Socs and Stocings

I would like to personally thank everyone who has been diligently reading this series. I'm sorry it's been a long few months since Chapter 2 came out. Between losing my job and moving, I haven't had much time to do anything! I hope you enjoy Chapter 3 of this story. I believe it is the best chapter yet.

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It was seven before I got home. I'd stopped to pick up groceries to make dinner. I shoved the door open with my hip and closed it with my foot. I dropped my purse at the landing of our townhouse and kicked my shoes off next to it.

"Bryan, I'm home!" I called out. There was no answer. I set the groceries down on the counter and strained to hear the television in the den. There was no noise. It came to my attention that most of the lights were off in strategic parts of the house. This made me curious. Bryan never thought twice about leaving lights on. He was careless in that way, much to my dismay. It was one of the things I nagged him for. So why after so long, was tonight the night he decided to be electricity-conscious? I approached the landing to the first-floor staircase. I squinted at the dark hallway at the top. One foot on the first stair, I called out to him.

"Bryan? Are you home?" I checked the time on the hallway clock. Ten after seven. Had he been detained at work? I scaled the stairway, peeking to my left and my right in the hallway at the top. Dark. I pushed our bedroom door open. The queen-sized, walnut, four-poster bed lay undisturbed, still adorned with the silver-embroidered, scarlet quilt and cushions. The door to our master bathroom was dark. I scratched my head but decided to change my clothes. I tossed my old clothes into the hamper and donned a casual white sundress. The light embroidery at the collar was a comfort. I'd had a similar dress when I was a teenager. Barefoot, I relished the feel of the carpet under my toes. I thought to check his study, perhaps he was on the phone and couldn't answer me. Exiting the bedroom, I was delighted to hear muffled sound coming from the study. I smiled, thinking of the wonderful dinner I'd make for him.

He shouldn't work after hours

, I thought. The study door came open easily at my fingertips, light flooded the dim hallway and...

The muffled sound was the sound of a man and a woman furiously fucking, without love in their faces, without so much as a hint of intimacy between them. The glow of the computer screen shone blue on Bryan's face. His cock was rigid and rapidly lost in the in-and-out rhythm of his tight fist. A bottle of KY massage oil sat nearby, the lid of which wasn't even secured. His eyes were open wide at the screen, his mouth open as his stuttered, heavy breathing caused his chest to expand and retract rapidly. My jaw hit the floor as I watched my husband spray hot sticky cum all over his flat-screen monitor. His groan rattled the foundation of our house. Aghast at the scene before me, my eyes opened and didn't blink. My hand flew to my mouth, trying to stifle a gasp that managed to escape despite my attempts to hold it in. This gasp was enough to snap Bryan out of his sex-trance. He stammered as he made attempts to hide his dripping erection from me. He rose from his seat, his pants falling to his ankles.

"Eve!" he called out my name, but all I could hear was the racket of my own heartbeat in my ears. His mouth moved but no words came out. I stumbled back into the hallway and then took off running down the stairs. I could hear him cursing from the upstairs hallway as I reached the base of the steps and clumsily... angrily grabbed my purse.

"Eve! Don't go!" He caught up with me before I could find my keys inside it. His hand gripped my upper arm as he spun me around.

"Let me go, you fucker! Let me go!" I struggled in his grasp, colorblind with rage!

"Eve! Stop! Stop it!" He screamed, trying in vain to calm me down.

"Let me GO! I'm getting the fuck out of here! You stupid asshole! Let me go! You-" I was reaching into my frazzled brain for names to call him but I only managed to reorder 'stupid', 'asshole', and 'fucker'. Finally my anger turned to intense bitterness and I collapsed in the foyer, yielding to tears. He dropped to his knees beside me, sitting with me. He had this look of dumb confusion on his face. It was as if he knew what he'd done, but couldn't figure out why it was wrong. I shoved his filthy hands away from me. They weren't just filthy because they were covered in his coagulating sperm and the massage lotion... they were filthy because they were, seemingly, better than my pussy.

"You stupid... fucker," I said quietly in-between sobs. "You... stupid..." I took deeper breaths, wiping my tears on the brim of my shirt.

He kept saying my name quietly... in whispers. Why was he trying to talk to me? He wiped his hands on his partially unbuttoned shirt and wrapped his arms around me.

"Please don't." I said, pushing him away.

"I don't understand," he said softly, sitting back on his haunches.

"What the fuck were you doing up there?" I asked.

"Well... Eve... you know what I was doing," he said nervously, looking at the floor.

"Yes but why! WHY were you doing it?" My anger flared up again.

"What do you mean why?"

"You goddamn fuck!" I said shoving him backwards. "You selfish-" I stopped myself as I saw the expression of utter confusion blanket his face. "Is that why?"

"Why what?"

"Why we aren't fucking, you JERK!" I was up on my knees now, my shadow over his face as he lay on his back, trying to keep the back of his head from hitting the bottom step of the staircase.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"OH! You've got some nerve Bryan Denton. Some fucking nerve! We haven't fucked in weeks! For WEEKS you've barely touched me! I mean-" I couldn't help but trip over my words, but the only question that came was a simple one. "What the fuck!? Do you just jack off all the time? Is that what you do?"

"Hey, it's a natural bodily function!" he said, his tone defensive.

"SO IS

FUCKING

, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!" I stood up now, kicking him in the leg with my bare foot. "Fine! You want to jack off! DO IT! HAVE FUN!"

I picked up my shoes, grabbed my purse and left the house. In the driveway, I managed to find the keys quickly. My body on fire with adrenaline, I shoved the key in the ignition and floored the car into the street. I didn't put on my seatbelt, didn't bother putting on my shoes once I got in the car, and didn't use my turn signal as I exited our development. I had no idea where I was going, I only knew I was driving. After a few minutes, I roared onto the highway. I fled west, but the nag of recent memory pursued me.

Before I knew it, I was speeding. Soon I was going nearly ninety miles an hour. The highway was mostly empty. Rush hour had long-ago ended. It must have been about eight-thirty when my car hit something on the asphalt. My tire screamed as it popped. I slammed on my brakes, making things worse. A car behind me swerved and managed to get into the adjacent lane. My car spun once and stopped at an angle facing the guard rail. Smoke rose from my tires as I took a moment to recover from the new shock of nearly colliding with the guardrail. The next few cars beeped at me but went around my tail-end. Frailty seized my hands as I maneuvered the car onto the shoulder. I took a moment to recover form the initial daze, taking deep, metered breaths.

Once I'd collected myself as best as possible, I squeezed over the center console of my front seat and out the passenger door. It was was almost pitch-black and I frowned at the damaged tire, barely visible in the intermittent flash of my hazard lights.

"Fuck! What am I going to do now?" I said aloud. The sick joke of walking directly in the way of a passing car crossed my mind. But I knew I was thinking out of frustration with the aid of adrenaline.

"It's just a flat tire," I kept saying to myself. "You can do this Eve," I told myself. I shoved over to the passenger seat, pulled on my heels, the wrong kind of shoes for the job... but I hadn't anticipated a flat tire after all. Plus, when any woman gets as angry as I was, she doesn't think about which shoes to grab as she storms out. I retied my ponytail and grabbed my keys from the ignition. I clunked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. A small red toolbox sat nestled against the inner hip of the trunk. I lifted it out, and fished out my mag-light from its rusty insides. I clicked it on and used it to brighten up the interior of the trunk. I lifted the flap of the trunk floor and heaved the spare tire from the gap. The jack came next. The rug dropped back down over the now-empty space as I held the mag-light in my mouth. I could smell the evidence of past use on the tire as I lugged it under my arm to the front of the car. The jack and toolbox clattered to the street. I leaned the spare against the car and dropped the mag-light into my blackened hand. I squatted to the ground and tried the bolts with my fingers, effectively singeing my fingertips.

"Fuck!" I screamed at the tire. Shreds of it seemed to have melted onto the pavement. I scooted the jack underneath the car and began pumping the car upward. Once I'd succeeded on raising it just about high enough, I focused the mag-light on the large toolbox and lifted out a four-way wrench. I worked as fast as I could. The first nut came off easily. The second was nearly stripped during the process of removal. And just as I began working off the third lug nut... as if the gods weren't already laughing hard enough at me... the black clouds above me gathered and it began... to rain.

I don't remember how many times I cursed, but if I were catholic, I would have spent all day at church atoning for each of them. I grabbed the flashlight, which grew increasingly harder to hold as the rain began to pour hard. I tripped around to the back of the car, shut the trunk and yanked my keys from the lock. I slid into the passenger seat as if I were stealing home. I eased off my shoes and observed my blackened fingers. I reached into the center console and pulled out a small pack of kleenex. I wiped my hands as best I could. As angry as I was at that second, I knew I couldn't get out of this alone. I sure as hell wasn't going to spend the night in my car, all wet, on the side of the highway. I huffed. The car's clock read nine-thirty. Who could help me at this hour? I sure as hell wasn't calling home.

I took a deep breath and reached into my purse for my cellphone. Opening it, I saw that I had missed eleven calls, all within the past hour or so. Big surprise, they were from Bryan. All... except one. The last call came from Bryan's parent's home phone. I hit the call button and listened to the phone ring.

"Eve?" came Jack's voice through the receiver. It was fraught with genuine concern.

"Hi," I said.

"Are you okay? Bryan said you left. Is everything okay?" I thought for a moment. Everything was not okay, but I didn't want to tell him what happened either.

"We had a fight. I had to get away," I said, the torrents outside pounding the car even harder.

"Well. Where will you go?" I thought of calling Tess... but I was almost afraid of going there in my current state. I knew there was a possibility I might do something rash. My silence must have unsettled Jack. "Why don't you come over here?" Thunder peeled overhead.

"I can't," I said.

"Why not? Where are you?"

"I was going west on the highway when I hit something and my tire went flat. I was in the middle of changing it but it started to rain." I frowned, wiping some water from my forehead.

"What mile-marker?" I could hear him moving some things around in the background.

"Jack, you don't have to come get me. I'll be fine," I lied. In truth, I had no idea what I was going to do.

"What mile-marker?" he asked again.

"The last exit number I saw was sixty-seven," I said.

"I'll be there in about fifteen minutes. Don't get out of the car. Lock the doors." He hung up the phone. I stared at the words, 'Call ended.' on the screen- baffled. I'd never done anything nearly as nice for Jack as he was doing for me now. Not that the occasion had ever come up. But, I knew, if it ever did come up, I would pay him back for this favor. As I waited for him, I tried my best to clean up. I pulled as much stray hair out of my face as possible, using up all the kleenex to get the wet, black rubber off my hands and out of my dress, though the latter of those seemed impossible. Before too long, a car pulled up behind mine. For a split-second, I was worried it was a stranger, but my interior light revealed that it was, indeed, Jack's wide figure approaching through the rain. I grabbed my purse and keys and opened the door. He held the umbrella high until I had could get out. I stepped against him under the small umbrella, locking my car with the automatic remote. His arm went around me and he hugged me to his side as we bobbed and weaved to avoid the fat droplets.

He opened the passenger-side door for me and I squeaked into the leather seats. He'd laid a towel out for me and the heat was going full-blast. I relaxed as the vents began drying my dress. I hadn't noticed before, but the rain had caused it to stick to my body. And since I wasn't wearing anything underneath, I might as well have been naked. I scrambled to cover myself with a spare towel as Jack dropped into the driver's seat. He didn't drive right away, instead he turned to me.

"Eve, I want you to listen very carefully to me," he said, looking me straight in the eye. I shivered... was it because I was cold? or because I knew Jack meant serious business? "Any time, you get stuck like this, I want you to call me," Jack said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"I have triple A Mr. Denton, I just don't have the number in my new phone." I smiled nervously.

"It doesn't matter. Even with triple A coming, I want to know you're okay." I was mute at those words. He merged the car back onto the highway, which, by now, was completely empty of traffic. I was astonished that he would care so deeply for me. I mean, sure I was his daughter-in-law, but he was treating me more like a biological daughter. I nodded to him, unable to answer since my lips were now ice-cold. I leaned back, feeling terrycloth touch my naked legs. The heat felt better and better. The car clock read ten till ten and it finally occurred to me just how hungry and tired I was. In the aftermath of the fight, I hadn't exactly remembered to eat dinner.

"We'll get you a hot bath and some clean clothes when we get back. I'm sure I've got something we can whip up for you to eat," he said, surely reading my mind. "Bryan said you left close to eight-o-clock."

Anger at Bryan displaced my pleasure at being out of the rain with someone who cared about me. I bit my lip to hold back a barrage of curses and insults.

"I didn't look at the clock," I said as we neared the Denton house. The ranch-style home looked gray in the attenuating storm. Jack repeated his courtesy of shuttling me under the umbrella to the entry-way door. Soon we were inside, where there was a large log in the fireplace, ready to burn. He removed his shoes and then set a course for the master bedroom.

"This way," he called. I followed. I expected to see Katherine any minute, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Mrs. Denton?" I asked.

"She went to a seminar in South Carolina. She'll be back day after tomorrow." He reached over the California king-size bed, retrieving a laundry basket that sat on the opposite edge. He pulled out a fresh towel and handed it to me. I cautiously pulled away the wet towel that concealed my otherwise exposed body. He offered me the towel but I missed it and bent quickly for it, blushing as I rose again. He looked at the floor, picking up the wet towel.

"Everything you need should be in the shower stall," he said, licking his visibly chapped lips. He strode from the room quickly. I promptly shut the door behind him. There was something odd about that moment. The exchange between us was awkward. I couldn't put my finger on it. I shook off the feeling and observed the bedroom. There wasn't a corner of this room that wasn't inviting. The bedspreads, pillows, and drapes were a rich plum color. Everything was clean, not a speck of dust in sight. All the clothes, decorations, and desk implements were organized surgically. I was afraid to remove my dress and leave it in the wrong place. I elected to hang it over the shower-curtain rod while I bathed. I peeled it away to find, much to my disgust, that some of the black tar-like substance had soaked through the thin material of my dress and onto my torso. I turned the water to the hottest temperature that I could handle and stepped under the jets. Along the wall were various shower gels, shampoos, and conditioners. All of them were expensive salon-quality types. I feverishly poured soap over my chest and stomach, trying desperately to remove the black char that clung to my skin. I rung my hands under the water, picking the crud out from under my fingernails before washing my hair.

I couldn't help but think of Jack's face as I'd dropped that towel. I shivered again... this time there was no explanation for it. Even under the hot water, my nipples hardened as my mind strayed... just for a second into the unknown realms into which most women wander when they're naked and alone... when they probe their innermost... deepest... darkest fantasies. Even for a split-second, I imagined him naked. But I paid for that moment when I thought of Bryan in the very next.

"Fucker," I said quietly to myself. I turned off the water and grabbed the closest dry towel. I dried off as best as possible inside the stall, then pancaked my hair inside the towel, shimmying my hands around it to try and dry it. Once I was dry, the towel was too cold for comfort. I peeked around the rather large bathroom, with its blue and tan mosaic tile and complexly-patterned wallpaper. My eyes rested on a fleece bathrobe folded neatly on top of an armoire against the far wall. I stepped out onto the bathmat, tolerably dry, and pulled the heavy fleece over my shoulders. I tied the belt and thought I could fall asleep right there, right then but my stomach began to growl. I scoffed. My body wanted to go to sleep, but the rest of me wanted fuel of some sort. I knew that if I didn't eat, I wouldn't be able to sleep, so I chose to visit the kitchen.

I expected to see Jack on my way down the hall, but he was no where to be found.

"Mr. Denton?" I said, just above a whisper. He didn't answer. I shrugged and stepped into the kitchen. At the very least, I could make some tea while I waited for him. I rummaged through the cupboards until I found a box of peppermint tea. It was my second favorite tea after Chai tea. I made ridiculous yummy sounds as I pulled a silver kettle from a nearby shelf and fired up the gas stove. I filled the kettle with water and set it on the burner.

What am I missing?

I thought.

Sugar.

I pulled open the cabinet that had just housed the tea, pushing things out of the way, reaching for a higher shelf. I could have easily pulled a calf muscle trying to reach that height. I huffed and continued reaching but the sudden presence of Jack in the kitchen startled me. His hand on my back, he reached with his free arm to retrieve the obscured sugar. The proximity of our bodies made me blush again. Now I was sure he'd seen a peek of my body when I bent over. My face burned.

"I just wanted some sugar for my tea," I explained nervously.

"Sugar is always in this cabinet," he said, smiling. I almost chuckled. He had that daddy smile that daughters come to know well. That smile is full, wide, and kind as if all the knowledge of life is contained behind those lips. And magically, the perfect advice appears anytime you have a problem or life's challenges present themselves.