Chapter One
Carielle Sal Vitre had started getting close with the Rafferties several months after they moved in next door, while she was in her freshman year in college. She started helping them, doing odd jobs for MayBelle for pay. As she got to know Tom and May better she found herself being drawn to them. Their relationship was so loving, and they didn't put up fronts for people.
Mr. Tom Rafferty was a retired gardener whose property adjoined her parents. Her Dad was somewhat miffed that Tom lived in the neighborhood. He was very status conscious and being a middle management drone, he felt he was well above a gardener. Plus the fact that Tom was black, but Lew would never be so tacky as to admit that. Prudent investing had allowed Tom to acquire his property, and send his kids to university, after which they had all started out on successful careers. Cari had met the Rafferties after they moved in, their kids already long gone from the family home. Mr. Rafferty had engaged her services part time to assist his wife around the house, shortly after Cari started college. Cari had met the children and both women and the one man were certainly their parent's children. Smart, dignified, and attractive. Another son hadn't done well in school, had fallen in with unscrupulous characters, and been shot dead in a drug deal gone bad.
When Cari finished high school she did two years at the local community college towards a book-keeping certificate. MayBelle was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer and refused treatment because she had no chance to pull through and she didn't want the resources wasted on her. By this time Cari was spending a great deal of time with MayBelle, and no longer charged for her services although they paid her a modest fee for appearances sake. Clifford and Ariel, two of the Rafferty children, had offered to sponsor her education at the university because of her help with their parents. Consequently she took nursing, with extra courses in cancer therapies.
By the time she was done her first year she thought of MayBelle and Tom as her best friends. She was sure her parents were upset by this, but their constant judgmental gossiping about others was insulting to her and she realized it, and as a private act of rebellion reveled in their discomfort. As Maybelle slipped deeper into her illness, Cari spent a lot of time at her bedside. It was there she found out May's eldest son had been the result of a sexual assault when she was younger, and Tom had taken him on as his own boy after meeting MayBelle. He died before the others were out of high school and his death had helped inspire them to make better of themselves. Cari also learned that MayBelle was over a decade older than Tom, and she was concerned about his well being after she passed on. Cari jokingly assured MayBelle that she would continue to care for him. She cooked, cleaned, and did laundry now anyways.
Cari had also spent many hours talking with Clifford, Ariel, and Mary, MayBelle's youngest girl. They were all very appreciative of her help and Cari at 22, and Mary at 25, became especially close. Mary used to joke about Cari being her second mom, and Maybelle had been quite upset by that. But MayBelle saw how the rest of her family were smitten with Cari, and she began to consider that Cari could help her husband, for a while, after she'd gone. When she first suggested it to her husband he was outraged.
"God Damnit, MayBelle." he bellowed. "Don't even joke about that. She's younger than my kids. She's white, for Christ's sake. If her parents even suspected, they shoot me themselves."
MayBelle flinched under the vehemence of his rebuttal, but after thinking about it a while, she realized something. Cari had almost taken her place already. When the family came over for Sunday dinner, Cari was the one that planned and started it cooking. Ariel and Mary finished it when they got there. There was only one way that Cari hadn't stood in for her and May thought a lot about that. Under the pretence of wanting to change her room around, she had the two easy chairs taken out and a love seat put in, with a TV stand. She had her queen size bed replaced by a double, to make it less comfortable for two. At first she would watch movies with Cari on the love seat and with Tom beside her on the bed. But she started asking Tom to sit on the love seat because his pressure and movement on the bed were causing her pain. At first Tom and Cari would take pains to make sure they never touched on the love seat. As they got more relaxed, MayBelle started complaining of being cold, so the turned the heat up in her room.
Cari, thinking nothing of it, started wearing lighter clothing to keep cool, 'til eventually Tom looked down one day and noticed Cari's creamy, muscular thighs, bare almost up to her crotch. She was braless, her nipples tiny points of hardness as she watched some dancing movie with MayBelle. Tom looked sharply over at MayBelle, who was watching him out of the corner of her eye. She licked her lips and nodded her head down at Cari.
Tom was flabbergasted, for he knew what she was intimating, and he couldn't believe she was actually trying to orchestrate it. He looked down at Cari again, then looking at MayBelle he mumbled something about getting beverages and hurried off to the bathroom, feeling something he hadn't expected to feel, ever again. Lust. He'd never particularly found white girls attractive, never lusted after them as so many of his contemporaries had. Forbidden fruit and all that. But he realized he had feelings for Cari, and the myriad images he subconsciously stored in his mind over the years came tumbling out. He dropped his pants as soon as he entered the bathroom and grabbed his already hard cock. First a vision of her smiling face, replacing it with her ass in her track pants or pyjamas, then her crotch in the shorts she was wearing today. When he tried to imagine what her young pussy looked like, he didn't last long. He stifled a moan as his legs quivered and his cum splashed across the bathroom floor. He immediately felt shame for his thoughts and cleaned up his mess. He stumbled back into the bedroom and sat beside Cari, sitting as far away as he could.
"Did you forget something?" MayBelle smiled at him.
"Oh, yeah. Be right back." and he got up again to get drinks for them all.
MayBelle laughed, loudly for a change. "Men!" she exclaimed.
"What was that about?" asked Cari, smiling.
"I think Tom had to take care of something." MayBelle grinned. Her face suddenly looked sad though.
"What's the matter, May?" Cari asked getting up.
"I feel bad for Tom. To be blunt, we haven't had sex in 3 years, and not often before that. I've been too sick. No desire, and no ability to even help him out. He's left to his own resources, and I feel bad that I can't help him."
Cari was suddenly embarrassed. She had a certain admiration for Tom, and she admitted he looked good, for his age. But neither Tom, nor MayBelle had ever spoke of sex in her presence. "I'm sure he doesn't even think of those things right now, MayBelle. He loves you, and he's worried about you."
MayBelle laughed again, "I'm certain he does, and he is. But he's still a man, with needs, and I'm sure he stopped off to take care of those needs. Still, it's not the same as being with a woman."
MayBelle looked back to the TV, "Oh well. Could you rewind that a bit, dear. I think we missed something."
Cari rewound it and played it again, but when Tom came back with the drinks, she couldn't help look at his crotch as he sat down. Damn, his pants were too loose to notice anything. MayBelle grinned, to herself this time, as she saw where Cari's eyes went. When the movie was over Cari excused herself and went next door, to her home. Tom slept in the small bedroom these days, so he gave MayBelle a kiss goodnight before he retired. When he bent down to kiss her MayBelle said, "I want to taste it."
"Huh?" Tom said, quite eloquently. Masturbation wasn't a sin, or a secret. But the circumstances made it uncomfortable for him to admit it.
"She made you randy, so you went and jerked off. I want to taste it."
"I'm sorry." Tom said. "I didn't think you had any interest any more."
"Honestly, I'm not interested, often. I think of it, sometimes. I just don't have the urges. I just want to taste you."
"OK." Tom undid his belt and dropped his trousers.
MayBelle admired the look of his thick cock. "Bring it here, baby, so I can taste it."
Tom shuffled forwards and MayBelle took his cock into her mouth. "Mmm, I can taste your seed, Tom."
"Were you thinking of that little white morsel sitting in here, while you did that?"
Tom didn't want to admit it, but he knew MayBelle had set it up. "Yes, I was baby. Her cute ass, and those smooth legs. And her small boobs. She looks almost like you when we got married. Except you had a darker tan." They both laughed.
"Goodnight, my love." MayBelle said, as she gave Tom a final lick. She couldn't exert herself too long, and at the end of the day, she was spent.
When Cari got home she quietly crept up to her room and as she went by the bathroom she thought she heard something. She put her head to the door and heard a rhythmic sound that she couldn't place, but she intuited that it was her Dad jerking off. Suddenly she seemed to be hyper aware of sexual inferences around her. Her Mom always went to bed before her Dad, and her Dad seemed to spend a lot of time in the bathroom. Cari suddenly had a different perspective on the reasons for those things.
She went on into her room and prepared for bed. Her mind kept flashing on Tom and what he had probably done in the bathroom. Cari wasn't a virgin due to her rape, but except for one quick, innocent romance in her freshman year at the local community college, she had never gone steady with a guy. She didn't really trust them, because they were always only interested in one thing.
She trusted her Dad, because he was her Dad and would never do those things. She trusted Clifford because he was, well, almost like a brother to her. Sure she'd noticed him looking at her appreciatively, but he'd never behaved in any way other than respectful. But Tom, she trusted him for sure. But now she was thinking about him in other ways. Seeing his sleek muscles as he worked in the yard beside her, teaching her how to tend to flowers and shrubs. And now, she was thinking of that other muscle.
As she lay down on her back she ran her hands over her sleek stomach. She knew she was good looking, even if some thought she was too thin, with small breasts. She lay there and thought of Tom's hands. Rough and gnarly, she could imagine them teasing an orgasm from her as easily as he could tease roots from a cutting. Her hands slid over her hip bones and the fleeting thought, that she
was
too skinny, rippled through her mind. Then she thought of the way Tom looked at her and she reconsidered, as her fingers passed over her mons. She never was a slave to fashion, so she didn't denude herself completely, but she did trim the hair around her vulva, to keep it neat and to keep the odor down. She was surprised at how wet she was and she fingered herself to a massive orgasm. She was amazed at the sloshing sounds coming from her sopping pussy as her fingers ignited her dormant libido. As she was coming down, she thought about Tom when he came back to the bedroom last night. His cock was probably covered in his juice, and now Cari was disappointed that she'd missed a chance to maybe smell him. She went to sleep after setting her alarm, thinking about Tom's friendly face.
The next morning Cari got up when her alarm went off. She almost didn't, but then she remembered why she set it so early. It was early in the year, and it was still pretty chilly, so she took a cardigan outside with her. She stood in her yard, listening, wondering if her efforts were in vain. Through the fog she heard a cough, so she went over to the fence gate. She tapped on the fence and opened it slightly, "Tom!" she hissed. "Tom, is that you?"
"Well, Miss Carielle. Whatever are you doin out here at this time?"
"I woke up with a headache, so I took some pills and decided to stay up for a minute. I remembered you said how peaceful it was out here in the early morning."
"It is that. It's foggy and chilly. Do you want my jacket?"
"No thanks, my cardigan's fine. Could I borrow your arm though?"
They stood together, looking out over the valley with his arm around her shoulder. It was still dark with a hint of light in the eastern sky.
"Sometimes I see deer." Tom said. "Back along the tree line there." He pointed with his free arm, off to the right.
Cari shivered but not from the cold. She could smell his scent. Partly sweat and partly old spice cologne. "Are you cold? Lets sit on the bench, I'll get a blanket from the deck box."
"OK." Cari said. She was suddenly nervous, wondering what she was doing there.
They sat silently for a few minutes. Cari shivered again, under the blanket, and Tom put his arm around her again. Cari was very aware of his fingertips, only centimeters away from her unrestrained breasts. The very fingertips she had imagined pleasuring her last night. She changed position as she commented, "Oh, this seat's hard, and cold." She tucked her feet up under her and leaned into Tom more. This resulted in his hand coming to rest on the top curve of her breast.
Tom was getting uncomfortable. "Cari, you should probably go now. If your parents get up, they'll be concerned."
