My Late Wife
My name is William Preston Carstens. I am fifty eight years old and for the last two years I have been a widower. My wife, Janet Anderson Carstens died leaving a mystery that I have been attempting to unravel.
The basics of my life are fairly simple. I was born, raised and educated in the Chicago suburbs. My parents were professional people who lived quiet and respectable lives and raised four children who followed in their footsteps. I was the youngest of the family. My sibs had all chosen careers in white collar professions and I was no exception ending up as a CPA and Tax Attorney.
While not necessarily an academic and career path noted for romance and excitement, I did manage to become involved in and then move on from three serious romantic relationships by the age of twenty six. By that point I was established as a soon to be senior associate in a prestigious Loop tax accounting firm. It was at my firm that I met the woman who was to become my wife, Janet Anderson.
Much of the work of our firm involved litigation in the County, State and Federal Courts. Litigation involves sworn depositions and sworn depositions require court reporter qualified stenographers to keep verbatim records of legal proceedings. Firms that only handle a few depositions per year employ contract stenographers on a free lance or agency basis. Firms like ours who are doing multiple depositions every day have contract stenographers on premises full time as if they were permanent staff. Janet was the latest edition to this group.
As the Associate charged with many of the more routine depositions, I ending up working with all of the support staff but I found myself drawn to the new employee from day one. Janet was of medium height and wore her brunette hair back in a modest bun like most of the female staff. Plain garb and sensible shoes were mandatory but nothing could conceal Janet's basic beauty and personality. In the first month that she worked for us I probably hadn't exchanged 25 words with her so when I got up my courage to ask her out I was surprised when she said.
"Of course Mr. Carstens. I thought you would ask me out for last weekend but this Saturday will also be fine. How about 7:OO o'clock and what shall I wear?"
"Its William or Bill after work hours and 7 is a little late because I have tickets for the Symphony at 7:30. As far as dress goes, the night crowd is usually garbed a level or two above business casual but on you just about anything will look fine. After the performance we can pick up a bite and perhaps a drink?"
When I picked her up at 6:30 I was met at the door by her father who in two minutes extracted my lineage back to the Mayflower and determined that he knew both my father and one sibling and was welcome to date his daughter. On the cab ride to the performance Janet said.
"You handled Daddy quite well. He can be overbearing but his heart is in the right place and now that he's got your lineage he'll leave you alone. Mom will be working on me to pick our Bridesmaid's colors but that's my problem."
"Wow you guys work fast. We haven't even had our first kiss yet."
"Well, I'm wearing smear proof lipstick."
Our first kiss was fresh, minty and with just a hint of tongue and invited several followup kisses.
"Nice first kiss Janet."

"Even better second and third William."
We held hands for most of the symphony and had a delightful snack and drinks after at a quiet neighborhood bistro. Over the course of the evening we established that she had a night school degree from Northwestern in English and a Steno associate from a junior college. Living with Mom and Dad was only till she built up enough assets to afford the security deposit on an apartment.
When I took her home we made out on the Family Room couch and determined that there was definite interest in a Zoo date for Sunday afternoon. By week three we had determined that my efficiency apartment Murphy Bed was uncomfortable but still appropriate for the next stage of the Bill and Jan saga.
In the office, Miss Anderson was a prim, proper and professional stenographer. In private she was the sex goddess and the lover of my dreams and I knew, the future mother of my children. Neither of us were apparent innocents sexually and together we had a chemistry that was mind blowing. By month two we were in a two bedroom apartment together and by month six we were walking down the aisle.
Demure little Janet was the most incredibly and sexy human I had ever met or hoped to meet. I had never thought of myself as a highly sexed individual or as some sort of great lover. However with Jan I became the Incredible Hulk of the bedroom. Maybe she was feeding me some secret potion or something but the intensity and frequency of my orgasms shot through the ceiling and stayed there.
Throughout our courtship and the first years of our marriage we kept a chart of the frequency of our intercourse. Out of a twenty eight day cycle we had sex on the average of twice a day for at least twenty one of those days. That works out to over five hundred encounters a year. Not bad for a tax accountant and a stenographer who looks like a librarian in the office.
Eventually our frequency slowed down a bit with the addition of three children to our family unit. Childhood changed her participation in the workforce but never totally ended her part time occupation as a stenographer. Even through pregnancies and early child rearing she took occasional assignments as a free lance stenographer for remote depositions. Upon reflection I don't think there ever was a year in which she didn't have at least five thousand of so in contributions to the family income and her retirement program. Once the kids were all day school she returned to almost a full time schedule.
Her income came in very handy as the kids got older and college loomed over the family. I was making really good money and so was Janet and it was a good thing because our three kids were very bright and even with scholarships and kids part time jobs we could be faced with massive tuition bills. However, with all of us busting our asses we made it through just fine.
The period of our lives after the kids left for college and then formed families of their own was different yet fulfilling for Janet and I. For one thing it was a time for us to renew our physical sexual relationship. In essence our openly sexual behavior of the pre children years could now be rekindled around the home. For instance Jan's Mom jeans were replaced by short shorts, mini skirts and frequently no underwear. Sweatshirts were replaced by tight tees, wife beaters, halter tops and always, no bras.
The other and most liberating thing was that the physical location of the act of love was no longer confined to the marital bedroom and was now fully sanctioned everywhere on our property. I was personally astounded that two late 40's parents of three would be and were fucking like billy goats. Frankly I don't know where we were getting it all from especially when I did a little simple math and found that we were back to our pre children intercourse rate. In fact, when Jan started to go through early onset menopause we picked up the rate because of shorter or absent periods. That was ironic because many of our friends complained of a reduction in sexual interest but with Jan it was the opposite.
So, here we were in our mid fifties, financially secure, content in our jobs, grandparents at last and still fucking up a storm. In fact it was because of an even greater than normal surge in Jan's libido that she raised the issue with her gynecologist. That led to a few additional tests and then a few more and then the awful news, several virulent strains of inoperable cancer. Bizarrely something in the cancer stimulated part in her brain that hyper stimulated her sex drive. Her stimulation carried over onto me and so we found ourselves wildly fucking almost right up to her death.
At age fifty six I found myself a loverless widower. My beautiful sexy wife of thirty years was dead and I was all alone. Of course our children and grandchildren were some solace but nothing could replace the companionship, friendship and especially the sexuality of my wife.
Prior to Jan's death we had discussed retirement and the final phases of our life together. Money wasn't an issue because in recent years I had written and sold several tax preparation software packages. The royalties on these were nominal but I had invested the 940 thousand of after tax profits into the stock market. After dodging the two major crashes of the last decades I now had a portfolio that would sustain comfortable early retirement. Our plan had been to establish a six month base in Northern Wisconsin and a mirror base in a warmer location either in the south or south west. Now all my/our plans were in limbo.
Grief is a difficult emotion to categorize or define because it manifests itself in so very many ways. Initially I was just sort of numb and went through the period after Jan died in a sort of trance. The funeral and return to work were the same until one day my daughter called me and asked what I had done with Moms things. Nothing was my answer and her response was that she would come over at 9:00 on Saturday.
What my daughter Sally discovered was that I had been sleeping in my den on the couch and hadn't touched Janet's clothes. Once Sally and I started going through Janet's things I realized that I didn't want my daughter seeing certain things and so I put her off for a week so I could preview the contents. I'm glad I did because some of the things I found not only changed the balance of my life but forever changed my perception of wife Janet.
Our current suburban home was one of those McMansions with a large Master Suite, a guest/oldest kid bedroom with hall bath and two smaller bedrooms with Jack and Jill baths. Janet's "stuff" was in two distinct places. Her public garb from causal wear to formal was in our walk in closet. Her matching undergarments and intimate wear was all in drawer units in the closet. All of my clothes were on the opposite side of said closet All of this would be open to my daughter to sort through and use or dispose of. Some sentimental pieces of jewelry I retained but the balance was made up into three packets for my children. One I gave to my daughter directly and the other two went to my sons to either give to their wives or to keep for sentimental reasons.
The problem area was the bedroom area with the jack and jill bath. This had been my two son's territory but after they moved out I took over one bedroom as my study. The closet became the repository for the family safe, gun cabinet and my personal business and investment files. The room had the usual couch, comfortable chair, desk chair and desk. A large wall mounted TV and three 27" computer monitors completed the picture. Janet's room had a TV like mine and a desk with computer work station and monitor. She also had an easy chair and a lockable closet. In the closet were two locked file cabinets and several racks containing our sex toys and costume wear. None of this I felt was appropriate to share with daughter Helen. All of this needed to be dealt with and it would take me a while before I decided what to do with it.
After I divided up the jewelry I had Helen and my two daughter's in law over on a Saturday and we packed all of the public clothing items into large cartons for their use or for donation to the Good Will. By the end of that Saturday the public side of Janet's apparel was gone. Her pictures would remain for some time.
