The Surprise 42

Copyright 2008-09 by Madengineer3

All rights are reserved. Copies of this story can be downloaded for personal use only.

Notice: When the word God is used as an expression in this text it is not meant to be blasphemous. It is an exclamation to God, not just a saying.

My name is Jim. For many years now I have lived like a hermit. Within the last two months things have changed almost completely. I liked solitude, and that is why I built my hunting cabin in the Adirondack mountains. It is not easy to find my place, since not even most of the good GPS units have detailed enough maps to cover the hinterland. That was just fine with me.

Then; things went in a very strange direction. It started out innocently enough. I had taken an early retirement from my business, selling it for a nice sum; after making a small fortune with a series of inventions that had radically changed the face of medical computing. Well, small was a very relative term. I had about three hundred fifty million in bonds, stocks, and the like. I wasn't anywhere the richest person around, but I wasn't poor either.

My retirement wasn't planned. Mary, my wife of thirty years had died suddenly in an automobile accident caused by a driver who was drunk and on drugs. My wife had been driving our daughter (Laura), her best friend Jane, and Jane's mother to the mall for some fun shopping. (I have never understood shopping to be fun. To me it is a task to do and get out of the way.) My wife wasn't the only one who died. Our daughter and Jane's mother also died.

My will to push ahead, since it was mainly for her that I had strived to build up our "nest egg:" simply had vanished. Most of my time now was spent on various hobbies. My most compelling hobby was that of collecting pictures of beautiful nudes. In essence I had settled into a semi-comfortable rut.

It was a call from my daughter's best friend Jane, who was in grad school, that changed everything.. Jane could have been a very pretty girl. However, she had been riding in the back seat of my wife's car when it was hit. The plastic surgeons had done excellent work, but the scars on her face, arms, and hands were still very obvious. While she didn't look like Frankenstein's monster, she had obviously been patched together. Jane had another drawback. In the six years since the accident she had become a very private, withdrawn, and obviously sad person. I hadn't actually seen Jane for about three years. We kept in contact by occasional emails..

Jane and I were friends, but neither of us really knew much about the other on a personal level.. After all she was about twenty-five years younger that I was. Jane was doing master's level work in engineering physics and had been having a rough time in one of her courses. She had seen the need to learn tensor analysis. The tensor analysis was causing her headaches. I, on the other hand, had enjoyed tensor analysis and soaked it up like a sponge. ( That may indicate why some people have considered me a bit odd. ) Jane telephoned me one day and asked if I knew anyone who was good at tensor analysis.. With no ulterior motive in mind I said yes, and told her that it had been one of my favorite courses. She asked if I could tutor her in it over winter break, and I said yes. Since Jane's school was 240 miles away, in Ithaca, New York, I had suggested that she join me at the cabin and use the guest room. Jane immediately thought that was a good idea, and agreed. . I had no idea where that simple decision would take me.

Now, in far Northern New York State winters can be very nice or very bad. The time frame separating good from bad can be measured in minutes and hours, not days.

Jane arrived late-afternoon on a Saturday. I helped her in with her luggage. I grinned and suggested that I'd put her bags into the guest room and then show her around the cabin. She agreed.

Ten minutes later, after showing her where her room, the bathroom, and stove room were located I led her back into the great room (my combination living room, dining room, and kitchen). I like things to be simple. A guy living alone doesn't need to have a fancy dining room and other such snob symbols.

"Have you had dinner yet?"

"No, I don't like to drive on a full stomach. A good meal tends to make me drowsy."

"Me too. What would you like for supper?"

"I don't have any preferences. I need to ask a stupid question, am I supposed to call you Uncle Jim like I did when I was little, or is there something you prefer?"

"I'm not fussy. You can call me anything, except late for dinner."

At that she grinned and said, "I just call you Jim then. Thanks! What would you have had for supper if I hadn't arrived?"

"I guess I would have heated up the pot of stew I made yesterday. I also baked fresh dark bread to go with it. We have lots of other things to eat, what would you like?"

"I've always loved good stew. Is there enough for both of us to have some?"

"You bet! Hot stew, fresh bread, and good butter coming up. What do you like to drink with your meals. We have water, milk, coffee, tea, and other assorted beverages."

"What would you drink if I weren't here?"

"I'm partial to good heavy beer! The brand I like is Yuingling. It is brewed in the oldest continuously operating brewery in the United States. It is better than any other beer I have ever tasted."

"The beer sounds good! I'll go get into fresh clothes. The ones I have on are uncomfortable after several hours of driving."

Twenty minutes later the food was at serving temperature and Jane had rejoined me in the great room. I pulled out her chair for her to sit down.

"You know, Jim, that is the first time in several years a man has held my chair for me. It is a nice change."

"I was brought up to try to be a gentleman. It is not proper for a lady guest to seat herself at a table, especially in my home."

"Thank you."

For a moment I thought she was going to cry.

I served the food and then gently asked her; "why did my holding your chair seem to upset you?"

"It's a long story, Jim. Maybe sometime I will tell you, but right now I don't want to get depressed."

We enjoyed a wonderful meal. By the time I had finished the dishes and gotten the fire set for the night Jane was almost asleep sitting in one of the old wing chairs that I have in front of the fireplace.

"Jane, you don't know it, but you have done me a real favor. It has been years since I have shared dinner with any woman. It has been longer since I have had the chance to simply sit and have a conversation with a pretty woman who is also very intelligent."

"Am I to understand that you have no regular female friends?"

"No, since my wife died I've never met anyone who I could really enjoy talking with. I would do the memory of my wife harm by just having a woman visit just to have a woman here. I can't do that." I needed to change the subject before I got myself into very hot water. "You have had a long day! Why don't you take a nice hot bath or shower and go to sleep for the night. We will have plenty of time to tackle the math over the next few days."

At that she smiled, got up and went to her room. I spent another hour in front of the fire and then went to bed.

The next morning I was awakened by a wonderful smell. I smelled good coffee, corn pancakes, and bacon. The aroma was wonderful. At first I thought I was dreaming, but the longer I pondered it the more real the smell's became. I got up, dressed, and went into the kitchen area of the great room.

"Good morning Jim, how did you sleep? You don't mind me cooking do you?"

"No, but how did you guess what I liked?"

She smiled, "I looked for where you kept your markers in the cookbook. There were more grease stains around the corn pancake recipe than the other breakfast things. Since I love corn pancakes I thought I'd whip up a little surprise. You're not mad at me for doing that, are you."

It was my turn to smile, "No, I am actually rather flattered that you would take the time to do this. It is very kind of you."

The food was delicious. We mostly talked about the area that my cabin was in and the fact that I had purchased a very large plot of land so that I had no neighbors any closer than two miles in any direction.

After I cleaned up the dishes I suggested that we start in on the math. I got out a pile of scrap paper and several pencils. We sat down at the kitchen table and got started.

"First of all, I want to go back over vector cross products with you. You have no problems with them do you?

"No; cross products are simple. I see exactly what they are doing. Why do you want to start out on something so elementary?"

"Because a vector cross product is a zero order tensor! When we start with a vector cross product we can then move up logically to the higher order tensors in a rational way. To just jump into tensor analysis is a bad way to try to learn the subject.. If we start this way you'll get a feel for tensors, and that will make learning the math much easier."

"Wow, nobody ever told me that before! I think that this is going to be very helpful."

Except for a couple of bathroom breaks we worked until we couldn't concentrate any more. When we finally looked up at the clock it was already after three in the afternoon.

"I think we should call it a day on the math. We can pick things up tomorrow with fresh minds. What would you like for supper?"

"Surprise me! You seem to have some of the same tastes in food that I do. I think I will take a short nap."

She headed to her room while I took two T-bone steaks out of the freezer. An hour later I had just finished removing my rice pilaf from the stove, and the steaks from the grill when I heard her come into the room.

"Wow, that smells wonderful. I didn't know you liked pilaf. Where did you learn to cook?"

"I've always liked cooking. My wife used to give me helpful hints and over time I got to be a relatively good at it." My voice must have given me away. I still have trouble talking about my wife. The room became very quiet while I finished putting the food and beer on the table.

It was quiet, until Jane broke the silence.

"I hope you won't be mad at me, but early this morning I looked through some of your big notebooks from the book shelves near the fireplace. You have a good eye for well taken pictures."

I was in a bit of a shock at that moment. Those notebooks held hard copies of the most beautiful nudes I had ever seen. My face must have turned beet red.

"Oh, please don't feel bad. I like good photography, and am a rather good photographer myself. We all have areas we think are beautiful that others don't always understand. But, in this case I think I can understand and besides that I like your tastes!"

I didn't know what to say. I think I actually had tears in my eyes. Jane looked concerned.

"I'm sorry......"

I cut her off. "Your comments about the pictures are an almost direct quote from my wife. You have no idea how few women can appreciate a man's appreciation for the female form and not feel threatened by it. It's only that your words brought back again the deep longing I have for her. She was my best friend as well as lover and helpmeet."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know.... The only father I had abandoned mom and me when I was less than three months old. I am still conflicted in my thougths about most men. Now, I don't put you in that catagory since I have seen how devoted you were to your wife and daughter. In time I may learn what normal is."

"Jane, The only place you will find normal is as a setting on a clothes washer or dryer. I have never met a "normal" person, and am not sure I want to. It has always been an observation of mine that the closer to genius a person is the more they live at, or over the dividing line between sanity and insanity. For example, I don't claim to be sane in the normal sense of the word. After all, how can I be sane when what I know as the real world, from the quantum mechanical point of view, seems to have nothing to do with the world I see around me?"

"Hmmm. That's an interesting thought. It had never dawned on me that my acceptance of quantum mechanics as reflecting how things really are colored my thoughts. But, as I now think about it I see what you mean."

Dinner went on with a lively discussion. After dinner I asked Jane what she would like to do. Would she like to read, watch a movie, play on the computer, talk, or what??

Jane surprised me! "Actually, if I won't embarrass you I'd like to talk to you about some of your pictures. You have an interesting rating system for photos and I'd like to see exactly how you evaluate them."

I must have blushed again.

"Oh, I didn't mean to embarrass you. We can ignore the pictures if you would prefer to."

"No, we can discuss them. Pick the volume you want to start with and we'll dig in."

She picked a volume that contained some of my favorite nudes. After coming over to the couch where I was sitting, and turning on a reading lamp behind us, she opened the book, and thumbed her way to one of my all time favorites. "You have a strange label on this picture. You have it labeled PMryWoooooofWowwww. What does it mean?"

My voice broke a bit as I started to tell her. "Start with PMry. It stands for Pseudo Mary, because the model looks a lot like my dead wife. If I had liked the picture just so-so the entire name would have been PMry followed by a number to indicate is was one of the many PMry pictures I have.. If the picture were more beautiful or exciting, it would have a string of "w"s following it. If the picture is outstanding the "w"s would be replaced with the word Woof. The next step up is to increase the number of "o"s in the woof. The step above that is to go to woofwow. When you reach the top end of the scale you end up with labels ending in WooooofWowwwww with the number of "o"s and "w"s telling you how impressed I was."

"That makes sense. I use a different scale for grading pictures of guys."

"You collect nudes as well?"

"Yes, wait a minute; one of my albums is in my luggage."

She all but bounded out of the room and returned momentarily with a three ring binder. Sitting back down she said:

"Let me open up to my favorite picture. I'll show you my grading scale."

The picture almost looked like a Greek god. Below the picture the label read, HN,Tp,NF+,gB. "My system is a bit more explanitory than yours. HN simply stands for hanging nuts. His scrotum is hanging down instead of all shriveled up like a large walnut. Tp stands for thick penis. He has some good width there. NF+ indicates that he has a very nice face, and gB stands for his great butt."

At this point I hoped that she wasn't too observant because I had a fierce erection that I was trying to hide. Hearing her talk about men with such obvious gusto made me think that she must be one really hot number at school.

She then really startled me. "I suspect that unlike many of your pictures you will find it interesting that I have taken many of my nudes. Various girls I know have wanted to have pictures taken of their favorite stud. I've been able to take the pictures for them with the only cost being that I can keep copies of what I have taken, as long as I do not share them around school, publish them or make commercial use of them."

My erection was now becoming close to unbearable. I had to add a comment. "You are right. I haven't taken any of the nudes I have collected. I've always wanted to, but have never gotten up the nerve to try to find a willing model. Please show me some of your other photos."

She turned to the second half of the book and showed me a few of her shots. They were framed and lit beautifully. She obviously had a wonderful eye as a photographer. Many of her shots involved men with their balls either hanging freely or in some form of BDSM ball stretcher. She seemed to be avoiding one section of the book. I finally decided to ask why.

"Why are you being so careful to avoid the pictures on the pages with the blue edges?"

It was her turn to blush. "Oh, those are just shots I got hold of while I was in high school. You were still living down where we used to live at that time."

"Can I see them?"

"Only if you promise not to get angry."

"I don't see why I should get angry; but you have my word that I won't."

She hesitated and then opened the blue section. The first pictures I saw were nudes of my wife, my daughter, and Jane. The biggest surprise was that there were a couple of pages of grainy, poorly shot, pictures of me either getting into or out of the shower or tub. In all those cases I was nude. On other pages there were pictures of me in my speedo swim suit. (As you know a speedo doesn't hide much.)

We both looked at each other with red faces, then I started to laugh. "I suspect that you didn't take the pictures of me. Was it Laura who took these shots?"

She nodded her head yes.

"Don't worry Jane, I'm not angry or upset. In some ways it is flattering that a pretty young girl would find an old guy like me to be attractive. I must say that I had never seen Laura without her clothes after her twelfth birthday. Both you and she are wonderfully beautiful creatures!"

Jane now not only looked like she was going to cry. She started sobbing. Not knowing what to do I picked up both photo binders and put them on the other end of the couch. I then moved over, put an arm around her shoulders and said:

"What's the matter honey? Can I help ease the hurt?"

After several minutes of crying she stabilized and started to talk.

"These pictures were taken just after Laura and I turned eighteen. It was about six months before the car crash. I haven't truly had a real date since then. The only reason a guy would want to take me out was to screw me, and I don't do that. I've never gone out with the guy I felt was worth going all the way with."

"So, have you picked out someone you want to do it with. If so, I hope he appreciates what he's going to be getting. You are smart, fun to be with, and (in my opinion) very, very pretty."

Jane turned red again and quickly said; "I think I should get to bed. I'm suddenly very tired."

I agreed and we put our photo binders away and headed to our respective rooms to get a good night's sleep. It would be nice to say I went to sleep immediately, but I didn't. The pictures of my wife, Laura, and Jane nude had made me incredibly hot and bothered.. I got out my favorite vibrator and filled a condom with more cum than I had ever remembered depositing in one before.

Sleep was good, and the dreams were even better. I would have to do the laundry soon. The sheets were going to need washing.

In the morning I got up before Jane. I decided to make a good coffee cake and make two bacon and cheese omelets when she got up. As I was doing this I looked outside the kitchen window. I didn't like what I saw. The glass looked like it was all warped. I knew the glass wasn't warped. That meant that it was ice buildup on the window. We had received an ice storm over night. I went to the cabin's front door. It opened with a lot of effort. It was then that I realized that every surface had between an eighth and a quarter inch of ice on it. We were effectively cut off from the outside world, and might well loose power at any time.

About that time Jane came into the great room wearing a bathrobe.

"The smell of the coffee woke me up. What are we having for breakfast?"

"Omelets, coffee cake, and coffee. At least that is what I had planned."

"That sounds wonderful! We seem to share some of the same favorite foods."

I cooked the omelets and we sat down to eat.

"You are really a wonderful cook, Jim. I love what you cook!"

"Thank you. Do you want to get back to the math again?"