Nana Cotton was soft and pretty as her name with a round, friendly face that Richard loved from the time he was eight and a half years old.
Now he was thirty-five and Nancy "Nana" Cotton was sixty-eight, but she was still soft-faced and lovely. She looked like she'd cry for you if you asked her.
But long ago, when he was eight and she lived two doors away, she would often babysit Richard, playing with him on the living room floor for a while before putting him to bed.
He couldn't pronounce the name Nancy and so he called her Nana. Except for Richard's mom, who thought it was funny, no one else called her by that name.
At eight-thirty sharp, she would grab Richard's little hand and lead him to his bed. He lay down on this pillow, face up, hands across his chest, and she would pull the covers up to his chin and then lean over and kiss him on the forehead.
"I love you, Nana," he would say, unless he was too tired to speak. And the next morning he would awaken with the sun streaming into his room and sometimes he would pretend Nana Cotton was lying there next to him.
After graduating from high school, Nana stayed at his house again but not as a babysitter this time. Some kind of bug problem - Richard was never sure what kind exactly - meant her entire home had to be tented and fumigated. Nana spent three nights in Richard's home while he husband was out of town on a business trip.
On the first night, Richard's parents went to bed early as they usually did, but he and Nana stayed up to watch a late movie together. They laughed about her experiences babysitting him and he blushed at all the stupid things he did growing up. At around eleven they went to bed.
He was still awake when he heard her coming down the hall. He followed her footsteps past his door. Then she stopped and quietly returned to Richard's room.
Nana walked into his room, stood there for a moment, then walked up to his bed and leaned over to kiss him, just like she used to do years ago. Her magnificent breasts pressed against the back of Richard's hands just as they always did. The heft of her warm tits on the back of his hands turned his cock hard and made it difficult to get much sleep at all that night.
On the second night of her stay, Nana again came into the room, but this time when she leaned down, he gave vent to his lust, turning his hands over and squeezing her breasts.
Nana was not upset. "Not so hard, sweetheart," was all she said and he eased his grip a little, feeling the lightning flash of desire burning his loins. She let his hands remain there, her breaths increasing a little. The next night - her last night in the home - she stayed away and, though disappointed, Richard stroked himself to a monumental climax.
In a few more weeks, he was off to school. His family moved across state shortly afterward and he didn't see or communicate with Nana Cotton for another twenty years. Then there was school. A job. A marriage.
That was when he received a phone call from his mother.
"Frank Cotton passed away last week," she said. Frank was Nana's husband. "You know dad had the surgery last Tuesday so we can't travel to the funeral. We're hoping you can go. Someone in the family should be there."
Richard changed a few plans, placed a last minute reservation and made it into town, but late to the funeral. He stood in the back of the church.
At the end of the service, an unknown man - probably a relative - stood up and invited everybody to the house. When Nana walked by on the way out of church, she did not seem to recognize Richard. This hurt him more than he expected. Nana's face was still soft but more lined than he remembered, her hair grayer and her figure fuller.
Richard was tempted to skip the dinner at Nana's home since he would know no one there. He decided to make a short appearance and at least reintroduce himself. He wondered if she would even remember him.
When he got to Nana's home, he saw the other guests feeding on the casseroles and cold cuts arrayed on the dining room table. He stepped into the queue, grabbed a plastic fork and paper plate, scooped up some potato salad, rye bread and meat and sat awkwardly on a chair with the plate in his lap.
"Richard," came a gentle, familiar voice. He looked up past the bountiful breasts to the soulful eyes of the first woman he ever cared for and lusted after. He managed to put the plate on the table, stood up and looked down at her. He was eight again and he began to cry.
"I hurt so much for you, Nana," he said and she wrapped him in her knowing arms, his tears falling on her shoulders.
She murmured unintelligible things and patted his back with a consoling touch, as if it was he and not she who'd lost a close family member.
"I'm so glad you came, Richard," she said. Her eyes were hazel and wide and open to understanding every kind of hurt. "I've thought about you often." She pushed him away and looked him up and down. "You've become a big, handsome man and not the boy I remember."
Nana grabbed a paper napkin and touched it to her tongue before wiping it along the top of Richard's mouth and along the side. "Potato salad is so messy," she said, blushing a little. He remembered that she would moisten a paper towel with her lips and wipe away Kool-Aid stains on his face when he was a boy.
"You must have come a long way," she said. "Where are you staying?"
"I don't know," Richard said. "I just got here. I'm sorry I'm late. I'll find a place in town."
"Nonsense," Nana said. "I have two extra rooms. You'll stay here and we'll catch up. Just like the old days. Okay?"
Just like the old days. He felt a familiar shiver though his loins. He could refuse her nothing. Richard nodded and she patted his arm lightly before moving off to speak with another guest. A few times he saw her look in his direction and smile.
Nana's daughter, Pagers, and her little girl, Chelsea, were also staying in Nana's house.
Richard remembered Pagers from three decades earlier. She was about four years older than he. Different gender. Different friends. They'd never had much to do with one another.
That evening after everyone left, the three adults reminisced about Frank Cotton, laughed about his perennial battles with lawnmowers and internal combustion engines, his gentle manner.
Richard could only recall the kindness of the short man with the Friar Tuck tonsure already in his thirties. He was quiet, soft spoken, but a mystery beyond that.
At about nine, Pagers leaned over her mother and hugged her, whispered something into her ear, then hugged her again. She turned to Richard. "I'm going to bed now," she said. "It's been a long day and Chelsea will be up early."
When Richard stood up to acknowledge her departure, Nana smiled. When Pagers closed the door to her bedroom, Nana went into the kitchen and brought back two glasses and a big bottle of scotch.
"My ice machine's trying to catch up," she said. "I hope you like it neat."
Richard didn't like scotch at all but he nodded and smiled as she poured two fingers into his glass.
"It wasn't exactly a surprise about Frank," she said, taking a long pull on her glass. "He'd been sick quite a while. I feel bad for saying it, but I was almost relieved when he passed."
Richard said nothing. Mostly he was surprised that this saintly woman drank alcohol and was clearly comfortable doing so. He sipped slowly and felt the heat warm his throat and slowly spread to his face.
Nana laughed in that non-judgmental way, natural like a mountain waterfall. "Not a scotch drinker, huh Richard?" She stared at him a long time while saying this. Her expression was warm as always, but more probing than he remembered.
