, to only see you looking at me that way – those would have been such wonderful answers to my prayers every single night. I cannot think that my prayers could have been answered any better than they have been this day. I think that you were right. I think that I must have been dead somehow. I cannot imagine any way that what has happened to me might have happened otherwise. I might have flickered when I was upset earlier and perhaps that is the key somehow. But I found myself here today. I learned that I can sweat and walk and wonder over all of the miracles which surround me. I can drink coffee and it makes me need to make water and a dead woman cannot do that. I can eat a fine meal that an amazing man made for me and feel full from it. I can take off my ghostly dress and wash under a stream of warm water with the man who has befriended me, and I can tease his seed from him and stand breathless against a wall while he drives me mad with his loving tongue deep inside of me. Tommy, all of the nights that I lay alone and wanting, out of all of them, the ones during which I had the most want of a man were the warm ones. That was when I felt the keenest want of a prick in me. Now, I lie here next to someone who steals my heart with only a look and the way that he calls me 'honey' sometimes. I do not want air conditioning tonight. I want to sweat against you and not in sleep either. If you have a need of me tonight, then take me. Make me Edwina Rosemount again, or better still, make me yours for I find the thought of becoming Edwina Anderson a very pleasant one and I would be happy to think of myself in that way since there is no way to make that wish into reality. Take me this night and I will submit to whomever you say that I must; to answer questions and give my poor guesses – as long as I may have you against me in the dark for it." He touched her cheek and noticed her warmth in the heat, feeling the slightly slick film of perspiration on her skin. "Edwina, we've barely met. You must have been wondering the whole day how you ended up here. I've been wondering the same thing, but after what you've just said, I find myself wondering what I did to deserve someone like you here with me saying those things. You're so beautiful." "I am not," she said quietly, "I am only pretty at best. That's all that I have ever had. I suppose that for an old girl of one hundred and eighty-eight years, I must be holding my own, though one hundred and fifty-eight of them have passed me by without my knowledge. I am near, in my body's age, to you," she said, "and I wear the passage of that much time for certain." He shook his head, "I've seen you without anything on. You'd give any twenty year-old a run for her money, and that's a fact." "Tommy," she sighed, "where are your spectacles? You must need them if you see me like that. My bosoms –" He chuckled, "So now you'll moan to me that they've always been small?" She nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but he pre-empted her argument, "I suppose that I could give you that. But small is not the same as undersized. I like them. You're lying here with a man who was married to a woman who had the body of a goddess once. Without wanting to be critical or hurtful to her, that was a long time ago. I'd be willing to bet that your body never changed much in ten years. If you want to hear me speak in the tones of a man – and men; when they talk of women's bodies can often sound as though they're discussing horses without even meaning to." He leaned down and kissed her very slowly for a long minute before he looked down again and said, "Edwina Rosemount never had the body of a goddess. But she has the body of a nymph," he smiled with a nod, "and nymphs hide their age far better than goddesses." "You're just feeling attracted to a man who seems to have a need to want to care for a girl who is lost at present. I'll help you, Edwina. I'll be a friend to you, and from the way that I see it, I won't even mind having you live here once all of the nonsense is done with. I'd love it if that could only come to pass. But I'm just a guy who doesn't have much in him anymore for something as wonderful as you want to reach for. I've always believed that what a man ought to do if he's found the right woman is to do everything that he can for her. Not be her slave by any means, but always show her what she means to him. I guess that I must have been wrong. I now don't think that can ever work at all. I've been there. I did all of that. The only reason that I'm here at all is because Mandy wanted this house, not me. Well after some years in her dream house, she doesn't want it anymore. Two years later, I'm still here in it. I like it and have no desire to leave, but it's my prison, isn't it? I had to buy it all over again or take a huge loss when it was sold, only for the whims of the one who I bought it for in the first place. I won't speak ill of her, but I really don't care if she's dead or alive anymore. The truth is that I'm the ghost who walks these halls." Edwina looked up at him and she shook her head, "No you are not. You are all that I have, and if you allow me to be what I want to be, then I can be all that you have, just as well. I have spent the day learning to trust you and I can say that it has happened in a way that never has for me. Do for me what you can in what you tell me that I need to have done, and Tommy, I will be your woman out of it all. I am prepared to become her this night, that woman – your woman. You forget where I came from. I lived in a world of arranged or agreed-upon marriages, where a girl is often handed over across an aisle in a church. The ceremony is for the benefit of the mothers and a few others such as relations. Certainly not the bride, no matter what she might be foolish enough to believe. Often, a bride finds herself with a man who is little more than a stranger – and now she must service him and run their home, taking all in her stride, from their brats to the washing, from cleaning to cooking. She might have had idle girl's dreams of romance, but reality is as wholesome-smelling as the chamber pot when it needs emptying the next day – and that is never the task of the prince, is it? I have the notion that a marriage here is supposed to be a matching of equals. I do not know if it is ever accomplished, but I find that I like the notion. I confess that I do not know a thing about living here and for that I need you. You consider yourself to be a fool, Tommy, when all that you are is a romantic man. It happens that I am in the market for one of those, seeing a chance to live the girl's dream properly for once. It might have escaped your notice, Mister Anderson, but if you were to think of my situation in a different way, it might come to you that I seem to have been given a second chance somehow and I mean not to waste it. I need a male and you, Tommy, are the one that I want. I will not fail you and I will never tire of you because there is only one ghost between us if there is one and I am she. See that you get us through the difficulties which lie before us, Mister Tommy Anderson, and after I learn what I must, I will be your partner and as it was before, I will manage what I must for us. You have waxed long over my poor body, Tommy. Well I heard it all and I am flattered. I will leave you to your delusions of my beauty and I am not fool enough to ever want you to see it my way. Let me be all that you have and I will become all that you ever need. I do not know if we might run the risk of making children, but I can say that I look forward very eagerly to sharing your bed and your thoughts. My husband never saw the side of me which Reggie only glimpsed now and then. In your arms, I will show all of my heart. I love a good fucking. I so enjoyed what we did earlier and if you can be gentle with me, I would be happy to allow you to bugger me quite often, for that is another thing that I love. I will not be subservient beyond a small degree and I expect nothing more than that same degree in my man. I think that I would complain if you were to give me more than that for it is not natural to me. I lie now with a man who more than any that I have ever seen in my life was made to give pleasure and comfort to a woman who knows what she is looking at when she sees such a creature. Goddess or nymph, Tommy, the truth is that I was made to fuck often and give my own comfort to the one I choose. If you have the mind which I perceive in you, you will also possess the wisdom to bow to my convictions for I am a better one to have as a friend and lover than as an enemy. Have I earned your interest now, Tommy?" she smiled, "And may we please begin? It is a hot night and I have the want in me to feel us sweat together. If your love must be earned, then look to your defense if you must, but I will have it and soon." She ended it with a coy little smile and he stared at her as it all sunk in. "I don't what to say to that, " he said quietly, "I don't know – " Edwina saw her chance and drawing from what she'd remembered because of that old Santana song, she threw the last of her shyness away, deciding that it had never served her well and that this was her moment. She lunged for him, rolling him over onto his back and she was all over him. "Then say nothing," she hissed through her teeth as she bit into his shoulder gently, running her tongue over his skin to taste the finest manflesh that she'd ever tasted. Tommy was shocked and when she lifted her head, he saw lust in that woman's eyes such as he'd never known could have existed. Edwina saw his expression and she rose up on him, dragging her wet pubes over the ridges of his abdominal muscles and throwing her head back in laughter. "Say nothing, since there is nothing which needs saying," she chuckled, "Feel the way that we can slide together like this in the heat – our heat, such as it is." She reached back and helped his hardening shaft up from between his thighs, "This night, Tommy, this night is for you and I alone." "Bruster!" she called, and the dog was beside the bed instantly, "I seek to win your master's love this night. See to the door and let no one pass until it is done." The dog was gone then and his nails on the hardwood steps could be heard as they receded. "You –you ordered the dog?" She shook her head with a grin as she lifted herself up with her thighs so that she could guide the thing that she craved into herself, "No," she groaned as she slid onto his hardness, "I commanded the dog." Her breath came out of her in a wicked and lustful sigh, "hhhhhuuuhhh, and I like his name now." She began to move on him and Tommy was more smitten with Edwina that he could have ever imagined himself feeling for anyone. She rocked on him, her hips making the age-old motions that women have always made, but to begin, they were different. Edwina moved in the way of a woman seeking pleasure for herself and not the male that she was riding. It was only for a little while and then they changed into slightly different motions for them both. To Tommy, it seemed to be bliss which went on forever. Edwina's head hung for a time as she worked him and then it slowly rose up so that she was looking at the male that she wanted for herself. She knew this would work. It just needed time, and they had that; lots of it. With a wave, the candles that he kept in his bedroom for use in the event of a power failure were lit, all four of them different sizes yet they all burned with flames of the same size. "Look at me, Tommy," she said, "See your woman in her desire for you, the want which will never fade or pass, no matter what is on the television or how her back aches from the day's work. See a woman as she was meant to be for her man. See the woman who will not accept that you are tired when her want of you is on her. I must have been dead for all of that time, those long years, though I do not know where my body lay. But I am dead no longer. I live. I am a woman and I yearn to be more than a woman to you." She moved then, and he felt himself slipping nearly but not quite out of her as she brought herself forward to lie on him with her breast centered on top of his own. She stopped then, her cheek against his collarbone. "Can you feel it, Tommy? Can you feel my heart beat against yours?" "Yes," he whispered, "Your heart is pounding." He heard her pleased smile in her speech, "It pounds against your heart. It pounds for your heart. I want Tommy, and I want Tommy as mine. I offer myself to you. We need none of the nonsense of courting. This is courting as it was meant to happen between men and women." She turned her head and kissed his chest over his heart and she rose up again and went back to fucking on him, "This is what we are and have always been, no matter the age or whatever damned year it might be. We make our choices then. We offer our love and our comfort to a male and ask for protection and love in return. We offer to gather nuts and berries to go with the meat that our men kill so that we all might live better. Nothing has changed. I did nothing to ask for this, but I know what it is. I have another chance at life and I choose the man that I want for the same reasons which always were." Her motions were slower now, more languid and so sensual. He could have watched her like this all night. She raised her arms a little and it became a dance for him to see. His eye was caught by a drop of sweat as it slid from under her jaw. It might have originated in her mane of hair and run along on its way to her collarbone. But before it got there, it was met by another from under her ear. The two merged and, bigger now, it was more influenced by her motions so that it sometimes ran and sometimes only slid a little. Now and then, it didn't move at all, pooling in the depression just behind her collarbone. There, it was met by others which added to it and when it was enough – or when her motion forced the next step of its journey, some of it overran the dam and slipped down to her breast. When it reached her nipple, it hung there and Tommy was forced to act. He sat up then, holding her with one arm around her waist as she shifted gears effortlessly. His other hand went around the side of her throat to hold her there. Edwina's eyed widened for a second as an ageless thrill of fear ran through her before she saw that she had nothing to fear from her man. He was only holding her and with no pressure on her throat, she smiled. Tommy leaned down a little and he seized the droplet with his lips, sucking and tasting her salty flesh. Edwina moaned his name and shifted gears again, driving herself downward with whimpering gasps while he licked and bit her flesh gently. Edwina's Second Chance Ch.04 She grabbed for his head, needing his kisses now and making little begging cries to him not to stop. Not to stop now. Not stop, and to please do this for her forever. She stopped kissing him and she began to lick his wet face, needing his sweat somehow. He tried to make it mutual, but after a few seconds, they both went back to wet kisses as her hips drove down onto him and they looked at each other, saying nothing, since nothing was all there was to be said then. He wasn't even stroking into her very far. This was all her motions now. They looked at each other and groaned, giving up after a time to lean their heads against each other. It wasn't a powerful thing at all, other than that each one showed the other their need. She said words of some sort into his ear, but even she had no idea what she was moaning to him. It didn't matter much. She moaned in elevating little steps which ended in her soft cry while her squeeze from inside herself finished it for them both as they came, shuddering a little on each side of it. She looked down at him from her perch on him, that prick, that, ... oh, that sweet mystery which was a man, still there deep in her, still hard and twitching as he searched for more within himself to pump into her. She was chanting something. He looked into her eyes, knowing that he was seeing millions of women in there. He'd just never seen it in the eyes of any of the women that he'd ever been to bed with, ... Yes he had, he realized after a moment. It hadn't been in the eyes of the one that he'd married. Never once. Not ever. It hadn't been in the other girls that he'd dated and gotten this far along with. He'd never seen this in the eyes of any of the ones who'd allowed him this as they lay back and waited for him to finish. But he had seen it before. It had lain in the eyes of a few of the girls that everyone called easy. Not all of those ones either, now that he remembered. It had been in the few that he'd been with when he'd been too young and inexperienced to know better, the ones who'd really wanted him and didn't know why themselves, the ones who'd had the same hope as this one. They'd just been too young and inexperienced themselves and he'd never known what it was that he'd seen. It came as a shock that those few had been trying to do this as well, offering everything they had and doing their very best at it with a hope to have him, their bodies deciding for them to a large degree. Edwina was right. This was the primal offering of the pure female to a male that she'd chosen. He suddenly felt foolish. It wasn't about the cars or the job, and not even the money. It was far down on a much lower level; more primal and far, far hungrier. It wasn't a desire to have a cute boyfriend as a walking fashion accessory. It was a need for a male; one male – one in particular. One worth staying with in a pairing so simple and old – even if they wandered hungry as they walked through their lives together. It was something that didn't fit anymore in the world of today, ... It fit when love and lust were a lot closer to being two sides of the same coin, two genders of the same animal who wandered, foraging and hunting to stay alive. It hadn't fit since the dawn of civilization. But it didn't care. It was what it had always been, lying in wait as it always had. It cared nothing about money or schooling or being prepared for life. It cared about need and want and all of the wrong things. When it slammed two people together, it left little room for anything else. It made fathers out of teenaged men who had no knowledge or maturity to deal with those things and it created mothers out of young women, never caring what their wishes and plans for themselves might have been. It ruined homes and marriages, when all that it wanted was for two humans to mate well and go from there. It was a very old drive – perhaps the third most ancient which could form in a human breast, right there next to two even older ones – the need to go on living and the need to eat. He suddenly saw Edwina with new eyes as she rocked on him still, even though he was on the verge of leaving her to slip out. She looked at him in surprise, her voice trailing off to nothing. The silence only lasted for a moment and then she was in his arms because neither of them could help it. She sighed, smiling with her eyes closed as he pressed his face against her throat and left kisses there in multitudes, smelling her damp hair and licking under her jaw so that she flinched and laughed, but he didn't stop. "How did you light the candles?" he asked and she replied truthfully, "I do not know. I only knew that I could. I commanded Bruster in a language that dogs do not know, other than a few associations which they might make to certain sounds. Dogs do not know what words are. But I know that I can command him. Why do you hold me this way? I like it, Tommy, I only ask." He looked up into her face, "I've just learned what you're offering." She smiled and rocked on him again a little bit in time to her chant. It seemed to be a slightly childish rhyme to him, once he'd heard it, but there was a preface that she began it with each time and that was in some old form of English which he just couldn't catch, let alone comprehend, and there was a suffix which didn't sound anything like any form of speech which he knew. "See what I give and will never stop, Know what I want from you, every drop. Give me your love and I'll always stay, Take from my heart every single day. It's an old thing that I learned from my aunt," she smiled, "She was rumored to be a sea-witch. On my mother's side, there were a few who practiced it and it was said that they were never stronger than in a gale on a lonely coast. My aunt eventually moved to the shore of Lake Huron, but before that, I asked her for help to find a man, and she taught me that verse, but she warned me not to ever use it unless I was sure of the one, for it binds both ways. If I am not sure now, Tommy, then I never will be. "What's that other stuff before and after that verse and what am I to take from your heart?" He asked and she smiled, wondering why he'd need to ask. "I will not tell you everything," she smiled, "or the spell will suffer for it and as for what is taken, take the love that I give. Any woman is full of it." He chuckled, nodding, "Some are full of a lot more than that, but I know what you mean to say, and there's a lot of truth to it. It's different from the one that I thought girls said in front of their mirrors." "How does that one go?" she asked. Tommy smiled, "I ah, ... I heard my sister say it once. I'm sure she was kidding, though. 'We must – we must. We must increase the bust. The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, The boys are counting on us!'" Edwina laughed at him, "Well does it work? I could have used something like that!" "Maybe it does," he laughed a little, "I don't know when my sister started saying it, but she's stacked." The rumble of thunder interrupted things for them then. They walked to the window and looked out at the flashes of a rapidly approaching storm front. "Please tell me that you're not doing this," he said, "And if you are, could you please be careful not to blow up my satellite box this time?" "I do not know what you're talking about and I do not bring this. I only know a little that I learned from my aunt. It does make me happy to see it. If it rains and the rain is the least bit warm, you and I are going to go out in it." She ran her hands over his chest a little playfully then, "Do you feel it yet, Tommy? Can you feel my threads in your heart?" He nodded a little, "I understand a lot more now and, ... I feel a lot more, ... " He tilted his head a little, "I don't get it all, at least not yet, but I feel kind of ... possessive toward you." She nodded slowly with a wide smile, "You see? It is begun. The only hope that you have is to make me feel the same. At present, I am still hopeful. As nice as it is, it is not equitable between us. Your doom is that you will love me before the dawn. The only hope that you have is to make it even between us, so that I know without thinking or seeking proof – as women tend to do – that I belong to you just as much as a sign of how much you are mine. For that to happen can take between a week and a month and it needs constant attention on your part." She stretched up and kissed him softly before she whispered, "And you are a man who had given everything over ten years to someone who left you anyway. You and I need that storm." "We, ... uh, we do?" She nodded, "We do this again, right out in the rain and thunder, like two people from long ago with nothing between them but their bodies and their hopes. If it goes well, when we come back inside, probably wet and muddy, I will not need to hang onto my hope. I will know which male that I belong to, just as you will not need to feel possessive of me. We will know then, and nothing will need to be said at all. That," she pointed toward the quickening storm, "That binds both ways as well. My aunt always used storms and foul weather to cast her strongest magic. I went to visit with her once and I barely made it to stand under the eaves of her cottage as it seemed that all of creation was about to be smashed asunder by the storm that I managed to outrun. I think that I must have looked as an idiot when I saw her out in it without a stitch on and chanting to herself. I thought that she'd gone mad, but when she was finished, she laughed at me and we sat as I made her a pot of hot tea. She told me that it had all been for me! Well, I had to ask, of course, and she said that her desire for me was that I could not leave my life before I'd had and really known the love of a good man. I can make no claim of it, but I seem to have gotten a second chance, as I said. Whether it was what she did, I know not, but the thought and the hope are what drive me now. Your poor luck that I have chosen you," she smirked as she hugged him tightly then. He nodded, "I think I'm beginning to see the futility of fighting this, though we 're gonna look pretty dumb in the newspaper coverage when they find the bodies of two electrocuted lovers." "All of life is a risk, Tommy. All of love is as well. But you have no one and I want no one else." They watched as the intensity of the weather picked up. When the hail began, he looked dubious, but it passed in a minute and then she dragged him back to bed. "We really require only the charged air," Edwina laughed as she opened the widows, "My aunt Bethany was a purist. I saw that you would go and I am happy to know it, but the rain is cold and my hope is a foolish one." "I don't think so," Tommy said, "I wouldn't call it foolish. A little unrealistic perhaps, but I can't agree that it's foolish to want to make me love you in just a day the way that I do, I mean, I don't really think that it can be done. I don't mean to take anything at all away from your aunt Bethany. I'm sure that she was a fine and powerful sea-witch, or whatever you said. But to make me love you with the intensity that I feel for you because I love you so much, well that's just absurd, isn't it?" He looked at her a little quizzically, seeing her smile widen as her mouth fell open a little slowly. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked. "Never mind," she giggled a little in spite of herself as she noticed that he was hardening again. "Can a man's lust be driven by love, do you think?" she asked as she reached for him, "or is it a simpler thing?" "Probably simple," he said, "Why?" "Oh, nothing really," she smiled, getting to her knees on the floor on front of him as he sat on the edge of the bed, "this here is probably only your body's reaction to the lovely breeze from the window, isn't it?" He guessed that it was and she nodded before she opened her mouth for him. As tired as they both were from all of the walking, they loved through most of the night, Edwina finding herself thrilled at the way that she could always seem to rouse him rather easily. She certainly wasn't one to complain about it either. And the way that his tongue always sought the places where it seemed to know that it was wanted, ... They'd been silent for a time and she thought that this time he really would fall asleep and she wouldn't blame him at all. He was still licking her and her entire bottom end was wet and she guessed that her cheeks there must surely have at least a few faint bitemarks from the way that Tommy loved to make her squeal and laugh. She just wondered about one thing. "Bugger me." She watched his head rise from her haunches as she looked at him in the dresser mirror. "What? Or I mean, uh, pardon me?" "Alright then," she chuckled, "If we are remembering our manners, please bugger me. I believe that you have gotten me wet enough for it." He shook his head. "I was planning to take you into town tomorrow to get you clothes in your size. We can buy some lube then if that's what you really want. I'll do that with you, honey, but there's no way that I'll hurt you." "Fine," Edwina sighed as she crawled back to guide him onto his side, "Then fuck me really nicely once more before we go to sleep, Tommy, and we'll call it done. I know what I sought to learn and I do not need to have only my hope anymore." She kissed him for a moment, "I can feel safe placing my life in your hands since you love me so much." He looked up, "I do not," he said, "It's not possible to love you more than I want to love you, ... as I – Hey, ... "He glared at her and Edwina hung onto him convulsing as she laughed. "Say it." she grinned, "Tell me as a surety that you do not love me – but do not lie about it." Before he could even complete his thought for a reply, the wind picked up markedly. The old house creaked a little as it stood against the now-moaning gusts of wind and the windows rattled with the beat of the wind-driven rain. They looked out of the window and the late evening sky had gone purple in one direction and a sort of green in the other, lit as often as it was by the many flares of distant lightning. Objects began to hurtle past. Tommy looked down the hill and he stared in a little disbelief as he watched pieces of someone's lawn furniture set roll up the hill tumbling over and over in the blast of the gale. Just as the table rolled past on his lawn, he focused outward at a thin point of light that he saw out there on the next hill, and as he watched, a good-sized tree began to lean to the left and then it fell, its weight fully on the power line which stretched – he guessed – by the way that the tree seemed to slow in its fall right near the end. The transformer mounted on the very next pole exploded in a bright blue shower of sparks which only lasted an instant. Then the cooling oil in that transformer ignited and what hung on that pole then was an orange ball of flames. There were beeps of complaint from all over the house as the modern day appointments of Tommy's life cheeped and beeped in dismay as they found their power supply failing. The wind fell off completely then, though as he looked out, Tommy could still see things blowing in the wind out there. He wondered then why nothing was blowing around just outside of the window. He looked at the trees on his property and they stood straight and tall and looked rather serene – against the background of a tortured-looking sky. He turned to look at Edwina and he found her staring at him softly with a strange expression on her face. Her mouth opened a little and her voice sounded so quiet to him as she said in a little amazement, "I have met you before today. I know you now. I cannot believe that I have finally, ... oh, Jorret ... After all of this time, ..." Tommy had no idea what she was talking about, but he had little time to wonder over it. The way that she hugged him while she burst into happy tears just bent his little universe once more. But then he heard a voice from downstairs. It wasn't loud or harsh and it carried no edge to it at all. It was only the voice of a man speaking rather softly, but for all of that, it was commanding. "Please come down," the voice said a little quietly, "It is time to finish a few things and set this straight." Edwina drew herself back from him and she looked up. Tommy stared at her face. All that he saw were the whites of her eyes. "Come," she said serenely, "He calls us and we must go." "But, " Tommy began to stammer, "Who IS that, why is he here, and I think we'll need to at least put on –" "You will need nothing," the voice said, "only come down. I have other things to attend to." Her eyes were still rolled back, but Edwina took Tommy's hand and began to walk, leading him to the top of the stairs. They walked down to the main floor, but the door to the basement stood open and she walked to it, still leading Tommy. He looked over and saw Bruster curled into as small a ball as possible near the door and shaking like a leaf in the cold autumn wind. Edwina didn't look at him. She only spoke to him as they passed, "It is alright, Bruster," she said, "You have not failed me. I did not mean for you to hold the door against one such as he is." Tommy stared a little as they went down the old wooden steps together. She seemed to know what she was doing, while he felt a little like a child who'd been found out after doing something which he shouldn't have. He expected to see nothing other than darkness and it was indeed what he saw, but in the middle of what he knew as an old, slightly cold, and very dank root cellar, he saw the warm glow which he was being led toward. There was a roaring hearth there – where Tommy knew that one had never been all of the times that he'd ever been down here, but it went a long way toward dispelling the dankness. Sitting on a sort of throne there, ... The large demon looked over at them and smiled pleasantly, "Welcome. You will please stand or sit, as you wish. This shouldn't take too long. I see that I have the opportunity now to make something right which has lain wrong and broken for far too long." Tommy saw a male demon and whatever he might have guessed that these things might look like, he now saw that he was wrong. The creature before him was large and though he looked in many ways to have qualities which a human being might see as 'demonic' in some ways, he also saw that what he thought didn't really matter. The overall shape was roughly humanoid, though there was the issue of size and from what he could see, this being looked to be able to feel at home when standing on two legs, or four, if he had the wish to do that. At least his misconceptions could lie a little at ease, he thought. He saw the wings and the long tail and of course, he saw the horns. "Rather than trying to get you to a point where you might begin to understand 'everything' and the ways that it all works," the creature said from where he sat comfortably, "let us dispense with all of that, because in a little time – either tonight or at some point nearer to the end of your mortal lives, it will all become clear in any regard." He indicated a table in front of him which Tommy could have sworn was not there a second before. "Have some ale," the demon chuckled as he reached for one of the tankards, "Telling all of what you must know is just bound to become thirsty work in a while." Tommy watched Edwina reach for the other tankards and she offered one to him. He saw that she was smiling a little, though her eyes were still rolled back in her head. It took a bit of courage, but Tommy found that what was in the tankard was indeed ale. Edwina's Second Chance Ch.04 "I am charged with the responsibility of making sure that things run smoothly," the demon said, "And by 'things', I am alluding to what you and others might call fate. I do not have to get involved directly most of the time, but now and again, ... I find that I must take an active hand and steer things in the right direction – in the way that they should have gone, but didn't for one reason or another. For this," he smiled, shaking his horned head in a little amusement at himself, "I lie at fault a little, though it was not my intent. I only did not know the way of things and all of the facts. Once upon a time, you might say," he laughed a little, "there were two who were in love and though they were not really what each one was made to be for the other, it was decided a little by the machinery of destiny that they be together." He looked from one to the other, "And I am referring to the two of you." He indicated Edwina with a long raised claw, "She has begun to know it. You on the other hand, have no inkling just yet, and rather than allow any number of factors to ruin what was to be – yet again – since I can tell you that it has already happened a time or eight, at the least, I have decided to act now. Have another sip of that ale, Tommy Bryce Anderson. You're going to need it, my friend." He chuckled for a long time after that, absorbed by whatever he found to be so mirthful in this. He didn't let on, but what he felt in actual fact was the beginnings of a great deal of relief and anticipation at the chance to set things right. Tommy only knew that he could not leave this place. He could move a little and he could drink the beverage, but he knew that without any doubt, he could not walk up those steps. He didn't even need to try to turn around. He knew that the steps would not be there now. What he found to be a great comfort to him in this strangeness was the way that Edwina stood with her arm around his waist, holding herself against him. "I have many names," the demon said, "and you, my friend, have HAD many names. For now, all that I will tell you is that in matters such as this, I am called the Prince of Death. You are called Tommy and all the rest of it, but that is not the real name for who you are underneath that fine human skin. He pointed with that claw once more, "Any more than this female here is Edwina Rosemount, though that is who she was for a time." He sipped his ale and then he looked up, grinning a little, "And allow me to set your heart at ease. She is not dead, though her assumptions were correct. For a time, she was, and I have set her soul into that body once again only today. This very morning, she awoke and through a little prodding from me in both of your lives, you have found each other at last for the first time in so long that even I do not know the correct count of the time." For the first time, the creature looked a little serious. "A long time ago, by your way of reckoning it, something happened which should not have. You are a relation of mine, Tommy. A distant one, I'll grant, but a relation nonetheless. While I make my attempt to tell it all to you, I would appreciate it if you would listen and do your very best not to interrupt me. I might act a little charitable right here and now, but I am in possession of a rather demonic rage if I were to have reason to release it and that is something that you do not want to see, and especially not now, while I try to mend what has gone wrong so many times. You are a creature who was birthed by a goddess. As is the case with gods and goddesses, they tend to collect an assortment of names as well. Your mother is, or rather was known by many names in her time when many humans prayed to her. For a long time, the name which she preferred was Astarte. But I know her as Ashtoreth, and she is my female and has been for many an age. Goddesses are not usually drawn to mate with my kind any more than we are drawn to them, but for us it happened and we are still so very much in love all of this time later, so if anyone might understand about the troubles of a pair not unlike ourselves, it is me. Ashtoreth was mated by a demon who crept up on her for many nights as she slept. I cannot say that I understand how it was done, but he was able to do that for a time and she became heavy with his child. That child is you. You are both god-kind and demon-kind, and your true name is –" "Jorret," the girl next to him said in a curious little half-whisper and to Tommy, it was filled with a lot of love somehow and, though the sound of it caused the hair at the back of his neck to rise a little, he also drew comfort from it, knowing somehow that no matter what was said here, this girl loved him. The demon smiled, "Thank you, Hammah. But please allow me to finish." He was smiling as he looked at Tommy again. "That is your true name. Hammah was for you and you were for her, but she made a small error in judgement when you were both rather young and it happened at a time when you were the most vulnerable to having a doubt. You left and through a rather nasty set of infernal dealings with another relation of mine, you were led astray, choosing an unending series of human lives because you wished to forget what it was that hurt you. In my own opinion, if you had been my natural son – as opposed to my stepson as you are now, and if I'd known of it all, I would have advised you to stop being ridiculous and ignore anything that you might have heard. What you should have done was go to Hammah and take her – just as she wished for you to do with her this night. Just as you have done to make her yours and," he smirked, " just as she has taken you to be hers." He laughed loudly then, "Just as it was to have happened between you in the first place. None of this horseshit would have come about then. There were many at one time, demon-kind and god-kind both who sneered at such a thing. Well I can say that after all of this time, you now have many well-wishers on both sides for the way that you have found each other and each known that it was to be, though neither one knew just why until Hammah began to see it only moments ago. But it did not go rightly at first and you disappeared from everyone's knowledge for thousands of these mortal years. As I have said, I knew little to nothing of any of it, but I put my finger into it all the same," he sighed, and that now brings us a little closer to now – but for one terrible night over a hundred and fifty years ago. Hammah there, beautiful and lonely, hurting always with the guilt which she has suffered for her part in this tragedy, disappeared as well, for she sought to find you in the sea of humanity on this world and she was close, Jorret. So very close, she was. She was born here, knowing that you were born elsewhere, but that you were fated to live as a lumber man who would one day in the near future be working just to the north of this little place. But to cross over to the human world for one of us is to have many memories cleared away unless one takes precautions. She had no way to take those precautions because she is neither of the things that you are. She is a human female, though she suckled at the same divine breasts which you did for a very short time, and in doing that, she also got some demonic blood which belonged to your father before Ashtoreth slew him." He sighed again, "It proved to be insufficient and she forgot everything, just as you did. She grew up here and she eventually married an ogre named Armbruster Gibbons, whom I caused to pass myself. Sadly, I came too late to help 'Edwina' here. She perished as she ran from the damage to her skull which Gibbons inflicted. He was a very small person, but he was a large sort of oaf and Edwina died where she finally fell as she ran from him. I happened to be on my way to help her, not knowing that she was one of the two which I sought. She knew nothing of it, I'm sure, but she died in my arms. I dealt Gibbons his death early on the following day, but before that, I set a pack of watchers on him and I took Ewina away. It all left me with a problem. After bringing the stained soul of a cruel man to Perdition, I didn't know what to do with her. So like others who had fallen into my hands at various times, she became a plaything of mine for a while and I have always treated her very gently, knowing that she has harmed no one from what I could sense in her. If I had only known, Jorret, I'd have reunited you with her in an instant. As she stands here, she cannot hear what I say and I have taken her memory of her time with me from her. There is no pain for her there; I kept her only until I had learned of everything and who she was. All that she knew with me was a little joy and I never harmed her in the slightest, for it is not my way with lost ones such as she was to me. It was my lovely Ashtoreth who saw her and knew in an instant. Ever since then, I have been trying to get her into your arms where she belongs. All that remains now," he smiled as he saw his goddess approach from behind the pair in front of him, "Are the mending of a few details and one slightly carnal act to give you both back what you ought to know but cannot hold inside of you without that act." Edwina's eyes rolled forward and she felt more connected to things than she'd felt for the past little while. She intended to look at Tommy and smile, but she found herslf staring for a moment and then she sighed very happily at the one that she saw. All day long, Tommy had looked so good to her and it was only hours later, that she knew that he reminded her so strongly of someone though she couldn't think of who it might have been. As she looked at him now, she saw that he was Jorret – the one and only – the one whom she'd missed for so very long and he was changing. Tommy knew that he was still tied in some way – he really had very little freedom to move very much and what was worse – well, he thought that it was worse, though he wasn't really certain – was that his point of view was shifting a little. He seemed to be shrinking, though he didn't feel as though he was. He found himself bending forward and his hands, which now looked familiar in a way that he hadn't seen them in a long time, were now rather fearsome clawed things themselves and he stood on all fours. Something moved against his leg and he looked down. He was startled to find himself looking underneath his own body – which was not looking all that familiar to him now, though it FELT familiar to him. What he saw there was his tail and he felt the moisture which seeped from the final six inches or so of it. They both felt the touch on their shoulders then and they heard a voice which they knew and hadn't heard in so long. "My little family," they heard as Ashtereth spoke to them softly, "Wait but a few moments and it will be done." Neither of them could turn around to look, but the goddess walked into their view and stood before them, the same beautiful female which they remembered as she kept her hands on each of them while the demon stood up and walked toward them. "Hammah, my stepdaughter," he said quietly, "You do not need much from me because of our time together. Bend down for me before we frighten your male." She lowered herself to her hands and knees and she felt his fingers as they began to work her a little in very soft motions and she moaned a little, not being able to help it. "Jorret will be yours again very soon, my lovely foundling, " the goddess sighed. Hammah – as she now knew herself felt it as the demon's tail whipped up to slip between her haunches and she felt the small intrusion of it just before she felt what it brought to her. Her mind began to flood with the combined memories of both Hammah the altered human girl and Edwina Rosemount. She knew everything in an instant and then the tail was gone. "Hold on to your love," the goddess smiled and Hammah reached to hug Jorret, throwing her arms around his thick neck. She squeezed him very tightly, "I still love you so, Jorret," she sighed to him as she kissed his cheek. He struggled with his nervousness and his suddenly poor enunciation past the mouthful of demonic teeth which he suddenly noticed. "I can only remmm- member a little, Hammah," he said sadly, "but I remember y-you." He felt her hand as it brushed under his hard belly while she reached back for what she'd missed from him for ages, "Calm yourself, Jorret. Feel my hand and what I want with you," She sighed then as she felt the swell in her hand as he hardened for her, just as he had so long ago. She also heard his thin gasp from the intrusion of that tail in him as it sought the nerves which were needed for the transfer. His eye opened wide as he suddenly came to know everything, of both beings – himself and Tommy. He felt weak then and Hammah helped him to ease down onto his front on the floor. There was darkness for him after that. ------------------------------------- When he opened his eyes, it was quite a bit later, and he was lying on the bed with Hammah a little on top of him. She noticed that he was awake and she smiled at him and pointed at a ton of paper there on the bed, some of it in sheets and some of it was only little wallet-sized cards. "Edwina has the life that she needs," she smiled, "Everything that you told me would be needed and more than even that. I do not need to see anyone now. I never knew our stepfather well before, but I see now that he is very kind to us." "Put it somewhere safe, Hammah," he growled without meaning to, "and then please tell me what happened." She nodded and he watched as she gathered it all up and carefully set it aside on the nightstand before she came back to the bed and draped herself over him as though they had been doing that forever. "We probably might have gone on together as Edwina and Tommy as we were – and we can still do that, Jorret. But through our mother's kindness and through her male's as well, we have been given the memories and thoughts of both of those people. We can live those lives whenever we wish. It makes little difference to me, Jorret, since all that I really need is to have you near to me. But for you, brother," she smiled, "you can live as Tommy and whenever you would like to, you can change back to my brother, Jorret. I will love you always in either shape. We are as we were meant to be, the girl and the half-demon. Both of us are a little godlike – you more than I, as it always was. But this time, oh, this time, my lover, I will never let you go again." He stretched then, his forelegs running far past the foot of the bed and his hind legs reaching the head board and having to move sideways to get the room they needed for it. "This feels so good to me," he said a little absently as Hammah rolled over him to hug his fur-covered back. It caused him to chuckle a little. "You feel so good to me, Hammah. Forgive my stupidity." She shook her head, "We were both stupid, so there is nothing to forgive and there never was." ----------------------------- He sat against the headboard, holding Hammah up as she writhed on his hardness in his lap. Her hair was wet with her sweat and her breath almost whistled through her teeth as she fucked on him. He felt her heat as well as his own and without having to feel for it, he knew that his fur was as damp as her long mane and he couldn't have been happier. He watched her, taken by her beauty and wantonness and a moment later, he reached out very carefully and held her to him as he sat up a little to kiss her and run his wide tongue over her face and neck. Hammah whimpered her love to him and he allowed her to fall backward very slowly – still in his powerful but gentle grasp so that he could get to her large nipples with his long teeth to feel the way that she could make them slide wetly over and between them. Hammah made it sound as though it was nothing much, but he knew that he really had two females in this one lovely creature. Edwina was smaller in her body's dimensions. It wasn't all that much, but to him, it was something. As well, her breasts were smaller and she had that fine tight little bum. Hammah, the girl who now fucked him so well, was a bit larger, with the same breasts that he'd watched grow in when they'd been young. And Hammah had a magnificent ass, hands down. "We – we cannot do it while, ... " she huffed as she went on working them, "while we have these lives, Jorret," He wasn't sure just where she was going with what she was trying to tell him now, but he loved the way that she had of making him feel. Hammah's hair was night black while Edwina's was honry-blonde and it always got to him now whenever she switched between the two in mid-fuck. He loved the way that it felt different all of a sudden – which was also why she did it, though from her point of view. In any event, he smiled as he waited for the words to come out of her. He only hoped that this bed was stronger than the last one. The two of them had reduced it to broken pieces of pressboard in an hour and had taken to making their sometimes violent style of hungry love on the floor. He could handle that easily in this shape, but he knew that it wasn't the best thing for her. "After, ... after that, "she moaned, "Ohhh, after, then we can still use those shapes, but, ... Jorret, then I want to be bred by my beast." She began to bounce on him as hard as she could, driving down on his fat spike as though she was still possessed by the older demon. "I want to make little beasts with you, Jorret. Are you ready yet?" He lifted his tail from where it lay between his knees and he looked past her moving shoulders at the glistening end for a moment. "Thin or fat?" he asked. Hammah's head fell forward onto his shoulder and she kissed his throat wetly for a moment. "Ohhh, .... I don't fucking care, Jorret. Just fuck me with that thing too and Ah! Ahhh , so good it is." She hugged his neck tightly as she looked into his eyes, "Just put it in deeper and I will sing my song for you again." ---------------------------------------- The terrified customers lay face-down on the floor of the bank as the four men prepared to hold them hostage. The situation had gone bad and could very easily get worse if things didn't improve for them soon. At least the cops hadn't shown yet, but, ... Some were whimpering. A woman held her child to her tightly while she cried as silently as she could and an elderly man held his hands against his chest with a grimace of pain. "What the FUCK happened out back?" one of the men asked another who shook his head. "Dude, there's a thing out there, some kind of animal, I dunno. But I swear to God, it was eating Tony and then it started eating the car. It was eating the fucking car!" He held up his hand, "Swear man, I swear that's what I saw." "You're so fucked," the other man said in disgust, "You just can't keep that shit out of your mouth, can you? Just stay here and keep the sheep calm. I'ma find out what's really goin' down and if I need to, I'ma get us another car. I can fucking drive as good as that shit Tony." He looked at the bank tellers and he bellowed, "Awwite, anybody with car keys, pull them outta your pockets and just leave them on the floor next to you. DO IT! Do it NOW!" There were a few jingling sounds and then he picked one set up, as the muzzle of his shotgun came to rest on the old man's head, "What kinda car you got, Grandpa?" "The fuck you askin' stupid shit for?" a third one of them grinned, "He's an old man. Only one kind of car for old men." He leaned forward and looked down, "A Buick, right?" The elderly man nodded and said that it was a gold one and the two men laughed, "Right." Edwina's Second Chance Ch.04 But things went sideways out in the alley. They stared in disbelief. The pieces of their original getaway car blocked almost every other car there. The pieces of their dead wheelman were strewn over an even wider radius, and a large and strange-looking beast lifted its head from the leg that it was eating. "Oh my fucking god," one of the bank robbers said just before he began to throw up. The man with the shotgun fired off every round that was in it, but as the last empty casing flew off into space, the beast was before him and it was clearly evident that it was still hungry. The two men still in the bank sank to the floor clutching their own chests as a young woman stepped right through the broken glass of the front doors then. She sure wasn't wearing all that much as she walked holding onto a staff of some sort. She wore a hooded cape which covered her long black hair and other than a few bits of cloth which sort of covered her breasts and her hips, most of what she wore were large round jewel-like orbs which gleamed a little. Some of the frightened people called out to her and told her that she'd best get down on the floor, but she only smiled and walked on. She stopped at one point and looked down at the elderly man for a moment, "Is it angina, or is it – " He shook his head, not being able to speak for the pain. The woman nodded sadly and the man smiled as his mind filled with pleasant memories from his long life. As she walked on, the old man felt no more pain as he drew his last breath. Jorret was just finishing the demolition of the golden Buick. He shook his head and the right rear door sailed off to crash onto the hood of another car, crazing the windshield as well. The two men were in several pieces each. He nodded to Hammh and he turned away from her as she climbed easily onto his back just as his wings began to spread out to either side of her. With a short run and a bounding leap, they were gone and climbing as they faded from sight. The elderly man's passing was an unfortunate collateral event, but they'd caused the passing of the owners of the five souls they'd come to get as a favor to their stepfather, the four armed men and the wheelman waiting out in the alley. ----------------------------- Several hours and a pair of really fine steaks later, Edwina groaned again from the gentle brushing of Tommy's tongue. She turned her pretty blonde head to look back at him with a very soft and hopeful smile. "Alright, Tommy," she chuckled, "I cannot ask this any more nicely, ... Please bugger me now." THE END ---------------------------------------- *** I found a later version of this on a SIMM card and it has what was supposed to be the epilogue on it. That became sort of another chapter. I might decide to build something out of it, I dunno. But I'm on my way back so there are marbles and witchers waiting. 0_o ***