Dan was a widower. It wasn't fair, he'd been married to Lizzie for only 7 months before Covid took her. She was one of the first in Spokane to be infected & although she'd only been 25, she'd succumbed due to an until then unknown GATA2 deficiency. It had weakened her immune system & caused her lungs in particular to be susceptible to the deadly virus. He hadn't even been able to hold her hand as she died, due to the strict quarantine procedures in place & had to keep in touch with her via an iPad.
The hospital staff, the nurses mostly, had been incredible. They'd worked hard to ensure Lizzie was rarely alone, they'd stayed after their already extended shifts were over, wearing uncomfortable full-body PPE that left them with dark bruises around their eyes & noses, & seeing little of their own families. They were usually the only people around to provide comfort to the dying, & the ones who got to know the frustrated & heartbroken families. Lizzie, sedated & intubated & only occasionally conscious from the day she was admitted to hospital, could barely communicate except by using the iPad keyboard & even that was unreliable due to the high levels of pain relief she was on.
For the last three agonizing weeks of Lizzie's life, Dan had leaned heavily on interactions with an Indian-American nurse called Saanvi. She'd been the constant, updating him on every attempt they were making to help Lizzie fight for her life, on any signs of progress or changes in her wellbeing. She'd been the one who'd commiserated with him about the future they'd imagined for themselves, the plans they'd had to start a family together, the home they'd chosen near close friends, & she'd been the one to shed tears with him when she'd called to inform him of Lizzie's death.
He hadn't been allowed to attend the funeral, the coronavirus lockdowns had meant strict isolation had been in place. The funeral home conducted a respectful & sober ceremony which was shared through zoom. There would be no post-service reception with family & friends, no hugs between Dan & his grieving inlaws, he'd felt absolutely alone. After the ceremony he'd downed a half bottle of Jack Daniels & almost hadn't heard the soft knock on the back door. When he'd cautiously answered it he struggled to recognise Saanvi outside of the context of the hospital & out of her PPE. She was wearing a mask made out of fabric printed with sunflowers & was holding a plastic container that he learned later contained some Aloo Gobi.
The 59 year old nurse expressed apologies for breaking the lockdown & showing up unannounced, but had known he was seeing out his bereavement alone & was worried for him. She expressed her condolences & even though she looked exhausted & had a thousand-yard stare from all the pain & death she'd been close to during that time, she'd told him to please, let her know if there was anything else she could do to help. Without a word he'd pulled her inside his house & started to pull her clothing off, desperate for human closeness, desperate to feel anything other than the pain & grief.
Saanvi had paused only a microsecond, remembering Jayesh, her husband of 41 years, & had looked at the sad, handsome face of the newlywed man grieving his wife. He'd only just turned 40 & was a widower. She'd smelled the alcohol on his breath & in a moment of compassion, & also, (if she was honest), sexual attraction she'd given in to her desires. She realized that secretly she wanted to do something crazy, at least once, before she returned home from her 18 hour shift to cook her husband dinner with enough leftovers for their next day lunches. She was exhausted by caring for others. She'd hungrily stripped the rest of her clothes off & most of his as well.
Dan had lifted her onto the granite benchtop & climbed up with her, where he'd gone down on her for more than ten blissful minutes before he removed the last of his own clothing & fucked her with the smoothest, straightest cock she'd ever seen. She'd never been as wet in her entire life, & had never cum on her husband's dick (who had no patience for foreplay & with whom sex was wholly unsatisfying). Jayesh was a fine husband, a good father, if traditional, but ever since that first night they'd been together (their wedding night, after their arranged marriage) he hadn't deviated from his technique, which was to get on top of her, stick his dick in & pound her with it as hard as he could until he ejaculated inside her & fell asleep.
Saanvi had tried to talk to her husband, gently, about the possibility of trying new positions & speeds & foreplay but he'd always been taciturn about these suggestions. To him, it implied his wife was wanton, not as pious as a good wife should be. His father had taught him that women weren't meant to enjoy sex, that it was a reward for the husband only. She had a few sex toys secretly stashed in their house but as her husband wasn't considered an 'essential service provider' & was now underfoot at home, she'd found it hard to slip away & find privacy to reach an orgasm. She was frustrated. For Saanvi, sex with Dan, even when he was drunk & depressed, had been a revelation. He'd brought her to orgasm twice before he'd cum on her stomach. They'd clung sweatily, stickily to each other for a while afterwards before he'd sat up, covered his face in his hands & said "sorry" before staggering out of the kitchen to another room in the house.
She'd wiped her stomach with a paper serviette, quietly redressed & returned to her car, leaving the gifted meal on the kitchen table. In her little hatchback she'd fingered herself in his driveway for a while, desperate to alleviate the still-burning heat of lust. In the end she'd retrieved a deodorant bottle from her handbag & had used it as a dildo, masturbating herself to a third, quaking, shrieking orgasm in the driver's seat of her car. She'd marvelled at her soaking pubic hair, a dark tangle of sticky juices from herself & some lingering from Dan. She drove home with the makeshift dildo still inside her, luxuriating in the secret encounter. She was now determined to live her life to the fullest & planned on seeking more sexual satisfaction, she was already making a mental list of men she worked with who might be open to such an arrangement. It would certainly help her get through the trauma of her current job.
Meanwhile, Dan made it through his depression. He focussed on work, he leaned on others. It hadn't been his idea to move to the house next to his oldest friends, Lizzie had insisted when they saw the place come on the market. She'd loved the idea of a close-knit community, & had even planned on asking Sabrina, his goddaughter, to babysit when they had the child they were planning. But since Lizzie's death, he'd been relieved he'd listened to her, although the house now seemed far too large for one person, he'd needed to have friends around him & Steve & Cassie had been great. They'd welcomed him into their covid-bubble & had invited him to weekly dinners. He'd enjoyed the distraction of playing darts with Steve in the garage, doing the dishes after Cassie cooked hearty, garlic-heavy homemade meals, & even helping his goddaughter with her physics homework (Dan was better at the subject than Steve).
Sabrina was a mostly well-behaved girl, growing into a lovely young woman. She took after her mother, slim, long legs, light brown hair & blue eyes. She enjoyed tanning herself by the pool, which he could see from the bedroom window on the second story. Shamefully, Dan looked forward to warm days when he could watch her (& her friends) sunning themselves, or dipping in the pool, & he'd tilt the blinds a little so he could sit unseen in the armchair & bring himself to orgasm, cumming in a handful of kleenex he kept at arm's reach for that specific purpose. But really, what was the harm? & he needed to distract himself since the tragic death of his wife.
So time passed, more than four years, & life went on, as it does. He grieved, he continued, & each day it became if not less heartbreaking, then at least a little easier to handle. He'd been thinking of putting the place on the market again, although he'd miss his friends, he wouldn't move far, but perhaps downsizing would be good. Everywhere he looked in his home he was reminded of Lizzie, she'd loved to decorate & most of the soft furnishings in particular had been her choice, to her taste. He'd dated, but nobody could replace Liz, & he was starting to think the place would always feel large & empty.
He was nursing a bit of a headache as he thought of this. A week ago, had been Sabrina's 18th, he'd been invited to the party her parents threw her, a lavish affair at the country club they belonged to. As godfather, he'd given a toast, & presented her with the gift he'd gone in on with her parents (Dan had paid the majority, perhaps grieving his own lack of children), a white BMW series 4 convertible. She'd squealed in delight & rushed around hugging everyone excitedly. He'd been pleased.
But then last night, as her parents had gone on a long overdue second-honeymoon to Paris, she'd thrown her own birthday party, inviting, it seemed, every young person in town. The whole night the place had thrummed with drunken teenagers, the smell of weed & vapes, the sound of breaking bottles, beer pong, throbbing bass music. Dan had put in headphones & cranked up the volume on his white noise app, determined to let the kids have their fun but even so, when he saw red & blue lights flashing outside at 4am he let out a sigh of relief that someone else had complained about the noise.
He was popping his third & fourth Advil of the morning when he heard a soft knock at the back door. He considered ignoring it. The knock returned louder. When he opened it, there was Sabrina, distressed & wearing nothing but her two-piece bathing suit, soaking wet. He was confused. At first he thought maybe she'd come over to apologise for the noise, but why wearing just a bikini? "Uncle Dan?" she said, "I've locked myself out! Do you have the spare key to our place?"
He sighed & invited her inside. "Taking a swim to relieve your hangover?" he joked, then realised it probably came out a little judgmental, so he tried to course correct, "a dip in cool water is probably one of the best ways to feel better. Let me get you a towel."
He wrapped her up in a big, fluffy bath towel & she dropped her ass down on the 3-seater. She was talking a lot, apologising for the party, saying it got out of hand, that she'd only invited some of the people, her friends, but they'd invited other people, who'd invited people she'd never even met. She was hoping Dan could let her back inside her house? The door had slammed in a breeze & she'd tried to get in through the bathroom window but hadn't been able to make it. She didn't want to bother her parents in Paris, actually, it would be really good if she could deal with this quietly, she still needed to clean up a lot of stuff inside & didn't want to worry them, they didn't exactly know about the party... & so on.
