Rebuilding Harry Ch 01

Harry didn't like to be called Harold, and he knew his wife knew that, so he figured something was afoot when Patricia no longer referred to him as anything

but

Harold. They weren't youngsters any more, and he had begun to worry that this was about to turn into the sort of marriage that his parents had -- one of annoyed tolerance that lasted until death did them part. He was still crazy about Trish, and in its own way, it made sense that he would still be crazy about her while she was beginning to sour on him -- if this was what was happening -- since while he'd gained a few pounds around the middle and lost a little hair off the top, she'd just grown more beautiful with age. Triathlons were once her passion, and unlike Harry, who'd softened in the usual unsightly places men do, when fat returned to Trish's body it filled her out beautifully. She could wear dresses now that she never could before -- her form was too stringy and muscular then, whereas now she could fill out an hourglass outfit like nobody's business. But it was her face that had done him in when they first, and still did to this day. Her spirit was such that she always looked like she had a joke hidden in her green eyes and pursed lips -- so naturally red they didn't really need lipstick -- and while she never really showed that playfullness to him anymore, every now and then it would come out when she was reading something that amused her, or maybe a turn of a phrase in a movie on television that she found clever. If that weren't enough, her jet-black hair that she once kept trimmed for convenience's sake was now overflowing with curls, and they fell all about her frame, going down to the middle of her back and draped over her full breasts in a way that accentuated them deliciously. It was like having Aphrodite walking around the living room.

An Aphrodite that, unfortunately, was obviously losing interest in him.

He'd always trusted her, though, and even as he went about his usual routine of coming home late from the office, being grateful for the kiss on the cheek she'd let him give, getting up the next day only to find her off on one of her jogs she still went on, her weekend social events that he sometimes tagged along on, sometimes didn't... he thought that as boring a life it was, it was something he could count on. He'd started feeling that perhaps one of the reasons his parents stayed together in a loveless marriage was that there was something honourable in the commitment, something validating in knowing that you were sticking it out. It was a tough sell, one that got tougher whenever he would roll over in bed and curl up behind her, hoping to arouse her in some way the way he used to be able to, stroking the curves and dragging the satin slip upwards, only to have her lie completely still throughout. He'd done better than this in college before they met -- girls used to be openly flirtatious with him back then, and they wouldn't be shy in the bedroom if things ever progressed that far, which they frequently did. In high school he was successful in football, and thanks to his stardom he'd known the pleasure of intimacy with girls who were as desirable then as Trish was now. But in all that time, there wasn't a girl who ever filled him with the longings that Trish gave him, and he knew when he first saw her on the campus in his graduating year, that she had some ethereal hooks in him.

He didn't talk about it with his friends. Most of them had moved away from Hellespont since graduation, and he'd stayed in town to be with Trish, who loved the city and was never going to leave it. There were guys at the office he had beers with, but what could he tell them? They knew her from the picture on his desk, what did he have to complain about? She was his wife. Most of them had settled for unexciting relationships, and went to the strip club on boys' nights out to fantasize about women only marginally better-looking than what they had back home. But Harry was married to a goddess. He got compliments every time from people the first time they would see her, a sort of acknowlegment of the accomplishment of marrying such a creature. How could he respond to that with anything other than polite gratitude? How could he tell them that she was even more beautiful in person, that her body held in its curves the promise of untold carnal pleasure, and that there was little to compare the frustration of not being able to take her? His upward mobility in the office had ground to a halt since a reorganization a few years ago, and while he'd once wanted to be at least a vice-president more than anything, he'd throw it all away and work in the mail room if it meant he could trade that for a night of uninhibited fun with his own wife.

He didn't like talking much anyway. He could sell when he had to, but those instances had stopped coming around lately, and he found that he actually preferred silent moments. He was content with work, and he could learn to live with the barriers between him and Trish, if it meant that at the end of the day she was still there. He was learning to accept things as they were, and even when she'd started calling him Harold, even when there were new things coming up that took her away from the home, she was still there, and that was something he might be able to find solace in. Even if thoughts of what was in store for their future together made him vaguely uneasy, he found that if he just relaxed and shut them out of his head, he could quell the anxiety.

And then came Jack's message on the answering machine.

The night it happened, Harry walked into the living room after a night at the office, thrown his jacket over the sofa, and groaned a little with fatigue when he slouched on the sofa. Overtime was starting to become routine these days, and management had politely asked everybody to understand that as times were tough there wouldn't be any compensation for it for a little while. He'd gone through periods like that before with the company, and even though it was no fun, it was part of the price of having a decent job during a tough economic climate, when the alternative might be even worse.

"Trish?" he called from the comfort of the sofa. There was no answer, and when he strained he could make out the sound of the shower in the background. The living room was dark, and it felt as though the shadows were creeping up on him from every corner, a silent melody singing his eyes to sleep. As his breaths became deeper, and the room started to black out, he noticed the light on the answering machine. It wasn't blinking, but there was a message there, so he leaned over and hit the button to replay it.

And out came an unrecognizable, slightly gruff voice.

"Hey there, babe, it's me, Jack. Give me a phone call when you get back in, and we'll talk about Saturday."

With those few words, Harry jumped out of his impending slumber.

Babe

? Who was this guy to talk to Trish that way? He thought back... yes, the last time he checked, the answering machine clearly identified that people were reaching Mr. and Mrs. Harold Stevens. No ambiguity that he could think of. Nothing to suggest a situation where it was alright for a stranger to call one of the two

babe

without the other knowing something about it. And Harry knew no Jack.

"Relax..." Harry told himself, invoking his natural reflex whenever something happened that upset him. There'd been setbacks at the office, plus all those rejections from his wife, and he'd trained himself to calm down whenever the emotion welled up in him. "Relax..."

But images flooded his head that he couldn't fight back. Images of Trish being courted by another guy, and worse, images of Trish showing the guy favour, giving him that smile that Harry had once known from her, but which hadn't seen directed his way in years now. Images of Trish being flirted with by a faceless man at a party, in the shopping center, or out on one of her jobs. Images of her responding with flirtations of her own, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Images of the faceless man maneuvering the two of them to a secluded spot, of his hands on her, and worse still, of her not pushing the hands away.

He sat back down on the sofa and covered his head. As bad as it was, the sudden sensations he felt were surprising. It was as though he was already accepting the fact of his wife's infidelity, and an anger was growing in him. Worse than this man's phone message, was the fact that Trish had already listened to it and hadn't bothered erasing it. What the hell could

that

be about? Was this what things were coming to? Was she not even feeling a little bit modest about the fact that she was doing this to her husband...?

"Relax..." Harry told himself again, rubbing his palms into his eyes. The room was cold all of a sudden, and he felt like he was almost sobering up. There was no fact yet that she was doing

anything

to her husband. It was just an answering machine message. For all he knew it could be nothing, somebody whom she played tennis with on the weekend. Yes, maybe it even warranted a phone call. And maybe it was just the way they talked. Maybe she called him 'Babe' too - that thought almost brought a relapse of the anger - but it didn't have to

mean

anything...

He felt a sudden yearning for his friends from university, the last guys he'd known that he could talk to about something like this. Even then, he wasn't exactly the sort of person who confided in anybody about things, but for this he'd make an exception if he could.

He got up and went to the kitchen for a beer. Opening the fridge, he felt the coolness blow over him, and with a shiver things suddenly made a lot of sense. Yes, it could be an affair, or it could be nothing.

But you're not going to find out tonight, are you?

he asked himself, and then it became clear what he had to do. There was simply nothing he could do now, he told himself as he twisted off the cap and took a long swallow of beer. Nothing...

Nothing until Saturday.

From the background noise of the kitchen he could hear that the shower was still going.

Must be some shower,

he thought wrily, and began to make his way up the hall to the bedroom, noiselessly, to peak inside. Hell, he didn't have to be quiet, it was

his

house, after all, but he'd been giving her a wide berth lately so there was no sense barging in on her. As he entered into the dimly-lit room he saw her clothes strewn on the floor, but nothing yet to suggest another man was there. The steam was coming from the bathroom quite heavily, though, and while Trish took impeccable care of herself she wasn't one for long showers, or so he'd long assumed, anyway. Obviously he didn't know his wife as well as he thought, but no matter. He tiptoed towards the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom, and just as his head was close enough to be able to peak through the crack, the water stopped. He paused in mid-step and listened as the shower curtains were pulled back, wondering what to do. His muscles locked up, and it wasn't until the door swung open and clocked him right on the forehead that his paralysis let up. He dropped the beer on the floor and gave a small yelp.

"Hey, what happened?" Trish asked as she came out. Harry tried to sort himself out, going for the beer at the same time as he pressed on his forehead, and finally he gave up and looked at her emerging silhouette. She was wearing nothing but a towel around her waist, and while her face was lost in the steam, her full breasts hovered there glistening in the light that came from the bathroom. He couldn't stop looking at her as she just stood there, staring at him.

Finally, she looked down at the floor, and the widening pool of beer soaking its way into the carpet. "Oh Harold," she said, "are you going to take care of that?"

"Oh, yeah Trish, sorry," he said.

"How was work?" she asked, as she walked past him and started to go through the day's closing routine of getting ready for bed. Those were likely some of the only words he'd hear from her that night, he knew, and he sighed.

"Fine, Trish, fine," he said as he set about cleaning up the beer with a towel from the bathroom.

For years, when the frustration of his wife's waning desire for him was too much, he would have his revenge in dreams. He hadn't had one for years, though, so when that night, when it came, the sensation was ferocious.

He was sitting in the living room, reading a report from the office, when the door burst open. There was Trish in her jogging outfit, but her hair, which she normally kept tied back on runs, was completely mussed, and her normally serene face was slightly pained. "Harry, can you come here for a sec?"

Harry got up from the sofa and walked across the den to the front door, and he saw that all her weight was on her right foot. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Oh, babe, I twisted my ankle halfway down those stairs to the beach."

"You should have known better, kid," he laughed, as he maneuvered himself to her right side and put her arm around his shoulder. "It was raining pretty hard last night, and those steps get damp."

"Oh, shut up and carry me," she said, with a laugh, leaning her weight into him.

He brought her to the sofa and set her down. "Thanks, Harry," she said, and let out a big breath.

"Anything I can get Vanessa to do for you?" he asked. Vanessa was the maid they suddenly had.

"Oh, no, that's good, don't disturb her," she said, before her face twisted with a hint of suspicion. "You've been behaving yourself while I was gone, right?"

"Yes, dear, why?"

"Oh, I just get the feeling that..." she began, and then her eyes squinted as she let out a large laugh. "Oh, nothing."

"Okay," Harry said, as he went to pick up the report and start reading it from the chair. Something at the back of his mind told him that he should get her an ice-pack or something, but with an evil grin, he decided to leave her there on the sofa. He got back to reading the report, but was only a sentence in when Trish's voice called out from behind the chart.

"Say, Harry," she said. "Is there any chance you can give me one of those massages? I think I might have cramped up at the same time."

He looked up, and she had already slipped out of her gray jogging pants, her long legs extending along the length of the sofa. She was wearing a pair of his boxer-brief underwear, something that drove him nuts, and that she knew drove him nuts. Still, he got up and walked over to her, sighing with feigned annoyance.

"Oh, don't be like that," she smiled, and twisted her body so that she was face down on the sofa. "Nobody gives massages like you do."

"Uh huh," he said. She bent her knees to lift her feet up so that he could sit where her feet were, and when he did, she lowered them again on his lap. He began to work on her right calf. It was amazing how much like an athelete's it was, with such a narrow ankle but large, toned muscles up just below the knee joints. He kneaded his fingers into it, a little less gently than he should have if he was hoping to smooth out the cramp.

"Oh Harry," she purred, "that's nice."

"Not too rough?" he asked.

"Mmmmm," was all she responded. She wiggled a little, and then turned onto her left side, resting the back of her head on her biceps as she watched him. His eyes went up past her leg to the way that bulky sweater of hers was hugging her curves, and there was something about the way it clung to her breasts that made them seem even fuller. Her other arm was resting on her side, her fingers tugging at the elastic of her underwear, as if relieving an itch. Harry felt himself harden a little, the blood beginning to rush to his penis as it pressed against the tight confines of his own pants. Still, he didn't break from his current task.

"I can't wait to get out of these clothes and into a shower," she said.

"Are you feeling up to it? You can go right now if you want..."

"Oh no," she cooed, "not yet, Harry."

Harry shrugged and continued to massage the calf.

"Actually, it's hurting the thigh a little too. Can you move your hands up?"

He sighed slightly, and as she twisted her body face down again, he brought himself up behind her, trying to be mindfull of her calf and ankle as he rested his body against the sofa, his hands beginning to work at the back of her thigh. His fingers poked into the sides of her flesh as his thumbs circled deeper and deeper into her muscles, and this time, without Trish being able to see him, he stared at her ass without shame. She was so toned, and she still had much of the muscle from her training days, but paradoxically she'd softened so nicely. It wasn't long before his hands had gone so high up her thigh that his thumbs were caressing the outline of the base of her right buttock, well above the boundary of the underwear. He had a raging erection now, and eagerly wanted her to see or feel it inadvertently, to let her know how hard he was, but he resisted, and somehow found a satisfaction in doing so.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Mmmmmmm," she said. "Nice. Don't go too high, though."

"Why not?" he asked, and lifted his left hand so that his index finger was touching her crotch. She gasped a little, and then wiggled a little to force more pressure down on his finger.

"I'm a little embarassed..."

"About what? How wet you are? That's probably just sweat from the jogging."

"Oh no," she said. "Not at all." Then she laughed. "And you're only giving me a massage!"

"How's your back?" he asked, and she giggled, before reaching back with her hands to raise her sweater up, exposing her back to him. Normally, she wore a light-coloured jogging bra, one with a fantastic fit that hugged her body so well that the darkness of her nipples was visible through the fabric. But she wasn't wearing one today, and as he began to work up her lower back he could see the full outline of her breasts on either side of her torso as they pressed into the sofa. His hands massaged the fleshy part of her back below her ribs as his thumbs walked up the vertebrae, and it wasn't long before he was sitting comfortably on her thighs, his palms pressed against the rib cage and his middle finger on each hand tracing the contours of her breasts on their outer sides.

"Mmm! Careful..." she said, coyly.

"Why?" he asked.

"You have work to do, don't you?"

"I suppose I do," he said, and began to get up.

"No!" she cried, and then lifted herself up so that she was on her knees and elbows, her sweater brought up to her neck, and her breasts hanging there, with their rock-hard nipples staring down into the sofa. She looked back at him from over her shoulder and said, "I want you to grab them."

"Grab them?"

"Yes, soft at first, just cup them, pinching my nipples."

He sighed again, and got behind her, his penis now jutting out like it was trying to break through the zipper, and he pressed it into the fold of the underwear that was tightly tucked into the crack of her ass. He leaned over her, and he wrapped his arms around her and pressing his palms onto her perfectly flat stomach, slowly bringing them up to where her breasts were hanging. All his body's weight was on her now, and she was supporting the two of them on her elbows, biting her lip as she did so, as he saw through some loose strands of her curly dark hair that tumbled over the edge of the sofa. When his hands found her breasts he slowly cupped them, and as he did, she let out a groan of pleasure and pressed her ass back into his crotch, and he felt as though he was penetrating her right then. At that point, she started circling her bottom and looking back at him with a big grin, saying, "Why haven't we been doing this more often, Harry?"

He inhaled sharply and said, "You tell me."