All characters in this story are consenting adults that had turned 18 long before engaging in any sexual behavior.
Two rocking chairs creaked serenely on the wooden porch of the ancient Duncan family homestead. Jacob and Patricia Duncan sat beside one another on the wooden plank porch, holding hands quietly as they sipped sweet homemade blackberry wine and watched the sun set over the peaceful fields and wooded mountains in the distance. Cicadas were droning sleepily in the giant oak trees that offered shade to the freshly mown front lawn, and somewhere nearby a dove was intoning a soothing and unhurried love song as ancient as his species. The sky was glowing in brilliant shades of warm pastel colors, and the sun painted the clouds in dramatic hues as glorious as any sunset that either of the two had ever seen. They talked a little, but the comfortable familiarity of contact with their beloved's hand was usually enough communication for the moment. His battered hickory cane rested against the weathered stone wall of the house behind them. Jacob and Patricia each had cats sleeping in their laps, and Jacob also had a small orange kitten that had climbed his shirt to nuzzle his ear and relax comfortably on his shoulder. Two dogs rested contentedly near their feet, but were smart enough to keep their appendages away from the slowly moving rocking chair bottoms. In the distant woods, an early-rising owl hooted sleepily. The sound elicited smiles and a gently shared hand-squeeze between the couple. For many reasons, it was a very special day for both of them.
This was their first day of actually living in their new home. They hadn't planned for it to be June 4th, the anniversary of both their wedding and their first date years ago in High School, but it didn't surprise either of them that fate would have it that way. For the past two years they had lived in a small mobile home that Patricia's uncle had been kind enough to loan them as they renovated the ancestral home that Jacob's many-times-great grandfather had built in 1781 on a land grant he had received for service during the American Revolution. Jedediah Duncan, who had originally built the structure along with his four sons, was a cousin of the slightly more famous John Duncan that had been killed while defending Moore's Fort under the command of Daniel Boone during Chief Logan's war in 1774. Like many old homes, the original structure had suffered several near-disasters over the years, and had been enlarged with numerous ad-hoc additions of varying quality as the family had expanded the home to meet their needs. Notable guests that were known to have visited during the home's heyday included Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison among others. Jacob's grandfather had suffered from poor health in the last several decades of his life, and had allowed much of the structure to deteriorate until it had been almost as expensive to make the old home comfortably livable again as it would have been to simply build a new house. All of the electricity, which had been installed by a clumsy amateur during the 1930s or 1940s, had to be re-wired. Happily, the original building, a sturdy rectangle of local limestone that still bore pockmarks near the small windows that family lore said were from the musket-balls of attacking Indians during the late 18th and early 19th century, was remarkably well-preserved. Patricia had especially fallen in love with the huge stone fireplace and the skillfully hand-hewn hardwood logs that were exposed as what was now the living-room ceiling and the floor of the loft above it. Jacob had been in love with the building for his whole life as a result of the happy memories he had of visiting his grandparents there as a child as well as the building's significance as an enduring symbol of his family history. Near the home, a charming old limestone springhouse required hardly any repairs at all to restore to its former glory. Issuing forth from the springhouse, a crystal clear stream provided a home to a host of bluegill and crayfish as it bubbled happily among a shady wooded course through moss-covered rocks. The old barn was beyond saving, but it did yield a collection of fascinating and clearly handmade tools of antique design and construction, evidence of an old blacksmith shop, and just enough well-preserved old hand-hewn timbers for Jacob to use in fashioning a charmingly rustic headboard for the couple's new king-size bed.
Ten years ago, on June 4th, the happy young couple had shared their first kiss. The story was still one that they could share together privately and enjoy a lighthearted smile and chuckle about it. They had both been Sophomores in High School at the time. She, a pretty young girl with stunning cornflower blue eyes and the natural beauty of a sturdy farm girl, had been dropping hints for weeks that she wanted her friend Jacob to invite her to the last dance of the school year. Jacob, built with the wiry strength of a distance runner with black hair and dark brown eyes, had responded to her advances by remaining politely noncommittal to her until his best friend, Kevin, finally talked some sense into him.
While it was significant as the starting point of a lifelong relationship for the young couple, the dance in its mundane details was a typical dance between inexperienced high-schoolers. Neither one of them had been proficient dancers but they were each determined to impress their date with affected grace and confidence that neither really felt. During the slow dances, however, the warmth and closeness of each others' bodies sent thrills through each of them. She was intoxicated by the smell of his cologne, the dignified feel of his tuxedo beneath her hands, and the solid feel of his strong young arms around her. On his part, the gently floral smell of her perfume, the softness of her occasional breath against his cheek, and the unmistakably feminine scent of her hair made his heart leap into his throat and pound as though he were running in one of the school's cross-country competitions. It was a night marked by all of the endearing awkwardness of youth, but a magical night for both of them. After the date, they held hands for a while and embraced on a wooden bench outside the school building while waiting for her parents to arrive and pick them up. Their first kiss was as sweetly endearing as the rest of the night. There have been sober men that felt less nervous about squeezing the trigger while playing Russian roulette than poor Jacob felt as he resolved to make his first attempt to give her a peck on the cheek. Encouraged by him making the first move, Patricia had nervously turned to kiss his cheek in return. That was her intent, anyway. Neither of them was ever quite certain how it occurred or really which of them was responsible, but their lips found one another of their own volition like two refrigerator magnets clicking together. It lasted less than a second, but for that brief time their entire universe was reduced to the deliciously moist softness of their partner's lips and the mind-blowing knowledge that they had actually, for the first time in their lives, truly kissed a genuine member of the opposite gender and had the favor returned. Though each of them did their best not to flaunt their inexperience by appearing too excited, their bodies tingled with nervous elation, and it would be close to an hour before either of them could think straight or get their hands to quit shaking.
