Loving Wife

"What's for dinner? Lamb chops, I hope. You do those so well."

"Of course, if that's what you want, Ely. If that's what you want, than that's what we'll have."

He's got no taste buds left, I think. What does he care if it's lamb, pork, or shit? Note to self—while I try to keep my voice from having the sarcastic edge Ely had complained about of late. Of course we don't have any lamb chops in the house. I'll have to go to the market.

"And grapefruit for breakfast, I hope."

"Yes, we have that."

"Pink grapefruit. You know I like that so much better."

"Sure, of course."

Trying to stay pleasant here. Now I'll have to go to the market for sure. The grapefruit we have isn't fuckin' pink. OK, control yourself, Kyle. You can make it out of the bedroom with this smile on your face. And don't even look in Wolfgang's direction. I know the prick has a self-satisfied sneer on his face.

Flung to the back of the panty. Pushed down on my knees. Tell me you don't want it, he says. Just say you don't. Fumbling with the zipper of his fly. Can't get to it fast enough. Licking down the side of it and then, with a sigh, opening my mouth over the bulb. Desperately wanting it to be hard, wanting him to fuck me. Now!

For better or for worse the minister had said in the ceremony. And I hadn't a single qualm about saying yes. I'd wanted Ely so desperately. I loved him desperately. I also wanted him inside me—constantly.

I still love him desperately. I don't want him to go. This is the absolute worst. And I . . . just . . . don't know if I can hang on. I had no idea how this would affect my needs. I don't know how I can hide my bitterness and my fear—and, worse, my physical wants—from him. There's nothing he can do about them anymore.

He's thirty years older than you are, everyone said. Don't get involved. You're barely twenty. You're just a student he's pulled out of his class. You know nothing about life yet. You haven't lived. He'll be sixty-five when you're thirty-five, and we all know how much—how often—you've got to have it. And whatever you do, don't marry the guy. He's vigorous now, yes. But at sixty-five?

Ely was good to me—very good. He could take care of me as often as I needed it. He kept in good shape and was active. I had no doubt that even at sixty-five he could give it to me. And sex wasn't everything. We had good times together. A hard cock was most things to me, of course, I won't deny that. But I loved—no, I love—Ely for so much else. Sex isn't it all. I keep telling myself that. And I do so want to believe it. It's Ely I wanted—who I want even now.

But who would have known that the question of sixty-five would be irrelevant? He wasn't going to make fifty-five even. Pancreatic cancer doesn't give you many options—or much time. And there's nothing pleasant about the time it does give you.

It hadn't been too bad for six months. I didn't have to work. We had plenty of money, and I could take care of him as long as he was still mobile. I'd had no idea I'd turn out to be a housewife taking care of an invalid—one old enough to be my parent. But it wasn't too bad for the first several months. We even still could fuck. He could maintain an erection and we both could get satisfaction with me riding the cock. He was still just about as big and as long-lasting as I could take.

But cancer takes its toll. And Ely wasn't going to be going into that good night easily. He railed at his sickness. He was demanding and bitter, especially at first. It taxed our relationship, of course.

Just leave him, my young friends would say. He can't expect you to stay and take care of him after he no longer can take care of your needs. It's not like you are a married couple.

Oh, but we are a married couple. We did the ceremony and everything. I know that's not supposed to mean as much between those of the same sex as between a man and a woman—especially ones with children—but it had meant even more to Ely and me. We were declaring a love and a commitment that would close doors to us and make people turn away. That ceremony had required so much of us.

And I still love him. I can forgive his moods and his demands. I know I would be so much worse if it was me dying from cancer like that—and painfully.

I just get so jittery and on edge myself. I have needs. I always did. I wouldn't have let him invite me to his home for special tutoring in the first place if I didn't know that he wanted to fuck me—that I wanted him to fuck me. I'd heard what he had and what he could do with it—and how much stamina he had. I needed that. I wanted that.

I fell in love with him, Professor Ely Silver, later. But I never fell out of love with his cocking.

I sure could use that now. But it was something he no longer could give. He was bitter enough about that for both of us. I needed to just grit my teeth and tough it out.

I was caught between a rock and a hard place when Wolfgang came to us. Ely had gotten to be too much for me to handle. He couldn't walk on his own—couldn't hardly move on his own. He was heavier than I was. I couldn't get him to the tub or even to the toilet and everything was getting out of hand.

He had to have a nurse. And he had to have one who could handle him.

Wolfgang was a big chunk of a man. Not fat; all muscle. Germanic. Organized, very capable . . . and demanding and knowing what the situation was—Ely and me living as a married couple—and how much he was needed to help with Ely. And, physically, Wolfgang could handle me as easily as he could handle Ely.

Oh, god. He's just upstairs. We can't let him hear us. Don't tease me. All of it. Deep. Hard. Oh shit. I want it so bad. My back chaffing against the brick fireplace wall at the back of the pantry as he pushes me up and down the bricks by the force of his cock, My knees clinging to his waist above his hip joints. Locking my ankles across the top of his bulbous buttocks. Gyrating my pelvis; fucking myself on his thick cock in frantic counterthrusts. Gotta have it. Gotta have it. Give it to me. GETITGETITGETIT! Wolfgang laughing deep in his throat. Thrusting harder, deeper.

I didn't look at Wolfgang as I backed out of the sick room. Just the one time. But I was walking on eggs. Ely couldn't know. The final thrust of the knife. I couldn't let Ely know how bad it was for me. It wasn't his fault. He felt bad enough that he couldn't give it to me. That he was leaving me so soon. It wasn't anything like we had planned. We had foreseen and planned for the thirty years of marriage thing, knowing that he probably would go first. We'd been so rational, so civilized, so reasonable about all that. We'd agreed that the sex drive would decrease for both of us over time—we'd mellow out together. Other couples with an age difference like this had told us it would be fine.

Well, his was gone. Mine was aching.

I couldn't let him know how much it mattered. The shattering of that dream. It was bad enough for him for what he faced. He couldn't know what it was doing to me.

Just months. Weeks even. Why couldn't I just hold on? But I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want him to go at all. I think he was accepting this better than I was now. Why couldn't I fuckin' just not want it so bad? And why was it putting me on such an edge? So close to lashing out whenever Ely makes a request I haven't anticipated. And Wolfgang there now, in the room, ready to move between us.

I couldn't let that happen. Not again. I couldn't let anyone come between me and my husband—certainly not in Wolfgang's way.

Trembling after we'd both come. You want it again, don't you? he asks, with a sneer in his voice. A randy little Kyle, ain't you? Tell me you don't want it again. How long since he's given it to you? Tell me this was a mistake, that you don't want it again, or we go again. I'm hard for you again. Whimpering, I don't answer. My instinct is to cut and stumble out of the pantry. To call the agency and have Wolfgang replaced immediately. Tonight. Instead I climb down off his hips and turn in his arms, facing the bricks of the fireplace wall. He laughs as I push my buttocks into his groin and reach back for his cock. You're such a slut, he mutters, as he slams back into me and I stuff a fist in my mouth so that my cries can't be heard upstairs. "Yes, yes, fuck me hard, I'm screaming in my mind. And he's doing just that—again."

I know he thought he was settled in to getting paid several ways, but it's been a week and I've avoided being alone with Wolfgang and haven't even given him more of a glance than I have too—even though his muscled body and that cock that I know so well now have me trembling knowing his eyes are following me around the room. Knowing. Waiting.

It was a relief, actually, to need lamb chops and pink grapefruit. I had to get out of the house. A trip to the market was what I needed to cut the tension—the tension of having to be cheery with Ely no matter what he was whining for and the tension of having Wolfgang follow me around the room with his eyes, rubbing his basket with a meaty fist where Ely couldn't see him from the bed.

I had a package of fresh lamb chops and a few other items in my basket and was standing in front of the grapefruit bin, trying to remember how you could tell which were the best ones—and laughing bitterly internally that I was being such a housewife about it. Ely couldn't taste much of anything anymore. If the grapefruit was just pink inside when I cut it, that would satisfy his want. If only all of his wants were that easy to satisfy. If only my own wants didn't need to be satisfied so badly.

I was squeezing the fruit too hard. This one was bruised. In my youth, I would have just tossed it back in the bin and picked out another. But Ely had told me to take responsibility for my actions—that even when there was no good solution, I should take responsibility for making one that did the least harm to others. A bruised grapefruit wouldn't do either a buyer or the store any good. I'd bruised it. I put the fruit in my basket and was picking out another one that I could serve Ely, when I looked up and caught him looking at me.

I was shocked. I hadn't seen Lloyd in years. Not since before I'd married Ely. He was from another world altogether. I shuddered at the thought of how easy it would have been for me to drift into that world. The leather world.

Lloyd was big and brawny, bold and brash and bald headed, but hairy everywhere else to make up for that. Covered in tattoos and body piercings. Older than I was, but not as much older as Ely was. I'd always gone for older men.

He'd come "that" close to having me once, and I'd come almost "that" close to letting him have me. But there was Ely, a sharp contrast to Lloyd. Offering so much more—including love and commitment.

Holding a second pink grapefruit in my hand, I watched him move toward me. It stopped on the other side of the bin. I nonsensically held the grapefruit up over the bin, between us. Keeping Ely between us.

"I've heard you're having a rough time. You and Ely."

"Times have been better than now, yes," I answered.

"It's good to see you Kyle. I think of you often."

I didn't say anything. I didn't want to say that I thought of him often too. I hadn't—for years. But since Ely went into the bed for the last time, I'll have to admit that I'd thought about Lloyd too.

"Really tough about Ely. It's been a slow going, I guess."

"Yes," I said. But I said it with a little bit of resentment. It wasn't too slow for me. Other than all that went with dying from pancreatic cancer, I hadn't wanted my time with Ely to be a second shorter than it had been.

"Can't fuck with that sort of thing, is what I've heard."

I didn't respond. After looking around to see if there were any other store patrons within earshot, which, thankfully, there weren't, I picked up another grapefruit and held it with the other one in front of me, between me and Lloyd. As a reminder of who was there even though he wasn't there.

"I could help with that," Lloyd continued. "Ely need never know, if that's what you want. I didn't think you'd last with him a week. But you've done good. And I bet you've done good by him. All that time I was tryin' to get you, though, I could see that you couldn't go long without it."

"I . . . I need to get back to the house," I muttered. "Good seeing you, though, Lloyd. And thanks, but . . . well, I think I need to go back. I can't be away too long."

"I'll be outside—in my truck—if you . . . you know."

And then he was gone. If I'd expected him to be pushy, it was my surprise. I found I was trembling. Had I wanted him to be pushy?

"Excuse me? Are you about done squizzin' them grapefruit?"

I snapped out of my trance. An elderly lady was trying to get to the grapefruit bin.

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Yes, I'm done. Yes, indeed, I'm done." I was so tired. I was past done.

I put the two good grapefruit back into the bin. Then I walked around the grocery store—in a trance—putting items from my basket back where I'd gotten them. All but the bruised grapefruit.

Responsibility. Ely had taught me to take responsibility. He'd also taught me to problem solve. He'd been the best damn math professor in the university. Everyone wanted to take his courses. And he probably had been the best cocksman in the university too. All of the young men who went for that sort of thing wanted to be bedded by him. But he had picked me.

Ten minutes after I'd entered his house for the special tutoring I hadn't really needed, he was doggie fucking me on the carpet in his living room. And I couldn't get enough of his cock. Or of him. I was in seventh heaven when he wanted me to move in with him—and had risen to ninth heaven when he said he wanted me to marry him—to forever and ever with him.

But he'd also taught me to problem solve. To make whatever compromises had to be made to get to a "best-case" goal. To take responsibility for paying for fruit I'd bruised.

"You sure you want this, sir?" the checkout clerk enquired in a polite voice. "The fruit looks like it's been bruised."

"Yes, I like it that way, thanks. Just ring it up, please. I'm in a bit of a hurry."

Lloyd had waited. He was leaning up against the fender of his double-cab metallic black-painted truck and looking confident and a bit amused as I exited the grocery store with the one grapefruit in a plastic bag.

He drove me to his farm a couple of miles out of town and parked behind his barn. We fucked first in the backseat of the cab. After I'd sucked him big to the sound and feel of his thick cock ring clicking against my teeth, he pulled me up and screwed my channel down on his cock, with me facing him, and the soles of my feet leveraging off the back window of the cabin on either side of his head. Just watching the tattooing on his chest, arms, and torso undulating and feeling his nipple rings cold on my tongue made me come quickly inside his pumping fist. He laughed and kept on with his own rhythm of the fuck to a long, hard, glorious ending.

I couldn't stop moaning and "oh shit yessing" when he'd gone quiet.

"Been a while since you had it good, hasn't it?"

I said nothing, because I couldn't lie. Wolfgang had been good too. But it had been a week. Wolfgang was so right. I was a slut. It was a problem. But it was one to be compromised. I knew that now. I knew what Ely would want me to do. He wouldn't want to know, of course. But I knew it was what he would want. It would make me a hell of a lot easier to live—and to approach dying—with.

Lloyd said he wanted to fuck me properly, in the house, in his bed. But we only made it just outside the truck door. He looked at me, standing there, nude, hard, trembling, wanting him again. Now. And he pushed me down on the small of my back on the passenger seat. I raised one foot to the corner of the windshield inside and the other to the door frame on the other side of the passenger door, and he stood on the running board, crouched over me and worried my nipples with his teeth as his piercings jangled and his tattoos moved in waves and his cock thrust and thrust and thrust, punishing my prostate ecstatically with that thick cock ring.

"The house," he murmured when we'd both come.

"I can't. I do have to get back. And I've got to go back to the grocery store."

"How often do you go to the grocery store?"

"Usually every Thursday."

"Do you think you can make it on Tuesdays too?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"Don't go shittin' me now. I think I know you pretty good. You need it more than once a week. Might as well be in for a penny as well as a pound. Like I said. Nobody needs to know. Not Ely or anyone else. I've wanted you ever since I didn't get you."

A penny and a pound. I laughed. This is one reason I liked older men. They used such strange expressions. Such apt ones too, though. This one gave me comfort. Deciding to do it was one thing. Feeling brave enough to do it as much as I needed it was another thing. For some strange reason my thoughts went to Wolfgang. God, he'd had a powerful thrust with that thick cock.

I picked a different checkout clerk when I went back to the grocery store for lamb chops and another pink grapefruit—I'd left the bruised one in Lloyd's truck, along with those intentions I couldn't live up to as well as all of the inhibitions I'd left home with.

Outside of the grocery store I made a cell phone call from the car.

"Ms. Taylor? This is Kyle Silver. You may remember, we talked about that double room at the nursing home, where my husband, Ely, could have a full-care room for the remainder of his needs and I could have the room next to him so I could be there full time too. If it's still available, could we occupy as soon as possible? It's vacant now, still? Can we arrange transportation tomorrow?"

When I entered the house, I put everything away in the kitchen except the grapefruit. I dug out the recipe for lamb chops that Ely liked the best. Then, taking the grapefruit, I climbed the stairs to Ely's bedroom. I stood at the door for a few moments, composing myself, and calling up my cheeriest smile.

I entered the room. Ely was awake, grimacing in pain, but he put on a brave smile when he saw me. Wolfgang was dozing in the corner, but he snapped awaked when I entered as well.

"I got the grapefruit," I said. "A nice elderly lady helped me pick out the best one. You can have that and anything else you want for breakfast. And I think I'll bring a tray up and eat with you in the morning." I kept my voice upbeat, my smile my best.

"You're so good to me," Ely said.

"You are all the world to me, Ely," I answered. "We're going to make every minute count."

I looked over straight into Wolfgang's eyes. He was giving me a sneery, possessive smile of his own. I smiled back.

I'd give Wolfgang's thick cock the best ride of his life tonight. He'd get a good-bye bonus he'd never forget. And I wouldn't care if I did need the cock more than he needed my ass. I'd come to terms with that. I'd make Ely's last days the best that they could be. Every minute would be a testament of my love for him and how he could most comfortably conclude his days. And I'd do it without tensions and bitternesses of my own. I'd found a way to take care of that.