Storiesonline.net ------- Orchard Flower (Version Bravo) by Lubrican Copyright© 2009 by Lubrican ------- Description: Bob moved to South Dakota to get away from a painful situation. Then he fell in love with a slip of a girl who he knew he couldn't have, and found himself in pain again. You know that saying: No pain, no gain? It is a phrase that can be very true. Codes: MF cons reluc het oral pett preg slow ------- ------- Foreword This story is written in three versions having the same or very similar beginnings, which branch out into different endings. In Version Alpha a mother and daughter compete for Bob's attention, and mom wins. In version Bravo, the daughter resists her mother's attempts to separate her from Bob and she pursues him. In version Charlie, neither woman wants to give up. You are reading version Bravo. If you read Version Alpha you will feel like you have already read up to about half way through chapter four of version Bravo. Up to that point versions Alpha and Bravo are very similar. The small differences there are, however, lead to big differences later in the story. For that reason you are encouraged to read everything in the story without skipping around. Bob ------- Prologue Coincidence is an astonishing thing if you take the time to stop and think about it. Most of us don't. Oh, we think about it fleetingly, as it touches our lives now and then, but we don't actually give it the honor it is due. Some people think there isn't any such thing as coincidence, and that everything is preordained. They would call coincidence fate. I'm not one of those people. Coincidence is neither good nor bad, in and of itself. The results can be either, of course, but you can't blame that on coincidence. Take, for example the coincidence of a weak bolt being installed in the engine of an airplane, and the coincidence of my wife being on that airplane when that bolt broke. We'd been married for three months when that bolt snapped. It happened to be a very important bolt, and the engine lost power. It was coincidence that there was a storm going on around the plane at the time too. The end result was that I lost her, and the wound went deep enough that, ten years later I still haven't been on a date. I can blame the bolt, or the company that made it, or maybe the mechanic who torqued it down too tightly. But I can't blame coincidence. Even if we wanted to put all the blame there, that's all we'd have time to do, because even though we don't think about it very much, our lives are full of coincidence. It happens all day long and only after it has happened can you decide if it affected your life in small or large ways. It is coincidence that causes you to turn the alarm off but linger in bed for another thirty seconds, instead of getting up immediately. That brief delay can mean you get to a particular intersection thirty seconds after a five-car pileup. That one's no small coincidence, as it turns out. And coincidence doesn't happen only in your own life. The coincidence that happens in other people's lives affects us all too. But we rarely think about the impact of coincidence in our lives. At least most of us think of it rarely. Sometimes something happens to bring our attention to it, though, and that's what's happened to me. I want to tell you about it, because coincidence has turned out to be serendipity in my case, at least in some ways. I won't bore you by pointing out each instance where coincidence altered things. All I ask is that you remember that each time something happened, it was probably the result of a number of coincidences, and that the same thing is going on in your life even as you read this. After all, isn't it a coincidence that you even became aware this story existed? ------- Chapter 1 I got married at thirty-one, relatively late in life, after years of thinking I'd never meet that special woman. When she suddenly popped into my life I was astonished, and then delighted. Losing her was just as sudden, and the emotions involved in it were even stronger. I didn't even have the closure of being able to bury her because ... well ... there wasn't anything to put in the coffin. The counselor the airline supplied suggested I think of her as having been buried at sea. That didn't help. I want you to know up front here that I'm not trying to get you to feel sorry for me. I took care of that, believe me. I just want you to understand the frame of mind I was in when things happened after that, or I made decisions; that's all. I couldn't live in the house any more. I had a company auction off all the furniture and everything else we'd bought together. I sold the house too, because even seeing it from the outside made me want to fall down and cry. I didn't need a whole house any more anyway. I couldn't get up the interest to look for an apartment, and got a long-term room in a fleabag hotel because it was quick and easy. The room had a television, though I didn't watch it much. I read a lot of books, though it took a really good one to keep my mind off my loss. I kept my job as an accountant, because it was somewhere to go during the day, and I could dull the pain by letting the numbers distract me. Tax season was the best, because I was busy extra hours of the day. I turned management of my own financial affairs over to Phil, a friend of mine who didn't know what to say about Vicky being dead, but wanted to do something to help. I found that going for a run helped. I wasn't a physical kind of person before all this happened. I had never been a runner before this, but I'd heard that runners kind of zone out while they run and I desperately wanted to zone out, so I tried it. I didn't zone out, but there were lots of things to distract me, particularly if I ran during rush hour. That's when I started running to and from work, instead of driving my car. Rain or shine, cold or hot, it didn't matter to me. It was something to do that kept me from constantly thinking about my loss. Three years later I was finally able to think about her without crying. I probably should have stayed in therapy a lot longer than I did. Maybe that would have limited my mourning time to a year. Basically though, one day it finally occurred to me that I didn't have a life. I looked around and took stock. In the hotel room I had some clothes and three neatly organized accordion folders of my personal records. I had a few books. I swapped books at the local used book place, or got them from the library, so I didn't own that many. I still had a bunch of stuff in the self-storage place, but hadn't even been down there in over a year. I paid all my bills online from my computer at work, and didn't get paper bank statements. Whenever I paid a bill I saw a summary of account activity, and all I ever checked routinely was the balance in my checking account. They say mechanics drive broken down cars, and accountants never balance their checkbooks. It's true, I guess. When I took the time to actually go talk to Phil and look at my own financial situation I was mildly astonished to find that the proceeds of the house, and my wife's life insurance, having been invested and rolled over a number of times, had made me a modestly wealthy man. Of course the Spartan lifestyle I lived had a lot to do with that too. I'd completely forgotten about the fact that I'd signed papers for Phil to have almost fifty percent of my salary diverted to an investment fund, and that I'd also elected to pay taxes on it up front. In short, if I wanted it, within six months I could have over two million dollars in liquid assets available to me. When you have that much money it's easy to overcompensate for awakening from three years or so of lethargic non-involvement in the world. While before this I elected to do relatively nothing except feel sorry for myself, now I went a little crazy trying to change the feel of my life. Things were slow one day, and I saw an ad in the paper about how the government auctions off land to settle tax debts. I'd heard of it before, but had never paid any attention to it. This time I went to the web site that was listed. For some reason I got interested in a four hundred acre farm in South Dakota that had been seized by the government for back taxes. I had this stylized vision of being a gentleman farmer, which turned out to be a real hoot. You can be an accountant anywhere. South Dakota needs them, just like everybody else. It turned out that four hundred acres in South Dakota is considered to be a garden plot by most ranchers. If it's not land that's contiguous with what you already own, it would be more of a pain in the ass to mess with than be of any benefit to a big rancher. In short, I got the farm for a song. I felt bad about that later, when I realized how the former owners must have felt about losing it, but at the time I thought it was great that I still had plenty of money in my investment accounts when I got the deed to the place. It was after that that I found out farming is hard work, whether you think you can hire somebody else to do it or not. It's risky too. Two days of bad weather at the wrong time can ruin an entire year's crop. After the first two years I ended up renting most of the tillable land out for shares of the crop, and turned the rest into pasture for horses. I usually board five or six these days, which kind of breaks even on the expenses. When I'm not taking care of horses I spend my time working on the house, which is sixty or seventy years old, and on a garden that turned out to be probably ten times larger than I really needed. During harvest season I spend a lot of time at the farmers' market and still end up donating truckloads of food to the food bank. I brought my Spartan lifestyle with me. I wash dishes by hand. I heat as much as possible with a wood stove. I don't have cable or a cell phone. When I'm not working (which is unusual) I still read lots of books. Somehow being closer to nature made me feel closer to Vicky too, and I was able to talk to her out there in the sun, wind and rain, and nobody would hear me. Well almost nobody. I do have neighbors, though it took me years to get to know them. I first met Lynne the second day I'd lived there, when she brought over a casserole as a housewarming gift. "Welcome to the neighborhood," she said brightly when I opened the door. She said more than that, of course. She introduced herself, and I somewhat belatedly invited her in. There were still boxes lying around, unopened, and I had no furniture. She told me about the local auction barn, which had a public sale every Friday night. I judged her to be twenty-two or so and thought maybe she was the neighbor's daughter or something. I figured out that was an error when she said she and Paul, her husband, had a ten-year-old daughter. During the conversation she mentioned that the land I'd bought had originally been in their family. Their house was only a quarter mile away and had been built by her father. I was living in her grandfather's house. That was about all I found out that day. I met the little girl, whose name was Jill, when I took the baking dish back. Jill was a bright, friendly talkative girl. Her mother was on the phone when I arrived, so Jill entertained me by asking at least three dozen questions about who I was and where I came from and why I had bought Great Grandpa Lucian's house and what was I going to grow and all manner of other things. Once Lynne was off the phone she scolded Jill for being snoopy. The girl flashed me a smile and disappeared off somewhere. I ended up staying for dinner and met Paul when he came in from tending their cattle. I found out during supper that they'd wanted to get my land back, but because they were related to the owner who had let the taxes build up, they weren't elligible. There was no rancor about it. Paul just suggested that if farming didn't work out for me, he'd appreciate if I let him know if I was going to sell or not. Being from the city I was a bit standoffish. I was also somewhat shy, because my people skills weren't the best. I guess I took a page from Jill's book and asked a lot of questions so that they'd do all the talking instead of me. In the process I found out they'd met in the local chapter of Future Farmers of America, and that Lynne had inherited her farm, about three thousand acres, from her parents. Her grandfather's farm had already been sold to a man who turned out to be a speculator. When they got married Paul was able to start building a herd of cattle. Lynne spent most of her time working in the orchard her parents had planted a couple of years before she was born. About all I told them was that I was a widower who got tired of the city and wanted to give clean living a try. That was pretty much it, at least for a few months. I went back home, with mixed feelings because while it had been good to be able to do something as simple as chat with some nice people, I didn't have the kind of social skills to feel comfortable talking to them. Paul was a strong young man who looked like the cowboy incarnate. Lynne was a pretty young woman who made me feel uncomfortable BECAUSE I thought of her as being so pretty. The major difference between us wasn't age, but the subcultures from which we came. And their ten-year-old daughter was even more removed from my normal social group. Had I been so jaded as to think that Paul hoped I'd fail (so he could try to buy the land) I would have been disabused of that notion almost immediately. Within days he came over and said he'd like to help me get off to a good start. The good equipment, or at least the newer equipment, had been sold before the farm was sold. What was left was what might have been called good equipment fifty years ago. Of course I didn't know the difference, and the fact that I had a tractor that ran, and plows and disks and harrows and all that kind of thing made me think it would be easy. After all, all you did was ride the tractor, right? Whatever the tractor was pulling did all the work, right? Actually, as things turned out, the tools I had were about right for the three hundred acres of tillable land I now owned. It hadn't BEEN tilled for over seven years, but Paul helped me hook up the old three bottom plow to the three-point hitch on the Massey Ferguson tractor and showed me how to turn the earth over so it could be chopped up into smaller and smaller pieces by succeeding implements. It took me three weeks to prepare those three hundred acres for planting and it was only then that I found out my options for a crop that would have time to mature before winter came were reduced to only one thing. That's how I became a sunflower farmer. After about two weeks, when he'd spared much more time than he could afford to get me started, Paul went back to taking care of his cows and I didn't see much of him after that. After that I got what I thought of at first as the "B Team," which was Jill. It's a little odd when a knobby kneed girl wanders into your life and starts telling you how stupid you are and what to do. She didn't say it in so many words, but she rolled her eyes a lot. It wasn't like Jill was babysitting me or anything. She'd come over a couple of times a week and have a look around, but more often as I labored to become a farmer I'd see Jill sitting on a horse, watching me. She'd smile and wave and, more often than I like remembering, ride over to tell me what I was doing wrong. She was a skinny thing, with those coltish legs that make a girl look so awkward, though she wasn't really awkward at all. She knew ten times as much about farming as I did. It was Jill who told me I was letting the weeds get too big amongst the sunflowers. It was Jill who told me that the sweet corn in my garden was planted too close together, and that unless I put a fence up, I wouldn't have any lettuce because rabbits would eat it all. That's not to say she was mean about it, like some kids can be. Not at all. She was friendly in a way I remembered kids being when I was a kid, many years ago, and which the youth of today are restricted from being, normally. But where she lived things weren't "normal" in the sense of where I came from. She paid attention when her mother taught her how to bake, and was good like only a 4-H ten-year-old girl can be at baking cakes and pies. They ate the baked goods that Lynne made, and I was the lucky recipient, about every two weeks or so, of what Jill made. I didn't complain. What kind of pie she brought depended on what was in season. If there was no fruit ripe, she'd make lemon meringue, or chocolate, or banana cream or some such thing. Her rhubarb pie was one of my favorites. I kept telling her she didn't have to do that, and that I had nothing I could repay her with. She'd smile brightly and say "I know," and then pick up the empty dish from the last one and take it with her. I saw the whole family at a community event, where Jill ignored me completely while I stood and chatted with Paul and Lynne. I mentioned the pies and cakes to Lynne and that I felt guilty because a lot of time and resources went into them. She waved a hand and said Jill was just being neighborly and not to worry about it. They were just like that. They were good people. Of course my male ego rebelled a bit at this skinny girl telling me what a pitiful excuse for a farmer I was. So about a year later I hired a man to do all the things I didn't know how to do and was too stubbornly proud to ask Jill about. It was Jill who told me he was shamming, going to sleep instead of working, or even going off to town when I thought he was out in the fields. She said he was just collecting his pay instead of actually doing anything. It was Jill who said that the late hail we got in my third year had disrupted the soil too much, and that my five-inch sunflowers which weren't beaten down at all, though a few were broken - would die. They all did too. That was when I found out a sunflower can't be transplanted. If the roots are disturbed ... it just dies. By the fourth year, when I finally realized I wasn't farmer material, I rented out the tillable land to another sunflower farmer and started using my other hundred acres for boarding horses. I also hung out my sign as a certified public accountant, so I could still be my own boss. Turns out farm taxes are complicated and time consuming, so folks were happy to have me around. By that time Jill was fourteen and she was a regular fixture around my place. Paul said she was still too young to work cows, but she'd been riding horses since she could find a way to climb up on one. During the school year she'd come to my house for help with her math homework, and in the summer time she spent a lot of hours "helping" me, though I think she was really goofing off. Her job at home was to climb high in the apple trees to do the pruning up there, because she was small and light. Because the orchard was between their house and mine, it was easy for her to slip over to my place. I think in the beginning her parents might have told her to keep an eye on me. When that was no longer actually necessary, it was already a habit and she just never stopped doing it. I should have been flattered that she liked my company, but I didn't think about it that way. Not then, anyway. Then one dark, stormy morning Jill came tearing into the yard on her horse, screaming. They weren't whoops of joy or adolescent exuberance either. There was terror in her voice. "D-d-daddy's D-D-DEAD!" she screamed. ------- Chapter 2 It had been a rough, loud night, with the kind of lightning that comes so often and so bright that it penetrates even closed eyelids and you can't shut it out to go to sleep. Thunder shook the house and rattled the dishes. There were tornado watches going on all over the place. That morning Paul had gotten up early and gone out in it, trying to assess how scattered the herd was. He was the tallest thing on the plains and the lightning killed both him and his horse. When he hadn't come back for breakfast, Lynne and Jill had gone looking for him. Jill finished riding her part of the search pattern and found her mother, sitting on the ground, holding her father's lifeless body and rocking as she sobbed. Her mother wouldn't answer her. Jill was old enough and smart enough to know what her father's open, staring eyes meant, so she went to the only other person she could ask for help from. ------- Jill had taught me to ride when I took up boarding horses. I had never ridden in a driving rain and the slicker I was wearing was woefully inadequate at keeping me dry, but I didn't think about that. Jill had been crying so hard that she couldn't talk, except to say "Daddy's dead," which almost incapacitated me. But I found the strength from somewhere to be the adult. I told her to lead me, and followed. Lynne was still there, in a puddle of water, holding her husband, beside a horse that was obviously dead too. It took me twenty minutes - and Jill's help - to get her to let go of him. I was in good shape, and he wasn't a big man, so I was able to get his body up and over the saddle of my horse. I didn't have anything to fasten him on with, so I walked slowly, leading my horse and looking back most of the time. Jill walked beside her mother, holding her hand. Lynne had stopped crying, and was just plodding forward. We must have made a strange looking group ... three people leading three horses, only one of which had a burden to carry. I knew it would be useless to ask her if she was OK, so I just paid attention to keeping Paul's body on the horse. I don't know how long it took us to get back to the house. It stopped raining, but the clouds were still thick and black, and I couldn't see the sun. I didn't wear a watch any more, because what time it was really didn't matter much. I worked until the work was done, and then went in the house to eat and read or whatever. Then, when we finally got to the house, Lynne spoke coherently for the first time. Her voice sounded careful and strained. "Take him in the house please," she said. I didn't think that was a good idea, but wasn't willing to argue with her. She took Jill's hand and left the horses where they were. Once inside, though, she went silent again. I didn't think putting his soaked body on their bed was the right thing to do, and besides, I didn't even know where their bedroom was. So I laid him out on the couch and closed his eyes. I hadn't seen all that many dead people in my life, but he didn't look anything like himself. He looked like a total stranger to me. I could see a bright red streak down the side of his neck, where the electricity had gone. His hat was missing and a circle of hair was burned away too. Without the rain beating down on me I could see that there was a hole in the leg of his jeans, where the lightning had burned through as it went from him into his horse. Lynne was standing, facing half away from him as if frozen. Jill was trying to talk to her and kept darting glances at her father. I went to the phone first, and called 911, telling them what I thought had happened. I had to ask Jill what the address was and she took the phone from me. While she talked to the 911 operator, I tried to figure out what to do with Lynne. "You're wet," I said softly. "You need to get dry clothes on." "He's dead," she whispered, her voice broken." "You'll get sick if you don't take care of yourself," I said. "He kissed me goodbye this morning and now he's dead." Her dull voice broke and a wail of pain welled up out of her. All I could do was hold her as she sobbed and screamed. Jill joined us, trying to hug her mother too, and crying again herself. I let her into the hug and we all just stood there. We were still standing there when I heard the siren and saw the flashing lights through a window. I tried to extricate myself from the tangle, but Lynne held on fiercely. Jill got loose and opened the door for the two paramedics and a deputy who was with them. Their examination of Paul was short. Apparently they'd seen it before. They were very efficient then. After I told them who I was they tried to talk to Lynne. One of them talked on the radio and prepared a sedative that he shot into her arm. Then we carried her to the bedroom, led by Jill who showed us the way. The female paramedic shooed us out and closed the door. I couldn't leave. Jill needed somebody there with her, particularly since her mother was going to be out for a while. The paramedic assumed I'd stay because he gave me instructions on what to do when Lynne woke up. He also gave me some pills I could give her if she woke up too soon. ------- I almost gave one of those pills to Jill, who had exhibited such amazing strength and control during the whole incident. Once the body was gone, and it was quiet in the house again though, she came unglued. Trying to talk to her didn't make any difference. She was shaking like a leaf, and I didn't know if it was emotional or environmental. We were both still soaked, and I felt chilled myself. Fourteen seemed like such a young age to me, and Jill she had filled out in that healthy American girl way that clearly said there was plenty of woman in her. I couldn't just strip her down, but she wasn't responding well enough to take care of herself. So I took her to the bathroom and pushed her inside without closing the door. I instructed her to hand me her wet clothes, more to make sure they got off of her than because I was going to do anything with them. Then I told her to wrap a towel around her and get dry. I told her to wait and went looking for her room. Finding clothes wasn't hard though I didn't think I should be choosing panties and a bra for her, so I just took her jeans and a T shirt. I was about to hand them back in when the door opened, and there she stood, naked. She was bawling again, and seemed not to realize she was naked. I avoided looking at her by simply giving her a hug. That didn't work once I started getting the clothes on her. There was no way to avoid seeing her young, round breasts, with their small nipples. They were startlingly erect and surrounded by goose bumps. Her whole body was studded with goose bumps. I had to pull her jeans on, at first, and got my first look at a fourteen year old mons (I didn't see a girl naked until I was almost eighteen) which was sparsely covered with flat brown hair above tightly closed vulva. Her sobs subsided to jerking gasps and sniffles and she helped me get the jeans over her hips, fastening them herself, as if she had just realized how much I'd seen of her. She was now in that place where almost no emotion showed, except hopelessness. I found a towel and dried her hair as much as I could. There was a hair dryer on the counter and I used it to get her hair dry, brushing it with a brush that was also lying on the counter. I didn't know what to do then. Food is comforting, so I took Jill to the kitchen with me and tried to distract her by asking where things were. I wasn't much of a cook, but I could do hamburger helper. It turned out they didn't have any hamburger helper, so I had to make do with meat and noodles, which I added spices to, hoping they were the right spices, and the right quantities of them. I also put in a couple of cans of tomato paste and a lot of cheese. At one point I saw that Jill had sat down. She wasn't crying any more. Instead, she was just staring at me, blinking every once in a while. "I'm sorry," I said. "I know," she answered. "Me too." Her face scrunched up again and more tears started. I turned the heat down under the pan and went to hold her. I didn't know what to say, so I just started talking about losing Vicky. I ended up sitting down, and Jill ended up sitting on my lap with her head against my chest. When I finally stopped talking I realized she'd fallen into an exhausted sleep. I was afraid to move, for fear of waking her up, so I just sat there and held her. ------- An hour and a half later I was stiff and sore when she woke up. She stood up, looked at me for a few seconds, and then left the room. I hadn't turned the heat down enough on the hamburger helper and the bottom was burned, about a quarter inch thick. I scraped the rest of it out of the pan into a bowl and tried some. It wasn't the best I ever had, by a long shot, but it was at least edible. Jill came back. "She's still sleeping." "Good," I said. She came over and snuggled into my arms, needing a physical bond with someone. "I'm going to go lie down with her," she said. "That's probably good too," I said softly. "Call me when she wakes up." "You're going to stay?" She sounded surprised. "Of course," I said. She squeezed me, and then let go, leaving the room again. ------- I'll leave off with the excruciating detail at this point. Suffice it to say that Lynne woke up, and needed someone there. I stayed for three days, dealing with the funeral home for her and letting Jill teach me to cook food that didn't make them gag. I got the tractor out to drag the horse off to where Lynne wanted it buried. It had already been ravaged by coyotes, but the saddle and tack were salvageable. There was a lot more that happened, but it isn't vital to the telling of this tale. Not in detail anyway. I looked in on them every day for long enough that it just became a habit. Lynne's sister came to visit from somewhere, and some other relatives were there for the funeral. Jill actually fled from them because they made her feel sadder than just dealing with things herself. Of course she came to my place to get away from them. Lynne sold off the cattle and rented out the pasture to another rancher. Paul's life insurance, which they had only been able to afford to keep paying because his parents bought the policy for him when he was a baby, was more than enough to take care of the funeral expenses and gave them enough to fall back on for a while. Lynne and I spent hours sharing our grief. It was good for both of us. Jill spent even more time shadowing me, and time passed. ------- A year later they hit a financial snag. Lynne mentioned it in the same casual way she might have said that there were two weeks left before apples would blossom. We knew each other pretty well by then. In many ways I knew both Lynne and Jill better, and was closer to them than I had been to Vicky, and it bothered me sometimes. I had loved Vicky, and what I felt for both Lynne and Jill was very different than what I'd felt for Vicky, but the closeness we DID have was something I hadn't had time to make with Vicky. For that reason I was completely comfortable around either of them, while feeling tense and anxious at the same time. Part of that was because both Lynne and her daughter were handsome women. At fifteen there was nothing gawky about Jill any more. Lynne was a well built woman, and her daughter had inherited those physical characteristics. Plenty of exercise and good food had brought Jill's physical maturity on early. Both women had the same brown hair that looked blond sometimes. Both women had freckles scattered from one high cheekbone across the bridge of the nose to the other cheek. Both women had slim, but muscled legs leading to wide hips below a narrow waist that flowed into firm, healthy breasts that nicely filled whatever they were wearing. Of course Lynne had looked like that all along. It was impossible for a man to miss, and that was part of what made me so stumble tongued around her in the beginning. She was sunburned and windblown and still managed to make me stare whenever I was around her. What it amounted to was that I was finally able to appreciate a woman for BEING a woman, without feeling like I was cheating on Vicky. So, when Lynne mentioned that they'd have to tighten their belts I didn't feel like I was prying to ask a few questions. It turned out that there had been a bunch of repairs needed that she hadn't told me about. The water heater had rusted out, and the annual inspection of the furnace had revealed a crack in the combustion chamber. Then the truck had to have tires. It all hit her about the same time and in the space of just a few months she'd had to spend over three thousand dollars. That meant she'd had to dip into the money from Paul's insurance that had been set aside for Jill's college education and she wasn't happy about that. That fund had sat there, gathering a little interest, but tuition kept going up and she was worried that it wasn't going to be enough when the time came. "How much do you need?" I asked. She shot me a look. "You know better than to think I'm asking you for money," she said darkly. "True," I said calmly. "So how much do you need?" "I'm not asking for a loan either," she said impatiently. "We'll just have to go without some things for a while until I can pay her college fund back. There's some time left before she'll have to have it. It won't kill us, Bob." I thought about it. If anybody deserved to go to college it was Jill. I had lots of money and didn't ever use it. But there was Lynne's sense of decorum to deal with. Where the idea came from I don't know, but I was glad it popped into my mind. "I've always wanted to be part owner in an apple orchard," I said. "Of course apple orchards aren't all that common around here. You wouldn't know of anybody who might be interested in selling shares of one ... would you?" She gave me a level stare, but I saw appreciation in her eyes. "You don't have to do that," she said softly. "I know. I happen to have the money and I'm not using it for anything." "We don't make a profit on the apples," she said slowly. "We break even for the most part, or at least I've always thought that. To be honest I don't even keep good records on where the money from the sales of apples goes." "Maybe that will change some day," I said. "If there ever is a profit, I'll take my share. Until then, it's just an investment." She hugged me. I hadn't gotten a hug from a woman in a long, long time, and when those firm, warm, disturbing breasts pressed into my chest I felt guilty for reacting like a male. It was one of those quick hugs, though, and when she stepped back, smiling, I could see the relief on her face. It didn't help that my prick was still getting harder, and I wasn't proud of myself at all. That was nothing, though, compared to what I felt when Jill put a hand on my arm and spun me around to hug me as well. "You're so good to us," she said into my chest. "I'll have to make you double the pies from now on." Pies were the last thing on my mind right then, though, because now it was Jill's hard, hot breasts pressing into my solar plexus. Her hair smelled so delicious. I hadn't smelled a woman's hair for a long time either. I had to shove my butt backwards, to avoid letting my almost fully erect cock press against this fresh, young girl. The last thing she needed was some horny old goat ruining her innocence. I tried to concentrate on pies and cakes. I'd had to go on an exercise program already because of all those desserts, but right then I didn't care if I'd have to work even harder. "I can live with that," I sighed. Her arms squeezed me, and I realized her hug had lingered long past what her mother's quick thanks had been. Other than feeling like my butt must be sticking out a mile, though, I didn't care about that either. Man! Her hair smelled SO good! ------- Lynne took a couple of days to think about it and then asked for five thousand as a buy-in. I told her to give me a few days and called Phil and asked him to do some research for me. He needed some information, which I got from Jill. It turned out Lynne's parents, whether they knew it or not, had done a lot more than plant a bunch of trees. They'd improved the value of the land a great deal. Based on the age of the trees, and the estimated output, that eighty acre orchard was easily worth half a million dollars. I went back to her with my checkbook in hand. "I want to buy forty percent," I said as I sat down at the kitchen table. "I don't know how much that is," she said, frowning. "I do," I said. I wrote the check and handed it to her. She looked at it and blinked. It was a two, followed by five zeros and I watched her count those zeros twice. She looked at me and back at the check. "This is too much," she said weakly. "That's what my analyst says forty percent is worth," I said. "That's assuming output goes up a bit. You don't use pesticide or fertilize and according to Phil, that makes the apples eligible to be marketed as organically grown. He says you'll have to ship them further, but you'll be able to get more for them if you do." "This is two HUNDRED thousand dollars, Bob!" she panted. "Forty percent," I said calmly. "Do I have to have sex with you if I take this?" she asked weakly as she sat down. My mouth dropped open and then snapped shut. My mind shot off in twelve directions at the same time. It was the last thing I'd expected her to say and I wasn't prepared to respond. I gulped and she must have heard it. She looked up at me and smiled weakly. "I was kidding," she said. She looked back at the check and then back at me. "At least I think I was." "NO!" I finally got out in a gasp. She blinked and I realized it had sounded awfully harsh. I tried to undo any damage, because the last thing I wanted to do was offend her. I should have just kept my mouth shut, because what came out was: "I mean I'd be an idiot to turn down an offer like that, but it's not part of the deal." I sat down then, and put my head in my hands. "I know you didn't offer. That's not what I meant," I mumbled. "Jill made a pie last night. Would you like some pie, Bob?" she asked. I ventured a peek and saw she'd gotten up. The check was still lying on the table. She was opening a cupboard and getting down a plate. I saw the pie was Key lime with whipped cream on it as she put a huge piece onto a plate. Then she opened the freezer and got out ice cream to go with it. When she served it to me she picked up the check and left the room. I think she was just giving me time to collect myself, because she stayed gone long enough that when she came back in I was just cleaning up the plate. She took it and put it in the sink and sat down across from me. "Forty percent," she said firmly. "It's a deal. That's enough that I can buy some new equipment to pick with. If we hire some seasonal help - high school kids most likely - we can pick double or triple what I've picked in the past. I always picked what I could get rid of and left the rest to go back to nature. I won't do that from now on. And if you have time, you'll have to help harvest. Deal?" All I could think about was that she hadn't mentioned the sex. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad about that. I decided it was all for the best if we just forgot my gaffe, and nodded. "Thank you, Bob," she said softly. Her eyes looked liquid and I was afraid she was going to cry or something. If she did that I knew I would too and I already felt pretty foolish, so I stood up. "OK!" I said a little too loudly. "Just let me know what I need to do whenever I need to do it." I turned to leave and, as I went out the back door, I heard her voice say "Deal!" I was weeding my carrots a few hours later when Jill showed up on Prancer, her horse. She got off, pulled me up to stand, put her arms around my neck and kissed me right on the lips. Twice in the same day the Simmons women had left me flummoxed. "Thank you," she said after she stopped kissing me. I tried to stop thinking about her firm warm breasts pressing against my chest, not to mention lips that tasted faintly like strawberries. My cock started moving in my pants again. "You're welcome," I said weakly. There's an old saying about getting back on the horse you rode in on and leaving. It's supposed to mean the person isn't welcome. As she got back on the horse she rode in on I thought of that saying. I decided it's a pretty stupid saying. ------- A week later, I found a colt that was only two weeks old had been injured. It's leg had been torn open. It wasn't a valuable animal, but I was upset that any animal in my care had been hurt. I had a good relationship with the local vet and called him. He came out and pronounced that coyotes had done this thing. "How do I get rid of them?" I asked. "Poison," he said "though that will kill a lot more than the coyotes. You can hunt them, or hire people to hunt. Some folks will do it for fun, but sometimes they get a little out of control. My recommendation is to hunt them yourself. You know where your animals are, and which direction to shoot or not shoot and all that kind of thing." I didn't even own a gun. Naturally I called Lynne to find out what to do. Paul must have had coyote problems with the cattle, after all. Jill answered. Her mother had gone to town, but she said she'd be right over. ------- If you own guns, this will seem silly to you, but for those of you who don't own one, particularly if you never have, imagine yourself standing in the sporting goods section of your local Wal-Mart, holding a rifle that feels like it weighs fifty pounds while you get a lecture about "varmint guns" from a sun-darkened fifteen-year-old girl wearing short shorts and a blouse that's tied off under her breasts. "Weird" doesn't even come close to the feeling. Now add in holding ... almost fondling ... long, thin bullets that have a distinctly phallic appearance. "You want something that shoots flat and hot," explained Jill, who had been shooting since she was six or seven. She showed me a bullet as if I could see how it would shoot. "That way you have both good knock-down power and the flat trajectory helps keep the bullet from going farther than you want it to." I looked at the store clerk, who had his arms folded across his chest and was nodding. Why do your job when a teenage girl is going to do it for you? I might have glared at him. Holding a gun made me feel like I killed baby seals for sport. I pointed at another rifle behind him. It looked a lot smaller and easier to handle. "What about that one?" I asked. He glanced at it, and then to Jill, pausing long enough to let her answer the question for him. "That's a twenty-two," said Jill patiently. "You might be able to hit a coyote with one, but probably not, and even then it might not kill it. To get a good shot with that you'd have to get a lot closer, which is the hard part. I'm telling you, Bob, you want a two-twenty-three for this. With a scope, even a blind man could hit a coyote from three hundred yards, which is about as close as you can hope to come. They're not stupid, Bob. They know people are bad news." I'd never felt like "bad news" before. It was a strange way to think of myself. "So I just look through the scope thing and pull the trigger and the coyote dies?" The man behind the counter rolled his eyes at Jill, who sighed. They seemed to be communicating without words. "I'll teach you how to shoot," she said. "So I guess I want this one," I said, holding the heavy rifle out to the man gingerly. "And a carton of bullets too I guess," I added. Jill translated for me. "We'll take the Savage Lo Pro with the one-to-nine rate of twist, and the Bushnell six-power scope with the firefly reticule. And we'll need five boxes of sixty-two grain ball for practice. Just one box of the fifty-five grain hollow point for when he's ready for the real deal." "Got it," said the clerk. "Are you going to fill out the paperwork or is he?" ------- Chapter 3 There is something just plain incongruous about a woman who buys a rifle and ammunition to shoot furry dog-like things and then, on the way home, flashes bare legs at the old man driving the truck as, with a foot pressed to the dashboard, she paints her toenails bright, playful red. Not for the first time did I realize there was a woman hiding in that teenaged body, and that Jill Simmons was a complicated female of the species. She hummed with the radio as she painted, making me wish I were twenty years younger. Then, while her toenails dried, she unpacked the rifle and attached the scope and carry strap. That made me glad I was too old to go nosing around this fresh-faced girl and get myself in trouble. The rifle didn't weigh fifty pounds. With the scope, four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber and the sling on it, it weighed in at a hair over ten pounds. It just FELT like fifty pounds. And don't be impressed by my use of words like "rounds" and "chamber" and all that. It took me a week of Jill's tutoring to get the language down. There was a dip in the land at one end of the tillable property, and she set up a target range in that. She started me off at a hundred yards, which I thought was ridiculous. I couldn't even throw a rock that far. How was I supposed to shoot something that seemed like it was a mile away? Then I looked through the scope and it looked ridiculously easy until I pulled the trigger the first time. I wasn't ready for either the noise or the kick. She made me put on the headphones I'd forgotten to wear but the second time I closed my eyes as I pulled the trigger, anticipating the sharp crack and the stiff jolt to my shoulder. I missed the target completely. She had me lying down in the beginning, which she called the prone position. I had to support my upper body on my elbows, with the carry strap ... sorry, I mean sling ... wrapped around my left forearm. It was kind of nifty in a way because I didn't actually need my right hand to do anything but pull the trigger. The way she had me holding the rifle made it stick right where it was supposed to. The way she solved my flinching problem was to lie down on top of me. She wasn't heavy, but she was all woman these days, and all that soft flesh on top of me caused some really hard flesh to develop underneath me. Her right hand came down to almost caress my right hand as she spoke into the earmuff, telling me what to do and what not to do and how to ease the trigger back, instead of jerking it. She made me shoot an entire box of ammo without aiming at all, just to get me used to the kick and to let me learn to keep my eyes open. About halfway through the next box I wanted to roll over and have her lie on top of me that way. It was very distracting, let me tell you. Which is why I started paying particular attention to the rifle. I needed the distraction. I paid attention to the feel of it in my hands, and how the bolt worked as I pulled and pushed on it, and how the round looked as it was brought up out of the magazine and into the chamber. I watched each tip slide into the dark hole of the chamber and thought of the sexual symbolism as I rammed the bolt forward, locking it down and caressing the trigger until there was an explosion that shook the body. I was panting so hard by the end of the second box that she stopped me and gave me a five-minute lecture on breathing control. She slid off of me, lying on her side with one leg over mine, probably because it was just more comfortable for her that way. It wasn't comfortable for me, though. I think it was the effort to try to stop thinking about having wild sweaty sex with this delicious young woman that finally brought all my attention to the task at hand. Trying to remember all the little parts of shooting correctly was taxing on the untrained mind anyway. I found that if I actually thought about not being stiff, and not gripping things too tightly, and having the right cheek-to-stock weld, and getting the right sight picture while taking three breaths before holding one to shoot on ... well if I thought of all those things in the right order two things happened. The first was that the bullet made nice little holes in the target right where they were supposed to. The second was that Jill stayed a virgin that much longer. Not that I'd have actually fucked her. I mean we were close, but not in that way. And I was almost thirty years older than she was too. While I'd have loved to climb between those sweet young thighs, she'd have probably upchucked at the very idea. So not thinking about that was a good thing. In short, trying not to think about what I wanted to do facilitated her teaching me how to get good at the task I wasn't all that hot about performing. When I put ten rounds within the space a fifty-cent piece would cover, she said I was ready to learn to shoot sitting and standing. ------- I admit that the first time I shot at a coyote I got off my horse to do it. Jill had made me practice shooting on horseback, and on the tractor too. I had carried the rifle on my back so often that it no longer seemed odd to do it. But when I saw the brown flash of movement off in the distance, I just wasn't willing to explore it from up on the horse. After I got down and spent five fruitless minutes trying to spot the critter again, I almost gave up. Then he trotted out from behind a bush I'd looked at a dozen times and just looked around. He didn't suspect a thing, despite all the gunfire that had gone on around the place in the last few weeks. I'd hoped that just the noise of me learning how to shoot would convince them to go live somewhere else. No such luck, though. The kick surprised me completely. I hadn't even 'decided' to pull the trigger. The first thing I thought of was that I hadn't evaluated what was likely to be down range if I missed. That was a bad thing and I felt stupid. As I felt a stab of shame though, the brown body in the field of my sight did an almost magical backwards somersault and landed flat on the ground. Then it didn't move any more. I was astonished. It took me a few minutes to get to the body. I was so out of it that I didn't pay any attention to how far it had been or any of that. I just went to the body with the dreadful curiosity of someone who thinks he has just killed something for the first time in his life. Hunting is a complicated endeavor. Aiming is easy, and squeezing the trigger is simple too. It's what happens after that that makes things complicated. I stood, looking down at a shaggy, dusty, multi-colored coyote. Its mouth was partly open and I could see its teeth ... perhaps the very teeth that had savaged that colt's leg. At the same time I knew that up until a few minutes ago this had been a living creature. I had assumed the role of God, deciding what would live and what would die, and I didn't like that role. I knew the poor thing lying at my feet had to die, because of the priorities that existed. But that didn't mean I was proud of having killed it. It occurred to me that I had learned this killing skill very well, considering that I was successful on my very first shot off the practice range. That made me feel good, except that my success had been the doom of another creature, which robbed me of that good feeling. And the whole time all this was going on in my brain I was hopped up on adrenaline and hyperventilating. I thought about what to do with the body. Jill had told me not to leave anything for the others to eat unless I wanted to use it as bait and wait for them to come feed. I'd thought that was cold then, and it felt even more distasteful now. I picked up the carcass by the tail and tried to figure out how to put it on my horse. The horse wasn't impressed. He had taken the rifle shot calmly, but didn't like a coyote to be that close to him, even if it was dead. In the end I put the body in a tree until I could get on the horse, and just carried it by the tail. Based on some strange urge that I still don't understand, I rode through the apple orchard to show Jill what I'd done. She was delighted, of course, and took the body from me, asking me if I wanted to learn how to skin it. I declined, feeling sick at my stomach. I said I had something to do and left her leaning over the still warm body of my first kill, a knife in her right hand. The next day I found the stiff skin of the coyote nailed to the side of my barn. To be honest, I didn't quite know how to feel about that. ------- It only took me six months to resolve the coyote problem. By then I had fourteen hides nailed up on the side of the barn and I no longer felt guilty about killing them. There was a farm two miles down the road where I got fresh eggs and I saw what coyotes had done to some of her hens. It wasn't like they had nothing else to eat. There was plenty of game around. They just went for the easy stuff, which usually mean they went for what humans owned. While I played great white hunter, Lynne and Jill put a lot of work into the orchard, taking it much more seriously than they ever had before. Lynne studied the common problems, like apple scab and aphids and such, and the ways that organic farmers dealt with them. In the past there had been plenty of apples for all the critters to share in. That changed when she got serious about making a profit on them. It took two years to develop the markets, and the third year, the year Jill turned sixteen, instead of driving a pickup load of apples to the farmer's market (something she'd been dreaming of doing for years) she had to settle for being ogled by the men who showed up in an eighteen wheeler to pick up the six hundred crates of apples it had almost killed us to pick and pack in a one-week period. And those six hundred crates had come from only four acres of orchard. The next year, by hiring ten high school kids, we were able to ship three truckloads of apples. The buyer asked if she had any other varieties. She did. Her parents had planted seven different kinds of apples, but all we'd had time to take care of was the one that seemed to turn out looking the best. ------- That year there was a fundamental change in my relationship with the Simmons women. That was because Lynne accepted a date from a man she had known in high school, but had never dated back then. He had lost his wife to melanoma, probably caused by spending too much time in the sun. It's a hazard of the game in farming, but nobody expects it to strike when someone is under thirty. At any rate, it was Jill's belief that since her mother knew what it felt like to lose the love of her life, she was taking pity on this man, whose name was Dennis. I decided not to mention the possibility that a still young woman might have needs and desires that are a lot more fun to pursue with a member of the opposite sex. According to Jill, Lynne claimed to have had a good time, but they only went out twice. I knew what it felt like to be around Lynne after your wife had died, so I was pretty sure I knew how he felt, and why he didn't ask her out again. But the fact that she'd gone out with him emboldened a few other men and she accepted dates with them too. Nothing seemed to last longer than a couple of times out with the same man, though. I thought maybe Lynne had her own troubles, thinking about Paul watching her. The change it brought, though, was that I saw less of Lynne, and more of Jill. When her mother was out with one of her suitors, Jill came over and hung out with me. I wondered if that was so Lynne and whoever she was out with this time could be alone at her house, but I never asked. ------- In the off season, meaning when we weren't actually picking apples, Jill and I still spent hours and hours together. I had gotten good enough at shooting that we could have competitions. I loved shooting in the summer time, because Jill usually wore halter tops, or tank tops, and even sometimes a T shirt that was cut off short so her stomach showed. I'd glue my eyes to her breasts, waiting for that special jiggle they'd display when her rifle went off. Shooting excited her too, and her nipples would get hard. There were a number of times I suspected she wasn't wearing a bra, but her breasts were so firm that it was hard to tell unless a nipple popped up. I had given up feeling guilty about lusting after her. She paid no attention to me at all in the sense she was completely comfortable around me. If she caught me staring at her she might say "What!" but always shrugged it off if I said "Nothing," or something like "I was just LOOKING at you! Can't I even LOOK at you?" And after thinking about what a shame it was that Lynne didn't seem to be able to find what she needed, and what a waste that was, I had finally come to peace with the thought that Vicky would probably have scolded me up one side and down the other for simply arresting my social life, as far as women went. Still, it was one thing to gaze fondly at this girl and have distinctly naughty thoughts about her. It was another completely to translate those thoughts into actions. Besides, I liked both Jill and her mother too much to screw things up if I did something that made either of them uncomfortable around me. In the years I had known her Jill had taught me things like welding, most of what I knew about fixing the tractor, all about gardening and things like that, while I had taught her woodcarving, and sketching. They didn't have a suitable tree on their property, so I had let her help me build her a tree house in an elm out behind my house. In all the years I'd known her I'd never known her to take any interest in boys. She never talked about them to me, and never seemed frustrated about them or any of that. And several times Lynne bemoaned the fact that her daughter didn't have a boyfriend. She was around boys at school. They just didn't impress her or something. Of course I loved that part of things, in one sense, because I firmly believed she was a virgin and that made my fantasies so much the sweeter. I'm not rambling here. I tell you all this because you really need to understand where my mind was, at this time of my life, because shortly after Jill's eighteenth birthday everything kind of went crazy. It was a Saturday, and it was late July. There was an air of anticipation in the air, but only part of that had to do with the apple harvest. The trees were heavy with fruit, but it still needed some time to get to the picking point. The other part of it was that in the fall Jill would be going off to college. It seemed like somehow that would change everything. On this particular day I knew that Lynne was in town doing the weekly shopping, and was looking for just the right birthday present for Jill. She had asked me to distract Jill so that she wouldn't want to go with her, and had assigned us the task of inspecting the tops of the trees for signs of pests. We were concentrating on the trees that had been the best producers the year before. I used a ladder. Jill still just climbed like a monkey. I finished a tree and went looking for Jill. She had the list of which trees were done and which still needed to be inspected. I was walking under a tree when an apple whizzed by my shoulder, missing me by inches. It hit the ground by my foot with a thump. I looked up to see a grinning Jill standing in the branches. I only noticed the grin for a few seconds though, and the "HEY! Watch it!" that came out of my mouth was purely reflexive. That's because I was distracted rather quickly by things I could see other than her grin. She was wearing one of those T shirts that had been cut off above her belly button. Her breasts ... her braless breasts by the way ... were pushing that shirt out so that I had a clear view of the undersides of creamy looking swells. She was also, for some obtuse reason, wearing a faded jeans skirt that day, instead of the shorts she usually wore in the summer. Looking up her tanned legs I saw white panties clinging lovingly to a bubble butt and a pronounced mound of Venus. I know. Panties don't cling lovingly to anything. But if I were those panties I'd be clinging to her soft skin, and it would be VERY lovingly! "What are YOU looking at?" she popped off. I had to lick my lips before I could speak. "Nothing." "Liar!" she taunted. "You were looking up my skirt, you dirty old man." "I was not!" I lied weakly and tried to go on the offensive. "And you should be wearing a bra too, young lady!" I had blown it, exposing myself as being, in fact, a dirty old man. "Mom never wears them," she said lightly. "And now I know you were looking up my shirt too." She put the back of one hand to her forehead in a theatrical way and looked up. "I feel so violated!" she moaned. "Sorry," I mumbled automatically. I finally looked away. I worked on my muscles, which had kind of frozen up when I gazed on all that loveliness, and started to walk away. "Wait!" she said. "I was kidding!" That made me look up again. This was a new Jill, one I had never met. She was climbing down a few branches, and making no effort to avoid letting me look at whatever I wanted to look at. "I know you look at me," she said, when her bare feet were on a branch that was even with my head. "I've seen you looking at me for years." "Oh," I said, feeling foolish. All these years I'd thought she was unaware of my oafish behavior. "Don't look so guilty," she said, squatting down. Her skirt lay on her thighs in the front, and hung down in the back. With her knees spread that way the front of her panties were on display right in front of my face. I almost thought she was aware of what she was doing. "I like it," she said casually. "What?" My eyes popped up to her face. She had amber eyes, brown, but with flecks of yellow in them. "It makes me feel good when you look at me like that." "Like what?" I have no idea why I asked the question. I was off balance and just making noises, I think. "Like some of the boys at school do, except when you look it feels different ... like I'm a woman and you're a man who is interested." Well that little revelation about unhinged me, but years of self control sought to make another appearance. "I'm way too old to be interested in a girl like you," I said. "I shouldn't look, but I appreciate you cutting me some slack." "Why shouldn't you look? I like it. Mom said it's a compliment when a quality man looks at you like that." "What?" I think my eyes might have bugged out a bit. "Though why she thinks you're such a quality man I've never figured out," she teased. "You've talked about me?" I was dumbfounded. "Looking at you?" "Of course. You're the only man in our life, for all intents and purposes. Why wouldn't we talk about you? We both know you look at us sometimes, and it makes us both feel good ... like we're pretty, maybe." I felt like I was in a dream, so I said something I'd probably say in a dream. "That's because you ARE both very pretty." "Thank you, Sir," she said, grinning. "Would you please close your legs?" I have no idea what part of my brain thought to say that. "Why?" She sounded actually curious. "Because I can see your panties," I said. She tilted her head and then giggled. "That reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago when I was in, like, the fourth grade or something." She stood up and, like she had done it a hundred times before, reached under her skirt and slid her panties down to her knees. She had superb balance when she was in a tree - she was half monkey - and she bent over to lift one foot. The panties dropped off that foot and fell to the ankle of the foot that was still standing on the branch. She reached for them, changed feet and stood up wadding the white cloth into a small ball that fit in her hands. Then she squatted again, with her knees spread. "I fixed it," she said softly. "Now you can't see my panties any more." I felt the blood rushing from my face, headed south, no doubt, and had the errant thought that in a few seconds I was going to have a truly magnificent erection, except that I was also going to pass out. Dimly, as if from a great distance, I heard Jill's soft voice still speaking. "Is that better? I like it when you look at me like that too." ------- You've heard of alcoholic blackouts, where somebody does things they can't remember later. What happened next was exactly like that ... only completely different. I "awoke" to find my nose buried in soft hair and my lips sucking at her feminine nectar. My tongue was drilling against her clitty and I was making a LOT of noise. While I could not, for the life of me, remember deciding to shove my face between her legs, I was aware that she wasn't unhappy that I had done so. She was cursing softly, using words I'd never heard her lips utter, but both of her hands were on the top back of my head and her legs were still spread wide. I felt her push against me and realized she was balanced, leaning into my mouth, and that I was actually holding her on the branch. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I knew it would be good," she moaned. "I knew it, oh please don't stop, Bob, oh FUCK if you keep doing that I'm gonna cum!" If all this seems sudden to you, reading this, just try to imagine what it was like for me. This was a completely new Jill, a part of her that was obviously there, but that I'd never seen, despite all that time we spent together. I was acting on autopilot, which is the only reason I ended up doing what I was doing. It's hard to explain. I DO remember vaguely thinking "Well ... you're already fucked, Bob, because you've already done enough to end up in the back of a police car for this." Since it was already too late for me, I decided that at least I was going to know I had given her a good time. I circled her clit with my lips. Not having seen it I was working by feel alone. It had been ten years since I'd done this to Vicky, and she had just been getting comfortable with it, having grown up in a conservative family where something like this wasn't even thought of, much less practiced. So I knew I wasn't all that good at it. Then again, I was also sure Jill had never had this done to her before, so she wouldn't know the difference. Her clit wasn't huge, but I was able to nip at it with my teeth and squeeze it gently between them as I sucked. "OH FUCK!" she gasped, and one of her hands left my head as she leaned too hard and pushed me back. Just at the crucial moment I had to decide whether to keep pushing with my face, or catch her as she fell. She wouldn't remember that orgasm if she had a concussion, so I opted for putting my hands on her waist and stepping back. "Noooo," she whined as she tried to hold herself up in the tree with one hand. "Let go," I ordered. She did and her body slid down mine. We didn't mow the grass under the trees, because the limbs hung too low, and there was a soft green blanket probably fourteen inches thick. I laid her back on it, flipped the front of her skirt up and dove back in. When she figured out what I was doing her legs sprang open again and her hands came back. "Yesssss," she hissed. I couldn't fuck her, but I could eat the heck out of that sweet pussy. I made up for lack of experience with an almost frantic gusto, probing her pussy with my tongue, and licking and sucking her clit over and over again. I didn't seem to be able to get her as close as I had that one time, even when I used my teeth in the same way. I found the answer by accident as my face slid in her slippery juices and my chin, with the barest hint of stubble on it, scraped over her clit. "OHHH!" she gasped. Damned if I didn't give her her first orgasm with my chin, just pressing it hard against her clit and making little chewing motions. I had a vague memory that things were really sensitive down there after an orgasm. I realized I should probably stop rubbing her clitty raw, but I didn't want this to end. So I crawled up and kissed her. My mouth was still wet from eating her pussy, but she didn't seem to mind. My moisturized lips tenderly touched hers. Jill's response was to mold her lips against mine and kiss me back. The tension in her lips suggested she hadn't done this too much either. By softening my lips and using them to "eat" hers, I taught her to relax. Within seconds my tongue was teasing her teeth. She was a quick learner, she was. Then her hand slid to the front of my pants, where all that blood that had left my brain, and which I blamed for my "blackout," had collected in my penis. Her hand found the long lump and squeezed at it as she explored this new and fascinating thing that she was experiencing. That got my attention in a very sobering way, because I wanted nothing more than to use what she was squeezing for its intended purpose. But I knew I couldn't. "Oh man Jill, we have to stop this!" I finally managed to say. "Girlie girl, if you were older than you are..." I panted as she squeezed hard. "We can't!" I gasped. "Listen here. I'm going to make you cum one more time and then I'm running away. Afterwards, I want us both to forget this ever happened!' Paying no attention to the defiant look on Jill's rebellious face, I got back down between her sweet thighs and wildly attacked the young pussy between her legs. My mouth kissed, my lips sucked, and my flicking tongue licked. I nibbled her clitty and her hips bucked hard. This sweet, pleasurable chore didn't take as long as I thought it would. After a mere five minutes of furious pussy consumption, I heard the girl cry out as another orgasm grabbed hold of her. Her body jerked against my face and sprayed me with feminine cum. Still, I continued licking, sticking my tongue as deep as I could into her pussy hole and slurping up all her juices. Her whines and whimpers were such music to my ears. It was too much. I had to do something. I was determined not to fuck her, but I had to do something. I elected to jerk off right then and there. I rolled over, shoved my pants down, and gripped my little friend. I was so engrossed in jerking the cum out of my balls that I didn't see her sit up and examine what I was doing. She apparently wanted to help, because her hand came to stop mine and then push it away, to be replaced by hers. I was pretty sure Jill didn't really know what to do. Her slim, long fingers were wrapped around my thick, pulsating cockshaft! But did she know how to give a hand job? Part of me hoped she did, but part of me wanted her to never have touched a cock before. The answer was: 'apparently not.' She made several clumsy attempts at fondling and groping. She squeezed my semen-filled testicles experimentally. She pulled and tugged on my pubic hair. It was all quite fun, but not very satisfying. I'd already blown it - no pun intended - and I supposed it couldn't be so terrible if I adopted the idea that right now was as good a time as any other for this girl to learn about hand jobs and what they produced. Using one of my hands, I guided Jill's hand in the time honored movements that induced semen to squirt from a penis. Inexperienced she might be, but she caught on to the manual mechanics of pumping a cock in a very short time. At first, she timidly stroked with slow movements. Gaining confidence, she increased the tempo. I knew I couldn't last long before blowing my wad. I'd been hard and ready for quite a while. My mouth was still full of the delicious taste of young pussy flesh. My nose was still filled with the intoxicating scent of musky turned-on girl juice. My swollen erection decided it was time to jump on the orgasm bandwagon. I should have warned her, but I was too involved in the anticipation and the feel of that first pressurized stream rocketing through my prick. Hot, creamy cum shot out and struck Jill's chin. She jerked, but didn't let go. Her jerk changed the trajectory of the next spurt and it hit her right nipple. Then she got it aimed upward and a two foot arc of white landed on the grass to my right. She continued to jerk until I stopped her when it got too tender. She finally spoke for the first time since I had lost control and stepped blithely off the cliff. "Oh no!" she suddenly moaned. "It's shrinking! I thought it was supposed to stay hard so you could ... you know ... do it with me." I took some really deep breaths, trying to settle down. "Jill, sweetie," I finally answered. "This is what happens to a man's cock after he's had a good hand job and cum all over the place! And I'm not going to do it with you. You are my friend's too-young daughter! Now girl, get dressed and run on home. I shouldn't have done this in the first place. Please just forget it happened. Now, go one home. We will never ever do anything like this again!" Jill lowered her head and smiled demurely, "We might do it again," she said coyly. "I think anything is possible, don't you agree?" "No I don't!" I answered adamantly. "It's not possible for this to happen again. Besides, you're not interested in this kind of thing. You don't even have a boyfriend!" "I've always been interested in it," she said calmly. "Just not with the boys my friends at school are interested in it with." She stood up, scooping my cum off of her breast and examining it closely. "I was pretty sure it had to be fun, but I had no idea it would be THAT much fun. And I'm almost eighteen. I'm pretty sure this IS going to happen again, Bob." She rubbed spermy fingers together and then, to my astonishment, dropped them to her puffy vulva and rubbed the sperm into her pussy lips. "Mmmmmm." "Stop that!" I snapped. "In there is the last place you want my sperm, young lady!" "Feels good to me," she sighed. Her rubbing went on uninterrupted. "Will it feel good if your belly swells up with a baby in it? Don't be an idiot, Jill." "I'm not an idiot," she complained, finally pulling her fingers away from her pussy lips. "I just know what I like. I liked that, Bob. I liked it a lot." "This is wrong, sweetheart," I moaned. "Remember that," I said. "Because it's not going to happen again. Your mother would take a shotgun to me if she found out I even touched you!" As I turned my back and walked away from the promise of further taboo temptation, I heard Jill's voice defiantly declare, "Don't bet on it, Bob. You might lose!" ------- Chapter 4 By the next morning, I was beginning to halfway believe it had all been a dream. Little tomboy Jill, who I'd watched grow up, and whose nubile teenage woman body I had violated, hadn't actually had an orgasm around my tongue, or milked my balls empty. Yet, even after I'd brushed my teeth and used mouthwash, my mouth still had the lingering taste of young pussy in it. Standing in the wide doorway of my barn, I noticed a speeding dirt bike racing across the fields. The rider was the tomboy girl I'd been thinking about since yesterday. She saw me and sped straight towards where I was. I then remembered this was Saturday morning and there was no school today. I shook my head and again silently told myself, "Calm down, you can handle this!" Skidding to stop just inches from me, the girl killed the noisy engine, giggled merrily, and said, "Hi, Bob. Can I talk to you for a few minutes? It's important." In the next few seconds my subconscious mind made a visual inspection of the young bike-riding tomboy girl. She was wearing a denim colored shirt with the tails tied together under her breasts, which pushed the fabric out proudly. When had her breasts gotten so big? Gym shorts and tennis shoes without socks were her only other covering, except for the faded John Deere cap on her head. Her pony tail was captured by the adjusting band of the cap. I began asking myself how come I hadn't noticed how much she'd grown up before now. I saw this fully clothed young woman, but my eyes were remembering the naked teenager's body from yesterday! Without my permission, my cock sprang to attention inside my jeans. "Okay," I said carefully. "Go ahead and talk, but please make it quick and then go on home. It's not that I don't like you. I do. But you're very tempting and I don't want to be tempted." Jill's head lowered a bit. Now that she was here, she seemed hesitant to talk. "Bob," she whispered. "There's something I'm feeling 'guilty' about. I worried about it all night. I want to do the right thing." Oh boy. Remorse had set in. She was sorry for what we'd done and she was probably going to tell her mother. Lynne would see to it that my daughter-molesting ass was sent straight to the county lockup. "It's about yesterday," Jill explained. "I know I shouldn't have done that," I moaned, interrupting her. "I lost control and I'm sorry and I promise it won't happen again." "That's what I'm talking about," she said patiently. "I teased you, and that wasn't fair. Mom said that men don't have as much control as women do, and that a woman shouldn't usually tease a man." "You told your mother?" My voice was weak and I felt like I needed to sit down. "No." She peered at me closely. "She just told me that one time. I got curious about it and decided to tease you and see what it would feel like ... what would happen. The point is that I'm the one who should be saying I'm sorry, not you. I teased you and I'm sorry I made you lose control." "Oh," I croaked. She wasn't going to tell after all. "Yup," she said. "I thought about it all night. I'm definitely going to have to get me a boyfriend." "You are?" "Well sure," she said. "You said you won't do it again, and after feeling what that was like I just HAVE to do it again. Knowing the way boys are I'm sure lots of them would like to suck my pussy like you did." I had visions of some pimply faced youth crawling between her legs and it just about killed me. She deserved better than that. "You could just go without," I suggested. "You know ... wait until you get to college and get some education under your belt and get a little more experience with men." She shook her head. "Nope. I don't think so. I think sex must be like crack. It's instantly addictive. I had no idea how good I could feel. If I'd have known I'd have been having sex for years." "But you can't let some boy paw you," I moaned. "Why not? It's so much fun!" she beamed. "Boys don't know shit about making a woman feel good," I said. "Well, I suppose you're right," she said. She shrugged her shoulders. "I guess if they do it enough, though, they'll get better. Maybe I should get a different boy to suck my pussy every day, until I find one who's good at it, like you." I cringed. I knew that any boy who got his mouth on her clitty would be trying to get his dick in her pussy too, and that sooner or later one of them would succeed. I couldn't stand the thought of that. "That's a bad idea," I said. "All those guys will try to have sex with you." "I know," she said, shrugging her shoulders again. "You mean you're going to let them?" I croaked. "Maybe," she said. "I don't know yet. But probably. All the girls I know let boys fuck them. I didn't understand it until yesterday, but thanks to your wonderful teaching I get it now." She grinned. "I mean I purely loved your tongue in my pussy, and they say that fucking feels even better." Now she was making ME responsible for turning her into a slut. "You can't do this, Jill," I moaned. "Bob, I can't just stop," she said patiently. "If felt too good. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize to you, and tell you I'm not mad. I learned a lot. You kind of changed my whole life I think. I have so much to look forward to." She flashed me a grin and turned away. She started for the bike and something in me snapped. "Wait!" I said. She turned and came back toward me. Her face was the perfect image of a young woman pausing for me to tell her why I wanted her to wait. Only later would I really understand she was just acting. She was a very good actress. "Come here," I said. My mind was whirling. I'm not sure I was actually thinking things through. She came to stand right in front of me, those yellow-flecked brown eyes staring at me from under the bill of that faded hat. Abruptly, my hand reached out and pulled the girl's upper body against my chest. Her arms encircled me. I cradled her in my muscular arms. She raised her face upwards, looked me in the eyes and the next thing I knew we were kissing. Kiss her, I did. She kissed me, too. Warm, wet lips collided in a spark of forbidden passion. Teasing, tickling tongues dueled and played merry mouth-fucking games. When we broke her impish eyes looked into mine. "You gonna make me feel good again so I don't have to go find some boy to do it?" I was lost, and I knew it. "You're teasing me again," I muttered. "I know," she sighed, grinding the front of her shorts against the lump in my pants. I led Jill into the barn. Just inside the doorway where there was muted light, there was a four-foot long bench which was about eighteen inches wide and about two feet tall. It was for people to sit on to put their boots on when they came out to ride their horses. I sat the girl down and told to sit with her legs astride it. I sat down astraddle behind her. Jill made no objections as I untied and unbuttoned her blue shirt. She was braless under it and her chest arched as my hands covered her breasts and squeezed her soft titties. I desperately wanted my skin against hers and I abandoned her soft orbs long enough to get my own shirt off. Then, with my naked chest pressed tightly against the smoothness of her back, I reached around to fondle her breasts and squeeze her nipples gently. While I nuzzled Jill's neck with my mouth, one of my hands dropped to slide under the elastic waistband of her shorts. She wasn't wearing panties either, and my fingers slid onto pussy lips that were already slippery in anticipation of what she'd come there for. She knew me better than I knew myself, apparently. She'd played me like a well tuned piano. I slid a finger into her pussy for the first time and, finding no obstruction there, got it as deep into her as I could. Her head fell back on my shoulder as she groaned. "I knew that would feel good too when you finally did it," she moaned. For several minutes, my hands took turns playing with Jill's feminine 'girlie girl' toys. My right hand played with her pussy while my left played with both young breasts. She started wiggling as my finger circled her slippery clitty. "Jill," I whispered while nibbling on an earlobe. "Kick off your shoes and slip off your shorts." Jill stood and followed my instructions. She was undressing completely. I began doing the same thing. Our clothing fell in a conjoined pile on the dirt floor of the barn. With Jill still standing, I sat back down. I played for a few minutes with the nicest young ass I'd ever seen in my life. Bending the girl over, I kissed the seductively enticing cheeks. This teenager's ass was well-formed and protruded prominently out behind her body. she seemed to know to spread her legs, and that sweet virgin pussy winked at me. She straightened up and I pulled her against me. I was kissing her back and neck as she slowly sat down. Jill's smooth ass slid down my chest. The slim legs straddling the bench were unintentionally positioning the young female body in a way that when she sat her pussy was astride my elongated cock. She seemed to know instinctively that if she leaned forward and let her belly sag, she could rest her pussy lips right on my prick. I spread my knees wide, to give her room to move on my cock. She wasn't all that heavy, and it didn't hurt. Jill found the position in which she could rest, splitting her pussy lips perfectly on my steel-hard cockshaft. She had already figured out she could put pressure on her clit and her upper body, supported by stiff arms on the bench, moved spasmodically. She moved forward, just an inch and, holding her hips, I helped her move back. She picked up the rhythm of that, sliding forward and back, leaning more and more forward until I couldn't reach her titties any more. She was supporting her own weight now, and moaning loudly. I couldn't see her pussy, because her fine young butt hid it, but I could imagine those weeping pussy lips and the hole that kept riding forward to sit on my knob. When she did that, her weight pushed the knob up into the hole. I let the girl play while I contented myself with feeling her slippery pussy lips jacking me off. Just that was getting close to making me blow my load. "Oh baby," I said at last. "This is too tempting. I need to get you off and then you need to go home, OK?" She looked over her shoulder. "How are you going to get me off?" I thought about that. I was pretty sure that if I could suck her nipples that would help. And what popped into my mind suggested a harmless way for me to get off too. "How about you turn yourself around and try that from the front?" She turned around and I lay back on the board. My cock flopped up on my belly. She straddled the bench and almost carefully settled her pussy down, this time on the underside of my prick. I could see that her pussy was sticky with her slippery girl juices. She was flushed and breathing hard. "I like this," she said, her voice husky with emotion. She leaned forward and put her hands on my chest, which let her drag her clit along my gnarled prick. Again, she found the head with her hole, and wiggled, forcing it between those flushed lips. In this position I could play with her tits again, and I made those nipples stand out an inch as I pulled and pinched them. She was moaning again. Then, as I was trying to figure out how to get my mouth on those nipples, and before I realized what she was doing, or could react, she reached for my cock and lifted it as she stood up. She pulled the tip to flushed pussy lips, notched it, and then let her body weight impale her on it. "Oh damn!" she gasped as her virginity was suddenly erased forever. "Jill!" I yelped. "Oh damn!" she groaned again. "That hurts! It's not supposed to hurt!" Her eyes looked at me accusingly. "I'd have told you it hurts the first time ... if you'd have asked me." "If I'd have asked you, you wouldn't have let me do this." She flexed her legs, rising a little and three inches slid out of her. She stopped as if frozen and her eyes got wide. "That part doesn't feel so bad!" she yipped. Very slowly she sat back down. She leaned forward and I could feel her pussy muscles flutter as she experimented with them. They loosened. "Mmm it's better now," she commented. Then she stood up again, taking all but the head out of her. "Ooooo Bob, when it moves in me it feels good!" "You need to get off, baby," I said. My voice was tight because her pussy was tight and that sliding made me want to fertilize her teenaged pussy. "It's better now," she said. "I don't want to get off." "If you keep doing that I'm going to squirt," I panted. "But I don't want to get off," she complained. She rose and fell several more times. "You don't want to have a baby either!" I panted. "And I'm about to make one in you if you don't get off!" She sat down and rested. I could feel the tip of my cock prying at her cervix. "If I stop moving will that help?" she asked. Her pussy muscles squeezed me as she continued exploring and experimenting with them. "I don't think so," I gasped. I felt a soothing leak of cum ooze through my shaft. She leaned forward again and her eyes widened as she realized she could put pressure on her clit with it inside her too. She rubbed. "Oh PLEASE get off!" I almost sobbed. "Oh I don't think so, Bob," she gasped back at me. Her hips picked up speed as she figured out how to rub faster. About the time she started chanting "Oh fuck ... oh shit ... oh cock sucker..." my cock gave up and the first long rope of spunk blew right straight into her womb. "Ahhhhhh!" she groaned. "You squirted! Oh damn, Bob, it's so hot!" My prick pulsed four more times as she started moving again, and she wailed her happiness as she had her first orgasm from actual intercourse. Her pussy knew what to do and it sucked me dry. I didn't have a drop left in me when she finally lay down on my chest, full of sperm and cock, and panted. "Ohhhhhh," she gasped softly, her breath rushing in and out of her mouth. "We have to do that a lot, Bob." My first instinct, of course, was to think "a LOT!" But with the cessation of ... activities ... I was able to get some control over my brain back. "Honey," I moaned, also panting. "We shouldn't have done that at all, much less again." She lifted her head enough to turn it face me from an inch away. She went vaguely cross-eyed and then corrected for it. "We're going to do that every day." There was a finality in her voice that I recognized from some point in my life before that, when a woman said something and it was obvious she couldn't be swayed. "Your mother would kill me if she knew about this," I said. "Now get off me. We have to get dressed." She didn't get off of me, but she sat back up. She looked down at me and her pussy muscles squeezed. The only effect was that my now limp penis was forced out of her. "Oh!" she said, disappointment in her voice and on her face. "You got all little again!" For you men who have forgotten what it looks like to have a naked, just fucked eighteen-year-old woman sitting on your reclining body ... well ... let's just say it's too bad you've forgotten, because it's something that should NEVER be forgotten. "I shouldn't have taken advantage of you," I said, trying not to concentrate on how beautiful she looked. Her nipples just begged to be sucked. "You didn't take advantage of me," she said, reaching between her legs. "I wanted to know what it was like for you to make love to me, and you did that. I'm not sad about it. I LIKED it!" She brought wet, shiny fingers up from our groins and examined them. "Do women really eat this stuff?" I almost choked. "Julie Fellows - she's this girl I know in school - I mean I knew her in school - anyway she said she gave Rod Whipple a blow job and she swallowed. I thought she was lying, but it's all over the internet that women do it." Before my astonished eyes her tongue flicked out and the tip grazed along one finger. Then she tasted, and her face changed several times, different looks flickering across it. "Not bad, I guess," she said. "I don't know why everybody makes such a big deal about it, though." "This is crazy," I sighed. "It's crazy fun," she said quite seriously. "How long before it gets hard again?" "Get off me!" I ordered her. "Not until you promise to do it again," she said, also quite seriously. I was in much better shape by this time than when I'd first become a gentleman farmer. She squawked as I pushed her over and rolled to my hands and knees above her. To be honest, if she'd have known what I intended she could probably have foiled me, but I caught her by surprise. "We shouldn't have done it the FIRST time!" I growled into her face. "Kiss me," she said, her eyes staring innocently up into mine. "Jill!" She got the jump on me this time, simply by sliding her fingers into my hair and pulling my face down as she lifted hers. She kissed me hard. She didn't let go with her fingers when she let her head back down. "You know I think my mother did this with Dennis once." I blinked. How this girl could throw me like that was something I needed to practice avoiding, or overcoming or something. "What?" "After their second date she came home all smiling and blushing. I asked her if she had a good time and she said she had too good a time. I think I know what she meant now." "But she never went out with him again," I said, still trying to figure out why we were still naked and talking about Lynne. "She said it just wouldn't work out." "Why?" I asked. "Beats me. Are you hard again yet?" There was so much hope in her voice that I couldn't help but feel proud. That didn't last, of course. I stood up and looked around for my clothes. I had no idea where I'd put them. "Guess not, huh," she said stoically. "Is that because you're so old?" "I'm not THAT old!" I snapped. "I know," she said. "I think you look distinguished." "Thanks a lot," I groused. "You're welcome. We'll just go longer each time, since you can't get hard very often." I couldn't tell if she was being stubborn, teasing me, or was actually serious. "Jill," I said, forgetting I was still naked. I'd seen my pants, but hadn't picked them up yet. "I love you, and I'm incredibly thankful that you weren't hurt when we ... when we ... um..." "Fucked?" she asked helpfully. "That's such a crass word," I said instinctively. "Made love?" she asked helpfully. "Yes. I'm glad it was ... um good for you." I felt so lame. "It wasn't just good," she said. She was being WAY too helpful. "It was WONDERFUL! It was AMAZING! It was DELICIOUS!" She was still lying on the ground on her back, her legs still spread shamelessly. I looked to see thick white cream oozing from between plump pussy lips that looked swollen closed, but leaked anyway. "You could have gotten pregnant!" I moaned. "This was a terribly dangerous thing to do!" "I took health class, silly," she said. "I know about my menstrual cycle, you know. Why do you think I waited until right now to tease you and get you to make love to me?" Great. This woman/girl, who knew so much more about everything under the sun than I did ... this girl who was so intelligent and expert on more subjects than anybody else I knew ... believed the rhythm method was a good form of birth control. "That's not the point," I moaned, trying to get some kind of traction. "The point is that this kind of thing is so much better if it's properly planned." "What do you think I'm trying to do?" she asked innocently. "That's why I asked when it will get hard again, so we can plan the next time. I'm glad to see we agree completely." She sat up. I couldn't help notice that her breasts didn't change shape appreciably when she did so. She was picture of vibrant, young femininity. She stood, getting up gracefully and one hand went suddenly to her mound. "Oooo, I'm a little bit sore," she said, almost conversationally. ------- I hate to disrupt the flow of this narrative, but there are lessons that can be learned in looking at any situation, and there is the potential for the men reading this story to go away much smarter. There comes a time, when dealing with a woman, when the only appropriate response is for the man to bow his head and softly say "I'm sorry, Darling." This was such a time. It doesn't matter whether the man is actually sorry, as long as he SOUNDS contrite. It's a little like saying "Do you need a hand with that?" It's the offer that counts, whether it is taken or not. Of course I didn't do that. Oh no. I felt vindicated ... like I'd finally gotten that traction I'd been searching for so desperately. And once my spinning wheels bit, my mouth took off, whipping the equivalent of emotional mud and gravel in every direction. ------- "Well duh. You were a virgin! And that's another thing! That was completely stupid and the wrong way to lose your virginity. It should have been with somebody who loves you and cared about your feelings and would be gentle with you." ------- See what I mean? Learn from this, gentlemen. ------- Long story short, she decided to leave, and I realized I had been unintentionally insensitive. I was helped in this by her sobs, and more of that cursing I hadn't been aware could foul her sweet, innocent mouth. I really didn't think I'd said "I don't love you, don't cherish the fact that you awarded me your virginity and could care less whether I caused you any pain," but it really doesn't matter what I meant. What mattered is what she heard. I found myself standing there helplessly, still buck naked. I noticed shafts of light illuminated by motes of dust that were caused by her somewhat tornadic exit from the barn and actually looked for a broom to sweep the dirt floor. "I said I loved you!" I insisted to the woman who was no longer there. I knew I had too, because those words had burned my mind when my lips spoke them. I didn't bandy words like that around. I stepped on a piece of wire and hopped around for a few seconds until I realized I wasn't really hurt. I finally decided it was time to get dressed. I was in bad shape. ------- Chapter 5 I had no idea what would happen, of course. It had been too long since I'd been involved in romantic intricacies with a woman. I was assailed by doubts again and thought Vicky might be laughing as she pointed an ethereal finger at the unfaithful schmuck and how he had fucked things up because he strayed from the vows he'd made to her a decade before, when she was still alive. Later, when I stubbornly insisted my dead wife would have supported a proper courtship, I envisioned her shaking her head sadly at my ineptitude. I was thinking about that when Lynne showed up. She actually knocked on the back door, something she hadn't done in years. We generally just walked into each other's houses and announced our presence by voice. I could see who it was through the thin lace curtain that had been there when I bought the place, and which I had never removed or replaced. If it wasn't broken, I didn't fix it. I knew she could see me too, which was why I actually opened the door. I don't know what I expected. Maybe an angry mother? But then perhaps, by some miracle, she didn't know what had happened to her little girl. It was pretty obvious she knew, but the look on her face wasn't what I would have expected from her. It was almost quizzical, like she wasn't sure what to think. Of course that was impossible. Parents always know what to think about something like that. "Can I come in?" she asked, not quite formally. I realized I had opened the door and then just stood there like a bump on a log. "Of course," I said. If you practice being polite, it becomes a habit. I stepped back while she went past me and apparently decided to just sit down at the table, instead of wait for me to offer her a chair or whatever. "Are you hungry?" I asked. I had no idea where that came from, and felt incredibly stupid. Then my stomach growled and I realized there was no limit to how stupid I could feel. "Not right now," she said, still looking puzzled. "Are you all right?" She could have asked me any question in the book and it would have been less bizarre than that one. The result was that I actually answered her question truthfully. "I don't actually know." She stared at me and then snorted. It came from nowhere. One second she was just sitting and staring, and the next she was blowing snot from her nose. Still in automatic polite mode, but feeling like I had suddenly entered somebody's dream, I pushed the napkin holder towards her with one hand. She blushed bright red and grabbed a napkin. she blew her nose and then wiped up the spots, either real or imaginary, on her other hand. I could see her tensing to get up and flee and this dream I was in allowed me to react in a way that, had nothing happened between Jill and me, I might have done in the first place. "Don't worry about it. Happens to me all the time," I said, with entirely too much disinterest in my voice. She snorted again, but this time she got the napkin to her nose in time. It was already blown clean anyway. She took another napkin and continued cleaning things up. "What's so weird," she said, obviously trying to act normally, "is that I feel exactly the same way." "You do that all the time too?" I asked automatically. She didn't snort this time, because somehow she knew I was serious, instead of trying to be funny. "No, I don't know if I'm all right either." There was a silence that lengthened until I couldn't stand it. "It just happened!" I blurted. "I didn't plan it!" "Oh, I know that," she said almost calmly. "That's part of what makes this so hard to understand." "What?" My mind twisted around, trying to understand how she couldn't understand what anybody who knew anything about dirty old men and horny young women could easily understand. When women are upset about something they like to talk about it. Lynne was no different. "She came bouncing in the door, mad as a wet hen and it was obvious something had happened, so I asked her. I said "What in the world happened to you? And she said 'I just seduced Bob and he was a turd about it!' Just like that! And then she started going on about how wonderful it was, and how easy it had been and how excited you got and how good that made her feel, until you said you didn't love her and that she was never going to speak to you again in her whole life." "Oh shit," I moaned. The fool girl had told her mother everything! "That's what I don't understand. I know you," she said patiently. "I know you'd never take advantage of her." Her head tilted then as she continued thinking. "Not intentionally anyway." "I wouldn't!" I said hastily. "I don't understand what happened either." That was a lie, but if I could somehow salvage things with my neighbor, I was willing to lie to do it. She sat back, and tight muscles relaxed somewhat. "I just didn't know she had it in her." ------- Now you have to understand here that a man, particularly a dirty old one like me who had just blown ten years of pent up sperm into a sweet young thing, just can't possibly hear "had it in her" without thinking ... well ... like a dirty old man. I snorted, just like she had, and lurched for the napkin holder, but my deposit joined Lynne's on the table before I could get a napkin. So I went through the same cleanup routine she had. I hoped she felt better, because I felt horrible. "What?" she asked, looking confused. She could tell I was trying not to laugh, which was true. I was trying desperately not to laugh. I knew this wasn't funny, but something like that has the same effect as the third grade joke: "What do you do if you get swallowed by an elephant?" [dramatic pause, while adult thinks and confesses he doesn't know] "You run around and around and around until you're all pooped out!" There is then a chorus of giggles from the third grader and, if you're in just the right mood, a fit of almost uncontrollable chuckles from you too. "Sorry," I said, forcing my face to get what I hoped was a serious look on it. "As odd as it sounds, I think I'm in shock, a little bit." That sounded good. Didn't it? At least it hinted at me having thoughts about things that might be considered responsible. "Me too!" she said, her voice high. "I'm shocked she could do that to you!" Do that to me? What the heck was she talking about? She was waiting for a response. It was obvious she wanted me to help her understand how her daughter could do whatever it was she was talking about to me. The dream feeling strengthened. "Like I said, it just happened." "But she PLANNED it!" Lynne burst out. "She did?" I knew she had planned to tease me, but that's all. "She BRAGGED about it! Like some high school jock, putting another notch in his belt!" She blinked. "I mean in his pistol." She looked impatient. "ON his pistol!" Now I blinked a few times. "Bragged?" "She was PROUD she seduced you!" Lynne almost exploded. "She was laughing and crying at the same time. I'm telling you, Bob, she was a completely different daughter than I've ever had in the past. I couldn't BELIEVE it!" "Oh," I said helplessly. Then the automatic male response kicked in ... the one we use to try to mollify a woman, or keep her mollified. "I'm sorry," I added. She darted a sharp look at me. "I should be mad at you, but according to Jill, you didn't have a chance. The way she told it, you were just a brainless penis, waiting to be used!" "Now hang on there a second," I said, wounded. She relaxed again. "I'm sorry, Bob. I know you're not brainless." That kind of left me with the impression that, while I wasn't brainless, I WAS, in her opinion, a penis waiting to be used. "And I've known for a long time that she was infatuated with you," she went on. "We've even talked about you before when she wanted to know why it felt so good when you looked at her." "Um ... sorry about that too," I said. She snorted again, but not so hard. "You're a man, Bob. Men look. It made me feel good too, and I used that to help her understand that she needed to learn the difference between what a man tells her with his mouth, and what his eyes tell her. I probably should have said something to you about it, but I thought it was so obvious that you already knew. This is all my fault." She sounded completely serious and completely miserable. That's when I decided this really WAS all just a dream, and that none of this had happened at all. Nowhere but in a dream could a mother arrive at the conclusion that the defloration of her daughter could be her mother's fault. "But she just never showed any real sexual interest in boys!" moaned Lynne. "She's never asked to go on a date. Not one time! She has friends who are boys, but has never had a boyfriend. I was beginning to think she was gay, Bob!" That was my first clue as to why Lynne might have mixed feelings about her little girl getting well and truly fucked ... by a man, at least. Assuming she didn't want her little girl to be turned on by other girls, then confirmation that said little girl liked boys enough to seduce one might be cause for celebration, or at least relief. At the same time, I was no boy, and guys like me are supposed to do the seducing, not BE seduced. "She's not gay," I said needlessly. Then I followed that up with a very appropriate "I'm sorry." She looked at me sharply again. "Are you?" I could tell she really meant that. "Yes!" I said urgently. "I wish it had never happened. Please believe me." If I expected to see some kind of relief, or forgiveness, or at least SOMETHING positive, I was disappointed. Instead she looked like she'd lost her last friend. "What are we going to DO, Bob?" She moaned. "Maybe we don't have to do anything," I suggested carefully. "Didn't you say she was mad at me and wasn't going to talk to me again?" Lynne looked at me like I had grown a third eye. "Don't be an idiot, Bob. I'll admit that I didn't see it coming that she would try to seduce you. But I still know her, Bob. She may have left here mad because you said you didn't love her, but she won't believe that in the morning. She thinks she loves you!" I contemplated that little bombshell for a few seconds. Part of me wasn't all that disappointed that a fresh young thing like Jill could think she was in love with me. "And if you don't reciprocate," said a very anguished Lynne, "which obviously you can't pull off successfully because you don't love her, then she's going to get hurt, Bob!" This very odd concept - reciprocation in the sense that Lynne was talking about - bounced around in my head like a ball of Flubber on steroids. "Wait!" I blurted. "You mean you WANT me to ... to keep ... I mean to do it again? No! That's not what I meant. You don't want me to do that again, right?" "Of course not!" she snapped. "What kind of sick, twisted woman do you think I am? My brain rebelled at that. I wasn't sick or twisted! True I'd nailed a girl young enough to be my daughter, but she'd been willing - EAGER if what her mother said was true! And she was eighteen anyway! I'm sure all this showed on my face, but Lynne didn't notice. "But I also don't want her to think she's being tossed aside like some little sex toy by the man she thinks she's in love with!" Tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't want her to get hurt, Bob!" "I'm not going to hurt her," I said. I know it was what I was expected to say, but it caught her attention somehow. Maybe that's because I really meant that. I didn't want to EVER hurt Jill, or her mother either. "I'm not," I insisted. "Really?" There was hope in Lynne's voice. "Of course not. I couldn't hurt her." "Well what are you going to do?" asked the hopeful mother. "Well that's what she's so mad about. I didn't tell her I didn't love her. I told her she should have given her virginity to someone who loved her, and that it was wrong ... what we did, I mean ... and that we can't do it again." "Is THAT what all that crying was about?" Lynne sounded completely surprised. "Yes. I was very insistent that we couldn't do it again." "Well no wonder!" sighed Lynne. "She gave you her heart and you threw it back at her!" "That's not what I was trying to do!" I moaned. "I just wanted her to understand that it was all wrong, and shouldn't have happened." "OK, I get it," Said Lynne. "In your inept way, you tried to do the right thing, after you'd done the wrong thing. And she took it the wrong way. But that's not going to make any difference once she has some time to think about it. She might torture you a little, but she's going to be back for more. Trust me, Bob." "I know. She tried to argue with me. But I'm serious about it. It won't happen again. I promise! You don't have to worry about that." If I'd have stopped there, who knows? Things might have worked out just like I planned. But I didn't stop there. I "reassured" Lynne some more. "I'll just explain to her that it was hormones and that she got a late start, which caused a lot of pressure, but now she'll have to take care of that like other girls do." She looked at me strangely. "And how is that, Bob?" "How is what?" I asked. "How do other girls take care of their urges, Bob? Are you telling me you're going to tell my little girl to go out and let Tom, Dick and or Harry have their way with her?" "No!" I blurted. "Of course not. I meant ... well... " I was at a loss. "I don't know." Being at a loss made my brain cramp. "Like you do?" Lynne colored up very nicely. Her cheeks got all pink and she looked shy and embarrassed, but in a very attractive way. I told you I was a dirty old man ... even if I didn't mean to bring things around to her own intimate practices. Then steel came into her eyes and she leaned forward. "She's been doing that for years, Bob! That isn't going to work for shit!" The sense of surreal ness came flooding back. I'd never heard Lynne use an off color word since I'd known her, much less one from the gutter. I remembered Jill cursing like a sailor while she had frantically rubbed her clit on me while I lost control and fountained jets of semen deep in her belly. I guess that old saying about the nut not falling far from the tree is true. "Mark my words, she's going to come back for more, Bob!" snapped Lynne, who was finally showing some anger toward the man who had soiled her little girl. "What are you going to do then?" "I TOLD her we couldn't do it again!" I insisted. "I TOLD her it was wrong, and that you'd be mad. Why did she TELL you about it, for crying out loud? I TOLD her you could never find out!" "What are you going to do, Bob?" she asked insistently. "I'll just say no!" I yelped. She sat back in her chair. "This isn't the D.A.R.E. program, Bob," she said. The corners of her mouth seemed to be trying to rise, and that didn't make any sense to me at all. "But it might as well be, for as much good as just saying no is going to do you." "I won't do it!" I insisted. She looked at me for a long time, just staring at me. "I understand why she was attracted to you. Really, I do. I think I had a little crush on you there for a few months, after you bought into the orchard." Emotion flickered across her face. "But it was too soon after ... I couldn't deal with it. And I got over it. I found ... um ... other ways to cope." Her cheeks pinked up again, but she didn't seem to be uncomfortable about it. "What would you do if I took my shirt off right now, Bob?" I blinked. I had been feeling all warm and fuzzy at her compliment, but this was like lightning had struck out of a clear blue sky. "I beg your pardon?" My voice sounded like that of a twelve-year-old boy, going from alto to baritone or something. Her fingers went to the buttons of the blue checkered blouse she was wearing. My unbelieving eyes watched as she undid buttons. I looked up at her eyes, which were staring at my face, and then back down to her fingers, which had six buttons undone now. The fabric was pulling apart to reveal a plain white bra underneath. "What would you do if I took my top off?" she asked. Her voice suggested this was a completely normal question about a very ordinary set of circumstances. "Lynne?" I was back to being an alto. It was a front catch bra, and her fingers worked it effortlessly. She pulled the ends apart about three inches and the swells of two very pale and very lovely breasts came into view. There is no valley in the world that looks as delightful as that between such breasts. "What would you do if I showed you my breasts, Bob?" Her fingers stopped. I heard that 'if' loudly. Even though she WAS showing me something ... it was clear it was conditional, in terms of if I was going to see something else. Being a man, I jumped to exactly the wrong conclusion. "You don't have to do that," I said, my voice normal again. "I told you, I'm going to tell her no. I won't break her heart. I'll just be firm that it isn't a good idea. You don't have to bribe me, Lynne. I love her, and I love you too, and I intend to do my double damndest not to hurt either of you." Her fingers toyed with the ends of the bra and edges of the shirt, moving ever so gently, as if she were lightly scratching her skin with her fingernails. "So now you love us both," she said, her voice low. "Come on," I pleaded. "You know what I mean. I care about you. I care about Jill. I want the best for both of you." "You're sweet," she breathed. "It's one of the things that makes you so attractive." My eyes were glued to the exposed skin of her chest. "But you don't have a prayer," she said firmly." Her fingers pulled apart and I saw the dusky edge of one areola. I leaned forward and, unconsciously, I'm sure, licked my lips. "See what I mean, Bob?" she asked lightly. Suddenly her fingers were doing things back up. I sighed, also unconsciously, as I realized I wasn't going to see more. I finally looked back up at her eyes, which were smiling, oddly enough. "You're sweet, and you mean well," she said, re-buttoning the top button. "But you're a man, and if she plays to that part of you, you won't be able to tell YOURSELF no, much less her. You were ready to rock and roll just a minute ago, Bob, and this is a completely inappropriate time for you to be interested in me, of all people!" I realized I had been tested ... and been found wanting. I hadn't felt this helpless in a long time, not even when I first tried farming. "OK," I admitted defeat. "You're right. What should I do?" ------- If Lynne's response to the initial situation had been crazy, the 'plan' we (she) came up with in the following half hour was just plain bizarre. Especially for a woman who had said she didn't want me fucking her daughter. Basically, since Jill was going off to college in another month, Lynne was of the opinion that when she got there things would take care of themselves. While she talked I felt like I was being tortured, but with something pleasant, like a feather. "When she gets around all those strong young men, with all their bulging muscles," said Lynne, "she'll forget all about you." I felt old and feeble all of a sudden. "But until then, she sees you as the smart, interesting, caring, rakishly handsome man you are." I perked up considerably. I might have even thought about preening. "I need to get her on the pill pronto," said Lynne, frowning. "Those boys at college will be trying to get into her pants nonstop, and they'll have a lot more stamina than you." I almost groaned, hearing Jill asking how soon I could make it get hard again. I WAS old, at least by comparison to some nineteen-year-old stud. "Even if they probably can't hold a candle to your experience, and the fact that you made her first time something she'll joyously remember all her life." I DID preen at that. "Thank you for that, at least," said Lynne, looking at me with eyes that were definitely not hostile. "But college will dispel her silly illusion that she and a man your age could have a life together." I was instantly deflated again. I felt like a basketball with a nail hole in it. I was only good for one or two bounces before I got all flabby and useless. "So, until she actually gets to college, you're going to have to pretend to care about her." "I DO care about her!" I yelped. "I know that," said Lynne distractedly. "I mean you'll have to pretend that there's more to it than just sex." "There IS more to it than just sex!" I argued vociferously. She was making me out to be some kind of predator, and I was the one who got seduced! "You know what I mean," she said frankly. "You need to make her feel good, but not too good. Don't romance her. Just ring her bell." "You're making me sound like I know what the hell I'm doing," I objected. "Do you have any condoms?" she asked suddenly. "It was a long time ago, but as I remember it, when I got my diaphragm, it took a couple of weeks, and the pill isn't really at full effectiveness for a month." "I'll get some condoms!" I blurted. It occurred to me that we were in the process of planning on letting me have my way with Jill, and that her mother was actually PARTICIPATING in it! That dream-like feeling was back in spades. "How often do you think you'll do it?" she asked. I looked at her like she was crazy. "I have no freaking idea!" I almost shouted. "I wasn't planning on doing it again at all!" "I know," she said soothingly. "You really are a sweetheart, and I appreciate that about you, but if she's like me..." Red suddenly stained her cheeks and I saw a chance to change the balance of power. I'm not ashamed that I jumped at it. I'd been off balance for an hour or more. "Yes?" I don't think I quite leered, but I definitely showed more than friendly interest. "What if she's like you? What does that mean?" "I was a healthy young woman when I was her age," she said defensively. "I was normal with a healthy libido. I expect she is too." She was clearly on the defensive, and I loved it. "But Paul was a lot younger than you are. He could take care of my needs. What if you can't ... you know ... keep up with her?" "Would you listen to yourself? I asked, amazed. "You're actually asking me how often I can get it up because you're worried about your daughter feeling neglected!" She paled, and then blushed bright red. "You're right," she moaned. "What are we doing? This is crazy!" "Look," I said. "I'll take care of it, OK? Now that I know you won't come hunting me with a shotgun, I'll figure something out. I'll get her off to college without breaking her heart. She stood up, suddenly nervous and shy. "Good!" she said. "All right. Yes. That's a good plan. Thank you." She was suddenly in a hurry to leave and, to be honest, I was anxious for her to go too. When she stood up all I could look at were her breasts, and all I could remember was how what I had seen had made me want to se so much more. I had been appreciative of her before, in a hands-off kind of way, but that little show had affected me a lot. Of course that was shoved aside by the fact that I had tacit permission to do again what I so desperately wanted to do ... with Jill ... with her mother ... with SOMEBODY! The ironic thing was that, even with permission to dip my wick in a real pussy, after Lynne left I had to deal with the after-effects of the Simmons girls with my hand. I took a perverse pleasure in being able to get it up just fine that night. Old man my ass! ------- Now I'm not trying to sound all noble and such, but it really was my intent to avoid having sex with Jill again. But Lynne was right. If the girl had a crush on me, it would serve her much better if that was dealt with in a gentle manner so that, when she went off to school and met all those fucking muscular studs, she wouldn't be inhibited from forming healthy relationships - healthy non sexual relationships - with a dozen of them. So to that end I didn't avoid Jill. The next morning I went over to eat breakfast with them. I was going to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, even though the bull was a cow, and had luscious teats which I'd much rather handle than a bull's horns. You know what I mean. I was going to be responsible. Lynne was alone in the kitchen when I got there. She looked at me wide eyed. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "I was hoping to get breakfast," I said. "But she'll SEE you!" "She's going to see me sooner or later," I said. "I have a plan," I said, trying to sound secretive. "What plan?" Lynne and I both jerked around to see Jill standing in the doorway, with her arms folded under breasts that called forth tantalizing images in my brain. I shook my head to drive them away. It didn't work, but it gave me a little headache, so I wasn't quite so horny. "A plan to repair the damage I did yesterday," I said bravely. "Wouldn't that just be called an apology?" asked Jill. "It might involve an apology," I said. I wasn't going to pick a fight. ------- The problem was that I didn't really have a plan. My mind went a hundred miles an hour during breakfast, trying to come up with one, but I had nothing. It probably would have been better just to have breakfast and talk with them both like we had a hundred times before. Lynne was as much at a loss as I was. It was a quiet breakfast. "I'm going for a ride," Jill announced. She looked at me. "Since this plan is too secret for Mom to hear, why don't you go for a ride with me and you can tell me all about it." Which is how I ended up riding off across the pasture with Jill ... alone ... just the two of us... ------- Chapter 6 Since I didn't have a plan, I didn't talk about the plan as we rode alone. She didn't ask. We had done this before, just riding side by side, looking around, inspecting things, enjoying nature. Finally she spoke. "So what did you and Mom talk about when she went over there last night?" "You," I said, for lack of anything else to say. "Was she mad?" "She wasn't happy." "I didn't mean to tell her," she said. "But you made me so angry!" "I'm sorry about that," I said, thinking 'there's that apology she was talking about.' "I couldn't believe you said you don't care about me." Her voice was tight. "That's not what I meant," I said. "You should know that. We're pals ... buddies ... best friends." She reined in and sat there, staring at me. "I may not have a lot of experience with sex, but I know you don't DO that with just friends!" she said forcefully. "I know!" I held up a hand. "Let's not argue, OK? You know I DO care about you. It's BECAUSE I care about you that I care about your sex life too, Jill. I'm tremendously honored that you chose me to be your first. But that's something you can only give away one time, and when you go to college and find some great guy who knocks your socks off, it would have been really nice to be able to give him that gift. But you can't now. That's all I was trying to say. We let things get out of control, and there are consequences when that happens. That's all." "Nothing got out of control," she said, a stubborn caste in her voice. "I wanted to do that with you, and I'm pretty sure you wanted to do it with me too. Why can't we just enjoy that?" "Jill, I'm forty-eight years old. You're eighteen. In ten years you'll be in the prime of your life and I'll be an old man. Why would you want to marry an old man and then push him around in a wheel chair for years?" "Maybe I like old men in wheel chairs," she pouted. "I don't care about that. I care about how I feel right now. Besides, who said anything about marriage and where we'll be ten years from now? I know things could change, but I know how I feel right here, today. Why can't I enjoy that now?" "Seriously?" I asked. "Because if you're serious ... if this is just a crush, or a fling or whatever you want to call it, that would make everything a lot easier. Your mom would feel better, and I would too." She looked sideways at me. "Are you saying you'd have a fling with me, Bob?" "Technically," I said, trying to keep the subject unemotional, "I'd be a lot more comfortable having a fling with you than thinking about a long future that might end badly for both of us. I don't want to break your heart, Jill, but I don't want mine to be broken again either." "Do you still miss her?" she asked curiously. "Yep," I answered instantly. "Were you thinking of her while we were... ?" She didn't finish. "No," I answered truthfully. "I did afterwards, but not during." She looked away and kicked her horse with her heels. It cantered ahead and I got a good view of a healthy young woman bouncing up and down on a horse until I caught up with her. She suddenly pointed to a place they called Bald Knob, where a huge house-sized boulder broke the surface of the pasture. The top of the rock was probably forty feet by forty feet. At this time of year, a few hours later in the day, it would be too hot to touch with bare skin, but this early in the morning it just held residual warmth from the previous day. "Let's go over there," she said. "I want to show you something." I loped along beside her for the half minute it took to get there. She hopped down and put hobbles on her horse. I did the same. She took her saddle bags and slung them over her shoulder and then started off across the rock. I followed. When we got to roughly the center, where the rock was the flattest, she stopped. "Close your eyes," she ordered. "Why?" I asked. "Because I told you to," she said firmly. "And don't peek, because if you do you'll ruin the surprise and I'll be very angry. In fact, close your eyes AND turn around." I thought things were better, so I didn't make a fuss. I had no idea what she could show me from up on Bald Knob that I hadn't seen a hundred times before, but I was willing to play the game. I heard the saddle bags thump onto the rock, and then scraping sounds that I imagined were things being taken out of them. I had no idea what that could be, and began to get interested in this game. I heard two thumps that I couldn't identify, and some rustling sounds. There was the snap of a sheet being whipped in the wind, which was very odd, but just as that happened she said "Don't peek!" so I stayed where I was. I'll be honest. I did open my eyes. I hoped the shadows would give me some information, but I was facing east and the sun was in my eyes. "OK, you can turn around now," she said. She sounded nervous, and I had Outer Limit type visions of her with a gun, intending to regain her pride through violent means. The reality hit me just as hard. She had, as they say in polite discourse, disrobed ... completely. And her clothing wasn't all she'd removed. Lying on the blanket I'd thought was a sheet being snapped open, she was completely devoid of the pubic hair that, yesterday, had so tickled my nose. "I'm bald on Bald Knob," she said, sounding like she might burst into hysterics at any second. "I did it last night, while I was trying to figure out if I was injured." "Injured?" I asked in a dreamy voice. She was up on her elbows, with her heels drawn up about halfway and her knees leaning apart like doors on broken hinges. If you looked up "fuckable" in the dictionary of sex, her picture would have been the perfect illustration. Her breasts were heaving, which was the only indication that she was in some distress. "It really hurt when you first went in me," she said softly. "And then it felt so good and I rubbed so hard I was afraid I might have hurt myself." "You shaved," I sighed. "Roberta Victor, another of my friends in school, said that men like a shaved pussy." She said it matter-of-factly, but somehow it sounded so sexy that I jerked. They say time flies when you're having fun. I don't know about that, but time flew for me right then, because I thought about a dozen things while a few seconds ticked off. I thought about how insensitive I'd been the day before. I thought about how good she looked, one component of which was how willing she looked. There could be no shred of doubt that she was offering herself wholeheartedly, whether she was misguided or not. I thought about what she would likely think if I turned around, got on my horse, and galloped back to the house. I thought about whether or not I could actually make myself do that. I thought about how much I wanted to be with this girl, who wanted me in a way that I wasn't used to, and made me feel fabulous. I thought about the fact that my prick had a mind of its own and was already rock hard, old man or not. And I thought about what I'd said to her mother ... that I wouldn't hurt her daughter's feelings. "I want you," I croaked. "I want YOU," she replied, sounding less nervous. "This is crazy," I moaned. "I don't care," she said softly. "Are you hard for me Bob? Is it all long and hard like it was yesterday? I want it in me again. Don't you want to put it in me again?" "Yeeeesssss," I groaned. ------- It occurred to me, about the time I was taking my socks off, that I was being had again. If I wasn't a dumb prick waiting to be used, and if she wasn't playing me like a fiddle again, then my name wasn't Bob MacAllister. My bobbing prick didn't care, of course. It was just humming. If it could have talked it would have been panting "Let me at her! Oh boy! Oh boy! She's gonna be so tight and warm! Oh boy! Yummmmmmmmm." Which may be why a bit of perversity arose in me, requiring that I reclaim control of the situation so that I wasn't a complete patsy. Either that or there's a little cave man in all of us that can be let loose in that particular situation. Which means that, when I got between her thighs on my hands and knees, and that rock was really hard on my knees, I used her body as a mattress. I am ashamed to say that, for a few minutes, I really didn't care too much about this girl that could make me lose my resolve so easily. I lunged into her, letting my full weight rest on her body. She rocked upwards, gasping for air as my chest tried to crush her breasts flat. My toes and hands aided me in going deep in one long rush. The sudden feel of tight, hot pussy all around my prick was so satisfying, and the feeling of being the master, on top of her, pinning her to that blanket, made me feel powerful. Then one of her whimpers got through to the human being still resident in some part of my brain, and I suddenly craved hearing that whimper be one of joy, rather than discomfort. I pushed up onto my arms, so she could breathe, and took some weight on my knees. I knew they'd be sore afterwards, but I didn't care. Then I fucked her. I didn't make love to her. There wasn't any romance to it. I had been played, and now I played her body. I knew what to do and how to move, and I took her to heights that she screamed from. I had no urge to cum at all. It was all about wearing this woman out ... giving her all that she asked for and so much more that she hadn't been aware was out there. At some point after her gut wrenching gasps that signaled what I was sure was her third orgasm, I relented and rolled, so that she was on top. If I'd thought she'd get up and run, I was totally mistaken. She didn't have a lot of experience at this, but she remembered the day before, and how to move so that her clit was rubbed. She lunged wholeheartedly, our sweaty bodies slipping this way and that. I tried to capture a nipple, but she was moving too much, so all I could do was lick her breasts, like some demented, but friendly dog. She groaned again and froze this time. The only movement was internal as her pussy muscles spasmed and jumped. Then she couldn't hold her breath any longer and a shuddering rasp of air left her lungs as she collapsed on my chest. Suddenly I DID want to cum. I was in full control of my faculties. This wasn't the mad rush to completion of the day before. I had worked on this woman, made her go where I wanted her to have been. I rolled her over again and she whoofed as my body crushed hers again. With jackrabbit thrusts that made my lower back burn like fire I thrust into her until the soothing semen that I KNEW I shouldn't deposit in her was flowing through my prick. It burst out as I pushed harder, instinctively trying to get it as deep as possible. In those few seconds I TRIED to breed Jill Simmons. It was so wrong, but it was so intentional. I was of two minds, and the one that wanted this to never end basically bitch-slapped my common sense until it was lying curled up on that rock, whimpering. As the last few pulses of liquid danger transferred from my body to hers, they were so sweet that I almost cried. I wanted my whole body to dissolve into that last quarter ounce, and soak into Jill's being so that I became part of her that could never entirely leave. The sadness I felt was instant, as I realized that could never happen. We would always be of two bodies. She would go off to college and meet a strong young man, who would take my place between her thighs. He would breed her, and she would love him, and his children. The only solace I had was that I knew she would never entirely forget me. That new man, that interloper, whoever he was going to be, would never have this moment with her. This moment would forever be mine. That was the point at which I lost it. By 'it' I mean control of my brain and mouth. "I love you," I whispered into her hair. ------- Sometimes we bandy that phrase around too much. "I love you." Those simple three words can carry a lot of weight. Weight is a good metaphor for that phrase. If you lift a lot of weight a lot of times, you get stronger. If you lift a little weight a lot of times, your muscles get more defined. You can lift too little, which means things get into bad shape. And you can lift too much, to the point that lifting takes over your entire life, or begins to be taken for granted. I hadn't "lifted weights" since Vicky. That I didn't marry her until I was thirty-three should show how rare love was in my life. Jill made me want to lift weights again. She had already begun defining my muscles ... the one between my legs for sure. The metaphor starts getting muddy right here, because it sounds like I was in lust, rather than in love. Actually, it wasn't an either/or situation. I was in lust AND in love, and it was blindingly obvious to me, just as soon as I uttered those three little words. What you have to understand is that lust is easy to identify. It raises its hand and jumps up and down like Horshack in the TV show "Welcome Back Kotter." Love, on the other hand, kind of sneaks up on you, or can, anyway, until you suddenly realize that, even if you can never touch her again, you have to have her in your life or you'll be miserable. Her response was a lot less complicated. "I know," she whispered. "It's what made me love you too." ------- Now most adults will tell you that an eighteen-year-old, whether male or female, doesn't ACTUALLY know what they really want out of life. They're too young. They haven't had time to experience enough to make any intelligent choices. They THINK they know. In fact, they're often quite positive that they know. But they don't. We adults know that. So I was pretty sure that Jill just THOUGHT she loved me. She was, after all, caught up in the moment, just like I was. Or at least I assumed that. And, what her mother had said about her going off to college and meeting lots of interesting boys was true. It happens all the time. The boyfriend who gets left back home most often stays there and is replaced by someone who is much closer in a geographical sense. All this was going through my mind as I lay there, naked, still on top of Jill, who was also naked. My penis, still drooling a bit, was still inside her, though it was thoroughly soft now. As I thought of that, her pussy muscles squeezed and my prick was pushed out of her. "Ohhhhh," she complained softly. It was obvious what she was complaining about. I decided, at that moment, that what I would just have to do was let her get me out of her system before she left for school. She thought she knew what she wanted. What I had to do was show her what she was ACTUALLY getting, and illuminate the flaws and mismatches I knew were between us. One of them was that at my age, I wasn't going to be able to give her what, or at least as much, as she wanted. "You killed it," I teased. "It better not be dead," she said, her jaw working against my chest. "I want to get to know it a lot better." She was clearly using the word "it" to refer to my johnson. "It is not as young as it once was," I said gently. I could tease, but I also had to tell the truth. She needed to understand that. She pushed me off and sat up, suddenly full of energy. "It's such a beautiful day!" she exclaimed, looking around. I was busy looking at her body. Her breasts were perfectly proportioned for her build, round, firm and very white. Her nipples were a color I'd have to have called tan, on areolas the same shade, or maybe a little darker. From ten or fifteen feet, they'd be invisible. My eyes dropped lower and took in sperm-smeared bald pussy lips, which made my penis try to wake up. I looked at it next. It was smeared with white and looked the worse for the wear. It felt damn fine, though. My eyes slid back to her. I could look at her like this all day. "It is beautiful," I sighed, not talking about the day at all. She glanced down, and her eyes told me she understood exactly what I was referring to. She smiled. "Thank you," she said. She scooted back and stared at my soft prick. Her right finger went to it and pushed it sideways. "I can't believe it can be so soft but get so hard." "It's soft a lot more than it's hard," I said. "Has any woman ever sucked it?" she asked. I wasn't quite prepared for that, and thought back to the few times Vicky had tried it. She wasn't much into it, but knew I liked it and did it as a special treat for me sometimes. "Yes," was all I could get out. "Oh." She sounded disappointed. "I hoped maybe I could be the first." "What?" My mind was jerked back to the present. "Well you were my first, and I kind of hoped there was something I could do for you for your first time." "Not necessary," I said firmly. "You couldn't do anything for me that would make me any happier than I already am." I meant it too. I just didn't think about the impact of saying it to her. "Does that mean I can't suck it?" she asked, frowning. "Do you want to?" I asked, amazed that she'd even think about it, especially considering the condition it was in at the present. "I think so," she said, still staring at it. "I mean you suck my pussy, and I thought that was nasty, but obviously you love it, and I love it too. Did you like it when your wife did it?" Youth so often just says what's on their mind. They don't think about the way they say things, or how it might affect the listener. But I knew that, and there was only a little pang of loss. Actually, as I imagined Vicky watching and listening from wherever she was now, I also imagined her saying "She just fucked your socks off, and you're worried I'll get upset if she gives you a blow job?" "I did," I said, not knowing what else to say. "I already know what your stuff tastes like," she said. She pushed my limp penis around with her finger some more. "But there's some of me on there now too." "You taste delicious," I said, without thinking. "I can tell," she said dryly. Then, without further ado, she scooted down more and leaned forward. The finger she'd been pushing it around with was joined by some more which she used to get the slippery thing to stand up. Then, just like that, she sucked my limp prick into her mouth, sucking strongly. Her tongue got busy and I realized how food must feel when it realizes it's about to be chewed and swallowed. I sat up in alarm, but she didn't bite, and it felt wonderful, so I flopped back down and groaned in delight. She promptly spat me out and looked up, concern on her face. "Am I hurting you?" she asked anxiously. "Oh hell no," I said, raising my head. "Good." She went back to figuring out how to do this thing. Either she was a natural, or a quick learner. I'd only had one woman ever do this before, though, so what did I know? I learned right along with her. One thing I learned was that my johnson had a lot more in him than I gave him credit for. She had been happily sucking and humming and playing with him for five or ten minutes, I suppose, when I realized he was hard again. I couldn't believe it. She knew how to masturbate me, and she did some of that, but not with any real intent to produce anything. It was more like she just enjoyed stroking it, in-between kisses and sucks. Her fingers explored my balls too, poking and prodding and feeling around. She was gentle, though, and I didn't even have to warn her to be careful. When she sat back up, I didn't know whether to complain or compliment her. "I got it hard again," she said proudly. "You did, indeed," I said. "I like it when you're on top of me," she said, clearly making a suggestion. I sat up first, and then stood, while she lay down right where I had been and spread her legs, expectantly. OK, gentlemen ... what would you do? ------- Chapter 7 "Uh oh," said Jill as we rode into their yard. "What?" I asked. She was looking down at her saddle horn. "You leaked out of me," she said. She scooted back, her butt riding up the cantle of the saddle, until I could see the dark wet spot at the crotch of her jeans. "Mom is going to think I peed my pants!" This, again, was the assumption of callow youth. Lynne would have enough experience to know the difference between what Jill was talking about and the draining of two loads of Bob MacAllister's sperm deposits. Neither of which was supposed to be there to leak out, by the way. "I'll distract her while you go change," I said. ------- "So how did your plan go?" asked Lynne. She was cutting up apples, getting them ready to go in pies. She planned on making a dozen and then freezing them. Well, eleven of them, anyway. "Plan?" "You said you had a plan before you left," she reminded me. "Oh ... that," I said. It was obvious the plan ... if there had been one at all ... had failed miserably. "Don't tell me..." Lynne looked at me, disgustedly. "She's very hard to resist!" I complained. "I TOLD you that!" snapped the woman frowning at me. "Well I DO have a plan," I insisted. "What is it?" she asked. "I thought that if we spent a lot of time together before she goes to school, she'll get to know me better and see all my flaws and how old I am and all that kind of thing. Then, when she gets to school I won't be able to compete with the young guys." "That's your plan?" She sounded disgusted. "Sounds to me like you're going to try to spend as much time in my daughter's pants as possible before you can't any more!" "That's not it at all!" I objected. "What happened to just saying no?" she asked acidly. "You don't understand!" I moaned. She reached for the top button on her blouse. Flour from her fingers left white smudges on the fabric around it. "I don't?" she warned, undoing a button. "I think I understand entirely too well, Bob!" She popped that button and reached for the next one. I started to panic. I didn't know how long it would take Jill to change pants, and the look in Lynne's eye suggested she'd carry through with her threat. I had visions of Jill walking into the room as her mother stood, topless, shaking her breasts at me. How the heck was I going to explain that? I held up both hands, palms out. "OK, OK, don't get mad. I'll do better. I promise." She stopped, her fingers on button number two and I swear her eyes gleamed. "What would she think if she came in here and you were having me on the table? Do you think she'd break up with you then?" The second button popped. "I do." "You can't do that!" I gasped. "That's crazy! What happened to 'Let's not break her heart?'" Jill breezed into the room. She was wearing the same jeans skirt she'd ambushed me in the very first time. She made it obvious she'd been eavesdropping. "Nice try, Mom," she said archly. "But he's mine. I found him fair and square. You had your chance when I was younger, and you blew it. So just call up Dennis and ask him to come over or something, because you can't have Bob. "Dennis wants to get married!" snapped Lynne. I was amazed at how she'd gotten caught trying to undermine her daughter but neither of them was screaming about it. "Well maybe you should!" said Jill. "You're going to need somebody to take care of you after I leave, and I don't think I'm going to let Bob do that. Not after what I just heard." "I'm not some old woman who needs to be taken care of!" It appeared there might be some screaming after all. I held my hands up again. "CALM DOWN!" I yelled stridently. "BOTH OF YOU!" I added, just to make sure nobody thought I was playing favorites. They both looked at me, and both of them looked a little offended that I'd call them out in their own house. "There is a solution to this issue, and we can find it if we just discuss things calmly and rationally." "There's a solution, all right!" snorted Jill. "My mother can butt out and keep her hands off my man!" I put a hard edge on my voice. "You show your mother some respect, young lady!" I snapped. I'd like to say it was part of my plan to show her the side of me she might not be enthusiastic about, but it wasn't. It was just the way I thought about things. "She's worried about your future, and that's a role a mother is supposed to play." Jill stared at me for a couple of heartbeats and then, to my astonishment, she relaxed. "Of course," she said sounding dignified. She glanced at Lynne. "Sorry. I shouldn't have yelled." Lynne looked at me, her eyes narrowed. "Bob, I'd like to have this calm and rational discussion with Jill alone, if you don't mind." I knew a dismissal when I heard it. "Sure," I said. Then I got out of there while the getting was good. ------- I didn't see either of them until almost four in the afternoon. I was lying in the hammock, doing a crossword puzzle when their truck pulled into the driveway. Jill was driving. She parked and got out, seeming to wander over my way. "Mom says I can't see you any more," she said bluntly. "Thanks to you, I might add." "Me?" "She pointed out that you said I should respect her wishes." "Oh." I couldn't resist. "So what are you doing here now?" She shrugged. "I told her to pound sand." "What?" I almost groaned. "I told her she was being unreasonable and that I loved you, and that you loved me, and that I'm eighteen and that if I wanted to see you I was going to. "You told her I loved you?" "Well that's what you said while you were making love to me," she said. Her voice started to rise. "Was that a lie?" I had the chance to fall on my sword. It would have been the right thing to do, but it would have hurt her feelings. So I told the truth instead. "No. I do love you." "HA!" she almost shouted. "What does that mean?" I asked. "She told me men just say that to a woman so she'll have sex with them again. She said that's probably why you said it, and that you told HER you were going to try to get me to break up with you." Her use of the term "break up" sounded so high school that I cringed. She mistook that look for one of guilt. "Is that why you told me you loved me like that?" she asked, her voice dangerous. "Did all that mean is that you like screwing me?" I already knew Lynne was mad at me. The last thing I wanted was for ALL of the Simmons women to be mad at me. Not at the same time anyway. And yet, if Jill thought she wanted me, she WAS going to find out what she was getting. "That's a more complicated question than you might think," I said. "Sit down and I'll try to answer it." She didn't argue. She just sat down in one of the metal circa 1950 lawn chairs that was beside the hammock. She was still wearing that jeans skirt, and she didn't have on panties this time. She didn't exactly pull the skirt up, but she acted like she'd never had a single modesty lesson. I did my best to keep my eyes above her waist. "I love you," I started out. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. Now, the fact that I actually said it while we were having sex is probably no accident, but only because I didn't admit it to myself until then, and it just kind of came out." She frowned and took a breath to say something, but I cut her off. "Now what your mother was talking about is a little different. That really DOES happen. Guys know that those are powerful words, and some guys will use them to get something from a woman. So she wasn't just talking through her sleeve. But I'm not like that." She relaxed a little, so I gave her the rest of it. "Now, that said, you have to understand that I also love having sex with you. You're a delightful lover, and I'd have sex with you all day long, if I could, which I can't, and if there wasn't another problem." "What problem?" she asked. "One reason your mother doesn't approve of how you feel about me is because there really is a pretty big difference in our ages. You're young, and you've just discovered how much fun sex can be. You're going to college, and I'm staying here. You've never tried going without sex before. I have, and I can tell you it's not easy." That wasn't actually true, technically speaking. After Vicky died, I sort of lost interest in sex. It stayed lost until a few years after I met Lynne and her daughter, but I figured maybe I should leave that part out. "Now if you think of us as," I almost ground my teeth, but used her language, "going together and you're like most young women, you're going to believe you can stay faithful to me while we're apart. But your mother and I both know you're going to meet lots of handsome, interesting, very nice young men, at least one of whom is likely to get you all excited, at which point you'll feel what is now going to be a completely natural urge to have sex. And that's going to be hard on you because you have a boyfriend back home." "You're not my boyfriend," she said instantly. "You're my man." "Whatever," I said gently. "The point is that your mother doesn't want you to get your heart broken, and cheating on your man is a good way to put a crack in your heart. She feels you need to be able to explore all your options when you get to school, and not be worried about how that will affect things back home." "And is that how you feel too?" Her eyes were clear. "That's another complicated question," I admitted. "I'm going to A&W Root Beer, to get supper," she said. "You are?" I know I sounded puzzled, both by the abrupt change of subject, and the way she said it. "That's where she thinks I am," she explained. "I have time for you to answer another complicated question. That's what I meant." "Oh." I thought about how to answer her. Again, I could fall on my sword, but again, I was pretty sure she'd leave crying if I did. "I have a mixture of feelings about that," I said. "Rationally, and based on my life experience, I agree with your mother." She slumped. "Emotionally, I don't." She perked up. "What does that mean exactly?" "It means I like loving you, and I love making love with you, and I wish to hell I was twenty years younger and that there was some way that it could possibly work out for us." "Me too," she said, quite seriously. "I mean I understand that wish. I'm not stupid. I know how old you are. But I can't help how I feel about you, and I like feeling that way. I love how you look at me. I can see it in your eyes that you want me, and I love being wanted that way. By you, anyway." "You have to go to college," I said, heading off a possible suggestion that she could just keep on keeping on like she had been the last few years, and skip college. "I know that," she said. "I know how important that is. But that doesn't change the way I feel about you either." "Sweetie," I pleaded. "It's too hard to leave your man at home for four years." "I'll come back every summer," she whined. I sat up in the hammock and faced her. "Jill, I know this isn't what you want to hear, and I hate saying it, but I won't lie to you. I think your mother is probably right about this." "You sure can kill a horny mood," she grumbled. "You're supposed to be getting supper," I reminded her. "And don't run around behind your mother's back. If you're going to disobey her, just tell her that. You're a big girl now. "I know," she said glumly. "Come over to the house in about forty-five minutes." "Why?" I asked warily. "Because I'm getting supper for you too, silly," she said. "I should be back by then." She got up and, without another word, went back to the truck, started it up, and spun the tires leaving the yard. ------- I knew I was going to have to get along with Lynne, one way or the other, so I went over there before Jill got back. I walked in just like I had been doing for years. She was in the living room, watching the news. "What's up?" she asked. "Jill said I was invited to supper. She stopped by on the way to get it." "I told her not to see you any more," she grumbled. "She told me. Did you really think that would work?" I asked. "No," she admitted. "Then why did you say it? We need to try things that we think at least have a chance of working." "Like just saying no?" she snorted. "Technically, I haven't tried that yet," I said. "Technically it's still an option." "And do you think that will really work?" she asked. "I guess not," I admitted. "Then we're right back to square one," she said. "I AM trying to talk sense into her head," I said. "I've pointed out some of the problems. She agrees that there will be difficulties if we - and I can't believe I'm actually saying it this way - if we are a long-distance couple." "She's got it bad for you," said Lynne, hitting the mute button on the remote control. "I wish that didn't make me feel so good," I admitted. "You've got it bad for her too, don't you," she said, looking right at me. "Hey, cut me just a teensy bit of slack here, OK? It's been a long time since a cute young woman was interested in me," I said. "And it's been a long time since you had someone to play with in bed too," she added. "OK ... yes," I surrendered. "I know how you feel," she said. I was astonished. She lifted a hand. "I let Dennis do some things, because I was so horny I thought I was going to explode. I felt bad, but there it was." "I've been there," I said softly. "Well, when it was all over I realized it was just sex. With him, anyway. He's a nice guy and all that, but I can't see him as a long-term partner. That's partly your fault, by the way." "Really? Why?" "Maybe there's a little bit of that crush I had on you hanging around or something," she said. "But what gets my goat is that I convinced myself that you were too old for ME, and then my DAUGHTER chased after you like a bitch in heat. There's irony in there somewhere, but it's being beaten bloody by jealousy at the moment." "Wow," I said. "I didn't know you felt that way." "I didn't either," she complained. "Until I found out my little girl was getting laid by the man I used to think about while I was..." She blushed. "Never mind. That's more information than you need." "Yeah," I said, resisting the urge to smile. The women in this family sure knew how to make a guy feel good. We heard the truck then and Lynne got up to go get plates out and set the table. Jill came in with two bags of food and told me to go get the drinks, which were still in the truck. When I got back with them she frowned at me. "How am I supposed to be honest with my mother if you sneak around and tell her everything I do first?" "If you promise to be honest with her, I promise to stop ratting you out," I said solemnly. ------- There were actually twenty-five days left before Jill was supposed to check into the dormitory. Honesty between her and her mother made things less tense, even though that meant about every other day Jill said, "I'm going to go spend some time with Bob." There was some real tenseness between Lynne and me as a result of Jill's decision not to go on the pill. She said that would make it too easy for her to stray while she was at college, and she didn't want to stray. It also meant that I was now responsible for birth control. It seemed like it had been light years since I even looked at condoms, much less bought and used one. They had the freaking things in colors and flavors these days, which made me want to laugh. My urge was to get one of the ones that had bumps and ridges on it, since I had some ideas of how that might make Jill sing, but I opted for plain old smooth latex. I did that on purpose, actually, because I knew there would be less sensation, which might make it less fun for her, which might cool her ardor a bit. It backfired on me. The first time we used one I had her roll it on me, both for fun and to make sure she knew how to properly apply one. I had thoughts that she would have some condoms with her at school, and when nature finally claimed her - and I was sure it would - at least there would be protection available to her that she knew how to use. After it was on I mounted her and slid in. Three or four minutes later, she asked if she could be on top. We changed positions and she went another couple of minutes before getting off of me. "I don't like that thing," she said firmly. "It's necessary," I said, feeling a sad little thrill that my plan to cool her ardor was working. "Only to keep me from having a baby," she said, reaching for it. "Disease is not an issue here." The thing came off easily in her fingers. "Pregnancy is a bad idea," I said as I realized she intended to finish what we had started ... bareback. "Only if you don't want to have a baby," she groaned as she sank down on me. "Ohhhh that's SO much better. I can feel you now." "Do you want to have a baby?" I asked. "Some day," she sighed, moving her hips forward and back. "Suck my nipples!" "It's going to be some day soon if we do this without a rubber," I warned her. "Fuck me, Bob," she ordered. "And shut up while you do it, please." ------- Of course I'm an old dog, and have already learned quite a few tricks. Jill didn't have a chance, not with my superior intelligence calling the shots. I told her about other positions and, being an adventurous young woman, she was all for trying them. I managed to be behind her, doggy style, when my balls gave up and my prick spurted. It was child's play to jerk it out in plenty of time and lay white strips on her lower back. She didn't know what to think about that, initially, but decided they were my sheets, which I was going to have to wash, so she just rolled over and pulled her knees up, saying she wanted to cum again. I ate her sweet pussy until she did, and then we cuddled for a while. Two days later I didn't speed up when it was my turn to cum. I didn't really have to with Jill. Just the fact it WAS Jill was enough for me to bust a nut, just by thinking about it. I was on top of her again. She thought the other positions were fun, but she didn't cum as often when we were in any position that wasn't face to face. This time I laid the white strips on her belly. Her hand came up and rubbed through it as she said how hot it felt. She rubbed it up and over her breast to taste it. Two more days later we went for another horse ride. It was a cloudy day, though, with rain threatening, so we didn't go far or fast. Walking the horses like that made it easy to talk, and we did that for half an hour. Then she stopped and dismounted. "I've been studying things on the web again," she said, looking up at me. "I want to try something." I dismounted and she went down on her knees, which explained why she'd worn jeans instead of shorts or the denim skirt that seemed to be her favorite when she was feeling frisky. She fished out my little buddy and then unbuckled my pants and pushed them to my knees while she sucked him hard. I then received the mother of all blow jobs. She HAD been studying, and it was obvious she had been studying porn flicks, because she looked like one as she worked on my prick. I watched in awe as she gripped my butt cheeks and tried to swallow my dick. She gagged, and pulled off to pant a bit. "If they can do it, I can do it," she muttered, and went back to work. By pure will power alone, she managed to figure out how to deep throat without choking. She must have spent half an hour sucking my cock that time. It was a beautiful gift, because she never exposed a centimeter of her skin, or asked for me to do anything at all, other than to stand there and let her play. She had sucked my prick lots of times, but usually only until she got it rock hard. She had a clear preference for where she wanted said rock hard cock, and it had never been in her mouth. This time, though, at the end of that half hour of playing, she slurped at the tip and looked up at me. "I want you to squirt in my mouth," she said. Now I know how much guys like to talk about how great it is when their girl sucks AND swallows. But the fact is, while what she was doing was fantastic, and while I appreciated it a great deal ... well ... I had my own clear preference for where I wanted my dick to be when it began spewing. And, like Jill had always chosen prior to this, that place was deep in her belly. "I don't know if I can do that," I sighed. "Why not?" she asked, jacking on my prick slowly. "What you're doing feels wonderful, but I don't feel like squirting." "Why not?" she asked again. "If I were in your pussy, I'd feel like shooting," I said. "Oh," she said. "What if I jacked you off?" "You know you can make me shoot that way," I said, smiling. "I've just never tasted you right from the source," she said. "My knees are starting to hurt, though, so if you're not close, we need to try something else." "I have an idea," I said. "But you'll probably think I'm a weirdo if I tell you." "No I won't." She sounded positive. "Just keep doing what you're doing and answer all my questions 'yes' until I tell you we're done, OK?" "Keep sucking you," she said. "And answer everything yes." "Yeah," I said. "OK." Her mouth opened and she deep throated me, pushing her nose firmly into my pubes. "You're still not taking the pill, right?" I asked, watching her lips work around the shaft as she pulled back. "Mmm hmm," she hummed. "And if I were making love to you right now, and squirted in your pussy, you could get pregnant, right?" "Mmm hmm." "That makes me hot," I panted. "When I think about getting you pregnant, it really gets me going. Would you like me to get you pregnant?" She stopped sliding her lips and her eyes looked up at mine. The pause extended for another second or two. "Mmm hmm," she hummed, and started sucking again. "Oh shit, Jill," I moaned. "Oh baby, that gets me so excited. Do you mean it? Would you still love me if I got you pregnant?" This time she pulled her lips off my prick and jacked it fast. She looked at it, instead of at my face. "Yes!" she panted. "Oh fuck! I'm gonna do it! Here it comes Honey." She stared intently at the tip of my cock as it appeared and disappeared in her flashing fist. Then, as if she could tell what was happening inside my body, she leaned forward one last time and sealed her lips around the crown. She sucked, and I blew like Moby Dick. Her lips worked and her hands went to grip my hips, probably because I was weaving around. I had never cum in a woman's mouth before and the difference in feeling between that and what I was used to was amazing. I decided that getting even a fantastic blow job left something to be desired, though, if you got it standing up, because you have to keep standing there, while your knees scream "Are you fucking CRAZY? Lie down, you idiot, and wiggle around on the ground. You know you want to!" As it turned out, she agreed, because after she very clearly swallowed, and wiped her mouth with the back of one hand, she reached her hands up. "Help me up. I think I might be crippled for life." She might have only weighed one-fifteen, but even supporting that much weight on her knees for half an hour or longer got to them. "It's much stronger when it's concentrated like that," she said as she limped around, obviously trying to get feeling back into her legs. "Thank you!" I gasped. She turned to me and hugged me loosely. "You're welcome," she said. "Though how any woman ever got the urge to do that - deep throat, I mean - is beyond me. My throat hurts a little bit." "I'm sorry." I was serious too. "Oh it was worth it. You should have seen the look on your face. I thought I was killing you." "Not even," I said, kissing her nose. "But if I have to die, I want to do it that way." "No you don't," she said. "You want to die making me pregnant." She kissed me hard on the lips. "You are a nasty man, Bob. You want to make poor little me all fat and ugly with a big belly." "Not really," I sighed. "I mean sure, it's a very attractive fantasy, but this would be a terrible time for that to happen." "True," she said, squeezing me. "Which is why I did what I did today, instead of what I would rather have done. Your fantasy and my body are on the same schedule, as it happens." I smiled tiredly. "Well it's a good thing one of us has some self control. ------- Chapter 8 If you've ever been in a situation where you were having a whale of a good time, but it also caused some problems, then you know what I was going through. I knew Lynne didn't approve of what was going on. And that made me want to shy away from her. In the good old days, I'd see her every other day for this or that reason, or sometimes for no reason at all. Having that strain between us was one of the unhappy parts of the relationship with Jill that I still couldn't categorize. Nowadays there's a term called "fuck buddies" and looking back on things, that's kind of what we were doing. She had discovered and loved sex, and I was handy and interested too, despite myself. But you don't tell a fuck buddy you love her. There was no talk about the future, and that was another down side of things, because I was the kind of guy who thought about the future. As you get older, and there's less future to think about, you think about it more often. From Jill's perspective, she was going to go off to college, which was exciting and interesting. But that meant I was going to return to being celibate, and while I had adapted to that lifestyle pretty easily after Vicky died, I was pretty sure the adaptation would be a bit rockier this time. Lynne must have been thinking about the future too, because she called me and asked me to come over one day. When I got there it turned out Jill was in town shopping for last minute items to furnish her dorm room with. "You've been avoiding me," Lynne accused as I came in. "Guilty as charged," I admitted. "I was afraid things would be awkward." "She isn't working you out of her system, Bob." "Yeah, I kind of noticed that too," I said. "I have an idea." "Really?" I didn't know whether to be interested or not. "Ask her to marry you." I gawked, with my mouth hanging open. "This isn't some motherly plan to make things the way I think they should be," she said quickly. "I just don't think she's really thought things out. But she'll have to if you ask her to marry you. She might begin to understand that this isn't all just fun and games, and that there are responsibilities that go along with this kind of thing." "What if she says yes?" Do not ask my why that was my first question. I have no idea where it came from. "She won't," said Lynne, who apparently missed the possibility that while I was willing to fuck her little girl's socks off, I might be reluctant to make an honest woman of her. Lynne went on without a pause. "It will blow her mind. She's never mentioned marriage to me, in any way, at any time. I don't think she's really thought about it at all. Maybe we can get her attention this way, because I KNOW her initial reaction will be negative, and that will cool her off a little." "I'm not so sure about this," I said slowly. It seemed like a really crazy idea to me. I mean sex with Jill was unreal enough, but a proposal? From me? That was just plain ludicrous. It occurred to me then that maybe Lynne was right. It WAS ludicrous, and surely Jill would see that as quickly as her mother and I had. "I'll think about it," I said. "You'd better hurry then," she said. "You only have three days left, and if she leaves here feeling the same way about things that she does now, she's going to be distracted at school and neither of us want that." ------- Things, as it turned out, played right into our hand. When Jill got back and found me there, she told me she wanted to have a picnic, and that she wanted to have it in her old tree house. She'd brought a bucket of chicken back with her, and was ready to go right then and there. She handed me a plastic bag that was too heavy to be holding only chicken, but I didn't find out what was in it until I had followed her up the ladder into the structure. What had seemed so large when it was first built, now seemed cramped, or would have for two people in a different kind of relationship. I found out why the bag was heavy when she pulled out a bottle of wine. Apparently she knew somebody in town who was willing to sell it to her. We ate in silence for a few minutes before I asked the obvious question. "Why a picnic here?" "This is the first place I had a daydream about sex," she said calmly. "I see," I said, smiling. "It was about you," she said. "I see," I said again. "I was twelve, and I thought everybody would know what I had been thinking. I was sure they would see it on my face. I ran home and didn't come back for almost a week. Do you remember that?" I shook my head. That had been a long time ago. "Well I do. I didn't know what sex was, back then, and what I wished for was something smoky and hazy, but I knew it was sex, somehow. When my mother didn't say anything to me, and I finally realized that it didn't show after all, I was amazed. Then one day I saw you looking at me with this half smile on your face, and I wondered if you were thinking that too ... about me. Later I saw you look at Mom the same way. I asked her about it. It was the first time we talked about you as a man, instead of just Bob." "Wow," I said softly. "Clear back then?" "Clear back then," she said. "I knew back then that you'd be the first man I had sex with." This sounded like so much more than some thoughtless fling that I thought of what Lynne had suggested. Red flags popped up in my mind, but the feelings I was having for this woman demanded that some kind of resolution be arrived at. I had been worried that her heart would get broken, but now I was concerned about my own. I didn't work it all out in my head, though. It just came out, though not in the traditional way. "Your mother thinks I should ask you to marry me," I said. Her hand, moving a drumstick toward her face, stopped, but only briefly, maybe a second or two, before it continued to her mouth. White teeth tore at the flesh and she chewed while almond shaped eyes examined my face. She swallowed and, so help me, I thought of her swallowing a few days before, out in that pasture, with my prick in her mouth. "That's not a proposal," she said. "No, I guess it's not," I agreed. She was quiet for a few seconds. "I'm glad it wasn't," she said. She looked away. A breaking heart should make a loud cracking sound. I mean your stomach can announce itself loudly enough for people to hear five or six feet away, but a heart makes no noise at all when it is shattered. "Oh," I said, my voice dull. She looked back at me. "It's too soon for that." I didn't feel quite so devastated. "You and Mom both insist that I'm going to fall madly in love with some boy at college," she said. "What if that happens?" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I don't think it will," she said. "But you two seem so sure about it that I'm a little worried. Even if you had proposed, I don't think I would have given you an answer. Not now. I'll have to think about that for a while." So much for Lynne thinking her daughter was going off on this sexual tangent willy nilly. She blinked. "But it wasn't a proposal ... so I'd feel weird thinking about it." She tilted her head at me. "How do you feel about it?" This wasn't going at all like Lynne had thought it would and I realized I was an idiot for even thinking about this goofy plan. "I think it's a ludicrous idea," I said. She grinned. "I figured that's what you'd think." She wiped her hands on a napkin and unbuttoned her blouse. She wasn't wearing a bra under it. "Right now, though, I want to find out what it feels like to have an orgasm in my tree house. Do you think you could help me with that?" ------- The last time I made love with Jill that summer was one of the most tumultuous things in my life, at least on an emotional level. For one thing I KNEW it was the last time it would happen that summer, and I suspected it was the last time ever. For another, one of my best friends was leaving the next morning, and might be gone forever. It's not unusual for a child to leave for college and never come back for more than the occasional short visit. What made it so difficult was that I had, in fact, fallen deeply in love with this young woman. I wasn't sure when or how it happened, but I knew it was the case, and even as I held her naked body in my arms, and her frenzied panting was hot in my ear as she strained up against me, I was in some measure of pain. She spent the last night with me, at my house, something she had never done before. When she got there she said she'd told her mother not to expect her before breakfast. I didn't ask how that had gone over, and she didn't give any clues. She said we'd eat later and simply got naked. She wanted to make love on the couch for some reason and I, in my emotional downsurge, wasn't going to argue. I had gotten used to our habit of using timing and coitous interruptus as the only birth control we practiced, and I thought nothing of sliding my naked prick into her hot sheath. Sometimes Jill just liked to fuck. By that I mean she wasn't looking for an orgasm for herself. She just wanted to make love and it didn't matter if either of us climaxed or not, as far as she was concerned. Then there were times when all she seemed to care about was reaching for that orgasmic ocean wave so she could surf in it for as long as possible. This time, on the couch, was one of those. Her first orgasm took me by surprise, because it was causing her to whimper and buck up at me within a minute of sliding into her. I hadn't even gotten a rhythm going yet, and was still just enjoying the feeling of being inside her. When I realized what was going on I went in deep and rubbed her clitty with my pubes for a while. Her nails in my side told me to keep going and helped me in terms of choosing a direction in which to move. Now a guy can't help but feel pretty good when his lover gets off that quickly. What made this one even better was that her eyes were wide open the whole time and she was just staring at my face. Both of us closed our eyes quite often during an orgasm. Maybe it was hard not to or something. But having her gaze into my eyes like that seemed to melt us together somehow. My own orgasm surprised me next. Suddenly I was there. "Oh Jill," I groaned, not happy that it would be over this quickly. Her legs whipped up and wrapped around my waist, squeezing me with muscles that could do a hundred yards in eleven or twelve seconds. I pulled ineffectually against them, trying to pull out, but realized that wasn't going to happen. Not this time. At the same time her hands came to my face and pulled me down for a long, lip bruising kiss. I gave up caring and fountained inside her, grunting into the kiss as her legs squeezed me even harder. Just two days before she had deep throated me, milking my prick for its first load, saying it was a bad time for it to go off accidentally inside her. That hadn't happened a lot. I usually had plenty of time to warn her and take precautions, such as they were, but she had made a point of telling me about it then. When we calmed down enough to talk, I asked her what was up with the leg lock. "Tonight it all goes inside me," she said. "I don't get any more of this for a long time, and when I leave tomorrow, some of you is going with me." "Isn't that a little foolhardy?" I asked. "Maybe," she said carelessly, with the bullet proof attitude that most young people have about dangerous situations. "But this is my last night with you, and I decided to spend it at Burger King." "What?" I was confused. "I'm going to have it my way," she explained. Then she dug a finger into my side and said "Old people are so slow sometimes." Whether she was trying to get me off of her or not, I don't know, but the finger in my side led to that. She sat up and lovingly sucked my prick clean before getting up and walking naked to the kitchen. "What's for supper?" she asked, opening the refrigerator. "Hamburgers," I said instantly. ------- At some point that night, with a warm woman in my bed for the first time in a long time, the pain lessened when panic began to replace it. That girl wanted more than I could supply and there were a couple of times when I imagined us married, and me a wreck ... a sad, old, gray man, bent over, walking with a cane, weighing ninety pounds, and pale as a ghost because she was sucking the very life out of me with her sexual demands. As I was thinking this she sucked my penis hard again and climbed on to have more fun. I don't think we slept - and dozed is probably a better word for it - more than three hours all night. Pre-dawn light was coming through my bedroom windows, when somehow, I was hard again and she climbed on, riding me for the second time that night. All the other times she had wanted me on top. We had done some other positions, but only for fun, and not in search of an orgasm. "One more time, old man," she teased, milking me with impossibly strong and talented muscles. I looked up at her. She was so beautiful it hurt. All the pain of anticipated separation came back. In less than an hour she'd be gone. I tried to think of anything else, because I didn't want to cry in front of her. "They found him in his bedroom, a dried out husk, his mummified remains naked," I said, trying to sound like a news anchor. "One theory is that he was the victim of some vampire cult, though others insist it was aliens who were responsible." "You better not die on me," she said, stopping. "I won't die," I said. "It may take me a week to recover, though." "That's fine," she said. "I'll tell my mother to bring you soup for a couple of days. "Don't you dare!" I said urgently. It was the kind of thing I was sure she would do, just to needle me. "Then give it to me one more time," she said, leaning over and rubbing a naked breast against my lips. "I told you I want you in me when I leave." "No kidding, Honey," I mumbled, unable to resist tasting her nipple. "I don't know if I can." She sat back up and commenced to work those muscles. She had a look of intense concentration on her face, and a bead of sweat popped out on her forehead. I couldn't believe the feeling. It was almost magical. "Oh Jill!" I groaned, as I felt the urge return. I didn't know if there was anything left in my balls, but if there wasn't they were going to do the dry heaves. "That's my man," she whispered as, for the last time, I erupted inside her. Her muscles kept working furiously while the rest of her sat, motionless, on top of me. ------- I didn't go over to Lynne's for breakfast with Jill. I'd had my time, and this day was for Lynne. That Jill understood that was communicated in her last kiss, and the squeeze she gave my hand. Conversely, when Lynne got back from taking her daughter to college, she pulled in my driveway before going home. Ironically, I had half of one of Jill's pecan pies left, so I dished us both up a piece, with ice cream while she filled me in on things. What she described was a completely normal eighteen-year-old girl seeing a dorm room for the first time, and being slightly horrified by how small, and how plain and thoroughly used looking it was. But the campus was beautiful and Jill's roommate got there a couple of hours later, so they all had lunch together, courtesy of Lynne, of course. The excitement level was high and it kept Lynne going until she was about halfway back home. She was suffering empty nest syndrome by the time she got to my driveway and gave me a long sniffling hug when she left to go home to her empty house. ------- It's strange when one's routine gets messed up. Over the years I had settled into various habits involving the horses, weather, television and various other things, each of which had its time and place in my life. It's a little like a big, old pecan tree in the yard. You take it for granted. It provides shade, and maybe some nuts. It's just there. Then a storm comes along and takes some of the branches of that tree and it looks completely different. It also looks like it has been irrevocably changed. Jill and Lynne had been part of my routine too. Sex with Jill was the storm that changed everything. The thing is that the tree will heal itself if it isn't too badly damaged. It will grow new branches and leaves and pretty soon it's hard to tell it was ever all torn up. And once Jill was gone, Lynne and I just sort of slipped back into the old routine. We both got emails and calls from Jill. Mine were long hot descriptions of what she wished we were doing. They were superb beating off material, particularly since in these fantasies of hers we were always bareback, and I always spurted inside her. She seemed to have taken to college like a duck to water, and reported no problems. She got a job, working ten hours a week in the library, which gave her what she called mad money, which wasn't budgeted for anything and could be spent any way she liked. One time she wrote that she used some of her mad money to get a chocolate shake and was dripping some of it on her nipples and pussy lips so I could lick it off. Things soon calmed down between Lynne and me, and the tension Jill had caused evaporated. I had a little difficulty adjusting back to our old relationship, because I now knew that she had been attracted to me at one time. But our former relationship had been so comfortable that, after a month or two, we slipped back into it. Two things happened that Lynne and I talked about more than once. Actually, one thing we expected happened, and another didn't, but something that doesn't happen when you expect it to has just as much effect as a "happening." The thing that was expected was that Jill's calls and emails started coming less frequently. That's common. When a young person first leaves home, contact with that old familiar life can be very comforting. But as she learns how to become a member of a different family, even if it is larger and less intimate, the need for that comfort lessens. "She's breaking the apron strings," I said one night, as Lynne and I ate supper together. Lynne had complained that she hadn't gotten any news for two weeks. "When was your last one?" she asked. "Well ... I guess it was last Friday night." "That's almost a week!" she said. "Yeah, I guess it is," I admitted. "I told you she'd drift away," said Lynne darkly. She blinked. "I'm sorry, Bob. That was a horrible thing to say." "You DID tell me. It's what we hoped for, after all." "Yes," she said softly. "So why do I feel so bad about it?" "We never want our kids to lose the need for us," I said. "I feel bad for you, Bob, not me." "Oh." "I mean it's obvious you feel a great deal for her." "Yeah," I said. I had realized that a long time ago, but it hadn't been the kind of thing her mother wanted to hear. Not back then. "It's for the best, though." "I know it is," said Lynne. "So why do I feel like I just ran over a puppy?" Oddly, though, the thing that DIDN'T happen had just as tumultuous an effect. Jill never talked about dating and, as far as we could tell, she only went to the movies once. She didn't mention meeting any interesting men, with the exception of Zack, who was in her Agriculture study group, along with three other women, named Mandy, Ruth Ann and Sherrill. Still, she only mentioned Zack in passing. Then one night Lynne called me and asked if I was doing anything. She sounded strained. "Didn't have anything planned," I said. As if I ever did, which Lynne was perfectly aware of. Neither of us had a life, really, when you got right down to it. "We need to talk," she said. Now normally, when a woman says that to a man, he cringes, at least inside, where she can't see it. She was on the phone, so it didn't matter, but I didn't cringe anyway. I couldn't think of anything Lynne could call me out on. "In person, I take it?" I asked. "Yes," she said tersely. "You OK?" "I'm upset." "Be right over." "I'll have pie for you." When I got there she gave me the pie, which was pumpkin, with whipped cream on it. She didn't serve herself any, and she didn't beat around the bush. "Jill called. She asked if she could bring Zack home for Christmas break." ------- Chapter 9 My fork stopped, halfway to my mouth. I tried to grapple with the fact that my ... girlfriend, for lack of a better word ... had broken up with me, hadn't told me that yet, and already had a new boyfriend. Talk about an ambush. "Oh," I said. What else was there to say? "I'm so sorry, Bob," Lynne said. She sounded genuinely sorry. I ignored the hard ball of almost-pain in the pit of my stomach and put the fork back down on the plate. I would force myself to eat that pie, but that could wait. "We already talked about this," I said. "Mission accomplished." Guys try to put on a good face and I'm no different. "Might have been nice to have some notice, but this is what we wanted," I said, trying to sound casual. "So you really didn't know about this?" "Not a clue," I said. "I can't believe it," she said tightly. "You're the one who told me what would happen," I reminded her. "Not that," she said, looking angry. "I can't believe she blindsided us on this. There was no warning!" That was true. Just last week I'd gotten a call from Jill, late at night, and she asked me to masturbate with her. It had been wonderful. She'd said she loved me. "And she's being so bald faced about it!" "At least she called and asked," I said. "That's better than just showing up with him I guess." "That's not what I meant," said Lynne. "She said..." She went pale. "I don't want to tell you what she said." I wanted to groan, but didn't. "May as well get it over with," I said instead. "I'm probably going to find out sooner or later." I thought she wasn't going to say anything else, but finally she swallowed and spoke. "She took me completely by surprise, but my natural instinct was to try to put up some kind of barrier. I told her the guest room was full of junk and that I wasn't going to have time to get it cleaned and ready." She swallowed again and looked away. "She said he could just stay in her room." I think I was the one who went pale then. That groan I had suppressed before came out too. "She's acting like a selfish, gutless bitch!" snapped Lynne. My world was upside down, but I kept thinking of all the objections Lynne had made, back when Jill and I had ... taken up together. She had tried to warn me. She had discouraged the whole affair. Her daughter had acted just like she had said she would. But Jill was still her daughter ... still her child ... and I didn't want this to ruin that relationship. I dredged up some character from somewhere. "Easy there," I said. "She's young. She didn't think this would happen. She's probably embarrassed." "She SHOULD be embarrassed. She's only been gone for what, two months? She threw you over for some pimply faced college boy after only two months!" "I doubt he has pimples," I said. I was amazed that I was hiding a smile. "And, like I said, this is exactly what we wanted to happen." "Not like this!" she moaned. "She was supposed to be wracked with guilt, and torn between you and some boy. There was supposed to be anguish and pain, not 'hey mom can I bring my new shack-boy home so I don't have to go without during break?'" Her eyes got wide and her mouth went into a small, tight O shape. "I'm so sorry, Bob," she whispered. "We're beating a dead horse," I said. "Besides, I thought the whole idea was for her NOT to get her heart broken. Based on what you told me ... I'd say it worked out pretty well for her." I picked up the fork and took the first bite of pie. I couldn't taste it, but I chewed anyway and swallowed convulsively. "What should I do?" she asked. "What do you mean what should you do?" I asked back. "Should I let her bring him?" "You're going to have to meet him sooner or later," I said. "She's still your daughter, and if she likes him, it's important that you be the mom." "I don't want to meet the little prick!" she blurted. "Admit it," I said, feeling the first upsurge of emotion since I'd gotten there. "You just don't want anybody to have sex with your daughter." I actually managed a grin. "I understand that completely." She stared at me. "You're a good man, Bob. I'd almost be willing to admit I might have been wrong about you and her, except I'd have to admit I was wrong." She blinked and frowned. "You're taking this much better than I would if the roles were reversed." "What can I do about it?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. I could taste the pie now. It would be a while, but I'd heal. It had been a delightful run, and I'd always have the memory of a young woman wanting me and welcoming me. That's hard to beat. "So I should tell her she can bring him?" "It's your decision, of course," I said. "But that's what I'd recommend." "I can't just let her sleep with her new boyfriend in my house!" moaned Lynne. "I know that sounds hypocritical, based on what I let you two do, but ... it just makes my skin crawl, Bob!" "At the risk of sounding hypocritical myself, I'll just say that's something the two of you will have to work out when they get here. It's your house. I think you get to make the rules." "I know her," sighed Lynne. "That's going to go over like a lead balloon." "You'd have had to face that decision sooner or later too," I said, shrugging. She just looked at me for a dozen seconds. "What will you do?" she asked. "I have no idea," I said. "I promise not to shoot him, or anything like that." She snorted, and that tiny bit of humor gave her a release for all the emotion pent up inside her. She snorted again and then laughed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just had this vision of you dressed up like Rambo, with one of those machine guns and the long belt of ammo, storming through the front door yelling 'Where is he!'" I smiled. "I probably couldn't even lift a machine gun." I ate the rest of my pie, but the humor was lost quickly. With nothing else to talk about, I got up as soon as I was done. "Thanks," I said. "What for?" she asked. "I just crushed your heart." "I'm a big boy," I said. "Thanks for the warning. That's all. I should have listened to you. I should have just said no." "You would have if you could have," she said. "I'll remember that if..." She stopped and when I looked to see why, she was blushing. "If what?" I asked. "Never mind," she said. "Come on," I wheedled. "You'll think I'm a slut." "Impossible," I said firmly. "Have you ever heard of a ... um ... a pity fuck?" Her hand came up and covered her eyes. She was gloriously embarrassed, and it was very becoming on her. "I believe I have," I said, smiling. "Well, if my daughter breaks your heart ... you might be offered one..." "Oh my," I said, as she turned and skipped out of the room, obviously too embarrassed to face me further. Nothing in my body reacted to that. Not then. I was still in too much emotional pain. But later I knew I'd reflect on that. Even if it was never offered, the very fact that she'd thought about it was something that made me feel pretty good. Or would some day, anyway. ------- Zack, as it turns out, was a junior and had a car, so Lynne didn't have to go pick Jill up. I didn't know what to do, really, so I kept busy on the day they were supposed to arrive by doing chores that didn't really need to be done, like oiling the hinges on the barn doors so they didn't squeak. It was cold, and working in the shed, tightening up boards and doing make-work kept my mind on my physical discomfort, rather than my emotional problems. Lynne was clearly horrified that her daughter was so thoughtless as to bring home a young man and flaunt him in front of me only a few months after so stubbornly pursuing me as a sexual partner and professing her "love" for me. Lynne's embarrassment hadn't yet led to that pity fuck she had mentioned. Neither of us was ready for that yet, but the possibility was something that helped keep me going. When you're picked up by a cute young chippie it makes you feel younger. When she dumps you, though, you feel twice as old as you did before. At any rate, I just happened to be moving firewood from the splitting yard to the house when I heard a horn honking repeatedly from the road. I looked up to see Jill leaning out of a speeding Mustang GT, wearing a down-filled jacket and hanging out of the car clear to her waist. She was waving frantically. "See you in a little while!" she yelled. Then she was ducking back inside and the car was past my house and braking for the turn into Lynne's driveway. It figured the little prick would drive a muscle car. ------- I had the wood stove fired up. I had intended for years to have somebody come out and do some weatherproofing on the old place, or blow in some insulation or whatever they did these days. Somehow I always neglected to call anybody though, and along about this time of year I was reminded that the house wasn't as comfortable as it could be. I had plenty of wood, though, and could wear sweat shirts and such, so it wasn't all that bad. Recently I had taken to thinking about looking into a winter home, maybe somewhere around Phoenix or something like that, where I could play golf or whatever during the cold months. I felt like I'd be abandoning Lynne if I did that, though. It was hard for me not to think about Jill, now that she was home again, probably sitting on Zack's lap at the kitchen table, feeding him pie while she told her mother all about school. I decided to bake some bread, since that would keep me busy for a few hours, not to mention having dough to pummel and work out a little rage on. I had all the ingredients in the bowl and was mixing them up, when the back door flew open and then slammed. Jill came literally running into the kitchen, wearing a touk and neck scarf above her down filled jacket. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were alive. "THERE you are!" she squealed. "Why weren't you there to meet us?" She took off the stocking cap and shook her hair out. It hadn't been cut since she left, and was down past her shoulders now. I was speechless. How could she possibly not know why I wasn't there to meet them? "I missed you SO MUCH!" she moaned, stripping off the scarf and unzipping the jacket. She slid out of it and let it drop to the floor. "What are you doing?" she asked suddenly. "Baking bread? Let it wait. We only have an hour before lunch and Mom says we both have to be there." "What?" I asked a little dazed. My hands were all sticky with half mixed bread dough. "Wash your hands!" she said, jumping up and down. Her fingers went to the buttons of the flannel shirt she was wearing. "What?" I asked again. I graduated from dazed to fully confused. "Oh never mind!" she yipped. "I can't wait." She grabbed me and pulled me to her, crushing her lips to mine in a clearly hungry, passionate kiss. It turned into a series of kisses that moved away from my lips as she spoke and kissed, almost at the same time. "I missed you so much. I'm so horny. We only have an hour, Bob! Hurry up! I need you right now!" At the same time her hands were working at both her clothing and mine. Whether she had worn the shirt home, or changed into it once she got there, she wasn't wearing a bra under it, and her perfect breasts emerged starkly white, with erect nipples. I had been holding my hands out, so as not to get her covered in flour and sticky dough, but as her hands went to my belt and undid it, I moved them. "Wait!" I yelped. "I can't!" she said in return. "We don't have time!" Helplessly I watched her jerk my pants open and shove them down to my thighs, along with my underwear. "There you are!" she cooed to my penis. To my mind it actually felt like my prick was trying to withdraw back into my body, like a scared child tries to hide behind his mother's skirts. I felt little needles of panic stabbing into my heart. When she sucked my limp prick into her mouth I staggered, and it was jerked out of her mouth with a sucking pop. If my pants had been any lower, I'd have gone down in a heap, but I managed to keep my feet as I windmilled backwards and ran into the counter. She stood up and took off her shirt, standing topless, in jeans and boots, in front of me. "Come ON, Bob!" she barked. "We only have an hour!" She looked at her watch, which presented a scene so bizarre that I held out my sticky hands, palms out. There was a slim, beautiful half naked woman, looking at her watch, in my kitchen. I took half a second to notice that my prick, ever the horn dog, was twitching as blood began to collect in it. "WAIT!" I yelled. I started to reach for my pants, to pull them up, but my hands were too messy. I held them out away from my body. There was clearly something I didn't understand here. "What about Zack?" I asked. She blinked. "He's with Mom," she said. "He volunteered to help her get lunch ready." She frowned. "You surely didn't think I'd bring him over here!" she said suddenly. "I don't know what to think," I moaned. "Why would I bring him over here?" she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Not right now, anyway. Maybe later, but not now." She looked down at her naked breasts and I saw understanding come into her eyes. "You think he's my boyfriend," she said suddenly. Her face fell and she took a step towards me. "Oh Bob, I'm so sorry. I couldn't tell you because I knew you'd probably let it slip and then Mom would get all weird and tell me I couldn't bring him home." I was as thoroughly confused as I'd ever been in my life. "Couldn't tell me?" I asked, trying to get some kind of information ... any kind of information that might help me feel less helpless. "Zack isn't my boyfriend," said Jill patiently. "He's in my study group, and he's a real sweet guy and all that, but he's not for me. He saw a picture of me and Mom together and he called her a MILF and I didn't understand until I looked it up on the internet. And I thought that if I could fall in love with an older man that it wouldn't be completely impossible for a younger man to appeal to her, and HE was definitely interested, so I invited him to come stay with us for Christmas break so that maybe something will happen." I had been reaching for understanding. Suddenly it hit me like a two-by-four. "Are you crazy?" I yelped. "No, Bob," she said calmly. "What I am is horny. I haven't had my man for months, and I'm standing here half naked and my man wants to talk about something else. This is NOT what I had in mind when I came over here!" She looked at her watch again. "And now we only have forty-five minutes!" Apparently she thought I didn't have enough motivation, so she came over to me and, in that way that only the young can manage, held one foot up off the floor in front of me. "Untie my boot. I'm not wearing any panties under my jeans and I shaved my pussy for you this morning in the shower." She basically bullied me for five minutes until my mind caught up with what was happening. It was very happy with the turn of events ... or rather the lack of a turn of events. Jill was just as passionate and just as sexy as when she'd left, and her appetite for sex - sex with ME - was just as active too. My penis, which had had to get used to my hand again, was only too happy to sprint to attention for her and push its way into her. I must confess I was a little overzealous. I took her hard, right there on the floor beside the wood stove, with a mixture of insane relief and no little annoyance at the same time. The relief, of course, was for the fact that she still loved me, and had no boyfriend. The annoyance was that she could have warned me and saved me a HELL of a lot of grief. As it turned out, she wanted to be taken. "That's ... what ... I ... want!" she panted as I pounded her. "Oh baby ... I've ... missed ... you ... so much." As I recall, the only two things I was capable of saying at the moment were "Damn!" and "Oh Jill!" She could tell when I was working up to an ejaculation. Pulling out was not in my mind at all, at that moment, but it didn't matter. "Are you gonna cum?" I whined, rather than answered. "You don't have to pull out, Bob," she rasped. She left her legs wide open. "Cum in me, baby," she cooed. Well that tripped my trigger, right then and there, let me tell you. My balls gave a lurch and the sweet soothing of semen rushing through my prick tore a groan of happiness from my throat. But she wasn't finished yet. She had one more bombshell up her metaphorical sleeve, and I wasn't prepared for that one either. Right in the middle of that glorious orgasm, she put her lips right next to my ear and hissed: "I've decided my answer is yes, Bob. I'll marry you!" ------- I was a wreck. What with all the worrying I'd been doing, and being on edge all day long and most of the night, trying to talk myself into losing this treasure of a woman, I'd been in pretty rough shape when she first skipped into my kitchen. Then there was the uproar of the misunderstanding, and her correction of it, not to mention that she nearly fucked me senseless. And her final salvo pretty much finished the job. I bawled like a baby. If I'd been sitting up, I know I would have slumped over, because I felt like I didn't have a bone in my body. Somehow, I rolled off of her and lay there, just sobbing and blubbering like some nine year old at a scary movie who has just pissed and pooped in his pants and knows there's not a damn thing he can do to hide it. Except I was happy, of course. And I didn't poop or piss, though to my neverending embarrassment, when she rolled over to see what was wrong and put a hand right on my stomach, I did fart loud enough to peel paint. She snorted snot all over my chest and then laughed while I boo-hooed, trying not to and failing miserably as she gave it her best to look concerned for me. I think, being a woman, she understood why I was crying sooner than a man would have, because pretty soon she was telling me how sweet I was and pulling on me to get me up off the floor. "Shower, Bob!" she ordered, looking with faint disgust at where she had soiled my chest with her delicate girly boogers. But that turned out OK too, because she came in with me and, once I was de-boogered she started playing until, bless her heart, she got some life back into my johnson and deep throated me until my thighs gave way causing me to squat ... and fart ... again. I will never forget her open mouth, laughing, spitting spunk all over the place, and my penis giving one last spurt that anointed her chin. ------- Chapter 10 We were twenty minutes late to lunch, but Jill didn't care. She was laughing and jumping around like a little girl. I think she was a little giddy, because she was trying to tell me about school, but kept digressing into telling me how much she'd missed me, and how much she loved me. Meanwhile I stumbled along, not watching where I was going because my eyes couldn't get enough of her. Lynne didn't bark at us for being late. In fact, she barely noticed. She was sitting at the table with a young man and they were deep in a discussion of orchard management. She looked up at me and smiled brightly, and then her attention was all back on him. "That's Zack," said Jill rather needlessly, pointing at the boy. He had shaggy brown hair and a wannabe goatee. He looked up at me, also grinned, said "Hi," and went on with what he'd been saying as if there had been no interruption at all. Jill pulled me to the counter, where the table service still sat, waiting to be put on the table. The food was on top of the stove, and Jill and I helped ourselves, buffet style. When we sat down Lynne seemed to realize it was actually time to eat and stood up. Zack's eyes went directly to the breasts straining at the thin blouse in front of his eyes and, unconsciously, I think, licked his lips. I don't think it was because he was anticipating lunch, either. "You're late," Lynne finally remembered to say. "We were ... um ... catching up," said Jill, innocently. Except it didn't sound very innocent. Even Zack looked sharply at her. Then he looked over at me again. "I've heard a lot about you," he said. "Oh?" What does a man say to a kid young enough to be his son, in a situation like that? "Every guy who ever said hello to Jill has heard a lot about you," he said, smiling. "You, my good man, are impossible to compete with." Lynne was in the process of going through a tough time, and her face showed it. Apparently, Zack's opening gambit, which Lynne didn't KNOW was an opening gambit, had been to start talking about the orchard, and what he had learned in college about managing one. Jill had prepped him, of course, so he knew all the right buttons to push. Lynne, who had been horrified that her daughter, upon entering the house with her "boyfriend," had introduced him and then promptly announced that she was going to go see me. There had been a short argument, during which Lynne looked meaningfully at Zack - a number of times - trying to suggest to Jill what a complete failure she was being as a girlfriend, until Jill said that Zack loved to cook and would be more than happy to help with lunch. Zack, to Lynne's astonishment, had agreed heartily, smiling happily at being left alone with the object of his desire. He then initiated operation MILF conquest by talking about the orchard. Lynne, having been distracted from her horror by this delightful young man, who was so interested in how she seemed to be doing everything exactly like all his professors said it should be done, had gotten more self validation in the last hour and twenty minutes than she'd gotten in the previous ten years combined. She wasn't blind, and she noticed quite plainly that, while he tried to comport himself as a gentleman, Zack was plainly having difficulties in keeping his eyes on politically correct places. The humorous part of that was that she completely forgot that it was her daughter's boyfriend who was ogling her, until her daughter came back holding hands with her former(?) lover. To cut to the chase, Lynne was horrified again, except this time it was at the way BOTH boy and girlfriend were acting. And I was no help. She told me later I had a glazed expression on my face. I think that was because I was so ecstatically grateful that the misunderstanding had been corrected. Of course as far as Lynne was concerned ... it hadn't been corrected. In fact, she didn't even know there WAS a misunderstanding. "Jill," she said, tersely. "I'd like to speak to you ... privately." That tone of voice penetrated my euphoria, and I woke up. Jill looked up, her mouth full of food. She swallowed and then said "Can't it wait? I'm starving!" I saw thunderclouds forming on Lynne's face. I had no idea how well she and Zack had been getting along. I mean they had looked comfortable when I first came in, but then I wasn't paying that much attention to them then. What I SHOULD say that nothing about what was going on raised any red flags, or penetrated my consciousness like the tone in her voice just had. But I clearly suspected that she wasn't in on the deal yet. "Talk to ME privately," I said, standing up. "What?" She looked at me, confused. "We need to talk," I said, throwing my eyes at Jill. I thought I was being sly, but I saw Jill looking right at me. "You can't tell her, Bob!" she yelped suddenly. "Tell me what?" asked Lynne, starting to look lost. "They have to have time!" Jill insisted. "WHO has to have time?" Lynne asked plaintively. "She has to know," I said, looking at Jill. "I can tell you right now that if you took 'Making a nefarious plan 101' last term, you flunked it. You can't do this to your mother." "DO WHAT?" yelled Lynne, looking now from one to the other of us, including Zack, who was sitting there wide-eyed. Apparently he was incapable of forming a workable plan too, and had entered into this one with typical adolescent thoughtlessness. "But it's so PERFECT!" wailed Jill, standing up. "I just KNOW it is!" Lynne started making sounds suggesting that a geyser was about to erupt. "IF SOMEBODY DOESN'T TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON HERE..." she yelled. "That's what I'm trying to do!" I said, swinging to face her. "Now, let's go TALK!" I shouted the last word. Don't ask me why. Everybody else was shouting. Well, Zack wasn't. I think he was on the verge of panic. He was smart enough to know that I had been clued into what was going on, and that I was about to tell the object of his desire what was going on too, which meant if he hadn't made a good enough first impression, he was shit out of luck for the rest of his stay. "NO! BOB!" squealed Jill. I swung back to her. I suspect there was a little thunder on MY face about then. "Sit DOWN!" I barked. "Eat your lunch! We will be back in a few minutes. Is that clear?" To my amazement, she paled and sat down. Lynne was still making noises, so I just grabbed her elbow and pulled her out of the kitchen. Don't ask me why, but I guided her to her bedroom, instead of the living room, which was actually closer. There was no way I could break this to her gently, so I didn't even try. "Zack isn't her boyfriend," I said. That got her attention. "In fact, she doesn't HAVE a boyfriend, because she wants to marry me. Your brilliant idea had exactly the opposite effect on her that you intended. She accepted my proposal half an hour ago." Lynne blinked four or five times. "She what?" Her voice was squeaky high, almost cartoonish. "While we were ... um ... catching up..." I had the grace to blush then, "she informed me that she was accepting the proposal of marriage you suggested I make to her before she left for school." "But I don't..." It sank in finally. "Shit," said Lynne quietly. "Oh, you ain't heard nothing yet," I said. Lynne's eyes got round. "She's pregnant!" she gasped. I think MY eyes got round then too. "No!" I whispered harshly. I started to say "I don't think so," and then thought better of it. "Zack's not here for her!" Her eyes kind of darted around in confusion. "What? I don't understand. Who's he here for?" "Your daughter, in her infinite wisdom, has brought you a boy toy for Christmas," I said. OK, I realize I could have said that better. In fact, I'll admit I SHOULD have said it better. But it was all I could think of at the time. And it's how I thought about it, even if I probably should have given him the benefit of the doubt. "Boy toy?" She mouthed the words, almost silently. "Apparently he saw your picture, and was instantly smitten with you," I said. "He called you a MILF. "A what?" "Never mind. It was an extremely complimentary term, and Jill got this crazy idea that you needed some company during the holidays. Maybe he volunteered. I don't know. But the point is she hasn't had a boyfriend since she left. I'm still her boyfriend." I winced at that terminology, but it's all I had too. I saw the comprehension flood into Lynne's face. I took half a step back, not knowing quite what to expect. She might explode and if she was angry enough, she might not be too careful about what man she took it out on first. But she said "Boy toy!" quite firmly. And then she started laughing. ------- There is laughing, and then there is the kind of laughter that leaves you helpless. If you get that kind of laugh attack, anybody really can do anything they want to with you, and you'll be helpless to resist. I could have taken Lynne's clothes off right then and there and played tiddly-winks on her stomach and she'd have just kept producing those belly laughs that would have had tiddly-winks flying all over the place. There was relief in that laughter, and some joy too. Those were clear elements, and I detected them almost immediately. Mainly, though, it was just an honest response to what Lynne saw as a hysterically funny situation. Jill and Zack came running, of course. These were the kind of gasping belly laughs that make everybody within hearing assume an almost painful grin, wanting to laugh with the laugher. Of course they were worried, and had no doubt been discussing what to do if an outraged "older woman" came charging into the kitchen. Lynne saw them, and just laughed harder. She pointed at Jill and guffawed. Then she pushed Zack with one hand, and sat down on the floor laughing. I stood there and giggled a little hysterically myself. Neither youngster understood what was happening, of course. Jill kept saying "What?" in an almost whining, inquisitive voice. Zack looked around like he'd stumbled into a loony bin. Lynne made motions to me to help her up, and I did. She stumbled over to Jill and, still laughing, hugged her tightly. Her laughs subsided to hiccupping snorts as she squeezed Jill. Then she pushed away and turned to Zack. She grinned inanely, actually looking like a resident in a loony bin, and approached him. She snickered. He looked alarmed. She put her hands gently on his shoulders. He licked his lips and darted a look at Jill. Then Lynne leaned forward to kiss him on the lips, almost gently, before she pushed him away and went into more gales of laughter. The only thing she could be heard to say that was intelligible was "I can't stand it!" ------- There was nothing the three of us could do but watch. With time, though, not to mention the laughter, it sank in that Lynne wasn't angry about the "plan" they had come up with to, as she thought of it (and part of why she was laughing so hard) "soothe her lonely heart." Soon all three of us were grinning like idiots, in that odd kind of empathetic sympathy with Lynne as she finally ran out of steam to power her laughter. She had a bad case of the hiccups, though, and still looked comical as she held her breath several times, trying to break that cycle. Finally it was quiet again which, oddly enough, caused the tension to begin rising once more. Lynne managed to break that early. "Well, I suppose that our little chat doesn't need to be private after all," she sighed. That said, she launched right into the meat of the issue when she looked straight at Jill and asked "What on earth were you thinking?" Jill looked slightly uncomfortable. "I was thinking that you needed a boyfriend." Lynne looked over at Zack, who looked a little uncomfortable himself. "Well I must admit he certainly qualifies for the boy part," said Lynne, a little acidly. Zack looked stung, but didn't say anything. "Mom, you're not being fair about this," complained Jill. "Zack is a great guy. If I wasn't in love with Bob I'd definitely be interested in him." Lynne turned a frosty eye on her daughter. "So you want me to take up with a boy who you find interesting, so that if you ever get disgusted with Bob you can take MY boyfriend instead?" She frowned. "And you WILL get disgusted with Bob, Jill. That's just a fact of life. I loved your father with all my heart, but I REGULARLY got disgusted with him." "No I won't!" said Jill heatedly. She looked confused. "I mean I won't take Zack away ... I mean I won't get disgusted with Bob ... I mean ... oh, I don't know WHAT I mean, except that I KNOW you'll like Zack if you'll just give him a chance. He's so much like you. Every time we got in a car he made me put my seat belt on!" Lynne looked annoyed. "That makes him like me? Come on, Jill, you can do better than that." There were tears in Jill's eyes now and she looked helpless. "Mom," she pleaded. "All I can say is that I know you, and I know Zack, and I know the two of you could be very happy together. I KNOW it!" "That's ridiculous!" snapped Lynne. "IS IT?" wailed Jill. "You thought that about me and Bob too, Mom. You've ALWAYS thought that about us. But I love him! And he loves me! And I know he'll die before I do, but at least I get to love him before that. I know I'll hurt forever when I lose him, just like you still hurt when you think about daddy, but you still had some good years with him. That's all I want. I just want as many good years with Bob as I can have. Is that so much to ask?" The look on Lynne's face softened, but she didn't respond. The silence stretched until Bob felt the urge to break it. He resisted that urge, though. Finally Lynne spoke. "I suppose not," she admitted softly. "And you're young enough that YOU deserve some more happiness too, Mom!" Jill exclaimed. She was obviously about to go on, but Lynne held up one finger. "Stop right there!" she said. "Stop while you're ahead." Jill slumped. "Let's finish lunch," I said, trying to break the cycle of highs and lows that these two women were producing. "And no talking about any of this while we eat. Let's just have a nice meal together. Then maybe we can decide what to do." ------- Actually, as I look back on it my suggestion was probably pivotal to what eventually happened. That's because it gave everybody time to reflect on things. I don't know what Lynne was thinking, though her later actions might give some clues about that. I don't know if an "older" woman reacts to an admiring young man like an older man reacts to an admiring young woman. You would think that anyone in that situation would at least feel flattered, regardless of gender. What I do know is that I found I had somehow adjusted to the concept of Jill and me. I still found it strange, but I also found it exciting and hopeful. I DID have some good years left in me, quite possibly as many as twenty or more, and the thought of spending those years with Jill was a powerful incentive for believing they could be very good years. And so, by the time lunch was finished that day, I was Jill's intended, rather than just Bob MacAllister, gentleman farmer. And that had a not so subtle impact on how I thought about the concept of Lynne with a younger man. After lunch Lynne started washing the dishes and I went to help her. She glanced at me, rolled her eyes and smiled. I shrugged my shoulders. It only took ten minutes to do the dishes, whereupon she turned to me and said "Let's try this again." Then she turned to Jill and said "We'll be right back." We DID end up in the living room this time, perhaps because I was the one being led. "I don't know what to do," she said, sounding exasperated. "Why do you have to do anything?" I asked. She glared at me. "I have to do SOMETHING!" she snapped. "OK, then," I said calmly. "Just be yourself." She threw a hand out, almost angrily. "That's no answer!" I put my hands in my pockets. "You remember when you told me you had a crush on me for a while?" She looked surprised. "Yes." "Well I had one on you too. But it was too soon after Paul had died, so I suppressed it." "I never knew that," she said softly. "The point is that I understand why that young man is interested in getting to know you." "He wants to get in my pants, not get to know me," she said firmly. "Maybe," I said. "That was MY initial interest. It got even stronger as I DID get to know you. And it was BECAUSE I got to know you that I resisted my more base urges. I cared about you. Who is to say he is incapable of caring about you too?" "You're being ridiculous," she said heatedly. "He's just a boy!" "Paul was just a boy when you fell in love with him," I pointed out. "Yes, but I was a girl then. I'm not the same now. I've grown up. I have different tastes ... different needs." "I know EXACTLY how you feel," I said. "I felt the same way when Jill showed an interest in me. But the fact is, Lynne, that given the time to think about all this ... I really can't think of any woman I'd rather be with than your daughter. I know it's selfish, and that she has no concept of what it will be like as I grow older and all that, but I DO love her, and I can't help but crave the years we have left. I haven't really WANTED to live longer in a long, long time. Suddenly, I want to live forever." "But we have nothing in common!" Lynne protested. "How do you know that?" I asked. "When we came in you were talking about orchards, and it looked to me like both of you were interested in that." "He was interested in looking down my blouse," she griped. "So am I," I admitted. I looked at her breasts, intentionally staring for a few seconds. When I looked back up she was blushing, but not uncomfortable about it. "We're guys," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "We appreciate beautiful women and want to have sex with them. What can I say?" "You're awful!" she said, half gasping. She still didn't look mad, though. "Are you saying you never get horny any more?" I asked. Her eyes got wide and I thought I might have crossed a line. Her hands came out and gripped my shoulders. She turned me around forcefully and then pushed me toward the kitchen. "You're WORSE than awful!" she snapped. In the kitchen Zack and Jill were still sitting at the table. Both looked uncomfortable. It was clear that Lynne was pushing me, but not why. I separated from Lynne, leaving her alone to face the three of us. I'd said my piece. It was up to her now. She looked from one to the other of us, spending maybe fifteen or twenty seconds just staring at each of us. She ended up with Zack, who looked distinctly uncomfortable by now. His right hand was twitching. "Do you REALLY want to see the orchard?" she suddenly asked. Zack blinked, licked his lips. "Yes, I do," he said almost cautiously. "Then put your coat on and I'll give you the tour," she said calmly. Jill almost jumped up out of her chair and went to the row of hooks next to the back door, where coats and jackets were hanging. "Zack and I will go alone!" snapped Lynne. Jill came to a skidding halt and turned around as her mother continued. "I believe you and Bob have some plans to make." Lynne had a tight smile on her lips. "You can start on that while I show Zack around." ------- Chapter 11 "What's going on?" asked Jill, a little breathlessly, after her mother and Zack were gone. "I have no clue," I said. "Oh Bob, I screwed things up so much," she moaned. "Your heart was in the right place," I said. "But he really IS a great guy, and I just KNOW she'd love being around him if she got to know him." "Maybe that's what she's doing," I said. "Getting to know him, I mean." "Do you think so?" she asked hopefully. "Let's just say for the sake of having reasonably comfortable holidays ... that I hope so," I said. ------- I didn't find out what went on during that tour until January, after the kids had gone back to school. There were some clues, of course, but I'll get to them later. For now, I'll just describe it the way Lynne did when she told me about it while we were sitting next to my wood stove one cold evening, working on a jigsaw puzzle. She said that once they got away from the house, Zack began apologizing profusely. He claimed it was all his fault, and that he talked Jill into inviting him home for the holidays. "Is that so," Lynne said, her voice brittle. "Yes Ma'am," said Zack emphatically. "So how did she know all about the fact that you wanted to seduce me?" asked Lynne. "Um ... she didn't know," he tried. "She told Bob that was the whole point to you coming here," said Lynne. "Oh." He looked deflated. "It wasn't the whole point," he added. "Is that so," said Lynne again. "Jill really did tell me a lot about you," he said. "I had a girlfriend in high school. We were in love. I know everybody says teenagers don't understand what love really is, and it might be true, but we believed we were in love and it FELT like love to me. Anyway, she was riding around in a car with a bunch of her girlfriends and they got hit by a truck and she was killed. Nobody understood how I felt about that. They said it was a tragedy, and sad, but that I'd get over it, and that there would be other girls and all that stuff. But the sadness I felt was bone deep. I knew it would never ever be completely gone. I knew Jill's dad was gone and I could see that same sadness in your eyes in that picture she showed me, and I knew you'd felt the same thing I had felt." They walked on a few steps. "Plus you are a stone fox, of course. I can't deny recognizing that." The juxtaposition between his heartfelt confession, and his boyish ... boyishness ... was so stark as to cause Lynne to actually stop and stare at him. She had been touched by the story of his girl friend, only to be shocked by his blatant reference to Lynne as a sexual being. "I'm sorry!" he blurted again. He looked anguished. "I always say the wrong thing when I'm around a woman I really like." Lynne stood there, looking at him for a few seconds. "How can you really like me?" she asked pointedly. "You only met me a couple of hours ago." He looked confused at first, and then thoughtful. He actually took the question seriously. "Well ... you're smart. You really are doing most of the right things in managing your orchard, at least according to what I've learned so far in my classes. And you're interesting and fun to talk to. I love your laugh." He grinned weakly. "Is that all?" She wasn't letting him off the hook. "No," he answered. "But it's hard to explain. While we were talking, you know, before lunch, you weren't talking to me like most adults talk to somebody my age. And you for SURE weren't talking to me like most adult women have ever talked to me." "What does that mean?" asked Lynne. "You acted like you were really interested in what I was saying," he said. "I was," she said, surprised that he'd find that odd. "Well most women wouldn't be that interested," he said. "And besides that you're so..." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable again. "So what?" asked Lynne. "It wouldn't be polite to say it," he said guardedly. "I really don't want you to be madder at me than you already are." "I'll try to control myself," she said. "Out with it. What am I?" He seemed to argue with himself for some time before he answered. "You really are a remarkably beautiful woman," he finally said. "I can't explain why I think that. I mean you're not beautiful like a model," he said artlessly, "but there's something about you that just makes me want to..." He blushed and went silent again. "Want to what, Zack?" she asked, her eyes boring into his. "Oh man," he moaned. "Come one, Zack," she wheedled, like she was talking to a five year old. "Tell me what you want, Zack." His eyes cleared. Suddenly his twenty years of world experience told him something he hadn't paid attention to before this moment. That was that this woman was toying with him ... teasing him at a minimum ... and maybe even baiting him, at worst. "You know what I want," he said, his voice suddenly deeper. His eyes said clearly that he believed what he'd just said. Lynne leaned back. The sudden change in his deportment from shy, embarrassed young man, to confident young lion made her heart flutter. "You have to know that's how you affect a lot of men," he said, turning the tables on her. "I do not," she said defensively. "Well you can take my word for it," he said. "Proof of that is our admittedly silly plan to get me here so I could try to seduce you. I really am sorry about that, and I sincerely apologize. I just got carried away by hearing about you, and by your picture. It's painfully obvious to me now that you're a much higher quality woman than would fall for that kind of thing, and you deserve better than that kind of lame treatment." He didn't know it, but that was the exact moment that Lynne decided he could stay for the rest of the holidays. ------- They did, in fact, tour the orchard, as well as the rest of the farm. Zack's parents were dry land farmers in Nebraska on a family farm much like that of Lynne's, in that it was smaller than the mega corn operations around it, and they grew a variety of crops based entirely, to Zack's chagrin, on the Old Farmer's Almanac. He admitted, however, that they rarely lost a crop and that his grandfather's and father's complete confidence in the book was something he could not ignore. Nor could he ignore the fact that they made a very comfortable living selling organically grown produce. He was the first in the family to get any formal education in agricultural techniques, and did so despite, rather than because of his father's wishes. He already knew that his two older brothers would take over the farm, and that his college education wouldn't change that. ------- Of course I didn't know that at the time. While that was going on I was alone with Jill, though I was pretty sure that wasn't why Lynne had taken the boy off like that. In the past, every time Jill got me alone she did something about it. But not this time. She was too worried about what was going on between her mother and Zack. "What if she's grilling him about what I do at school?" she asked anxiously. "Do you do anything you don't want her to know about?" I asked back. "Well no, but..." "So stop worrying. You wanted them to get to know each other. I suspect that's happening." "Yeah, but it's not like she's going to lose her head over him, like I hoped would happen." "You actually thought some young ... dude, for lack of a better term ... could come in here and sweep your mother off her feet?" I looked at her like she was crazy. "He's so smooth, and sweet!" she moaned. "I've seen him in action." "So he takes what he can get, wherever he can get it," I said grimly. "No, he's not like that. He just loves to flirt, and when he does that the girls just melt. He doesn't DO anything about it. He believes there should be a deep relationship before there's any sex. Girls have offered, and he turned them down!" "Did you offer?" I hated myself as soon as I said it. She gave me a level stare. "No." "I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have said that." "No, you shouldn't. That must be what Mom was talking about. I'm fairly disgusted with you right now," she said darkly. "So I guess making love is out of the question." I thought that might get a smile, but I was wrong. "You got that right, mister," she said, followed immediately by: "When can we get married?" Her change of subject, and the contrast between her mood and the question left me speechless. "I'm not waiting until I graduate from college," she said firmly. "If we're going to be apart, I want to be married while we do it so that when I get pregnant, there won't be any difficulties about it." "You're going to get pregnant?" I asked faintly. "Of course I am!" she said in a voice that was less happy than I thought a woman talking about such things should be. "We're going to have at least three children. I was raised alone, and that's not going to happen to my babies." "But won't that interfere with your studies?" I asked. Do NOT ask me why I brought that up. I have no idea. "No," she said simply. "I have as long as it takes to get my degree. I'm going to work in the orchard every summer until I'm done, and then work there after I graduate too, so it doesn't matter how long it takes. Besides, the way I figure it, it could only cost me three years ... one for each baby. I'm going to nurse, and I want them nice and healthy before I turn them over to you while I go back to school." You have to understand here that I was still off kilter, as far as thinking rationally about this. My mind was still grappling with the idea of having three babies around. I'd been around one or two, but never for that long. Not that I have anything against them. I just don't know what to do with one. So my response was, again, less than stirring. "I'm going to be the babysitter?" I asked. "No, silly," she laughed. "You're going to be their father." "Of course," I said. "I don't think we can throw something together before I go back," she said, frowning. That was the point where age and experience gave me the edge. "Not if you don't want to get on exactly the wrong side of the owner of that orchard you were talking about. Mothers want the wedding of their daughter to be a big deal." "I know," she sighed. "But I don't care about it. "I just want to be married to you." I made yet another social and verbal gaffe. "What brought all this marriage stuff on?" I asked. She gave me another one of those ice cold, level stares. "You asked me to," she said, clearly enunciating each word. "Yes, but you didn't agree to do it then. What changed?" I asked. She walked up to me slowly and pressed the front of her body against mine. Her hands went to loosely hold my waist. "I got my period," she said softly. I blinked several times. "I beg your pardon?" I replied weakly. "I started school, which took my mind off of you during the day, but then at night I missed you so much I almost cried. And then my period started, and I realized that all that yummy, creamy sperm you gave me was wasted." Her lips brushed mine. "I realized I didn't want it to be wasted. If I had missed my period, because you got me pregnant, at least a little part of you would have been inside me all this time. I could talk to the baby, when I couldn't talk to you, and hold it and pay attention to eating right and all those things that you do for your baby's health and well being. And I decided that, if I'm going to have your babies, I might as well marry you too." She did a little bump and grind, rubbing her loins against mine, and smiled brilliantly. "Plus I love you. Is that enough?" She always had been way ahead of her biological age, so I shouldn't have been surprised that she'd actually thought this out. And she'd even told me she was going to. We noodled for a while, kissing and rubbing against each other, but didn't go further because we kept expecting Lynne and Zack to come back any minute. As it turned out, we kissed and noodled for an hour before we realized we'd had time to do whatever we wanted. By then, of course, we were SURE they'd be back any minute. Half an hour later, a panting Jill pushed me away. "If we do this any longer I'm going to have to have some of that yummy sperm I was talking about. I don't think they killed each other, but we need to go find out for sure, don't you think?" ------- I watched Jill's jeans-clad bubble butt sway as she walked in front of me. It was just sinking in that I would get to watch those hips for years to come. I was imagining them naked, her bare butt cheeks rising and falling, when she turned and held her hand out to me. "Why are you walking behind me? Come on!" I thought about telling her what I'd just been thinking. Instead I pulled, which made her waver, off balance, until my arms went around her and stabilized her. I lifted a hand to one breast, bare under the flannel shirt she was wearing. "You drive me crazy," I said into her lips. "Oh my," she sighed, with an exaggerated little-girl sigh. "You're being very naughty! I told you we have to stop doing that or I'll want to be naughty too." "Remember the barn?" I asked, throatily. "It's winter, Bob," she said, suddenly a rational adult. "I know, but I can't help it." "Good," she said. "I want you to be crazy for me. Just not right this second. What if Mom is yelling at him or something? I talked him into this. I feel responsible for him." "Maybe THEY'RE in the barn ... doing what we were doing." "Yeah ... right. You just want to get me in there so you can paw me." "I'm pawing you right here," I pointed out, squeezing her breast. "Well stop!" she said, neither touching my hand nor pulling away from me. "You can paw me later." I let her go and she took my hand again. "If you can behave, we'll check the barn." "I'll promise anything to get you in the barn," I said solemnly. She ignored my innuendo and pulled me along. Then she spoke and I realized she HADN'T ignored me. "I want to suck you right now," she said conversationally. "I want to feel you all the way in my throat, filling my tummy with yummy warm sperm." "I'm willing to help you with that!" I said eagerly. "We're looking for my mother," she reminded me. "Maybe things can still be salvaged." ------- Unknown to us, at least at that point in time, things had already been salvaged, though I'm not sure that's how Lynne would have characterized it. I'm not sure she realized what was happening to her as it happened. Zack had wanted to see the farm equipment so she took him to the barn where the tractor, and picking bins and various other machinery was stored. She knew it was old, and smaller than most farmers used these days, but he didn't talk it down. Rather he examined it closely. "Somebody knows how to take good care of machinery," he said. Lynne had been thinking about something he'd said a few minutes past. He'd said something about their "silly plan to seduce her." After his barely veiled admission that he wanted her, she'd been unable to put it out of her mind. Had she thought about it, she might have realized it felt good to have a handsome young man acknowledge her desirability. "How would you have gone about that?" she suddenly asked. He stood up from where he'd been examining the tie rod ends on the front of the tractor, something a lot of people let get into bad shape. "Gone about what?" he asked. She blushed. She hadn't meant to actually ask the question. "Never mind," she said hastily. "Gone about what?" he asked again, stepping closer to her. "You made me answer a few minutes ago. It's only fair that you abide by the same standard." "You didn't really answer me," she said defensively. "Did you know what I meant?" She lowered her eyes. "Yes." "OK, then. How would I have gone about what?" She shifted from one foot to the other. "I was just curious about how a boy ... young man ... would go about ... um ... seducing..." She turned ninety degrees away from him, blushing darkly. "You know ... these days," she finished. "Oh that," he said carelessly. He said it SO carelessly that she turned back, staring at him. "I could be wrong, of course, but when I studied your picture, you looked like a woman who is very passionate." "You studied my picture?" Her voice was higher than normal. "For hours," he sighed. "Hours?" Her voice went up even more. "Guys have very vivid imaginations," he said. The fact that he stopped there made it seem almost mysterious. "Hours!" she whispered. "I had this crazy notion that I could use that passion," he said. "How?" "Are you sure you really want to hear this?" he asked. "It was a stupid idea." "I'm just curious ... that's all," she said. "I mean it's flattering - in a completely inappropriate manner of course - but it's flattering. It's just been so long since I paid any attention to that kind of thing that I wondered what has changed since then." The inner ends of his eyebrows dipped as he studied the woman facing him. A few minutes ago she had been the adult, chastising a boy. Now, though, that overriding confident maturity seemed to have receded. It was almost as if she was just a woman, and he was just a man. "Well," he said slowly. "I wanted to get you to laugh. I thought that might loosen you up a little. I hoped to get to hold your hand on some pretext." "Hold my hand?" Her voice was back up. He reached for her right hand and laid it palm up in his left one. "Yes," he said. He stroked her palm with one finger. "Like this. Somebody told me that if you stroke a woman's palm like this, that it acts like an erogenous zone." Her shoulders twitched as a shiver ran through her body. "And I probably would have done something stupid like kissing it," he said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm with lips that were soft and warm. He let it back down, but didn't release it. His thumb began going in circles around where he'd kissed. "It's probably an old wives' tale," he said. "But I'd have hoped it was true, and that it would have gotten you going so that I could kiss you." "Kiss me," she repeated. "Yeah, I stared at your lips in that picture for a long time, wondering what it would be like to kiss you. I know now that it was really juvenile, but somehow I thought I'd be able to kiss you a few dozen times, and you'd get all wild." "Kiss me," she said again. Her voice sounded faint. "Yeah," he laughed. "Like you'd ever want to kiss somebody like me." She suddenly jerked her hand out of his. She rubbed her palm, where his thumb had been circling. "It's not completely crazy," she said firmly. "With the right girl ... I mean I suppose there are women who that would appeal to." "I guess so," he said. "I don't know why, but I've always been kind of attracted to women who have a little experience. Girls my own age are so jerky about things." "Jerky?" "You know, they rush ahead and then slam on the brakes. They're nervous and skittish about every new thing. But a woman with a little more maturity has been there, and knows what to expect. It lets a man pull out all the stops and concentrate on ringing her bell." Lynne frowned. "So you've seduced a lot of older women." He grinned, his smile wide and his teeth white in the dim light. "Nope," he admitted cheerfully. "I just believe it would be that way." "Oh," said Lynne, the frown going away. "So are you a ... um..." "Virgin?" he finished. "No. I guess not. That's how I know that being with a younger girl is ... well let's just say less than what it's sometimes hyped up to be." "Maybe being with an older woman is less than it's hyped up to be too," suggested Lynne. Zack's look seemed to penetrate her clothing with impunity. "Maybe," he said softly. "But in your case I kind of doubt it." She swallowed reflexively. His gaze was so intense that she almost felt it physically. "Shall I go on?" he asked. She looked around. "Maybe later," she said. "I'm getting cold. I can show you the rest of the operation tomorrow, if that's all right." "I didn't know I'd be invited to stay," he said. "Under the circumstances, I mean." She seemed to shiver again. "Well ... I suppose we could call it boys being boys. And thought it was under false pretenses, you WERE invited here. And it is too late in the day for me to just kick you out. I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if you stayed one night." "Thank you," he said. "I promise, I'll be on my best behavior." Then, to her astonishment, he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips again, this time on the reverse side, kissing the skin between her second and third knuckles, European style. ------- It was right after that when Jill and I ran into them as they left the barn, heading back to the warmth of the house. Jill fluttered around like a nervous bird, asking what they'd been doing, and where they'd been and if everything was all right. Lynne finally said: "You're not out of the dog house yet, missy, but Zack and I got things straightened out. He's staying the night because I'm not the kind of hostess who would put somebody out in the cold just because of a misunderstanding. So just simmer down and act normal. All right?" "Yes Ma'am," said Jill, subsiding into quiet. She glanced at me with a worried look and I held out my hand. She took it and fell in beside me, walking behind Lynne and Zack. I looked at the jacket covering Lynne's backside and couldn't help wondering if her bottom looked as alluring as her daughter's. That led me to think about the fact that there would be no pity fuck for me from Lynne, because now I didn't need one. And that was just fine with me. ------- Chapter 12 The rest of the afternoon was spent much as in any family gathering where a stranger is present. There was a mixture of politely asking the stranger questions about himself, his family and so on, and pretending to accept him into the family while waiting on him at the same time. Nobody else in the family was getting waited on, which is what made it seem a little off kilter somehow. And Zack didn't expect to be waited on, which meant he offered to do things. When it came time to get supper ready he offered to help again. "Is this part of your nefarious plan?" asked Lynne, and then she blushed. "I'm sorry," she said. "Don't apologize," said Zack, grinning. "It would have been, except there is no nefarious plan any more." "Well then," said Lynne, trying to get past her embarrassment. "I suppose you can help." Jill and I stayed in the living room sitting together and cuddling, while we surfed through TV channels. We finally settled on the Discovery channel, though I don't remember what was on. ------- In the kitchen potatoes were being boiled and cut up so they could be mixed with hamburger and a couple of cans of cream of mushroom soup, to make what Lynne called hash. Zack found another knife and stood next to her. As they diced potatoes he pressed a hip against hers. "I'd have done something like this," he said softly. "I'd have tried to find ways to touch you as frequently and innocently as possible, getting you used to the idea." He brushed her shoulder with his, obviously intentionally. "Oh really." Lynne smiled. "And I'd have complimented you a lot," he said. "Such as?" She glanced at him. "Such as how much at home I feel, and how good it smells." He moved behind her and leaned forward to brush the back of her hair with his nose. "Your hair smells really wonderful. What do you use on it?" "Just shampoo," she said automatically, and then looked around. "What are you doing?" "Nothing," he said. "Just giving you examples." "Oh," she said. "Right." "You're in amazingly good shape," he said, letting his eyes run down and then back up her body. "You obviously work hard and eat well." "Is that another example?" she asked. "No, that's just the truth," he said, smiling. His eyes lingered on her breasts, long enough that he made it obvious. "You're so beautiful," he said softly. "I can't believe there aren't men lined up outside, waiting to get a chance at you." Her eyes widened. "Sometimes I can't tell if you're giving me another example, or actually trying to seduce me." He had an infectious grin and he used it a lot. He also shrugged as he replied "I know exactly how you feel." They were interrupted by Jill, who came into the kitchen to get something to drink, and who found them standing face to face, MUCH too close for what would be called "proper" under the kind of circumstances that her mother had insisted were in force. She was smart enough to ignore them completely, get her drink, and leave. ------- "Oh man," sighed Zack, leaning back and patting his stomach. "I could get used to that." "You're laying it on just a tad thick, don't you think?" asked Lynne, her voice droll. "If I had a nefarious play, maybe," he said. "It's just the truth, though." "It's also just hash," said Lynne. "And spinach and hot rolls," said Zack, sounding wounded. "And we don't get anything that tastes that good at school." "So you like comfort food," said Lynne. I looked at Jill, who was curiously interested in her own plate. "I like comfort in food and in every other way," said Zack. "There's no comfort in hard work," said Lynne. She sounded like she was trying to start a fight. "Not true," said Zack, smiling. "There's the comfort after you FINISH hard work, when you can relax with a hot drink and a warm woman on a cold winter's night. Jill, having just taken a sip of tea, snorted it all over her plate. "I'm sorry!" she gasped, wiping her nose and trying to dab at spots of tea with her napkin. "Don't be," said her mother dryly. "That's what that little offering deserved." "What?" asked Zack, sounding definitely injured now. "It's true." "It's hopelessly trite," pointed out Lynne. "Maybe that's just because you're older," said Zack glibly. "I'm sure a sophisticated woman such as yourself has heard that a hundred times. But it's still true. I can't help it if it sounds a bit trite." "Uh - huh." Lynne dragged it out, making the sarcasm in her voice obvious. The sarcasm was ruined, however, by the smile she was having a hard time suppressing. "Too bad we don't have some hot cocoa and a warm woman," sighed Zack. "Zack!" hissed Jill. "What?" he asked innocently. "You suck at this!" she blurted. "Suck at what?" Jill looked around, suddenly looking guilty. "Seduction," said Lynne, her voice flat. "I'm not trying to seduce anybody," said Zack, smiling widely. "I thought we got that all straightened out." "That's good," said Lynne, "because you're succeeding brilliantly." "I am?" Zack sat up, looking interested. "Yes, there is absolutely, positively no seduction going on here at all," said Lynne. Her smile was just as bright as his, and lasted while his crumbled. "What an idiot," said Jill under her breath. "No he's not," said Lynne firmly. "He's quite intelligent ... for a young man." She reached out and patted his hand, her smile tight. "So! What are we going to do tonight?" she asked, changing the subject. Jill looked uncomfortable. "I was sort of planning on spending some time with Bob," she said. "He's welcome to stay as long as he likes," said Lynne promptly. "At his house," added Jill. "That would be rude," said Lynne. She looked at Zack. "You can't just abandon our guest." Zack grinned. "I don't mind if she spends time with Bob." His grin widened. "At his house," he added. Lynne's gaze pinned him. "You are quite persistent, aren't you." He somehow managed to look completely innocent. "I just tell things the way I see them," he said. "All I heard about all semester was how much she missed him." I sat there silently. It didn't seem like a good time to put in my two cents worth, particularly since they would appear to be self serving. Lynne's eyes never left him. "And what am I supposed to do with you while she's off ... spending time ... with Bob?" "You are a fascinating and interesting woman," said Zack calmly. "I like to think I'm not completely boring. We can come up with something to keep us entertained. I'm sure of it." Lynne's brow furrowed. "I'll just bet you are," she said softly. ------- "I thought she wasn't going to let us go," giggled Jill as we stomped into my back door. It had started to snow during supper and was coming down fast and thick by the time Jill and I actually tried to leave. Even I was a little surprised when Lynne's only response was "Don't stay too long or you might get snowed in." Of course Zack said "Take your time," but everybody ignored him. "Let me get some wood on the fire," I said, taking my sheepskin jacket off. "Hurry!" said Jill, doing the same thing. "Have you got some blankets? We could lie by the stove." She was practically giddy as I brought things to the stove. Her shirt was already unbuttoned, and the creamy skin between her breasts was on display. I leered and she told me how much she loved it when I did that. Teasingly she pulled the shirt apart, showing me stiff nipples. "You want dessert?" she asked coyly. "Oh, baby," I moaned. "I want dessert in the worst way!" "Mmmmm, you make my ... pussy wet ... when you say things like that," she sighed. She had stressed the word "pussy", saying it as seductively as a young, inexperienced woman can. She had me rock hard by the time she finished the sentence. Then she shook her breasts at me. "I wanna be naked with you!" "Ohhh," I groaned. "If you keep that up I may not last very long." She let the shirt drop backwards off her arms and undid her pants. She pushed them down slowly, arching her hips at me as she did so, putting her appearing mound on display for me. "I don't care," she said breathily. "I'll suck it hard again. I just want you in me." "What if your mother brings Zack over here?" I teased. She stepped out of her jeans and lay down on the blankets I'd brought out to spread by the wood stove. I'd given it a bit more air and it was heating up nicely. She plumped a pillow under her head and spread her legs, drawing them up. She slid the tip of one finger between shiny pussy lips and rubbed her clit gently. "Then they're going to see me getting royally fucked," she said, her eyes glittering. "If you'll ever get naked," she added. ------- What we didn't know then, of course, was that it wouldn't be likely for Lynne to take Zack anywhere. It wasn't by plan ... sort of. In another really humorous way, it WAS by plan. Zack was really only teasing Lynne, at that point. He felt foolish for having entered into a conspiracy with Jill, and really DID feel like Lynne was out of his league. He was still interested, of course. He was just trying to make light of it, so that the atmosphere would be relaxed. In other words, he had no plan, except to be himself and make a joke of the whole debacle. There were two problems. The first (and there might be some argument as to whether to call it a problem or not) was that Lynne WAS more experienced than a callow college girl. She recognized what he was doing, and she saw the honest interest in his eyes that he had no idea he was projecting. She reacted to it with a mixture of mild irritation and attraction. The irritation was on two fronts - that he used a little too much innuendo ... and that she found herself liking that. Basically, the plan that Zack no longer had ... had a chance of actually working. The second problem was that, while Zack was trying to make light of the situation, that's not ALL he did. Sometimes he was just himself, without the innuendo, and he was a likeable young man. Underneath all that libido he was displaying, he was just a nice guy. But Lynne didn't know him well enough to tell the difference between what was libido, and what wasn't. Lynne, being a strong woman, reacted to his teasing by teasing back a bit. "I do have hot chocolate, by the way," she said, as the back door closed after Bob and Jill. "I'd love some," Zack said promptly. "but only if you have some with me." "I'm not your warm woman, Zack," said Lynne. "That's not what I meant," he said honestly. "I'd just feel bad if you went to all the work to make it for only me." "Oh," said Lynne, feeling badly. "It's no trouble, honestly." "I'd be happy to help," he offered. She looked sideways at him. "So you can rub up against me some more?" His face was dead straight as he responded. "Of course," he said. Then he hung out in the kitchen with her, while she heated a pan of milk and got the cocoa out. He searched the cupboards for cups, selected two, and put them on the counter by the stove. He never came near her the whole time the cocoa was being made. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, unaware that she was mildly disappointed that he was ignoring her. She was also unaware of the increase in heart rate and breathing that the experience was causing in her. Seated at the table, across from each other, both were silent. Lynne holding her cup to her lips, blew gently on the surface of the dark brown liquid. Zack stirred his cup with a spoon. "So..." Zack said. "What do you do around these parts for fun?" "I don't know," said Lynne almost automatically. Her eyes darted away from his before coming back. "I haven't had any fun in quite a while." She wasn't about to admit that she'd had a fling with Dennis Wallingham five months ago. It was none of his business for one thing. And it had been five whole months ago. She could barely remember what it had been like. Dennis had acted like a kid, and had lasted about as long as one too. Then again, she admitted to herself, she didn't actually know what kids were like any more. It had been way too long since she'd been one herself. And all she had about Paul were wonderful, aching memories. She examined the "kid" sitting across from her. She couldn't help but be curious about a young man who was so obviously interested in her. She thought that interest was bizarre, and probably entirely driven by hormones, but it was still nice to know a man other than Dennis could BE that interested in her. "That's too bad," he said. He picked up the cup and sipped. "A woman like you should be having lots of fun." "Would you stop that!" she hissed. "Why?" he asked, his face serious. "It's true." "It's not true," she said. "I'm twice your age." "You're forty-four?" It was clear he didn't believe that. "Now BOB might be forty-four, but not you. Besides, age has nothing to do with it. Look at Jill and Bob." "I don't approve of Jill and Bob either," said Lynne tightly. "Well you'd better get used to it. I've known a lot of girls who said they were in love with some guy, but none of them were like Jill. I'm telling you no guy at college ever had an even chance with her." "That's the problem," insisted Lynne. "How is she supposed to know it's really love? She should have dated around?" "Oh she went out with guys," said Zack. Lynne blinked. "She did?" "Yeah. She once told me she was doing some comparative shopping, but that there were severe quality issues with the guys she was meeting. That was after I took her out a couple of times. Made me feel like a real loser." "That's awful!" said Lynne. "It was OK. Right after that she said that I was the only guy she'd met who was worth a second glance, and that if she didn't love Bob so much she'd find me mildly interesting." "That's even worse!" squealed Lynne. "Not really. I've never been around a girl as honest as she is. I think it's why she's the best female friend I have. She doesn't mess around. You always know where you stand with Jill." "Well that doesn't mean she can be mean to people," said Lynne. "What's worse on the mean scale?" asked Zack. "A woman who leads a man on and then dumps him, or a woman who tells a man up front that she gave him a chance and she's just not interested?" "I don't think a woman should do either!" said Lynne. "It's what you did with me," he pointed out. "You made it quite clear I don't make the cut." "That's not what I meant!" she moaned. "I simply said that you coming here with ulterior motives was not acceptable, and that I'm too old for you." "You're not too old for me," he said. "I think you're perfect. What's really going on is that you believe I'm too young for you." He blinked. "Plus it's entirely possible that I'm uninteresting, or annoying or whatever, but the age thing is all your idea, not mine." "You're not uninteresting," objected Lynne. "I feel so much better," said Zack, grinning. "Look, Zack," she said softly. "You're a sweet boy, and I'm flattered more than you know that you find me attractive, but it just wouldn't work." "Help me understand why that is," he suggested. "We have different interests!" she yelped. "I'm very interested in your apple orchard," he said. "I haven't seen the rest of the place, but Jill says there's tillable land, and that cattle could be run on parts. I find all that interesting." "Yes, but that's just business," said Lynne. "Well I don't know about you, and I don't have a lot of experience to base this on, but I'm interested in finding somebody to love. When I look at you and imagine you looking at me like a woman looks at a man, I'm VERY interested. The whole point to having a business is that it allows you to have a life with a partner who makes you want to get business taken care of and get home to her." "You're young, and full of hormones," muttered Lynne. "Well you haven't exactly entered menopause," said Zack artlessly. "Don't you miss sex?" "You can't ask a woman something like that!" gasped Lynne. "Why not? It's a legitimate question," he argued. "It's just not proper!" she snapped. "So it's not proper to say that now that I've met you I find you even more exciting than I imagined? It's not proper for me to tell you that you turn me on something fierce? It's not proper for me to want to be a man, and to want you to be a woman?" Lynne set her cup down and fanned her flushing face with her hand. "I am NOT used to this kind of honesty!" she moaned. "And THAT is what's the real shame," he said softly. "You should hear things like that all the time, because you're a vibrant, beautiful, sexy woman, who should be tired out from having great sex more often than you're tired out from working this ranch." "I thought you gave up your nefarious plan," whined Lynne, trying to do anything she could to retreat from the luscious things he was saying. Those things were making her crazy, and she felt like doing crazy things. "I did," he said, leaning back. "I'm just being honest now." ------- Chapter 13 At my house, we were unaware of the tension building in Lynne's kitchen. There was enough tension to claim all our attention right there in my living room. Lying beside the warm stove, Jill urged me onward as I sank to my knees between her open thighs. My erection strained towards her. I hadn't felt this horny in years, and decided it was because I finally felt justified in feeling horny for this woman at all. I looked at her bare pussy and licked my lips. I wanted to taste her. She must have read my mind. "You can do that later," she panted. "I need you in me now." I didn't argue. I simply leaned forward and sagged as she reached for my rigid prod and brought it to the gates of her sex. I slid in immediately, going deep and letting most of my weight keep me there as her hips wiggled and she groaned. "Oh yessss, that's what I need, Baby. I need you to fuck me and make me cum." I didn't say a word. I just started giving her what she wanted. ------- Lynne felt trapped, somehow. Zack was just sitting there, though, clear across the table. He was so different from any other man she'd ever met. Or maybe he was just so much younger than men she was used to dealing with. She couldn't decide. He was so willing to say things that most men tried to keep secret. It jangled her nerves, because she was used to having to assume things, or figure things out. With him she didn't have to do that. It was quite simple. He wanted her. He found her sexy and desirable, and he could care less about the age difference. She reminded herself again about that age difference. It was all she had to keep him at bay. That was because HE was interesting too, and smart, and knowledgeable about farm things. He was handsome too, and fit, with the muscles of a young man, rather than the pot belly that men her age all seemed to be developing. For some reason Bob's comment about just saying no popped into her mind. Her tongue even went to press against the back of her teeth, to make the N sound. But she didn't say the word. She stared at Zack, who stared back. "This is insane," she finally said. "Maybe," he said immediately. "But it's kind of fun too. Doesn't this make you feel alive? It makes me feel alive." He frowned. "You want to know something?" "I'm not at all sure," she admitted. He ignored her equivocation and told her anyway. "I could never talk to a girl my age like I just talked to you. Jill ... MAYBE ... but nobody else. And I have no idea if I could say those things to some other woman your age. But saying them to you was so easy. It was amazing. I just felt like I could tell you exactly how I felt. Isn't that strange? But I feel GREAT!" "I don't know HOW I feel," she moaned. "It may have been easy for you to say, but nobody's ever said those things to me. Paul never even said them. Not like that. I knew he wanted me, but not because of what he said." "I didn't mean for you to get scared or anything," he said. "It just kind of came out." "I'm not scared!" she almost shouted. She slumped. "Not of you, anyway." He looked confused. "Well who else could you be scared of?" "Not who," she said, her voice strained. "I'm scared of what I'm FEELING!" "You can't be scared of that," he said negligently. "How you feel is just how you feel. There's nothing scary about that." He looked stunned suddenly. "Unless you feel like killing me or something." She laughed, just like she'd laughed when she first heard that he had come there to seduce her. It wasn't uncontrollable this time, though, and she only laughed enough that it seemed to clear her mind. She thought about what he'd said. Could it be that easy? What you felt was just what you felt ... nothing more, nothing less? "I don't want to kill you," she said, her voice normal again. "I don't know exactly what I DO want to do with you ... but I certainly don't feel any urge to hurt you." "That's a relief," he said, with an exaggerated sigh. "Maybe I should have gone back to town and gotten a motel room after all." Lynne took a sip of cocoa that needed to be warmed up in the microwave. She licked her lips and looked right at him. "No ... I don't think so," she said softly. ------- "Ohhhh I knew I wasn't going to last very long," I groaned. I had only been in her long enough to build up a rhythm and already the demand to complete this act of love was there. "It's OK," she whined. "I want it. Oooo I wish we were married now. I want to have your baby." "Oh damn," I panted. That was all it took and I was over the edge. "Here it is, Honey. Ohhhh Jill!" Her hands stroked my sides and her hips pushed up at me. I could feel those internal muscles squeezing and she yipped. Then her fingernails dug into my sides painfully. "Yesssss," she groaned as she somehow found an orgasm. "Give it to me Daddy. Make me a mommeeeeeeeee." ------- "So," said Lynne. She had warmed up her cocoa in the microwave while she poured Zack another cup. Seated again, she was staring at him. For some reason her nervousness had abated. She felt more in control. She felt in control enough to tease him a little. "I believe, earlier, you were telling me about how you would have followed your nefarious plan ... if you still had one." He blinked and his face took on an almost wary look. "You still want to hear about that?" "It might be fun," she said. "Weren't you just saying I should be having fun?" "Well..." He swallowed. "I was alluding to you having fun ... um ... doing something." "And surely your plan called for me ... us ... to be ... um ... doing things ... right?" She sipped her drink. "What kinds of things?" He blinked. "Um ... you know." "I do?" Her face was calm. "Why don't you tell me anyway." "Oh wow," he sighed. His eyes got a little wild. "Oh man. I don't know if I can do this." He gulped and immediately gasped and choked. The cocoa was much too hot for a big gulp. She jumped to get him a glass of cold water and he gulped that too, his face a mask of pain. "I'm sorry," she moaned. "I don't' know why, but I couldn't help teasing you, and now this happened." "It's OK," he said, his voice a little raspy. ------- "It's one thing to get married," I said as we cuddled in front of the stove. "It's another to get pregnant too soon." "What's too soon?" she asked, running her fingertips along my side. It tickled and made me squirm. "I'd love to be pregnant when I go back for second semester." "Yes, but we're not married yet. And besides, if you got pregnant now, then next year you'd have an infant to deal with," I said reasonably. "OK, so I miss school next year, being a mommy, and go back the year after that," she said. "I like that idea. I get to live with you for a whole year, and get this every night." "Every night?" I asked weakly. "Unless you want to make love to me twice a night," she said smoothly. "Or once in the daytime and again at night would be OK too." She smiled widely. "Unless you want to go for three times a day. I'm sure I could get used to that." "Maybe you should get pregnant now," I muttered. "Cause if you get your way, I may not live another year." ------- "Are you sure you're OK?" asked Lynne. Zack waved a hand. "I don't know which gave me more trouble ... taking that sip, or trying to figure out how to answer you." "I shouldn't have teased you like that," she said. "Oh, I don't know." He grinned weakly. "I mean you've actually been pretty nice about things, all in all." "I'm not used to this kind of thing," said Lynne. "That's what really blows my mind," said Zack. "You really are an exciting, good looking woman. I don't get it that you're alone." "I suppose I just got used to being that way," sighed Lynne. "Alone, I mean. I just don't think of myself as being exciting or all that other stuff." "Well you are," he insisted. "And you keep saying that," said Lynne. "So how do we get out of this rut we've gotten ourselves into?" "It's not so bad. For a rut, I mean," said Zack. "I'm really glad Jill invited me here." "Even though you couldn't pursue your nefarious plan." Lynne smiled. "There's time yet," he said, with a little forced swagger in his voice. "I think I'm growing on you. I'll just have to change to the sneaky approach." "I see," said Lynne, smiling wider. "I'll be sure to take extra precautions." "Won't do you any good," he said, in full brag now. He puffed out his chest. "Women don't' have much of a chance once I get them in my sights." "You looked like you were about to run away a few minutes ago," laughed Lynne. "I was trying to make you overconfident," he said confidently. "Is that so? So I guess you're ready to answer the question now." "Question? Oh. you mean the one about us ... and what we'd be doing ... if I still had a plan." "A nefarious plan," she corrected, smiling. He lost his swaggering approach, but his eyes stayed on her face. His look seemed to firm up, somehow. "If I did answer, you might get upset." "Why?" She sounded actually curious. "Because it would be a pretty explicit answer," he said softly. "I'm a big girl," she said, no longer smiling. "I have a daughter, if you'll recall." He was silent for a few seconds. "Actually, that's part of the attraction." "My daughter?" Lynne sounded disappointed. "No, the fact that you had her," said Zack. "When a man sees a woman he likes, he really doesn't know if she's sexually active or not. He can make assumptions, but his fantasy about her is just that, pure fantasy. But if she has children, he knows she HAS been sexually active, and that lends some weight to the possibility that she might be sexually active with him too. It gives his fantasy a bit of credibility." "A fantasy allows you to believe anything," said Lynne. "Yes, but knowing that you have... " His eyes jittered for a second and then steadied. "Knowing that you were naked, in bed, welcoming a man's seed into your body ... well that's very powerful because it was a fact, not fantasy. The fantasy is only that you might be willing to be that way with ... me." The way his eyes lay on her made Lynne feel positively naked. There was more than interest in his eyes now. She saw the glittering of raw lust. The word "naked" bounced around in her mind and she applied it to him, wondering what he looked like under his clothes. He stood up and she blinked several times, feeling the sudden urge to run away somewhere. "Would you like to dance?" he asked. Her eyes fluttered again several times. "Why?" She was confused about the abrupt change of subject. "I'm just demonstrating how I'd have advanced my plan," he said, smiling. Lynne saw the smile on his face, but she also saw that it wasn't in his eyes. The lion was back, and had returned so suddenly that she wasn't prepared to deal with it. "There's no music," she said. "We don't need music," he replied. He held out his hand. "That's silly," she said. "It's really just so I can hold you in my arms," he admitted, "and feel your body against mine." "Zack!" she gasped. "Just for demonstration purposes, of course," he said, smiling. Lynne told me later she didn't remember deciding to actually get up, and that the next thing she realized she WAS dancing slowly, enfolded in his arms. She said that he put his hip against her, but pulled her to him, as if he were trying NOT to let her feel his manhood. "See how nice this is?" he breathed into her hair. "Well..." was all she could respond. "I brought a CD to play, for when I was going to ask you to dance," he whispered. "It's in my suitcase." "Oh," she said a little breathlessly. "It has some special songs on it that are perfect for dipping a woman at the end." "Dipping," she parroted. "You know, like this," he said. Then she found herself falling helplessly backward, but supported firmly by strong arms. She stared up at his face, which was only inches above hers. She was panting, but he wasn't even breathing hard. "This kind of sets things up for a first kiss," he said. She hung there limp in his arms. "I'd kiss you, and then say something like how sorry I was, and how I couldn't resist, and all that kind of thing, and beg for you to dance with me some more." He pulled her back up and swayed with her in his arms again. This time, he made full body contact, and she felt his erection plainly. "Then I'd have done this to let you know how you affect me ... what you do to me," he said, rubbing her back with one hand in short strokes while he pressed his obviously hard penis against her gently. "I realize what a stupid idea that was now." "Stupid," she whispered, unable to think of anything else to say because almost every iota of her concentration was on the feel of that hard organ, which was no fantasy, and which was right THERE ... pressing into her. She had been able to discount his sweet words as the fluff of fantasy, but this was real and undeniable. He DID want her! "Yeah," he sighed. "It feels wonderful, but it would never have worked. You're much too smart. You'd have never let me get away with that kind of thing." "I think I just did!" she squeaked. "Only because this was just a demonstration," he said. He pressed his dick against her and rubbed it sideways against her mound. Her intake of air was sharp and quick. "Sorry," he whispered. "I couldn't help that. It's a pretty strong fantasy." He rubbed her again. "But we should probably stop, huh." "Stop," she panted. He pushed her gently back. They were about the same height, and their eyes were glued to each other's. "Thank you," he said softly. "For letting me demonstrate. I hope I didn't offend you." Her jaw simply sagged a bit. "One last thing," he said. "What?" "This." And then he pulled her back against him and kissed her and, she told me, she felt like she had been picked up by a tornado and was whirling around, because the kiss was violent and soft and strong and nerve wracking and unbelievably intimate. She suddenly found her arms wrapped tightly around his neck - she blushed and laughed as she told me this, that January, after the kids had gone back to school - and that she was humping his leg like a bitch in heat. How long it lasted she couldn't say. She did remember them having to break the kiss to breathe and she found herself sobbing. She didn't understand that, because it had been an amazing and wonderful kiss, but she was, in fact, sobbing. He sat her down in the same chair he'd pulled her up out of and knelt on the floor in front of her. "I'm so sorry!" he groaned. "Please don't cry! I'll go!" Her hands went out to grip his wrists, and her grip was like iron. She subsided into sniffles as he waited, having no idea what was actually going on in her mind. Her emotions finally percolated into the knowledge that she felt guilty for having liked that kiss so much. She couldn't articulate the reason for that guilt then, but by the time we talked about it she was sure it had been because of Paul. At any rate, despite the fact that she was confused, she WAS an adult, and knew that these emotions WOULD fade, allowing her to examine the memory of them and make decisions. She knew better than to just react without thinking things through. "Don't go," she said finally. "Don't touch me any more ... but don't go." "Oh." His lack of years showed in the confusion that was plain on his face. He couldn't rationalize the two comments into anything that made any kind of sense. "You're sure?" "I'm sure," she said, more firmly. "I'm suddenly very tired. I think I'll go on to bed." "Um ... OK," he said helplessly. He had no idea what to think. "Sleep as late as you like," said Lynne, standing up. "Yes. OK," he said, and then added "I'm sorry!" "I know," she said, enigmatically. "Maybe we'll talk about it in the morning." And then she left him there, alone in the kitchen. ------- Chapter 14 Eventually I nudged Jill awake. She was in my arms, her head burrowed into my chest. "You probably need to be getting back home," I whispered. "No," she said petulantly. "I like it here." "Your mom," I reminded her. "She knows where I am," said Jill. "She'll be mad." "She'll get over it." She burrowed against me and draped a leg over mine, rubbing her wet, sperm-drenched pussy against my thigh. I could feel the smear she left there. "What about Zack?" She pulled her head back from my chest and looked at me through tousled hair. "Zack might be in my bed," she said. "Besides, this is my bed now," she said softly. "Our bed," she corrected. "This is where I want to be, and where I belong." Have you ever had one of those moments where you were in the presence of something miraculous? We had made love three times, which was astonishing enough in and of itself, but the fact was that the second and third times had seemed so natural to me that I hadn't even thought about it until it was over. I was dog tired by then, of course, and was pretty sure my dick wouldn't get hard for two or three days. It would dangle around down there unable to even look up at me with a frown while it grumbled about abuse and violation of warranties and such. But when she said that ... when she said it was OUR bed now ... the finality in her voice sent something through me that was almost electric and a minor miracle occurred. My dick got half hard almost immediately. She didn't know it, because I was lying on my back and her knee wasn't touching me there. And what was even more shocking was that I could enjoy the feeling of that penis lifting it's bleary-eyed head up and looking around, saying "Whazzit?" like a man does after a night of hard drinking. It was so comfortable there with her in my arms, and there was the sudden knowledge that, in the morning, that half hard penis could be awakened again and would actually perform if instructed to do so! That was the rest of the miracle. I felt completely comfortable letting the opportunity pass, because I knew there would be another one whenever I wanted it. ------- That calm faith in the future I was feeling, and which kept Jill there in our bed that night, was completely lacking a quarter mile away. Zack was lying in bed in the guest room (Lynne HAD cleaned it out) with a completely hard penis, thinking about stroking it. He didn't want to, which was a bit odd, because he'd beaten off every night for the last two weeks, thinking about being here in this house, with the woman who was down the hallway from him this very instant. But she had always been a fantasy before. Now he had actually spoken to her, and seen her and even held her in his arms. Now she was a real person to him and now that he knew what Lynne was really like, the fantasy seemed crude and low class. It was like the difference between looking at a fine oil painting of a nude in a museum, and a cartoon in Penthouse. You just didn't beat off in the museum. Down the hall Lynne lay in her bed. It was the same bed she'd lain in for years. She hadn't gotten rid of it when Paul died, but since then she'd somehow taken over the whole thing. She wasn't aware of tossing and turning in the night, but she often woke up across the bed from where she'd fallen asleep, or found herself lying sprawled across the whole thing, arms and legs spread out comfortably. She couldn't get comfortable tonight, though. She felt hot in the old, thin flannel shirt she always wore to bed as a nightgown of sorts. It had been Paul's ... her favorite ... and was normally comfortable, like an old shoe. But tonight it seemed to pull and bind at her. Her mind had been a whirl when she first closed her bedroom door and leaned on it, like she was afraid he'd follow her in there. She had a very quick fantasy in which he DID follow her in, and what flashed through her mind left her gasping for air. It was rape ... except that in her mind she didn't resist in any way. That had been discounted ... pushed firmly away because she knew he'd never force himself on her. She just knew that. She didn't know him well at all, but she was sure of that part. Now as she squirmed in bed she realized she was excited, and began to examine that. It wasn't from that short, violent fantasy. That was gone, like a dream of seeing a purple cow would be gone once it was examined and found to be flawed. She remembered his arms around her. How long had it been since a man had held her like that? How long had it been since she'd felt a man's passion pressing against her? How long had it been since a man had been brazen, looked her right in the eye and said "You excite me!" Dennis didn't count, because she couldn't actually remember him holding her. One minute they had been making out like teenagers, and the next he had been groaning and whimpering in his completion. It had been almost devastatingly unsatisfying, and she was absolutely sure that Paul had been staring down at her, frowning. She looked around the dark room and then closed her eyes, still rolling them, looking for any hint of the spirit of her dead husband. "What should I do?" she whispered to the still room. "What do you want me to do?" There was no answer and she opened her eyes again. It didn't seem crazy to her at all to have a conversation with someone who wasn't there. "I mean I know I can't do anything with him," she said, thinking of Zack. "He's just a boy. And Bob is taken by our baby. Can you believe that?" Her voice went up. She flung her right leg to one side and shoved the covers down. "She really loves him. It's obvious. It's crazy, but I can see it. And he's just head over heels for her." She stared at the ceiling for a while. "Maybe that's the problem," she said softly. "It was all right at first. I missed you but I was able to go on. She needed me. But now she doesn't need me any more. She needs Bob, and that leaves me all alone. And you're not coming back." Her mind drifted, letting memories of a young Paul float through her mind. They were sharp and clear, and yet viewed as though through a slightly fogged window. She felt the yearning for him that was both physical and mental, and the pain of knowing that these memories were all she'd ever have. At some point she realized she'd fallen asleep and was dreaming. That's because she became aware of a huge face, looming over her. She knew it was Paul, but there seemed to be old, wavy glass between them that kept her from seeing what was in his eyes. Then, so suddenly that in her dream she sat up, he turned and walked away from her. In an instant the dream shifted and he was on a tractor, pulling a plow, breaking up the earth. He looked over his shoulder at her and she realized the misty glass was gone. He was wearing the shirt that she could feel pulling at her body, which somehow told her clearly this was no dream. "What?" she asked, agonized. "What should I do?" He turned away from her and plowed. She watched for what seemed like an hour, but all he did was plow that field, getting it ready for some unnamed crop. He never looked at her again, as the tractor seemed to be farther and farther away from her until she realized it was leaving. He raised a hand, still not looking, but obviously waving ... waving goodbye! "NO!" she shouted. "DON'T..." She woke to the sound of her own voice shouting "GO!" and looked around the dark bedroom frantically. She was, in fact, sitting up in bed. But it was just her normal dark bedroom. It HAD been a dream. She had dreamed of Paul. She frowned. Paul raised cattle ... not crops. She had asked him what to do and all he had done was ride the tractor. She didn't get it. Frustration tore at her and she unbuttoned the top button of Paul's shirt, where it seemed to be choking her. She closed her eyes and saw that hand lifted, almost negligently waving. It hadn't felt like a "I'll never see you again" kind of wave. It had been more of a "I'll see you later" gesture. She flopped down in bed and kicked off the covers. It was hot. She unbuttoned the shirt the rest of the way and let it fall to her sides so that some air could get to her sweaty torso. The cool air felt good on her breasts, but she felt like she was lying naked, waiting for her dead husband to come to her. He wasn't coming, though. He had waved goodbye. While plowing a field. She frowned again. He'd been getting a field ready for a new crop. It was the first step in the cycle of life that farmers had used for thousands of years. You got the ground ready for the new crop, so that life, as the farmer knew it, could go on. The imagery was SO stark, and SO clear, suddenly, that she barked out a harsh laugh. "You've GOT to be kidding me," she breathed. Her hand went to her abdomen and rested there lightly. She always did that before she masturbated, and it occurred to her suddenly that she was about to do that. She couldn't believe it, but she felt the undeniable urge to slide a finger between her pussy lips and rub until she got some relief. "You can't be telling me to go to that boy," she gasped out loud, giving in to the urge that seemed to control her hand and arm. She bucked as her finger scraped across her clit. "You're my HUSBAND!" It felt too good and even though she felt ashamed to be doing it, she continued to circle her clit with the tip of her finger. Ond finger became two and then three, pressing hard, trying to crush her little bud. Paul's image was gone from her mind, replaced by Zack's, as he sat at the table, looking at her. She remembered the feel of his arms holding her and his hard penis pressing against her ... quite close, in fact, to where she was now rubbing. "You've GOT to be kidding me!" she panted again as an orgasm ran toward her on tiptoes, like it was trying to sneak up on her. She saw it coming, though, and as it washed over her she covered her mouth with a hand to stifle the groan. Her tightly closed eyes helped make it possible for the hand to remind her of his lips, kissing hers, and she thrashed in bed, legs wide, as she forced a finger deep inside herself and wagged it back and forth frantically. It was good. But it wasn't enough. She could tell that, even as she kept bucking and thrusting at the finger prodding her pussy. She had no trouble bringing the image of Paul on that tractor back into her mind, and again she saw the wave. Again she cried out "Nooooooo" and, to her amazement, she saw his face turn toward her again. He was smiling. And then he was gone, and she was just lying in bed, with her finger in her pussy and the not-quite-good-enough after effects of an orgasm buzzing in her body. "Damn!" she almost shouted. She jerked her finger out of herself and sat up. Her feet seemed to swing to the side of the bed of their own volition, but she let them and stood. She knew what she was going to do now even though she knew it was crazy. She knew she shouldn't, but she also knew she would. The twenty feet between her door and his seemed to disappear into an alternate dimension. The knob on his door squeaked as she turned it, but she wasn't trying to be quiet. Her eyes, adjusted long ago to the dark, saw his body carelessly sprawled on the bed. He was wearing boxers and her fingers wiggled in anticipation of pulling them off of him. "Wake up!" she said, her voice almost irritated. He jerked and lifted his head. "What?" he asked, instantly alert. "What's wrong?" "I'm insane," she said, letting Paul's shirt slide off her shoulders to drop in a puddle on the floor. She was naked, and her pale skin was easily seen in the moonlight coming through the windows. "What?" His voice didn't sound muddled at all. "Take those off," she said, pointing at his cloth-covered groin. "They're just going to be in the way." ------- Chapter 15 I woke with a bladder so full and painful that it demanded instant attention. There was no choice but to extricate myself from her arms and get to the john quickly. She mumbled, but then just rolled onto her face when I left the bed. Her naked backside seemed to rise a bit, as if she was trying to wiggle to her knees for some reason. When I returned, she hadn't moved. I stared at her soft butt and thought about what to do. I was sure, at this point, that if I played with her, she'd be more than happy to make love. I would too, for that matter. I looked at the clock. It was eight thirty, almost criminally late in the day to be getting up. I slapped her ass, trying to make it sting, but not leave a mark and she yelped. "Get up!" I said loudly. "Your mother's probably at the back door getting ready to come in after you!" She yelped again and flailed in the bed, bouncing out of it to stand, wild eyed, looking around. Then her eyes cleared and went to my face. I realized I'd made a mistake by not getting dressed first, but then found out I was wrong when she slapped my shoulder. "That hurt!" she complained. "I thought you loved me!" "I do love you," I said. "It's eight-thirty in the morning and you never went home last night." "So?" She was unrepentant. "I'm on vacation." "Well your mother isn't, and neither am I," I said. "So go do your chores," she said indifferently. "I'm a mess, and it will give me a chance to get cleaned up before we go over for breakfast." "Breakfast is probably long over," I said. "I know how to cook," she said, sticking her tongue out at me. She looked good, and my pecker reacted. I looked down at the half hard thing. "Ohhhhh," she cooed. "You DO love me." Then she amazed me by stepping back. "Is sex all you think about? Go do your chores so I can clean up." "Sex isn't all I think about," I complained. "Then why are you wagging that thing at me?" she asked. She pushed a hand between her legs. I watched as she slid a finger inside herself and pulled it out. "I'm still slippery from last night," she said. "Didn't you get enough last night?" "Um..." I stopped when she looked up at me. "If you say you did you're in big trouble, mister!" she barked. "What am I supposed to say then?" I croaked. "Say you love me," she said firmly. "I love you," I responded. "Good," she said. "Do your chores, and then we'll eat breakfast, and maybe then I'll let you chase me around and wag that naughty thing at me some more." ------- Lynne woke in a state of almost, but not quite shock. Imagine the shock of being told you won the lottery, and are a millionaire. You know it's true, but you can't quite believe it. Then you wake up the next day and that shock is still there. She felt his arm against her nose, where she'd pushed her face against him. They were lying side by side, but pressed together. She lifted her head carefully, only to find his head turned sideways. He was wide awake, and staring right at her. "Hi," he said. He wasn't smiling ... exactly ... but his mouth looked satisfied. "Good morning," she returned. "I confess I've never been in this situation before, and have no idea what to do right now," he said. His honesty about it made her feel a little bit better, because she wasn't sure what to say or do either. "Well ... it's morning," she said. "What do you normally do in the morning?" "Oh there is no way in the world I can think of this as a normal morning," he sighed. He did smile gently then. The sudden awareness that she was stark naked sent blood rushing to her face. What made it so odd was that she wasn't used to being naked with a man, particularly a man she didn't know all that well, and that if felt completely normal to be naked in this situation, with this man. "I know what I'd like to do," he said. His eyes changed and she saw in them what she'd heard in his voice in the dark, hours before. She almost shivered. "Again?" she whispered, unbelieving. "Do you remember what I said after supper last night?" he asked. "No," she said. "I said I could get used to that." "Yes, I remember now." She smiled. He rolled onto his side. His hand came to slide up her side, onto her back, and behind her head as his fingers tangled in her hair. He kissed her lips gently and then pulled back. "I could get used to last night too." Her heart thudded in her chest and she felt hot all over. The memories of last night were all tangled up in her mind. She remembered it all, but not in order. Instead it was more like a jigsaw puzzle. She knew what it would look like assembled, and she recognized where each piece went, but right now they were just bright bits of memory. He kissed her again and his hand slid up to cup a breast. He wiggled down to suck at the nipple gently. She felt the lust explode in her again, and realized she'd felt that way almost all night long. But it had been dark then, and it was light now. With shock she realized it was daytime. "Jill!" she gasped, looking around. He let the nipple go and smiled. "I don't think she came home last night." Lynne looked past her stiffened nipple at his eyes. "She didn't?" "I'm pretty sure she didn't," he said. "I never heard her, and the police never showed up." "The police?" Lynne frowned and blinked her eyes. He grinned. "Anybody who came within fifty yards of this house last night would have called the cops and reported a murder in progress." She blushed and pushed at him. "No they wouldn't!" she said. "Did you ever see that old move called Porky's?" asked Zack. She shook her head, looking confused at the change of subject. "You didn't miss anything, except if you'd seen it, you'd know why my new nickname for you is Lassie." He grinned widely. She frowned, but there was a questioning look on her face too, so he went on. "I KNEW you'd be passionate. I just didn't know you'd be passionate AND loud." She blushed. "I wasn't loud!" He howled, like a coyote, and she slapped at him, yelling at him to stop, which made him howl even louder, until she was pushing and pinching. She got her feet into play and pushed hard. He slid off the edge of the bed and hit the floor hard as she gasped. She was trying to get to the edge of the bed to see if he was all right when he stood up. His hard penis was right there, in front of her eyes. She'd felt it with her hands, and her mouth, in the dark. She'd felt it inside her, making her feel fantastic over and over again in the night. Now she knew what it looked like. She realized she was staring and craned her neck to see him grinning. "You must be punished for that," he said, an exaggerated growl in his voice. She squealed and tried to roll away, but he was on her in a flash and she knew she wouldn't have a chance. He'd been that young lion last night, once he'd figured out why she was there, and she'd been almost weak with the joy of submission, once he took over. Then, when it had ended much too soon, she'd become demanding, taunting him and teasing him, making him give her more of what she'd come for. Their roles had reversed four more times during the night as she found out what made a young man in his physical prime such a perfect match for a woman in her sexual prime. Now, as she was overpowered and manhandled into position under him, his knees forced themselves between hers. She resisted, but not too hard. She bit, but only to inflame him. Her growl matched his as, uncharacteristically, she forced a hand between them and grasped his hard prong, bringing it expertly to her opening. When he lunged forward, skewering her, she hissed in his ear and her blunt nails dug into his back. Her legs wrapped around him, squeezing hard as his hips jabbed frantically and rapidly in short jerks. She was sure he was going to pop quickly, when suddenly he pushed hard and stopped. She was delighted when he started the slow circular grind her hands had taught him in the night. Briefly she wondered where she'd learned that herself, but then the joy of what he was doing pushed that out of her mind, and she just welcomed the waves of pleasure he was bringing to her. She reached with virtual open arms for the orgasm he brought her, straining out to reach it and pull it close to her, to be cherished. She wanted to laugh, because he was still howling, making high pitched keening sounds. But she couldn't laugh, because her throat was already busy somehow. When the first orgasm was followed by another one she realized it wasn't him who was making coyote sounds now, but if felt too good to shame her. "Oh yeah," she heard him grunt into her ear, as his penis spat streams of heat into her yet again. "I could definitely get used to this." ------- Jill and I did, in fact, hear the noise while we were still outside. "What's that?" she asked, concern in her voice. I was in the midst of deciding what "that" was when Jill opened the back door, at which time the sound got louder. "Wait!" I called. "Something's wrong!" she gasped. "No!" I said, trying to make it into a loud whisper. "Somebody's hurt!" she cried. "Not hurt!" I gasped, reaching for the sleeve of her jacket. I was trying not to laugh. "Bob!" she yelled, trying to break my grip. "You sound like that!" I said, unable to keep the laughter out of my voice. "What?" she looked confused. "Last night," I laughed. "You sounded just like that. I think maybe your plan with Zack worked after all." The wailing died away. There were other noises, but they weren't clear at all. The temptation to go closer ... to eavesdrop ... was strong in me. I realized my unused morning erection was back again, and started to feel guilty for envisioning Lynne, on all fours, howling at the ceiling, with a strong young man pounding into her from behind. Jill whirled to face me. "I DID NOT!" she gasped, scandalized and looking almost upset. Then her face changed and she whirled back around to face where the noises were no longer coming from. "Mommy!" she gasped. I reached her as she started to take a step forward. "You can't go in there!" I said firmly. "Think about this, Jill!" "But she's hurt!" she said, straining against me. She stopped suddenly and turned to face me again. "I sounded like that?" Her eyebrows rose an inch. "Pretty close," I said. "You made it really clear that you were having a good time." Her face got red, as if the room was too hot after the cold of December outside. "I sounded like THAT?" I hugged her, thinking it was really too bad we still had winter coats on, because she could have felt my boner against her otherwise. "You made me feel like a young man again," I said, kissing her nose. She blinked. "Oh my GOSH! They're ... they're ... they're ... OH MY GOSH!" She stiffened and wiggled. "Isn't that what you intended?" I asked, grinning. "Yes, but ... I didn't think they'd ... I mean I didn't think anything would REALLY happen!" she gasped. "Well she's not yelling for help, so let's leave them alone," I said. "I believe you said you could cook?" There was a short, sharp barking sound and a long whine. Jill's face got so red I thought she might have a stroke. A sudden wail, clearly of joy, reverberated in the hallway leading to the bedrooms. "Oh damn," moaned Jill and got her hands free to clamp them over her ears. "I don't think I can take this!" She closed her eyes. "That's my MOTHER, Bob!" I grinned. "Now you know how she felt when she knew what you and I were doing together." Her eyes popped open, and her mouth went to form an o, but no sound came out. The wailing from down the hall died down slowly, and there was a short sobbing gasp as someone - a female - dragged in air after that long howling wail. Her hands came away from her ears and her eyes steadied. She pushed herself loose and started taking off her jacket. She hung it over the back of a chair. She wrung her hands, but only a few times. Maybe she was warming them up. She stepped toward the refrigerator, reaching for it and then stopped with her hand on the handle, to turn and look over her shoulder at me. "I did NOT sound like that last night!" she said sternly. "Whatever you say, Darling," I said, smiling. ------- Zack was the first person to appear in the doorway of the kitchen. He was almost fully dressed, in jeans and a long sleeved checkered shirt, but had on only white socks on his feet. "Something smells good," he said tentatively. He was referring to the entire pound of bacon Jill had put in a skillet. It was unlikely that there were two molecules of air in the entire house that didn't have bacon odor clinging to them. She'd nuked potatoes in the microwave while the bacon cooked and was letting them cool so they wouldn't fall apart when she sliced them to fry after the bacon was done. Eggs sat on the counter waiting their turn and I was kneading biscuit dough while the oven pre-heated. "We ... I mean I didn't know anybody was up." Jill didn't turn around, but her shoulders stiffened as she giggled. Apparently she'd gotten over the shock of realizing her mother could have ... and pursue ... sexual desires, and was trying to adjust her world so that might fit into it. "Pull up a chair," I said, knowing that Jill was going to be worthless for a while longer until she got control of herself. "We've only been here a few minutes." Jill burst into a fit of giggles, almost laughing out loud. "Be right back," said Zack, and he ducked back down the hall. He was gone for a long time. He came back alone, looking exactly the same, except maybe he was a little embarrassed. "Um ... I guess Lynne isn't up yet," he said. "I ... um ... tapped on her door ... but she didn't answer." Jill turned around. I still can't describe the look that was on her face at that moment. There were elements of humor there, but there were some very negative things there as well. I saw a little disgust for sure, but couldn't tell why. She shoved the spatula in her hand at Zack. "Don't let it burn," she snapped. Then she stalked down the hallway toward her mother's room. "Jill!" Zack called out, but she ignored him. "Let it go," I said. "When it comes to those two women, you just have to let them work things out." "You're telling me," he sighed, and then looked embarrassed again. "How long have you really been here?" he asked. "Way longer than will make Lynne happy," I said, grinning. "Oh man," he sighed, looking down. "She'll get over it," I said. "She's a strong woman." "You got that right," he said. Then, with the brashness of youth, assuming everything really WILL work out, he approached the stove and started stirring the mess of bacon in the pan. ------- I don't actually know what went on between Jill and her mother that morning before breakfast. I do know that Jill actually went to her mother's room first and, not finding Lynne there, went to the bathroom and Jill's bedroom before she thought to look in the guest room, and the bathroom that serviced that room. While Lynne was perfectly comfortable giving me the blow by blow (no pun intended) on what she and Zack did and talked about, the only thing she said about that morning was that Jill wouldn't let her hide in the bathroom. And Jill wouldn't talk about it either, even in later years. Whatever they said to each other, it normalized things, because maybe half an hour later, just when the eggs were done, both women came into the kitchen like nothing was wrong and it was any other day. Zack, smart young man that he was, accepted that at face value and tried his best to act normal too. As for me? Well, I'd been through much worse. I think I actually FELT normal. Breakfast was mundane in the extreme. The only thing Lynne actually addressed to Zack was about what remained to be seen around the farm, with a polite inquiry as to whether he was interested in seeing that. His response was also polite, not overstated, and affirmative. As it turned out, Jill wanted to go to town to do some Christmas shopping, so we weren't there that afternoon. I don't think Lynne showed him anything. I checked. There were no footprints in the snow except for mine and Jill's. But both of them looked inordinately happy when we got home late that afternoon. We had picked up pizza in town and after dropping Jill off at her house I went home to heat it up, figuring that Lynne had hosted meals pretty much exclusively since the kids got there, and that I should do my share. Jill said she'd be along with them, but wanted to "wrap some presents" first, which meant she didn't want me to see what she'd gotten me for Christmas. They all showed up, all jolly and throwing snowballs at each other in my yard. It was a good thing I had a mud room, based on all the snow they dragged in with them. Then it was pizza and hot chocolate and potato wedges I had put in the oven. They were that shake and bake stuff, but they weren't bad. "It's A Wonderful Life" was on TV that night, and we all watched it while the wind howled outside and I loaded up the wood stove. It was a nice evening. When the movie was over Jill suggested cards. There was mild interest in a game of Hearts, and the cards were dealt out by Jill. Right in the middle of the hand, though, Lynne looked over at Zack and asked: "So what, exactly, is a milf?" It went dead silent for about five seconds, and then there was some gasping and giggling and eye rolling. Long story short Zack finally leaned over and whispered in Lynne's ear. Her eyes got huge and she blushed bright red. "That's AWFUL!" she gasped. "Probably so," agreed Zack, who was trying not to smile now. "It's rude, crude and socially unacceptable, but it pretty well nails down the concept." Lynne wouldn't look at anybody, and the game went on, but it wasn't more than a couple of hands later that Lynne announced she was too tired to keep playing. The only reason we knew that was bull was because her cheeks got dark when she said it and she darted a look at Zack. Jill, having a teasing streak, suggested that I had a guest bedroom too, and that if Zack didn't want to get out in the cold again he could just sleep there that night. Zack said somebody had to make sure Lynne got home all right, seeing as how slippery it was with fresh snow coming down. Before they left, Lynne turned to me and said "Would you make waffles in the morning?" "Sure," I said. "You want regular or Belgian? I have strawberries in the freezer." "Surprise us," she said. Then, to my astonishment, she winked at me. "Thank you," she said. ------- Jill collapsed on my chest, gasping for air. "I DO howl like a coyote!" she moaned into my ear. "I love it," I panted back. "You have no idea how great that makes a guy feel." "My mother is over there howling just like that," she sighed. "It feels so weird, but I'm also really happy for her." "Me too," I said. "And Zack is helpless around her," she said, sitting back up, only to lean over and press a nipple to my lips. "He's like a little puppy, following her around." Twenty minutes later I was on top of her, trying to press her through the mattress and springs as my prick fountained into her. "Mmmm," she hummed. "Nasty old Bob is trying to knock poor little me all up again. Just wait until I tell my mommy!" I let my full weight down on her, pinning her to the bed. She was helpless and she knew it. I kept my prick firmly in her and licked her ear. "And nasty young Zack is over there trying to knock up poor old Lynne right now," I whispered. "So she can't help you." Jill stiffened under me, arching hard and lifting me a surprising amount. "No he's not!" she panted. "Of course he is," I said. "It's what we horrible men do." "My mother is on the pill ... or something," gasped Jill. "Why on earth would you think that?" I asked. "She didn't know why Zack was coming here." "But Dennis..." she panted. I let up a little so she could breathe easier. "According to what she told me about that, it wasn't planned," I said. "And she said she wasn't going out with him any more." "But she's too old!" moaned Jill. "And she's my ... mother!" "She became a mother by having you, didn't she?" I teased. "Bob, this is no laughing matter," she said, pushing at my chest. "Oh trust me," I said, letting my weight down on her again. "Zack's not laughing." Well that actually got me a respite, as she pushed me off of her and bounced up off the bed, putting on my robe while she went to call her mother ... at almost midnight. She came back looking disgusted. "Nobody answered. I know they're there." "Ten minutes ago I wouldn't have answered either," I said, grinning. ------- The next morning, when Lynne and Zack arrived, Jill dragged her mother off into another part of the house while I dished out Belgian waffles, with strawberries on them, covered by whipped cream and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I put more strawberries and milk in the blender and made up strawberry milk to go with them. The women came back. Jill looked confused, but Lynne looked like her old self again. Breakfast was great, except that it left all of us feeling bloated. We dealt with that by taking some of the horses out to exercise them. They didn't mind the snow and the only hard part for us was getting the tack on them with bare hands. We probably only spent forty-five minutes out in the cold, and then were back, rubbing the horses down in the barn, which felt warm by comparison to the outside. When I asked Lynne what she wanted for lunch, she said she and Zack were going to eat at her house. The way she said it was delivered in a voice that, to a stranger, would have seemed like it was only imparting information about where two people were going to take a meal. To Jill and me, of course, it meant much more, but she didn't blush or get nervous about it. I think that was the moment where Lynne finally just accepted that something new was happening in her life, and that was the way it was going to be for a while. After that, all four of us got together every day for a while, and usually for one meal, but other than that, we spent time as if Zack were visiting Lynne and Jill was visiting me. The rest of the break was like that. Even on Christmas Day we had breakfast and opened presents at Lynne's, but after a morning spent in quiet domesticity, and Christmas Dinner, Jill and I returned to what I thought of now as our house, both to be together ourselves, and to give Lynne and Zack time to do whatever they wanted to do. And, as it turned out, what they wanted to do was pretty much what Jill and I wanted to do. Lynne and I were making up for lost time. Jill and Zack were just being young. It was a perfect match. ------- Epilogue The kids - even now I can't call them anything but kids - were only home for three weeks, but even after they went back there were a lot of weekends that they came home again. To get ready for mid terms and finals, they even brought the rest of the study group with them. Somewhere along the way Jill and her mother decided that June was a good month for a wedding. I wasn't asked if I had anything else going in June. In truth, all I was doing then were the tax returns that extensions had been requested on. There weren't all that many. I had everybody who used my services pretty well trained by then. It doesn't take much for a man to get ready for a wedding anyway. Not in my case, anyway. Zack, on the other hand, had a bit more of a challenge. That's because his parents objected when he broke the news to them that he'd proposed to a woman fourteen years older than he was, and only six years younger than his mother. Lynne had warned him that would happen, and suggested that marriage wasn't really necessary. He was of a different opinion. It might have had something to do with the fact that she was just starting to show. She had that roundness of belly that didn't fit, and caused people to look at her and wonder. Which was another thing I had gotten embroiled in. Jill called me one night all excited and confessed that she'd killed the rabbit, but that I was not, under any circumstances, allowed to tell her mother yet. Which was fairly ironic since two days earlier Lynne had come over to the house for supper and confessed that she was pregnant, and made me swear not to tell Jill. She made me swear not to tell Zack either, as if I ever talked to him. He hadn't asked her to marry him yet, but that only lasted until spring break when he did it at supper one night. He got down on his knee and everything and asked Jill and I to be witnesses. Lynne got all teary eyed and sniffly and said she needed to talk to him privately before she answered him, which wasn't quite what he had in mind, but didn't surprise either Jill or me. We hadn't expected her to just get all giggly and say yes right away. Neither woman was showing at that point, and neither one knew about the other one's pregnancy. I was the official keeper of the secrets that spring, which didn't bother me, really. They were gone for maybe fifteen minutes and when they came back there was just an electric feel to the air in the room. Zack was grinning, and Lynne had a confused sort of "I can't believe this is happening" look on her face that made it obvious she'd said yes. Jill got all weepy and giggly, and then said she so happy, and that she had a secret, but couldn't keep it any more, and confessed that she was preggers. Now I've heard of situations like this where the woman who had just accepted a proposal of marriage got all ticked off because her daughter (or whoever) tried to upstage her. But of course that wasn't the case then. That's because Lynne had her own secret to disclose and, within thirty seconds Zack and I were just grinning at each other while our women hugged and squealed and cried and laughed and generally had an emotional melt down. A week later Zack's parents drove in unannounced from Nebraska. Mrs. Anderson basically sat in the kitchen and did the interrogation, while her husband had a look around the farm. I saw him walking through the orchard and went over to see who he was. When I found out, I showed him around. I didn't tell him I was part owner until I remembered that if this double wedding came off like planned, he'd be there and see me getting married to his new daughter-in-law's daughter, which might be said would make me his grandson-in-law, or something strange like that. "She run all this by herself?" he asked. I could tell he was impressed. "Her daughter and I help out all year, and she has some hired help too during harvest," I said. "She's still expanding the operation." Long story short, Lynne passed muster with Mrs. Anderson, and the farm passed muster with Mr. Anderson, and they left a lot happier than they'd arrived. The wedding planning really kicked into high gear then. Lynne wanted things to be perfect for her daughter, and Jill kept trying to save money and they snarled at each other a few times until I told them that I was paying for everything. Then it was Lynne who started putting on the brakes, as my intended got used to spending my money. Truth be told she calmed down mostly by the time the money actually started being spent. The part I had the most trouble with, though, was when, without warning, Lynne and Jill, through some pre-arranged but secret sorority signal or something, would whoop, squeal, and raise their shirts up to stand, belly to belly, almost showing their breasts, while they compared how much each was showing. They didn't care who was around when they did it, either. They argued about who was bigger of course, whereupon they turned to me or Zack, if he happened to be there, to display themselves demanding that one of us decide who was ahead. What made it hard on both Zack and me was that both women were braless about half the time, and shameless enough to flash a breast in an attempt to bribe the judge. ------- The wedding went off without a hitch. All things considered it was small and simple, with about sixty guests. The women were gorgeous and the sight of both of them walking arm in arm down the aisle to meet Zack and me, was enough to get even me all teary eyed. The fact that both were six months pregnant was impossible to hide, and neither had tried to do so in choosing a gown, which made the whole thing just a little crazy for most of those guests. ------- Zack was there for harvest that year, which was good, because both women had slowed down quite a bit, being heavy with child. The high school boys still ogled them, which was just shocking to Jill, but which Lynne laughed about. We had to hire more of them, but we got more picked and shipped, so it worked out well. It also worked out well that Zack was there, because he was just enough older than the high schoolers that they looked up to him. By the end of the harvest they were all calling him "B.T." for some reason. I asked him what was up with that but he just got agitated and told me it was a stupid nickhame Lynne had given him and the boys had picked up on it. When he wouldn't tell me I asked Lynne, who laughed and said "It stands for Boy Toy, of course. I call him that all the time and I guess they just picked up on it." ------- The timing of the births wasn't good for Zack, who had promised his parents he'd go back and finish his last year of school. Jill was, in fact, taking a year off. I said I'd do double duty in the labor and delivery rooms if he couldn't get back for the birth. Lynne made him promise he wouldn't speed by saying that if she thought he would, she just wasn't going to tell him when she went into labor. That got his attention. Lynne's due date was actually a week before Jill's, which Jill lorded over her mother mercilessly, saying that Zack's nefarious plan must have worked the very first night he stayed in Lynne's house, and preening, saying "I was a GOOD girl with Bob!" Lynne knew what a load of crap that was, of course, but I think secretly she relished the fact that she was going to have her baby first. Which is why, when her due date came and went, and nothing happened, she was irritable. A week later she was hard to be around. And a week after that when BOTH women were overdue and Jill's water broke, the doctor, who had both women as patients, simply called in some help and induced labor in Lynne. I called Zack and reminded him to take his time, and that he had plenty of it. Two hours later, fully an hour before Zack walked in, Lynne practically squirted out a nine pound seven ounce little boy. Once he got started he couldn't wait to see the big, wide world. Fourteen hours after that my poor bedraggled Jill cursed me for the third time but gave one more push and our daughter was born. Jill's mood improved significantly almost immediately as the baby was brought and laid on her chest. Since Jill's water had broken around ten at night, even with the time differential, both babies were born on the same day. The uproar in the little hospital was significant, and they even made the front page of the local paper. ------- All in all, it took Jill seven more years to get her degree. She did about half of it online, and at one point told me the only reason she was doing it at all was because her father had been so intent that she go to college and get a degree. We expanded the orchard onto my land, and now our families each own a fifty percent share of the business. Jill still climbs around in the trees like a monkey, which amuses our three children no end as they compete with her, trying to climb higher. She ignores them, except to tell them how to properly prune an apple branch, of course. Lynne had three more children. She told me one time that when they'd had Jill, it had been difficult and a strain on her. But having babies when she was financially secure was a whole different matter and she loved being a mom. So between the four of us we have seven full time apple pickers, at least until they go off to college. They all act like one big happy family, and our kids sleep at their house as often as theirs sleep at ours. Me? I'm almost sixty now. Jill keeps teasing me about the white hair that's creeping into my temples and beard. She spends extra time pulling at the hairs around my penis, as she sucks it all the way down into her throat and her nose presses into those hairs. She hasn't found a white one down there yet. I'm not surprised. I might be almost sixty, but I'm in better shape than I ever was at forty. Hard work, love, and a house full of kids will do that to you, I guess. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2009-10-05 Last Modified: 2009-12-19 / 02:36:17 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------