Mark and Sandra Thomas were by definition still newlyweds. At just under three years since their wedding they were still getting a feel for each other, and learning their way around the finer points of their relationship. It had been a very loving marriage, just as their long courtship had been. Romantic evenings filled with candle-lit dinners and moonlit walks on the ocean. To this point it had been a fairytale relationship in every sense of the phrase.
One of the dreams they had shared early on was to buy an old house far outside the city and renovate it. They had agreed on nearly every detail, right down to the dark green shutters on the windows and the rows of white and yellow flowers lining the driveway.
As their third anniversary approached, they found the perfect house. It was about and hour and a half outside of the city, and an easy commute for Mark. It needed a great deal of work, and was more expensive than they had originally planned for, but they were doing well financially. In the end they simply could not resist this chance to start working on their dream.
So that is how Mark and Sandra found themselves closing on their dream only two short months before their third anniversary. Within two weeks of signing, their lives had become a model of complete chaos, with a flurry of contractors and sub-contractors, decisions and deadlines; and they loved every minute of it. They were completely oblivious to everything but the end result; that perfect country home with dark green shutters and flowers lining the driveway.
Mark and Sandra had decided to live in one of the small bedrooms in their new home while they were renovating. Contractors were used for the larger jobs, but they insisted on undertaking several smaller tasks themselves so they could remain involved in the process. They often found themselves working late into the night, long after the contractors had left for the day, laying tile or sanding floors.
Almost a month into the renovation, Mark and Sandra started feeling the stress associated with it. The initial joy of realizing one of their biggest dreams was wearing thin. Tempers were shortening, days were grinding longer and longer, and their romantic life was taking a downhill turn. By the time the first âincidentâ occurred, Mark and Sandra hadnât been intimate for nearly two weeks. They hadnât been civil to each other in nearly as many days.
It was a Tuesday morning, as they would later recall. Mark and Sandra were both taking the week off from work to try and finish up some of their projects which seemed to be stretching way past reasonable amounts of time. Hammers pounding on the other end of the house woke them up around 7:30 am. Apparently the contractors were off to an early start. Hoping to reconcile, Mark reach over to touch Sandraâs shoulder, but she was already climbing out of bed, reaching for a clean, white tank top hanging over a chair by their bedroom door. She sensed his hand reaching for her and let out an annoyed sigh. She turned to face him, slipping the tank top over her shoulders, down over her full, white breasts, and finally resting at her hips.
âMark, you do the same thing every morningâŚyou reach over and try to grope me. Itâs getting oldâŚas old as this damn renovation. Sex is not going to solve our problems, and itâs certainly not going to get this place finished any faster.â
Mark now felt yesterdayâs anger creeping back in, picking up exactly where it left off last night when they drifted off to sleep. âDammit, SandyâŚare you going to parade around the house again today with no bra? You know it pisses me off, seeing all those sex-crazed workers gawk at you all day long. Canât you at least give me that one small courtesy?â
Sandraâs blood began to boil. In her mind she knew that was exactly why she had stopped wearing a bra, but Mark had no business telling her what to wear. âLookâŚitâs fucking hot working in this house with no air conditioning, and I donât have the patience right now to conform to your dress code.â She felt as shocked as Mark looked from her choice of language. Sandra was not the type of girl who went around swearing like a sailor. Mark wanted to say something, but he couldnât put the words together. He simply watched Sandra finish dressing, pulling her cut-off jeans up over her thighs and slipping on her white sneakers. She grabbed a hair clip from the dresser, angrily pulled her hair up into a pony-tail, and stomped out of the room.
Mark eased out of bed, still feeling the stiffness from the day before. Every muscle in his body ached, and he had to resist the urge to fall back onto the soft mattress. He walked slowly over to the chair by his side of the bed and picked up a t-shirt, slipping it on despite the protest from his upper body. He gazed out the window which overlooked the massive back yard. A few weeks ago he took in this view and imagined how beautiful it would look once he had a chance to landscape and manicure the bushes. Now he simply peered out and wondered when his own private hell would end. Suddenly he heard a door slam below and Sandra emerged, making her way across the lawn to the make-shift supply shed that sat at the edge of the tree-line in the yard. She was incredibly beautiful, her jean shorts complimenting her long legs, now perfectly tanned from their weeks of work. Her breasts, which only minutes ago had been the focus of their heated discussion, flowed gracefully up and down beneath her tight tank top. Even though her back was facing him, he could imagine how her nipples must be poking through the thin fabric, leaving nearly nothing to the imagination. Her beautiful dirty-blonde hair beat rhythmically down the middle of her back.
Mark felt his cock hardening in his boxers. His hand slowly moved downward, taking a firm grip around his shaft. For a brief moment he began to move his wrist in a stroking motion. Then suddenly he stopped. His anger returned, replacing the fleeting moment of desire that he had allowed to creep in.
âFuck it,â he said, âIâm not about to resort to that.â He finished getting dressed and walked out into the hall, toward the guest bathroom that he had been working on for the past two days.
Sandra slammed the shed door shut behind her, stirring up a cloud of dust and dirt from the floor. She leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm the anger that had been boiling up inside her. She didnât feel like cryingâŚ.god knows she had done her share of that over the past couple of weeks. She was beyond that particular emotion. She had now graduated from a great sense of frustration into pure anger. Everything that Mark did or said lately only shook the hornetâs nest inside her head, and she was realizing that she was rapidly approaching her wits end; with the house, the renovation, and most of all with Mark. Part of her knew that he wasnât the central cause of all this mess, but he was the easiest target. There was no gratification in getting angry at the house, or the contractorsâŚMark offered the greatest fulfillment in expressing her anger.
Sandra regrouped and started walking toward the far corner of the shed where paint was stored on a metal shelf. She was working in one of the downstairs roomsâŚa Study, she thoughtâŚand would need several cans of paint to get started. As she checked labels looking for the right color, she heard the door open behind her. She thought it was probably Mark coming in for a second round, and she felt the anger return to her once more. She spun around, ready to resume shouting, but realized that it was not Mark who had walked in. In the doorway was a muscular figure in a blue t-shirt and paint-dripped jeans. He had short, dark hair and chiseled features. She recognized him as John, one of the senior members of the work crew that had been here from the beginning of the renovation.
John seemed startled at first by her presence, but then quickly stepped in through the door and closed it behind him. He cracked a big smile, and told her good morning. Unassumingly, he walked over to a bench on the opposite side of the shed and began rummaging through some of the tools there.
It took a moment for Sandra to answer his greeting, and a few moments longer for her to break her gaze on this muscular, blue-collar man. Inexplicably, Sandra began feeling emotions that she had not had for weeksâŚa sort of heat emanating first from her midsection, and then gradually spreading to her hips, breasts and finally her face. She was thankful for the dark of the shed because she was sure her face was flushed at this very moment.