This is the fourth chapter of a series. I think that this series will have one more installment after this. While the author hopes that this story can stand on its own, it will be much easier to follow if you have read the previous three chapters of "The Gulf Coast Move." This story draws on some real experiences but is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real person or entity is coincidental and unintentional. As a work of fiction, this story and this series should not be taken as depicting the actual tolerance of public nudity or public sexual conduct in Florida or any other jurisdiction. Additionally, readers should remember that they are reading this story on a website devoted to erotica. The sexual conduct depicted here is not necessarily representative of how most nudists/naturists behave.
Part of this chapter is darker and sadder than is customary on Literotica. There is also less sex in this chapter. I apologize but think these are necessary elements to move the story towards conclusion.
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Gwen spent most of the summer after her graduation in Europe with Jason. She went back to Chicago in August, after a short stay at our house, to start work on her master's. As had become traditional, Cheryl and Peter came down in September. I noticed while Cheryl and Peter were visiting that Carol was eating less than usual. Kristen was still staying with us most weeknights when Ian was at work in Tampa. Not long after Cheryl and Peter left, Kristen asked Carol about her reduced eating.
"I don't know why," Carol said, "I just don't have much appetite and get full very quickly when I eat."
"Do you think that you ought to talk to a doctor?" Kristen asked. "This isn't like you."
"I probably should," Carol said. "We don't have a doctor down here. I'll have to call Sue and see if she can recommend someone."
The need to see a doctor became urgent not long after Carol and Kristen had that conversation. Carol began getting abdominal pain on her right side, sometimes severe. Sue put us in touch with a good local doctor who, in turn, sent Carol for tests up in Gainesville at the University Medical Center. To make a long and painful story shorter, Carol had liver cancer.
Carol and I had been together our entire adult lives, since college. I truly could not comprehend a life without her. Trying to think about it made me feel physically ill. As a defense mechanism, I convinced myself that Carol would be the rare case who went into remission or was completely cured. Any scan or test that showed that the disease had slowed the rate at which it was killing her was evidence for me that she'd recover.
Gwen received her master's the following May. Carol wanted to be there, so I chartered a business jet to fly us up to Chicago. Carol was very weak, so I pushed her in a wheelchair. Samantha came the short distance from Milwaukee for Gwen's second graduation. Samantha hadn't seen Carol since Gwen and Samantha had received their bachelors' degrees a year earlier. Samantha looked shocked when she first saw Carol that May in Chicago.
I'd like to say that Carol's passing was poignant or profound. The reality was that, just over two weeks after that last trip to Chicago, I put Carol to bed. I fell asleep a little later. I woke up the next morning. Carol didn't.
Neither Carol nor I had any living family apart from Gwen. Mercifully, Gwen was moving to the east coast of Florida to start her job and was there to handle the funeral and other arrangements that had to be made. Our friends from Florida and from up north were there through the funeral. That kept me busy enough not to think hard about the enormity of what had happened. Then, everyone left to go back to their lives. I was alone in the house which Carol and I had built and loved so much. Everywhere I looked, there was something intimately connected to her. None of it was pleasing any more. The sunshine and Gulf outside no longer mattered. Nothing mattered anymore.
I became listless. I did get up to go to the john, but not much else. I ate very little. I drank only a little water. I couldn't sleep. Television was crap. I didn't have the energy to pull a book off the shelf. Music was painful. I didn't even step outside of the house for about ten days after Carol's funeral.
After a decent interval, Kristen started coming over again and made it clear that she wanted to continue staying with me when Ian was up in Tampa. Kristen was, and is, a very attractive woman and a truly wonderful person. I no longer cared. Dr. Sunkara came to the house and was very explicit about wanting to start a sexual relationship now that I was a widower. Lakshmi is very beautiful, highly intelligent, and sexually creative. She got no reaction from me. Our deputy sheriff friends, Marty and Lisa, stopped by to do "wellness checks" on me. They also brought food, or I'd not have eaten. Dust accumulated around the house.
I was very aware that I was falling apart. I wasn't eating much so I was losing weight. I wasn't exercising so my muscles were atrophied. I frankly didn't care. Cheryl and Peter invited to their home for the Holidays that year. I didn't go. About the only vestige of my life with Carol that remained was that I went nude around the house. I'd just gotten out of the habit of getting dressed.
I didn't know at the time, but later learned, that my close friends initially thought that I was going through a grieving phase from which I'd emerge as the Harry Stone of old. Carol died in June. My friends became seriously concerned when I was still basically a zombie the following January. My friends were concerned enough that Kristen was coming over almost hourly to peer through the windows to see whether I'd hurt myself. Gwen, Jason, Kristen, Ian, Sue, Phil, Cheryl, Peter, Lakshmi, and Samantha had a conference call about me in late January. The decision was made that there had to be an intervention. Gwen, Samantha, Cheryl, and Peter had several more calls between themselves to develop their intervention plan.
Gwen and Jason were living in Ft. Lauderdale (Jason had taken a job with the Miami office of an investment bank). Gwen had come to the house several times since her mother died. A few of those times she had become very angry and frustrated with me. When I saw her car pull into our driveway early that February, I just went back to my study. Gwen had a key and I assumed that she was here to yell at me again.
I was prepared for Gwen to walk into my study. Samantha walking in with her threw me. Samantha was supposed to be up in Milwaukee building a career that would make her a national name. Gwen looked around the study with obvious distaste. "Dad," she said, "I've tried everything I know how to do. I'm hoping that Samantha can accomplish what I haven't." Gwen turned and left the room.
Samantha stood in a yellow sundress that worked perfectly with her dark red hair. I had forgotten how compellingly beautiful she was. She came over to where I was sitting, bent forward, and took one of my hands. "Harry," she said softly, "You still have a life. You need someone with you to make your life rewarding again."
"Yeah," I said sarcastically, "Who would that be?"
Samantha let go of my hand and took a step back. "Me," she said.
"But," I said, "you're on TV in Milwaukee."
"I gave my notice two weeks ago," Samantha replied.
"Why?" I asked.
"So, I could be with you," Samantha said. "You know that I 've had a crush on you since high school?" She took the hem on her dress in her hands and lifted it to her chin. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. She smiled slightly and said, "I'm still a natural redhead."
Samantha's extraordinary beauty or the caring in her voice, or both, must have sparked something akin to a human reaction in my face. "Harry, please stand up," Samantha said. I did. She dropped the hem of her dress, stepped to me, and hugged me. Still holding me, she leaned back just a little so that I was looking into her face and her marvelous green eyes. She said, "I really fell for you when I came down here for Gwen's party that first summer you were down here. I've loved you ever since. You and I can have a great life together. May I stay?"