(Tough to say no)
On hearing Kerri's gentle admission that she was well aware of my unconscionable . . . love? . . . lust? . . . for Marty's wife, I began to feel like a damned idiot. Guiltily recalling my earlier thoughts, I took her startling revelation to confirm my long-held belief that women were telepathic or something. But, I had to ask. "What brings all this on?"
"While you were snoring and snorting last night, I went down to use the bathroom and Shauna was at the kitchen table and I could tell she'd been crying some more. She's convinced that Marty'll be gone in a year or two. She mentioned that she'd asked you if she could move in with us when he dies." Kerri looked down at her shoes, then back up at me, her own dark eyes a bit misty. "I asked her what you'd said, and she told me . . ."
"That I agreed, right? 'Cause, of course, I did." I leaned to my wife and touched her hand. "Darlin', you know I love you." She inclined her head toward me just a little. "And, I've got to admit that I do love Shauna. But Shauna is Marty's wife and will continue to be, well, till death do them part. I mean, that's a couple that has their picture in the dictionary next to the word 'love'."
Kerri started to speak, but I went heedlessly on my way. "Even if Shauna lost her head enough to stop loving Marty, I guaran-goddamn-tee you it wouldn't be because of the likes of me. Besides, we owe them that. If it was Marty that wanted to move in with us, hell if it was me or you that wanted to move in here, I'd expect all of us to do what we could for any of the others, no matter what the situation." I was floundering badly, and I knew it.
Kerri looked at me with those usually soothing, often smoldering, occasionally downright stormy dark eyes. "Jimmy," she murmured softly. "I know that you and Shauna were intimate that one time." She smiled then at what I imagine was my deer-in-the-headlights expression. "I also know that it was one time only and, believe me, I never have and never will say anything to anyone about it . . . including Marty. And, trust me, I didn't find out from Shauna, at least not in so many words. As far as I know she's been as discreet as you have. Nor have I ever thought of being unfaithful to you, Jimmy, out of spite or revenge or for any other reason than because I love only you; want to be with only you."
She held up her hand before I could interrupt. "My point in all this is simply that when Marty's gone, Shauna will indeed have lost her love, and she'll absolutely expect the likes of you to fill in."
I pondered all this a moment, then had to ask "And what about you, darlin'?"
"If it was any other woman in the entire world, there's no way this would even be allowed to come up." She laid her hand lightly on my arm. "But, of course it's different with Shauna. I love her nearly as much as I love you."
At that moment, I felt myself unworthy of either woman.
I mulled the potential deprivation of Kerri's unabashed sexual appetite, her still-magnificent body, her uninhibited passion. There was only one other woman, I admitted to myself, that could match my wife in pure physical beauty, in singular eroticism. And that woman was most emphatically unavailable, now with other, greater burdens weighing on her mind than my once all-too-requited love.
I couldn't help, however, but to think back to the night many years before, during a snow-laden February school vacation week. Shauna and Marty were living in Vermont then. She'd been skiing at Sunapee that day while Marty had dutifully stayed home to mind their daughters. Diane was just three at the time, and Meagan had turned a year old only weeks before.
Marty called me to say that Shauna was having car trouble, was broken down over by Lebanon in New Hampshire near the Vermont border, some thirty miles from our house west of Concord. We were expecting a blizzard that night and Marty said it was already snowing heavily in the western part of Vermont, said he couldn't find anybody to watch the girls, that there was no way he'd drive with the kids through a blizzard. He also said that he refused to allow his wife to be stuck in some Podunk hotel for two or three days, asked if I'd drive over to pick her up, let her stay with us till the storm passed.
As it happened, our two boys were in New York, visiting Kerri's folks over by Oneonta. So I told Marty that I'd be happy to help Shauna out, and got some details as to where she and I could meet.
I'd have asked Kerri to accompany me on the ride, except that she was working the second shift at Concord Hospital. Way things were shaping up that night, weather-wise; I pretty much expected that Kerri would have to work a double shift as a fill-in for one of the third-shift nurses, many of whom would likely be snowed in. To be honest, I experienced a low-level excitement at the prospect of being alone with Shauna for the night. I suppose the fact that all of us had been naked together within a half-hour of meeting might have had something to do with it.
In any case, it was snowing pretty heavily by the time I met Shauna at the garage where she'd had the car towed. After making arrangements for repairs, we started back toward my house, with Interstate 89 by now becoming a bit treacherous.
Shauna thanked me again for coming out, said she hadn't been looking forward to spending the next day or two snowed in at some hole-in-the-wall motel. Nevertheless, as conditions continued to deteriorate, we began listing places along the way where we could take shelter if the road became impassable, which occasionally happened.
The big Bronco got us back to my place in one piece, however, and with four inches of snow already on the ground, I was pretty sure that Kerri wouldn't be home for some time.
Sure enough, when Shauna and I got into the house, there was a message from my wife on the answering machine. She'd be working the next shift, asked if I might be able to come get her in the morning since it was obvious that our aged, rear-wheel-drive Plymouth wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile. I called her number at the hospital while Shauna peeled off her layers of ski togs.
As I spoke to Kerri, I couldn't help but notice that Shauna, in a tight, and I mean TIGHT! leotard and form-fitting stretch top, was now tending the woodstove and brewing water for a couple of hot toddies. To put it delicately, every curve she possessed . . . and she possessed some bodacious curves . . . was highlighted, underlined, and italicized. I felt myself becoming aroused at the sight.
After telling Kerri that I'd just rescued Shauna from her ski adventure, which she took suspiciously well, I told her I'd do my best to pick her up at the end of her double. I hung up the phone then and simply admired Shauna's figure as she stood at the kitchen counter pouring the hot lemon and whiskey concoction into a pair of coffee mugs. She turned abruptly and caught me red-handed staring at her magnificent rear.
She smiled and, to my amazed delight, struck a pose, legs apart, hands on her hips, breasts outthrust, perfect lips formed into a perfectly adorable pout. "Like what you see, Mr. Axelsson?" she asked.
Knowing exactly what she had packed into those ski togs got my cock stirring some more, but I grudgingly set my desires aside. This was, after all, my best friend's wife, and a good friend in her own right.
I laughed and replied, "Just making sure you're putting plenty of whiskey in those toddies."
