Forever Is A Long Time

Author's note: The story of Laura's and Tommy's relationship thus far is covered in

"Laura's Fire", published in the Romance category

"Being Free Together", published in Lesbian Sex category

"Love Thy Neighbor", published in Exhibitionist and Voyeurism category

"Breaking Up And Making Up", published in the Romance category

"Constructions", published in the Romance category

"Surrogate Experiences", published in the Gay Male category

This is an independent sequel, but if you want to know where their story starts, I recommend reading at least "Laura's Fire", "Breaking Up And Making Up" and "Constructions" first.

All comments and ratings are greatly appreciated.

-#-#-#-#-#-

Tommy was where he most loved to be. He was deep inside Laura, and they were slowly building towards the climax. He kissed her and she smiled, she kissed him and he smiled. He moved inside her slowly and deliberately, and when they rolled over and she got on top she was faster and hungrier. It was a familiar dance but always new, and although they did it less than in their younger days, it definitely wasn't over.

They had been together for years and years now, through thick and thin and amazing sex with each other and a selected few others. They weren't married, but Tom sometimes thought they'd gotten their happily ever after anyway, even without blessings and formalities.

He reached up to touch Laura's breasts and smiled up at her again. She leaned into his hands and picked up the speed. Her hair was still long as it hung over his hands, but it was no longer dark, with all the gray strands in it. She had started turning gray somewhere around her fiftieth birthday and now, seven years later, she was nearly completely gray. She couldn't be bothered to dye her hair; never had, and in all likelihood, never would.

The birthmark on her left cheek was as dark and reddish as it had been all her life. It just looked darker now that it seemed the rest of her was fading in color, getting grayer and blurrier and less defined. Even her eyes looked lighter than the deep gray they'd been. She was fading.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered up at her, caressing her breasts. They were saggier and wrinklier than they'd been once upon a time, but he honestly couldn't imagine a more perfect pair. She smiled as if to disagree, but didn't vocalize her doubts. She simply leaned closer, to support herself with her arms, and started to grind in earnest. She was the more impatient of them, and at some point she always stopped enjoying the way and wanted to get to the destination already.

He pushed up with her rhythm, and started to build it as well. He wasn't up to marathon sessions anymore, himself. He was sixty-five now, and even as physical labor had kept him in good shape, there was only so far it could take him. His age had started to catch up with him in the last few years. He was still strong, still straight backed, muscular, and healthy. Yet he wouldn't try to, say, make love standing up against the wall anymore.

His left hand found something unfamiliar in her right breast. He forgot his building passion for a moment, and just focused on his palm. Her breasts were fairly large, and he thought he'd mistaken it. No, there it was again. Like a cluster of something harder than the tissue surrounding it. Like...a lump.

He looked at her eyes again, and knew he had to let it go for now. He let his hands side back down her body, grabbed her to roll her over again. Her hair spread around her head, a silvery halo in the sunlight. He leaned on his left arm, insinuated his right hand to her clitoris, and went for it. She was more work now, after her menopause, but they had more aces up their sleeves than most couples when it came to sex, and usually they achieved what they chose to pursue.

Her breathing got more uneven, and she grabbed him tighter. The rhythm of her hips broke and got jerkier, and he accelerated some and put more pressure on her clit. She shuddered, tensed, and then the familiar wave of her pleasure washed over them. He slowed to feel all of it. She undulated around him, and he felt it was more than semen she milked out of him when he came, it was his love liquified.

He waited until every last twitch was done, before moving to her side and reaching for her right breast again.

"Laura?" he said.

"I know," she said. "I've got a doctor's appointment next week."

-#-#-#-#-#-

The following week was filled with nervous waiting that intensified until the doctor's appointment. Tommy went with Laura, and they spent the best part of the day waiting for things: mammography, ultrasounds, laboratory tests, and back to the doctor's.

Laura sat, her back so straight, looking at the doctor. She wore the mask of strength she sometimes did for business meetings and such. Tommy reached for her hand, and she let him hold it. Her grip was tight and sweaty.

The doctor calmly and politely explained that the lump did indeed appear cancerous, and that there would be an MRI the next day. After it was completed, and the biopsy from the tumor was ready, the correct action could be determined. It would include surgery, most likely the removal or the inflicted breast. If she required additional treatment after the surgery would depend on the type of cancer, and its possible metastasis. The doctor handed them a stack of papers with information of different types of breast cancer, different operations and treatments, and provided a number they could call anytime if they had questions.

Tom had a sinking feeling to his stomach. It started when the doctor first said "cancer" and Laura's fingers clamped around his, and didn't seem to stop. He went through fast denial and a need to argue, straight into fear and desperation and then out the other side, because he couldn't afford to be that way now. He had to be strong, for Laura. All this left him dizzy. He was grateful for the written information, so that there was something to go on, once he could focus again.

Laura said hardly anything. She seemed frozen. Once they were out in the corridor, Tommy hugged her.

"We'll be alright, you'll be alright," he said and squeezed her tight. "We'll get through this, together."

Laura didn't respond, but her grip was just as tight. It took a long, long time for either of them to let go.

-#-#-#-#-#-

On Sunday, they had a family dinner, first one in a long while. Mariana had moved to LA a few years ago with her significant other, Larissa, and they didn't get together as regularly as when she lived in San Francisco. Tom and Laura tried to meet with Mariana every time she was in town, but gathering the whole gang at the same place at the same time didn't usually happen.

Tom looked around the table, when Laura explained about her cancer and upcoming operation. They were at Maria's. Once upon a time most of them had lived under Maria's roof, and throughout the years, whenever they were to have a "family meeting", they gathered at her place. She sat at the other end of the table, and beside her was her husband, Matt. Mariana, her daughter, and Larissa were next. Opposite to them sat Devon, Maria's nephew and Mariana's cousin, and whom Tom thought of as the son he'd never had. Beside Devon sat Kathy, his pretty young wife. It wasn't quite a year since their wedding. Beside Kathy sat Laura, still talking, and Tom himself sat at the other end of the table.

Everyone was serious and worried. The first one to recover at all was Matt.

"We'll be praying for you," he promised with a solemn nod.

Matt was religious. He and Maria had met, when Maria was volunteering at the local church, and it had gradually developed into a relationship. Tom thought he was a little too humorless and pious, but he was undoubtedly a loyal and loving husband. After all the abuse Maria had suffered in the hands of her late sister's husband, Devon's dad, Hector, Matt was probably exactly what she needed. Security and stability rather than anything adventurous, even at the cost of boredom. Maria nodded at Laura as well, and looked at Matt lovingly.

"Well," Devon said. "That's quite a news bomb. We've got news as well, but I feel silly bringing this up now."

"Oh, please," Laura said. "I don't mean to bring everybody down. I just wanted you all to know."

Devon and Kathy looked at each other, and Kathy smiled the most precious shy and excited smile.

"Well, we have been trying to get pregnant," Devon said with the same smile spreading on his face. "And now we've succeeded."

There was an uniform sound of surprise, and delight, from around the table. Mariana and Larissa burst into questions at the same time, then tried to pause to give the other one a permission to continue, then continued at the same time again, and it all dissolved into laughter. It turned out the pregnancy was still in a very early stage, but Devon and Kathy hadn't wanted to wait even until the first trimester was over, before spreading the news.

After the baby news was exhausted, Mariana and Larissa looked at each other, smirking. Everyone else seemed to sense something was up, and quietened to listen.

"Well, it happens we've got news as well," Mariana said. "We've decided to move back up here. I've got a contract signed to a project starting in four months. So fear not, Devon, we're going to be around to spoil your kid rotten!"

Devon laughed. "That's excellent! Are you going to be buying a place? Maybe need something done? Perhaps I can even talk Dad into lending a hand, if it would be for you."

Devon was well on the way to taking the ropes of the renovation company Tommy had founded, when he and Laura had decided to stay in the San Francisco area to be part of Devon's life. It had started as a one man enterprise, but now employed five.

Tom smirked at the nomination. Devon seldom called him 'dad'. Tom wasn't his biological father, or even adopted one, but in all meaningful senses of the word he was Devon's dad. He had been in Devon's life since he was eleven, guiding him through a tumultuous puberty after a childhood full of abuse and bad role models. Now, at twenty-seven, Devon had matured to be a well established and respectable man. Tom felt his heart swell again at the thought of Devon starting a family. Of getting grandkids. He had never been part of anyone's life right from the start, and he just couldn't wait.

"Yes, we'll be buying a place," Mariana said. "But we'll rent at first, to get to search properly. I want it to be perfect. We want it to be perfect."

Larissa smiled at Mariana, and took her hand. Everyone else smiled as well.

All eyes turned to Maria, who raised her hands in surrender. "I've got absolutely no news," she said, laughing. "Don't look at me like that."

-#-#-#-#-#-

Laura was impatient and nervous. Her mastectomy operation had been scheduled and then postponed, after she got a flu that made her ineligible to sign in to the hospital. She had feared the operation, but now that it was pushed further away, she felt cheated. She could almost feel the cancer growing inside her, eating away at her, like she was plagued by something hideous that was slowly taking over her life. She felt tainted.

Tommy took care of her. He made her soup and tea. He brought her tissues and painkillers. He read aloud to her, when her eyes were too sensitive to open with the fever. He was as sweet as he had ever been, or maybe more, and Laura clung to him like a lifebuoy.

One night they were in bed, waiting for sleep. Laura was slowly getting better, and they were talking about the operation, how they should ask if it could be rescheduled for the next week. They both had a feeling it needed to be as soon as possible, scary as it was.

"And Tommy?" she said. "I'll leave everything to you, but you know I want it to go to the kids, right?"

"What everything?"

"Everything I have. I've prepared this temporary will, that if I was to die in the operation, it will all come to you."

"Ohh, oh no," he said and squeezed her closer. "You're not going to die."

"Well I wasn't planning to," she said, a little annoyed with his evasion. "But if I do, I'm just telling you, that everything I own will be yours. So you can then see to it that the kids get it. Although I'd like you to manage my immaterial rights. I don't care what happens to them after you die, but if I die first, I'd like you to have them."

She had made her career writing erotic literature. Some of it had been filmatized, and gained a vast audience amongst bored housewives across the country. Hers was slightly less sleazy than so much of porn, and she had hit an unexpected gold vein with her erotica. She hadn't been writing for some years now, but royalties kept flowing in.

"Oh, Laura," he said and held her nicely. She knew he was trying to fight his emotions. And she couldn't be annoyed with him, not really, not when he loved her like this.

"Maybe I should do a will as well," he said, after a long pause. "Because if you die, I think I'm gonna die, too."

"You're so dramatic," she said. "I hope nobody's dying. But we should get the wills in order, just in case. Because the kids don't have any legal rights to our possessions, if we don't."

"You're right," Tom said. "You know, I've always kinda thought of them as my kids, but it warms my heart that you want to include them in your will."

"Of course I do," she said. "Don't insult me. I'm not as...mothernal as you, but I do love them, you know."

"I know," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you. And I love you."

"I know you do, I love you, too," she said and turned to kiss him.

She wanted to say something, but didn't have the words. He looked like he understood anyway.

"Hey," he said quietly and took her face in his hands. "You'll be alright. We'll be alright. I love you."

She just nodded, and sincerely hoped he was right.

-#-#-#-#-#-

Tommy sat in the waiting area at the hospital. He was so nervous he couldn't think, he just wrung his hands together and fidgeted. He had spent the most part of the last half an hour walking back and forth in the room, and now he tried to force himself to stay still.

Laura was in the operating theater. He had been told her mastectomy would take approximately ninety minutes, but he was really nervous. He wondered if it was his instincts being right, and something was wrong or would go wrong, or if it was just normal anxiety at the face of the unknown. He thought Laura was unconscious, and might never gain consciousness again, if she died in the operation. He twitched as if in pain, and thought none of the words he'd exchanged with her before she was put under were enough. Nothing was enough. He loved her so much it felt like dying.

Devon and Maria exchanged looks over his back as he sat, leaning on his knees, his face in his hands.

"Dad?" Devon said with the careful tone you use with someone who's off their rocker.

"Will you walk with me? Maria can come get us if there's some news."

Tom didn't want to leave the waiting room. He was afraid there'd be some news, and he wouldn't be there to hear them. He got on his feet anyway. Devon took him by the elbow, the other hand on his back, and walked him along the corridor.

"She's gonna be alright," Devon said. "It's a routine operation."

Tom nodded but didn't answer. His stomach was tied in hard knots, and he really didn't feel like talking. He had no idea where they were headed. Just when he started to wonder how Maria would know where to find them, if there was some word on Laura, they reached the hospital chapel.

It figured. Devon wasn't very religious, and neither were Laura or Tom, but they all honored Maria's faith.

The chapel was almost empty, there was only a young couple sitting at the back. The woman was crying like a waterfall, and from the hushed snippets of conversation Tom deduced that they had lost a baby. He felt a wrenching pain in his guts, thinking he and Laura never had children of their own. They had met when she was thirty-five and he was forty-two, and for the longest time they hadn't been settled enough to have children. He knew that. It didn't stop him from hoping they'd had them anyway, just to know what they would've looked like, who they would've grown up to be.

He knew it was unreasonable and unfair to think like that. He couldn't distract his thoughts, though, and pining after the biological grandchildren he would never have stopped him from thinking about what was happening right now, a few floors above them. The thought of a doctor cutting away Laura's breast, like a chunk of meat, made him nauseous.

"She's gonna be alright," Devon said again. "I promise you. But I thought we might say a prayer for her. It can't hurt, can it?"

Tom shrugged, and kneeled in front of the altar obediently. The chapel was decidedly furnished not for a specific faith, and it was alright, he didn't know what God he was praying to, anyway. He believed in God in a detached way, and had never felt a need to belong to any congregation. His parents hadn't been religious.

"Please," he thought. "Please, don't let her die. Please, don't take her away from me. Please. Just, please."

He thought about his life. He was proud of things he'd done, and the man he had become, after the turbulent years of petty crime and imprisonment in his youth. He contributed a large part of his success to Laura. She had believed in him, encouraged him, and let him grow, and he hoped he had given her half of what she had given him.

He loved her so much it hurt. Thinking of losing her made him panicky.

Devon kneeled beside Tom, and put a hand on his back. He was grateful at the compassion the young man expressed. He was a good kid, serious but honest and intelligent. Tom had tried to encourage him to study, to become something. Devon had insisted on pursuing constructions and renovations, to follow in Tom's footsteps, and finally Devon had gotten his way. It was his life, after all. Working in constructions had provided a good life for Tom, and there was no reason it couldn't be good for Devon.

They sat in the pew for a while, both lost in their own thoughts, and then Devon gracefully guided Tom back to the waiting area.

Devon must've kept track of the time. Not long after they had rejoined Maria in the waiting room, a doctor approached them, and told them everything had gone well. It would take some time until Laura was transported to the ward, and they would get to meet her.

Tom was relieved, and then again not. He suspected he needed to see her with his own eyes to believe she was okay.

-#-#-#-#-#-

Laura looked so small, pale and frail, on the large pillow. There was a drip going to the back of her hand, and her chest was heavily bandaged under the hospital gown.

Tom took her other hand carefully into his.

"Hi there," he said quietly.

She was still groggy from the anesthetic and painkillers, but managed a weak smile.

"They said you'll be alright," he continued. "They took the biopsy from the lymph glands, and the results will be ready in two weeks. But they said they're confident it hasn't spread."

She just nodded. He kissed her palm.

"I love you so much," he said faintly. "So, so much. I'll take care of you."

She gave him that weak smile again, and then she closed her eyes. Tom sat looking at her and holding her hand. He had a weird feeling, like a foreboding, and he thought it would be tough two weeks before the biopsy results came in. Little did he know, but it was going to be tough for a lot longer than two weeks.

-#-#-#-#-#-

Laura stood looking in the mirror in the hospital bathroom. She still wasn't allowed to shower, and she had seen her wound before, when the bandages were changed and she was sponge bathed. This was different, this was the first time they'd allowed her to go to the bathroom before renewing the bandages, and let her have a good look.