Chapter 8
Illusions
Ben went in to the kitchen and noticed the back door was open but the screen door closed. The slight movement of air through the opening smelled of earth, grass and flowers. The musty smell dissipated quickly and he took a couple of deep breaths. Jean rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“I opened the windows in the bedrooms to let the place breathe some and clear the air.” She said and then noticed him standing at the rear doorway of the kitchen. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle giving him a hug. He crossed his arms to lay his hands on her arms and squeezed back.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this.” She said. She felt him sigh.
“I know I wouldn’t.” he said. She released her hug and put one hand on his left shoulder to turn him. He did and their eyes met for the umpteenth time. She knew her love was genuine as was his but also knew she wouldn’t be as attractive or full of vitality to pleasure him some day. He registered the slight sadness in her eyes and leaned over to kiss her. When he pulled away, he smiled.
“What’s the matter honey?” he asked. She tried to look deeper into his eyes wanting to understand why their relationship was happening and why she felt so happy and content yet disquieted about the nature of it and their future in it.
“Right now? Nothing. I can’t remember a time when I have felt so at peace and so contented than I do when I’m with you. But I must admit something.” She said.
“What’s that?” he asked curiously.
“I won’t always look like this or feel this alive. There will be a day when I can’t even make love to you. I can only give you what you need Ben. I can’t give you what you want.” She looked into his eyes. He had the look of a man who’d been stunned with a phaser.
“I can’t believe that! You’re what I want.” he protested. She shook her head.
“I’m what you need. What you want is a life-long wife who’ll build a new family and grow old with you and have grandchildren playing at your feet.” she said. His head shaking slowly. “In a few years or ten, will you be happy screwing a sack of doorknobs or rubbing the bunions or feeding me and cleaning me up when I’m too old to do it myself? The hard reality is I’m happy with what I have right here, right now and I want to enjoy our love for as long as I can.”
She stood on her tip toes, wrapped an arm around his neck and pulling him down to her, kissed him deeply. When they parted, both were a little breathless.
“I guess this means we’re staying for the weekend anyway?” Ben asked. She responded with another kiss then pulled away, turned and went to a closet. She opened the door and pulled out something he couldn’t see. When she turned, it was a Swiffer Jet. She walked up to him and handed it over.
“You get to start with the floors.” She said and went back to the closet. With a half-smile on his face he went to the bedrooms to get started.
Twenty minutes and a few wiping sheets later, the oak wood floors in both bedrooms and the short hallway were done. He kept his boots on since he was backing out of the rooms to prevent tracking dirt on the clean surfaces. He threw the trashed wipe pads into the garbage can at the end of the breakfast bar counter separating the kitchen and living room when he noticed Jean wiping down the walls and shelves in the kitchen. He stopped and watched her bent over wiping a spot on the front of a cabinet door at the sink. She stopped and looked behind her.
“No checking out the boss! Yet.” She said with a grin. Ben raised his hands in mock protest and went to work on the living room floor.
After finishing the floor Ben came back to the kitchen.
“Ready for me in here?” he asked.
“It’s all yours. I’ll take care of the living room dusting and the bedrooms. You get the bathroom this trip.” She said.
“You’re the boss!” he quipped and slapped her butt as she passed him to the living room. Jean stopped at the threshold to the living room and removed her boots. Picking them up she put them by the door and began to dust the furniture and wall hangings. Ben completed the kitchen after removing his boots and put the sweeper away in the closet. He saw a bucket with the familiar tools of a bathroom cleaning set and picked it up along with a couple of bottles of cleaners then went to start his next task.
A few minutes later Jean looked in on Ben and saw him cleaning the toilet and smiled. What a wonderful man this was.
“You’re looking really sexy there stud.” She said with a breathy sultry tone. He looked up and screwed up his face in a grimace.
“If that’s what I look like in your eyes while cleaning a toilet, then it’s worth it.” He said. She blew him a kiss and went to dust the bedrooms.
After all the cleaning up had been finished and the equipment stored back in the closet, she went out to the old Baja racer she called a Puma to retrieve one of two electric coolers.
“Honey.” She called out. “Would you get the other cooler from the ATV please?”
“Sure.” Ben replied. He put his boots back on and went out to get the second cooler. Back inside, he put it on the floor next to the refrigerator careful not to crush the 12 volt power plug so she could unload it and went back out the Puma to retrieve their packs and shotguns.
“I hope we didn’t leave these out there too long.” She said opening the second cooler.
“Should be okay. They were plugged into the Puma.” He said.
“Yeah but even so, they don’t cool very well if left out like that.” She said and sniffed at the lunch meat to check if it was still good. Satisfied it was, she put it and the rest of the contents away in the refrigerator. “You want a hard lemonade or a wine cooler?” she asked.
“Hard lemonade please. I’m going to plug the Puma’s charger in to top off the batteries.”
“Okay. One cooler coming up and thanks.” She said.
Ben uncoiled the electric cord from its storage bin on the Puma and plugged it into the wall outlet on the side of the cottage. He heard a loud click and a bit of a hum from the charger on the Puma. Satisfied it was OK and working correctly, he walked around the little house evaluating the exterior. If his other decision was to be realized, he’d have to make sure this place wasn’t a fire trap or ready to collapse. Upon closer inspection of the base framing sitting atop the pylons, he was pretty sure this place wouldn’t take a remodeling before it caved. As he neared the back door of the cottage, Jean opened the screen door.
“Got your lemonade here hon.” She said handing it out to him.
“Thanks.”
“What’s so interesting under there?” she inquired. Ben took a long pull of the drink before answering.
“Termites and or rot.” He said and downed the rest of the bottle. She looked at him in surprise to his answer more than his action.
“Is it Bad?” she asked quietly. He nodded slowly then knelt down and pointed to a point in the underframe.
“Bad enough. See here?” he began. She knelt beside him and looked where he was pointing and nodded. “This whole base frame is in bad shape.” he said as he poked his pen into the wood. The pen sunk in deeper than she thought it would be able to and gasped when it just crumbled away. He saw her astonished expression.
“The house will fall apart?” she asked fearful she already knew the answer.
“I’m afraid so.” He said sadly. “I don’t think it can be remodeled to be lived in. It’s been here since ’55 and with the damp ground, I’d say the rot is worse further underneath where the air flow isn’t as strong.
She stood and moved over to the back stoop and sat down heavily. She blew out a sigh and shook her head.
“It didn’t look like it was all that bad.” She said looking out over the field. He came over and sat next to her putting an arm around her.
“I know. Termites work inside the wood and tunnel through it so you don’t see where they’ve been usually especially where the surface of the wood is exposed to the elements. Rot on the other hand works from the outside in. It looks fine on the outside nearer the walls outside so I suspect both are at work here.” He said.
“There’s nothing we can do can we?” she said in an almost defeated tone. He shook his head.
“We can salvage the flooring that isn’t damaged too much. Maybe some of the door mouldings and baseboards. The windows and doors too but not much else of the structure itself.
He turned to look at Jean. She had the look of a woman stricken. He pulled her close and she laid her head on his shoulder.
“I couldn’t live in this place as it is.” He said. She raised her head and looked at him.
“What do you mean?” she asked. He looked out over the field.
“I mean I couldn’t move in with the termites. They’d run me out eventually. Personally I think a new place could be built. If I were to move here that is.” He said then turned to look at her expression. Her mouth was open and she blinked her eyes when he smiled.
“You’d move down here?” she finally managed to ask trailing off with a squeak.
“Can’t think of the better reason not to than to be close to you. I could move down here. I can’t imagine not being with you right now. Besides my sister, there’s nothing to keep in North Carolina. I stayed because I didn’t know where else to go. Colorado would be nice but I couldn’t make up my mind at the time.” He said.
Jean threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight to her. She let go suddenly and jumped up and down spinning around hugging herself in absolute joy. Ben stood and grabbed her in his arms and hugged her tight to him. She wound her arms around him and raised her face to his. They kissed passionately for a long moment. Their hands drew over the others body.
She pulled away and held him at arm’s length and looked him directly in the face. “You really mean to live here with me don’t you?” she said. It was more of a statement than a question. He nodded.
“I think our problem with the rest of the world can be solved this way. I live here when I need to in order to protect your reputation. When relatives visit, I’m here working for you. When nobody is visiting, we visit each other. The new place is looked after and you still get to keep everything. Simple really.” He said matter-of-factly.
She gave him a wry smile and started backing him up the steps into the kitchen. Once inside she removed her boots and socks then untied and removed his. She stood and began unbuttoning his shorts as she knelt in front of him on the floor. He looked down at her while she worked on removing his clothes. He shrugged his shirt off and peeled his t-shirt off. He stepped out of his shorts and boxers and took a step back. She stared at his physique and his growing shaft. He stepped back again and she crawled on hands and knees toward him.
“I feel like I’m the prey.” He said. She smiled a wicked smile then leapt to her feet and charged him. He deflected her right arm causing her to start to spin around. He caught her as her momentum caused her to come off balance and was now facing away from him with his arms wrapped around her pinning her arms to her sides. He leaned over and nibbled on her ear lobe then kissed her neck. She wiggled some but the effect of his attentions on her erogenous zone calmed and distracted her. In no time at all, she was starting to pant.
“The prey becomes the predator.” He said and began to move his hands over her breasts. Her breath caught as he squeezed her left breast then rubbed her large nipple through the fabric of her tank top. Both nipples were standing at attention and the light touches he gave them making them strain harder against the fabric. She let out a breath and sucked in more air. Raising his right hand to clamp firmly around her throat without constricting her air or blood flow, he held her head in place as he played with her right nipple with his left hand. Moving his fingers around the large nub, he circled it a few times. Suddenly he took it between his finger and thumb and pinched it at its base firmly. Her eyes went wide and she gasped as her knees buckled. His arm around her middle and his hand on her throat holding her up he dragged her to the couch and gently laid her down. She was panting.
Quickly Ben undid her shorts and pulled them off along with her panties. She couldn’t resist as she was caught in her own mini orgasm. Her panties were wet with her scent. He lifted her up and peeled her top off. She fell back to the cushions and he placed a hand on her left breast, massaging it, teasing it while he spread her legs and licked her bald clit. She jumped at the sensation and gasped then relaxed. He licked her slit from end to end. Each time she came closer the abyss.
He pushed his face in and sucked her clit into his mouth and massaged the hard nub with his tongue. Reaching up with his other hand, he squeezed and kneaded her breasts avoiding contact with her nipples. Sticking his tongue into her cunt as deep as he could, she sucked in a breath and held it. He didn’t know if she held it in anticipation of his next move or the sheer joy of the feeling. He then lifted her legs to drape over his shoulders and took a long lick from her anus to her clit and back. He did this several times bringing her as close to her climax as he dared. Suddenly he sucked hard on her clit and pinched her nipples hard while pulling on them. She screamed out his name as she was pushed over the edge. Her body shuddered. Her breath shuddered. Her mind shuddered and went blank, consumed with her pleasure.
Her mouth hung open as she panted harder. Ben saw the fluttering and contractions of her abdomen and felt the muscles in her legs tremble as they rested on his back and shoulders. Her eyes were glazed over but didn’t shut. He kept up the hard sucking vacuum on her clit and flicked it with his tongue as he rolled her nipples between his fingers to prolong her orgasm. She seemed to stay in it longer than she had previously before she started coming down.
The fluttering and convulsions slowed as did the trembling. Her breathing was returning to something like normal but was still rapid though not as short cycled as a quick panting. Her eyes took on a sleepy look. When he released the suction on her clit and the pressure on her nipples, her breath caught again at the sensation. Ben raised up on his feet and kept her legs pushed back and spread as he guided his cock to her waiting honey pot.
He slid in easily choosing to enter her fully in three thrusts instead of one. He wanted this for her and she offered no resistance indicating her state of relaxation. He felt her weak contractions around his shaft as he pumped in and out of her. His strokes came quicker and harder as his passion rose. Here was a woman who loved him and wanted him as hers. The thought penetrated his passion riddled mind and began to pump harder.
Jean was in absolute bliss. She saw nothing but white in her mind as her orgasm controlled her. As he controlled her. As she came down from the experience, she began to have the feeling of climbing once again. A feeling of fullness registered somewhere and she was pushed again toward that white bliss. She almost wanted control but the bliss she was feeling told her to submit to it. To him. To the pleasure she was receiving. She did and the ride to the top was once again taking over.
Ben was pumping in and out harder now as he pounded into her with his cock. Her pussy began to constrict around him again in time with his retractions. His pubic bone was hitting her swollen clit on each thrust. Each time he thrust in, her body rocked with each impact. Her breathing came in moans interrupted by each thrust. Panting and groaning, Ben was coming close to his own climax. Jean’s pussy began to clamp down harder and harder as he recoiled to thrust again. Soon her belly tightened, her body went stiff as she was about to jump into the abyss again. A few more thrusts and she was gone. Her body wracked by convulsions. Ben was at his limit of endurance against her contractions and thrust in hard one last time to lock their bodies together. His cock erupted inside her and his convulsions forced his tired muscles to press his pubic bone harder into her now abused clit. Jean howled in ecstasy with the quivering, involuntary convulsions squirting a large amount of girl cum. With legs quaking, Ben threw his head back and yelled out as he pumped his cum deep into her.
Each was gasping for air as if they’d run a hundred yard dash. Her body was shaking and glistened with the sheen of sweat. Her hair was plastered to her face and could charitably be described as disheveled. His body was drenched and his legs trembled straining to hold him up. His left knee was beginning to feel like it was on fire and finally gave in slumping to the floor. Her legs, still trembling, just lay atop his shoulders where he sat, neither having any control of their strained muscles. Both still breathing hard but starting to come down, he gathered up his strength to lift her legs off him and let them set on the couch. Without them helping to prop him up, he slumped back and laid down on the cool floor. It felt good as the floor drew the heat from his overheated skin.
Jean barely noticed her legs were being moved. She barely felt her feet touch the cushions of the couch. She barely felt anything but the bliss that had consumed her. She thought she opened her eyes but couldn’t see anything but white. As she became more aware of her surroundings, her eyes began to focus on the white ceiling. Feeling came back to her in a rush. The rushing sound in her ears subsided. Her heartbeat slowed as did her breathing. Another minute later, she felt so wonderfully tired as the ache between her legs began to subside. She moved slightly trying to get a feel of how to sit up. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea but tried anyway. She raised her head a little and looked down her chest to see she was on the couch. She felt a hand brush hers and she tried to grab for it. Two, then three times she felt it but couldn’t grasp it. Finally she got it and held on as tight as she could in her weakened state.
“Ben?” She said in a breathy whisper. No answer came. She tried again and forced it into a loud whisper. Still no answer. She listened and heard nothing but her own breathing and heartbeat in her ears. With sudden alarm, she realized Ben was laying on the floor. The jolt of adrenaline from fear gave her the wherewithal to sit up and find him in just that state. His eyes were closed and he was laid out flat on his back. She rolled over trying to get off the couch. She slid instead and her face landed in his crotch with her legs still hung up on the cushions. Fearing he’d passed out or something, she ignored the ironic position and with another try, dislodged her rubbery legs from the couch to the floor next to him. She turned and crawled around looking for any signs of trouble. She was now fully awake as her nursing training kicked in fearful something had happened to him.
Laying almost atop him, Jean put her hands to his face and used her thumbs to gently open his eyes. She was relieved when his pupils constricted from the sudden exposure to light. She laid her head on his chest to rest and just listened to his heartbeat and breathing. They were normal. He was just resting she concluded.
“Sorry if I gave you a scare my dear.” Ben said in a low soft tone. She jumped as if bitten.
“You damn near gave me a heart attack!” she scolded. Ben chuckled weakly.
“Figured you were in better shape than me and I’d be the first to get one.” He said.
Jean shook her head and laid it again on his chest. She gave his chest a weak punch with her fist before opening her hand and running it over the spot in a soothing gesture. Tears spilled from her eyes onto his chest. “Don’t ever say that.” She said sniffling. He reached up and laid his hand on her and gave her a few pats on her back to let her know all was okay.