Being Jim Ch 01 Snowbound

Life is a tapestry, a cloth woven of many different threads that create the whole. This story is a thread, one of many, contributing to the waft and weave that is the Whole cloth, Being Jim.

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This story is based entirely on true experiences from my past. Names and a few details have been changed to provide anonymity for those involved. Discretion is a precious commodity and is becoming rarer and rarer every day. I reached way back to relive this story for everyone, I was the ripe old age of twenty eight years old at the time. Bear in mind that Cell phones were barely a novel idea at that time. The internet was taking its first baby steps and people were discovering the likes of A0L and to a lesser extent local messaging or electronic "bulletin boards". How many of you out there remember dial-up modems? Cable TV was still mostly commercial free. Ah, good times. So in that frame of mind enjoy the memory.

I'm lying on my couch staring at the living room ceiling in my one bedroom apartment watching the play of lights dancing with the shadows from my vertical blinds covering the door to my balcony. The furnace is running nonstop trying to keep up with the howling wind and cold outside as the snow continues to fall at an unheard of pace. "A light dusting." The weather guys on TV had predicted for the snow fall from the storm that was then approaching Lexington just over twenty four hours ago. Ordinarily they would have been correct, we usually don't get much snow here in central Kentucky. Oh we get snow, but a few inches here and there is about it mostly. Glancing at the clock on the wall over the TV I note the time as nearly two in the afternoon. With a silent groan I roll over and face the back of the couch and punch my pillow again to make it more comfortable and shut my eyes again and try to go to sleep. "Damn" I think to myself, "I should have been to sleep four hours ago! I'm not going to be worth a damn at work tonight." Night shift sucks, especially on a twelve hour shift.

I work in a factory here in Lexington and for the past six months I've been on the night shift, working from seven in the evening till seven in the morning, three days at a time, then I have three days off, or rather, nights off. For a single guy that's not too terrible of a job situation, the pay is good and the work while long hours is not too hard really. It does make for a rather restricted social life though. Most of my friends work nine to five jobs during the day, so they really can't relate to shift work at night, as such I miss out on a lot of activities and partying. Your body gets used to sleeping during the day and being awake at night, so your days, or rather, nights off end up being parked on the couch watching cable TV or reading. This town doesn't have a lot of night life really. I tried to pass my time with hobbies, I took up photography, even took classes and learned to do darkroom developing and printing. I turned my apartment's kitchen into a darkroom. The most addictive and distracting hobby I found was when I got a computer and discovered the then fledgling internet and chat rooms. Electronic Bulletin Boards, boy would they ever change my life! I surfed all the local sites after I got tired of "Americas Online". The local sites were mostly free and the best part was when you struck up a conversation with someone they were a LOT closer to you than most of the folks on AOL. You could actually relate and hell even meet them. It was a whole new world.

One of my favorite sites was very popular with the locals, besides offering all the usual mind numbing early computer games and file sharing available for downloading, they had live chat rooms where you could play trivia at the same time. It was a great way to spend time day or night. I met folks and formed friendships that would go on to last a lifetime. It also opened my mind to lifestyles that before then I only had ever read about. One was an interesting couple that would later blow my mind. Even then, as now, people get bold when there is a measure of anonymity involved, they come out of their shells and say and do things that they wouldn't normally do. Flirting was rampant to say the least. And like most guys, I was guilty of it too. But I must say that I was a bit naïve and maybe even timid in my flirtations back then. Hey, I was learning. I would chat up and flirt with all the ladies on this bulletin board, most would tolerate me as simply being funny, some would flirt back, but one lady really turned up the heat though. A little coy, a lot of innuendo, and some straight out talking but it was all in fun and she kept me coming back for more anytime we were both online together. I wouldn't say that I was rude or even very forward but I made it clear that I was interested. Then she dropped the bomb on me, she told me she was married.??? Well Damn! I apologized to her and told her I didn't mean to rock the boat or anything like that. Then I found out who her husband was, turns out it was another friend from the board. I felt like a heel. I caught him online the next day and took him into private chat and explained to him that I found out I had been flirting with and yes hitting on a girl that it turns out was his wife. I told him I had no idea and that I was so sorry and promised I wouldn't say anything more like that to her... and on and on and on. Little did I know he was sitting in front of his computer laughing his ass off, with his wife next to him going "Awwww he's so cute! We need to keep him!" Todd (his name) Later confessed to me about this as did Anne his wife. They went on to explain to me that they had an "open marriage" and that they both played with other couples and even singles from time to time. They were not offended by anything I said or did and in fact they thought that when I apologized when I had found out that I was genuinely worth spending time with. I was in for an education.

Over the next year I visited their house in the next town over to have dinner, help fix lawnmowers and work on their cars or just hang out and watch movies or play cards or whatever. We became very good friends. And I learned more about their unusual marital arrangement. Todd and Anne had been married four eight years at this time, the second marriage for both of them, their first marriages having ended badly in divorces over, of all things, infidelity. Both of their previous spouses had cheated on them. Not long after Todd and Anne had wed Todd had been in an accident and broke his back in two places. He did recover after a long time but never fully. He suffered from debilitating back pain nearly every day since. Medication helped but not always enough. On good days he could walk with the aid of a cane, on bad days he couldn't even get out of bed. As a result, Todd had to go on disability and Anne took over as the main bread winner for the family. Family, right, they had two young children, an eight year old boy, and a six year old girl. Anne has worked all the way through both pregnancies right up to or almost to their births, and went right back to work just a couple of weeks afterwards. Todd became the stay at home dad mostly. Early on, even before the accident. Todd and Anne had made an agreement that they would never cheat on one another, both having been burned already. Then after the accident they had to face reality that sex was not always going to be possible for Todd, certainly not in the manner that they were used to. So they developed their open marriage. Both were free to flirt with and engage with other people even so far as to have sex with them, but the other would have full knowledge and could veto anything if they felt it was unsafe or out of bounds. They were swingers in effect, but with such an unorthodox relationship they were extremely discrete and very particular, at least of those they chose to bring into their bed so to speak. Man! They told me all of this over the course of a week or so, little at a time just to try to feel me out so that I didn't freak out on them. I have say it did blow my mind, and I'm an open minded person, or so I had thought up to that point in time. They told me that it was okay if I didn't want to "play" after learning about it because it's not for everyone. But they really hoped I'd still be their friend even if I didn't want to play. Well I didn't flake on them and while I didn't just jump in bed with them we went on to become good friends.

A long streak of bad days for Todd and a car breaking down that required hard to find parts led to Anne having to drive the worse reliable of their two cars because it was the only one running. This with the threat of snow had her on edge. Anne, though born a Jersey girl, grew up in south Florida and had never driven in the snow in her life. She was terrified of either sliding and having a wreck or their less than reliable car breaking down somewhere between Lexington where she worked as a hostess/assistant manager for "Danny's" restaurant and their home in the next county over. Todd had asked me several times if I wouldn't mind giving her a ride or letting her stay at my place if the weather and the roads ever got bad. I said sure, knowing that in reality we rarely if ever did get a bad snow so the likelihood of Anne gracing my apartment was next to zero. It was a nice fantasy though I must say. Knowing that I had an open invitation to "play" with Anne should we be so inclined or circumstances ever played out that way. What's not to like about that?

Anne was a gorgeous figure of a woman, even after giving birth to two children. At thirty eight years old the shoulder length head of brunette hair complimented her hazel eyes and ready smile. She was a slender five foot seven inches tall narrow waisted gal with a nice little pear shaped ass. While she didn't have overly large breasts, a modest thirty two inch b cup set that had a natural droop of course after nursing two children but they were flawless. I was later to find out that they were extremely sensitive as well. Anne had some slender but well defined legs due to her job as a hostess, being on her feet long long hours. Those same long hours gave her hell with her tiny little narrow feet however, calluses and cracking plagued her almost as much as Todd's back pains. I learned early on in our friendship that the fastest way to her heart was a good foot massage.

So it's the second winter of our friendship and Anne is working on nights now as well. Often she would call me on her breaks knowing that I was likely still up on my nights off and we would chat about just about anything. Of course there was the playful flirting and innuendos tossed about as well, it was all fun. Sometimes it would be a three way chat, Anne and I on the phone and Todd and I online with the bulletin board. So far this winter due to warmer than normal temperatures we've not had much more than flurries and rain. So the weather prediction of a "light dusting" was not out of the ordinary and didn't raise an alarm. Todd did make his standing request that if the weather did turn bad or worse could I look after Anne. It would allow him to sleep better knowing that she was not trying to drive in it. Of course I again said sure if it came to that. Hell I'd even go pick her up and bring her either to their house or to my apartment for the day. Little did I know what I was in for in a day's time.

Thursday evening the weather man on TV was giving the forecast of the weather system moving into the area over the next couple of days. He said that due to the warmer temps we'd been experiencing it was likely to be all rain or at worst when the temperature began to drop we might have a light dusting of snow and flurries. It seems that the weather guys on the radio echoed this prediction so I didn't think much of it and went on in to work for my second night of three in a row. Sometime around ten o'clock that evening after the sun had been down a while, the light rain and drizzle had begun to turn to snow. By one o'clock in the morning there was about four inches on the road and it was still coming down heavily. As the clock rolled around to six in the morning the snow had piled up to over eight inches of snow and was drifting. Lexington had been caught flat footed and ill prepared for this amount of snow. The few plows that the city had were not even out on the roads yet, no salt had been put down, and it was a mess. I got off work after seven that morning and was amazed at the amount of snow on the ground and roads. It was well over knee deep and it was still coming down pretty heavily. In the back of my mind I remembered my promise to Todd to take care of Anne for him. So instead of heading home to my apartment I drove onto the nearly deserted bypass and headed to the Danny's location that Anne was working at. It was slow going even for me with a fairly new car with front wheel drive and good tires. I saw many vehicles stuck in the ditches or abandoned. Only heavy trucks and four wheel drives or the occasional front wheel drive like my own were moving about. With it snowing so heavy and still being almost as dark as the middle of the night it took me almost an hour to get from the factory to the restaurant.

After stomping the snow off my feet and legs at the entrance I saw Anne at the end of the counter talking on the phone and looking very nervous. She spotted me and it was if someone turned on the lights in a dark room, she lit up with that beautiful smile. I could tell she was relieved and assumed she'd been talking to Todd on the phone. As it turns out I was right. She told me he had been calling her and he'd been calling me all night trying to get in touch with me to ask again about picking Anne up. She handed me the phone to talk to Todd as she waited on a couple of customers. Todd asked me if it was as bad as they were reporting on the news and I told him it was but not to worry. I would bring Anne home. He told me that I might as well stay in town if that was okay with me. Sure I told him, if that's what Anne wants to do. Mothers can be funny sometimes being away from their children and all. Todd told me of course the schools were closed due to the weather, he and the kids were going to be fine.

Anne came over to talk to me after taking care of her customers and asked me if I wanted something to eat. She apologized that she was not ready to go just yet because her relief was late, due to the snow of course. Her store manager was on his way in since some of the other staff weren't going to be able to make it. So I got a late breakfast on the house. Normally Anne gets off at eight o'clock in the morning and is on her way home or even at home by this time of the morning. Since the restaurant was open lots of folks who were snowbound or stranded by cars that were stuck or not able to get around safely in the snow were holed up in here drinking coffee, eating and watching it continue to snow. And Snow. And Snow.

A little past ten o'clock that morning a tow truck pulled up outside the door with its yellow lights flashing and Anne's store manager climbs out and comes into the restaurant. Shaking off the snow and taking in the number of customers he thanks Anne for staying till he got here. He told her she should get a room across the street at the hotel and not try to drive. He'd ran off the road that he couldn't see and ended up in the ditch. The tow truck was on its way back to try to pull his car out. Anne told him that she was okay, she had a ride from a friend, and with that we put our own coats on and headed out into the winter wonderland. Anne didn't have boots or any shoes suitable for snow so immediately her feet were cold and wet in just the short distance from the door to my car. Once inside it took a while for the heat to build up and warm her feet. As I was heading around the bypass with the intent of taking her home to her house she asked me if it would be okay just to stay at my place. I said sure, if she didn't mind I didn't mind. She was a nervous wreck as I navigated the snow drifts and ruts around the bypass to my exit. Even with the sun up and the snow beginning to light up it was not full daylight yet. The street lights were all still on and very few were out and about trying to drive anywhere. Almost an hour after leaving the restaurant I finally pulled into the parking lot of my apartment, and actually found a recently vacated parking space outside the door to my building. I carry Anne's 'just in case' bag inside and open the door for her. Home sweet home, such that it is. I told Anne to go ahead and call Todd and let him know we made it to my house safely and that we weren't going to try to drive to theirs.

I have a one bedroom apartment with a bathroom, kitchen and a small dining area connected to the living room. My bedroom has both my pride and joys in it, a huge metal government style office desk with my computer set up on it, and my big soft deep mattress queen size bed. My window in the bedroom and the doorway have blackout curtains on them so that I can sleep in the daytime. In my living room I have an old but very comfy couch. I've probably slept on the couch almost as much as in my bed. So me being the gentleman I try to be I offered her my bed for the day and told her I'd sleep on the couch. But first, a shower, I told her it was hers to use first. I asked if she wanted some coffee but she declined saying that she drank way too much last night as it was. I told Anne that I keep a robe on the back of the bathroom door, it was clean and she was welcomed to use it.

While she was in the shower I went ahead and changed out of my work clothes into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. I'd shower after she got finished. I brought a spare pillow and a blanket to the couch and turned on the TV to catch the weather updates. Seems the city had declared a snow emergency and was advising everyone to stay home and off the roads if at all possible. At this point we had accumulated almost sixteen inches of snow and everything was coming to a standstill. It was about that time that Anne came around the corner in my robe combing out he wet hair. Damn but she looked good in that robe, and the smell, well, the smell was all flowers and baby powder, very feminine. She watched a couple of minutes of the news and shook her head. She told me that when she had called home to Todd, he had told her that her boss had been trying to reach her. He needed her to come in to work again tonight if at all possible as the crew that works her nights off were not going to be able to make it in. She asked if I didn't mind dropping her back off at the restaurant late that evening before I went to work myself. I said sure, but I'd better allow for the travel time with all this snow it'd be slow going. I noticed she was hobbling a bit and asked her if her feet hurt, she said yes they were killing her. I patted the couch next to me and said come here, I'll make them feel better.

Anne sat down carefully on the other end of the couch and swung her feet around to my lap. As she did, the robe opened up enough to expose her gorgeous legs halfway up her thighs. I picked up one foot and she flexed her toes with a bit of a grimace. I wiggled each toe and bent them and pulled on them gently then with my thumbs I began pressing and pushing the bottom of her foot, rolling it from side to side and causing her to bend it downwards. I worked my way from just behind her toes down to the arch of her very narrow feet. Anne had her eyes closed and was oohing and aahing as she smiled contentedly. I palmed the heel of her foot and used my other hand to grip her Achilles tendon and gently turn and twist her foot at the heel. Her toes would involuntarily flex and curl with each rotation. As I began on the other foot Anne let out a low moan and told me I could do that all day if I wanted to. She said it felt so good she could probably have an orgasm if I wasn't careful. Oh now you KNOW I was pumped up by that. Talk about an ego boost. And that wasn't the only thing getting boosted. The swelling in my sweatpants certainly didn't go without notice judging by the sly smile on her face.