First we rented a lovely apartment, so we could get our jobs going, and look for a house. We found the perfect house about three weeks ago, and closed on it yesterday. It sits at the end of a cul-de-sac. A large privacy fence surrounds the backyard and in-ground swimming pool. The lot is large, and there lots of trees and flowering shrubs. The house has four bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a gorgeous family room.
Weāll move in on Monday. We celebrated by making our favorite dinner at home; big thick steaks marinated in a wine and spice mixture of my own creation, fat hot baked potatoes, a crisp Italian salad with a sharp but sweet vinaigrette, and a good red wine. And after dinner, of course, we had sex on the sofa before the fireplace. Afterwards, he carried me to the bedroom, where we made love again. Slowly this time, deliberately, and ultimately satisfying. I heard him murmur, āI love you so,ā as we both drifted into a satiated sleep.
* * *
Four years earlier, I was a struggling single mom. My husband had died just two years before of a sudden unexpected heart attack. One of those things, I guess, as he had been a health nut before he married me, and had jogged and pushed-up and sat-up and was as robust a man as you could imagine. At his death, his weight was the same as the year he had graduated college. His body was firm and strong, and oh how I did enjoy his body. He was a wonderful lover. His hands were strong and confident. His lips were sweet and playful. In bed, he was inventive, considerate, and enthusiastic.
I shared his enthusiasm. He had liberated my libido after our marriage. I had been raised in a rather repressive household. My mother had told me sex was the womanās duty, and the way she phrased it, not a pleasant one. It made babies, and kept the man happy. A woman needed to submit and endure. If Mother had ever enjoyed sex, she never let on.
But I found out soon that pleasing my husband pleased me in ways I had never dreamed existed. And the more I enjoyed it, the more he enjoyed it. He had to convince me that he loved kissing and licking me ādown thereā, as I would put it blushing. And the more I loved him doing so, my back arching in orgasmic convulsions, the more he would spur me on to climax after climax. And then he would mount me, and his manhood would fill me. He would be atop me, his weight pleasantly pressing down on me, as he entered me, took me, and raised me to heights of passion Iād never experienced. Heād encourage me, whispering words of passion, of love, of heated lust that made me desire him more and more. And then his face would twist, and I would feel him release inside me, filling me with his strong liquid heat again and again and again.
Or I would please him with my mouth. How I loved the feel of his hardness between my lips. I loved how the thick vein running the length of his manhood would throb against my tongue. I found his scent of arousal irresistible and the taste of his essences intoxicating. Sometimes, he would spend his passion in my mouth, and I would swallow him happily, loving the thick viscous feel, the strong musky taste. His pleasurable groans were music to me, making me even more passionate towards him. Heād gently hold my head, moving his hips slowly (or quickly, as the mood struck us), and his voice, husky with desire and breathless with his need, would encourage me and say slightly naughty things that fired my imagination and stimulated me even more.
The way we loved was by turns fierce, passionate and desperate or slow, soft and deliberate. Just over a year after our marriage, I discovered I was pregnant. He was thrilled, and spoiled me terribly during the pregnancy. For hours he would massage my swollen feet. Heād carefully rub warm oil over my swelling breasts and turgid rounding belly. Smiling gently, as his hands soothed and caressed my flesh, he would tell me how lovely I was even though I ballooned to the size of a cow. When I began to lactate, heād carefully suckle my tender nipples, teasing me about how he was testing for flavor and butterfat content.
Our son was born on during a blustery night in December, two weeks before Christmas. The air was bitingly cold, laced with sharp darts of sleet. He was calm as he negotiated the icy roads to the hospital, and stayed with me during delivery. His voice always calm, encouraging, loving, and soothing. Some hours later, I was holding a tiny thing that bawled indignantly, and he was the most beautiful thing Iād ever seen. I put him to my breast, and the loud howls ceased as he took his first nourishment from my living body.
My husbandās face glowed as he looked down on us.
Those were the good years. Christmases, with us both laughing in exhaustion as we tried to assemble tricycles, air-hockey games, or electric trains. Saturday mornings, when Iād come downstairs and find them both asleep on the sofa, the baby on my husbandās belly safely enfolded in his fatherās strong arms. When he wasnāt working, and heād see me nursing the baby, heād kneel by my rocker and watch intently as the baby fed at my breast. Heād tell me how much he loved me, and weād often make love as soon as Iād put the baby down.
Little League, Father and Son fishing trips, training-wheels, Cub Scouts, PTA meetings, all came and went. My son grew up under his fatherās firm but loving hand into a handsome young man. I adored them both, and was loved unreservedly in return. Soon came high school, girls, and cars though not necessarily in that order.
James, my son, was a good student. Well behaved, smart, polite, and athletic like his father, James was popular with his classmates, his teachers and his coaches. He was a star fullback, ran track, and played catcher for his high school teams, lettering in all of them. Girls were drawn to him like moths to a flame. He dated more than a few, but none seemed to catch and hold his interest for very long. He graduated third in his class, and had a variety of both academic and athletic scholarships to choose from.
After Graduation, James and his dad would spend hours pouring over catalogues and recruiting letters. We took weekend trips to several schools where James was courted like a visiting prince, and my husband and I were assured of how well James would be treated. We all three discussed the pros and cons of various colleges and universities, but we let James know it was ultimately his decision.
Then, on that terrible day in June, six months to the day after Jamesā nineteenth birthday, our world collapsed.
My husband had gone jogging that morning. I didnāt accompany him that morning as I usually did. I donāt remember why now. Something silly I suppose, like a shopping trip with a friend, or some other silly errand. In any case, I was emptying the dishwasher when he returned from his run. He seemed unusually winded, but happy. I teased him that he wasnāt in his twenties any more, and that fifty was closer to him that forty now (he was 49 and I was five years younger).
He laughed, and hugged me tightly with a deep kiss that I returned. I loved him hot and sweaty. He said he was going to take a quick shower, and asked mischievously if I wanted to join him. I pushed him away laughing, and said Iād be up in a minute. James was out of the house, working at the summer job heād acquired in order to earn pocket money for school in the fall.
He tickled me, and headed up the stairs, winking at me over his shoulder. āIāll keep the water hot, sweet-cheeks,ā he said ginning over his shoulder. āJust donāt keep me waiting too long.ā
I stuck my tongue out at him, and laughed. I finished putting the dishes away, and hurried up the stairs. I giggled as I pulled my tee over my head, and unhooked my bra. Showering together was wet, sloppy fun. I peeled my shorts and panties off, and went to the door of our bathroom. I pulled the shower curtain aside, grinning.
He was leaning against the shower wall, his face ashen. His left hand had balled into a tight fist, and his right hand was clutching his chest. He looked at me, his eyes bright with agony. āCall,ā he croaked. āCallāā
His eyes rolled upwards, and he slid down the wall, the water spraying his magnificent body, to an ugly sitting position.
I screamed and tried to get him up. He was unresponsive. I ran to the bedside phone and dialed 911. They responded within minutes, although it seemed an eternity. I was holding him, still nude when the paramedics arrived. Gently, they pried me away, and someone considerately draped a robe around me.
They did everything they could, and did their best to reassure me. Even so, he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. I was hysterical. I couldnāt comprehend that the vital man I adored and loved was gone. Eventually they gave me a sedative, and I was unconscious when James arrived at the hospital.
James handled almost everything. The funeral, the crushingly empty days that followed, I moved through like a wan phantom, neither seeing nor comprehending the loss that had befallen me. My sister and her husband came to say with me for awhile, and I was grateful. My brother-in-law and James filed the will for probate, and handled the settling of the estate. My husband had a good job, and had provided well for James and me. The mortgage on the house was paid off, a trust fund for James had been set up, and I would have a steady income from our investments for quite some time to come. Iād have to continue working, but if James and I were not rich, we werenāt destitute either.