I walked down the front steps of my apartment and dropped my suitcase and overnight bag on the sidewalk. The moving van had cleared out a couple hours before and I had borrowed a vacuum from my neighbor to give the place a once over before I grabbed a quick shower and headed down to the sidewalk.
I was going home for a couple of months. The quarantine was coming, so my parents had offered to have their kids come home to ride things out with them. I was going to move back in to the room I had occupied as a kid, and my sister Bridget and her fiancee, Ethan, were going to be in the guest bedroom. We would all be working remotely until things settled down.
It didn’t make sense to pay rent on my apartment while I was gone, so I terminated the lease and stored my stuff.
My aunt Kell was going to give me a ride to the airport. Kell was a good soul and someone I loved dearly. When I finished grad school I got a job offer in a town not too far from her. In the five months I had been there we usually got together for dinner or a movie every few weeks. She was far enough away that we didn’t get together every week, but close enough that we could stay in touch. Kell was the youngest of my mother’s siblings, only eight years older than me.
She pulled up to the curb and I settled in for the 45 minute ride to the airport.
“Have you talked to Bella, lately?” she asked. Bella was my mom.
“Yes, about a week ago. She knows my arrival time and all that. Bridget is going to be the one picking me up at the airport. I talked to her last night.”
“I’m sorry to see you go. I haven’t seen much of you in five or six years.”
“I know. Hopefully this will blow over in a couple of months.”
I didn’t have a big sister, Bridget was two years younger than me and my only sibling, but Kell had always fulfilled that role, and we had been close. It had been tough when she had moved, which is why I had been excited to get picked up by an accounting firm near where she lived.
At the airport, she insisted on walking with me as far as she was allowed. We checked my bags at the counter and approached the line for security.
Kell hugged me.
“Jacob, I will miss not having you around,” she said, embracing me in a bear hug. “It’s been fun. I look forward to when you come back.”
“Me too, Kell,” I said. I choked a tear back and when we disengaged I could see that Kell’s green eyes were damp.
I got in the long line for security. Kell’s phone rang and she answered it as she walked away.
I turned back to the security line, shaking off the sadness. In a few hours I would see my family, and once this mess blew over I would be back here, and hanging out with Kell again.
Suddenly I heard Kell’s voice. She was walking quickly back towards me, holding the phone.
“It’s Bridget,” she said, handing me her phone.
“Hi Bridget,” I said, brightly. “I’m in the security line now. The departure list said my flight was on time, so I should be there . . .”
“Don’t get on the plane,” Bridget interrupted. “Gramps got Covid, Mom and Dad are going to ride things down at his place in Florida. The plans for convening at their house are off.”
“What?” I said. “Is he okay? I can’t stay at home?”
“He’s fine. He’s fitter than most thirty-year-olds. He’s mostly just got sniffles and a bad attitude. But no, you can’t stay at home, I’m sorry, I wish it were different. I was looking forward to staying with everybody.”
“But I broke the lease on my apartment. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“I already talked to Kell. You can hunker down with her.”
“What?” I said, looking at Kell. “She just has a studio apartment. I need to be able to work from home. She needs to be able to paint. We’ll be in each other’s way.”
“It’s a big apartment,” Kell offered, joining the discussion. “We have space. But privacy could be a challenge.”
“Right,” I said into the phone. “No privacy. You know me, I’m a pretty private guy.”
“We can set up screens or blinds,” Kell offered helpfully.
“But . . . there’s only one bed.”
“The couch is really comfortable. Plus I have a really big bed.”
“Jacob,” Bridget said. “Relax. It will be okay. You guys are close, aren’t you? Won’t you like being that close to her?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You know, there was that time . . .”
“That was five years ago, and we don’t talk about that.” I looked over to Kell, who had figured out what we were talking about. I was mortified that she would bring it up, but Kell giggled.
There had been this incident at the beach one night after my college sophomore year. Kell and I had gotten drunk and made out on the beach. That night my mom couldn’t sleep and went for a walk on the beach. When she found us, Kell had her hand down my suit and was stroking my hard-on. Her bikini top was off and my hands were all over her chest. It was sloppy and embarrassing.
Not that Kell wasn’t attractive, she was beautiful with a thick, gorgeous mane of curly red hair above a fit body that held enough curves to look good. And it wasn’t that we didn’t connect well, we had great chemistry. But she was my aunt, and you just didn’t have sex with your aunt.
When my mom caught us she turned her back and pretended she hadn’t seen anything. Kell was nonplussed and went back to stroking my cock, but I cut it off and we went back inside. The rest of the time at the beach, my mom had been distant and cold towards both of us.
When I got my MBA I had three job offers, one near my folks, one in Canada, and this one near Kell, just a couple hours flight from home. I had wanted to get out on my own, prove I could make it after living at home for so long, so the offer near home was out. I didn’t want to move to Canada and be over two thousand miles away, so I took the position near Kell.
I had made it really clear there not be a repeat of the infamous beach incident. Kell had agreed with a noncommittal shrug that had annoyed me. It bothered me that she didn’t see what we did as wrong.
“I can’t believe you would bring that up,” I repeated to Bridget, trying to sound annoyed.
“Whatever. I’m sorry,” she said. “You need a place to stay for awhile, you can stay with her. When this blows over, you can make another arrangement. But for now, you’re stuck. So relax. We’ll videochat tomorrow and you can let me know how you are doing. Have fun.”
The way she said “have fun” grated on me.
Kell had moved away and was standing next to the concourse windows, looking out. She wore a tank top over yoga pants. She looked good. I couldn’t deny I would love to continue where we left off that night on the beach.
No…no…no…no…that’s wrong…
Something stirred in my heart. Something else stirred in my pants and I realized I was heading towards an erection. I cleared my mind and it softened just enough not to be obvious.
I walked to Kell and handed her the phone. Kell said a few more words with Bridget, then hung up.
There was no way this was going to work out. Kell and I were polar opposites in many respects. She was a liberal arts major, I was business major. She was an artist, I was an accountant. She lived in a studio apartment, I had lived in a walkout garden apartment. She was a night owl, I was an early bird. She was bisexual – preferring men but open to women. I was purely straight. She was freewheeling and live-by-the-moment, up for anything. I was button-down, organized to a fault. She laughed about our tryst at the beach – and I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t try it again if she had the chance. I was bewildered I had almost had sex with my aunt.
How the hell were we going to live together in a space with no privacy? Would she try to repeat our earlier dalliance? Would I?
Kell put an arm around my shoulders.
“Come on, roomie, let’s retrieve your luggage and go home.”
When we went to the counter we found out that my ticket was non-refundable, my luggage was already on the plane, and my gear wouldn’t be back until a return flight tomorrow. I threw my hands up and we went home.
My aunt’s apartment is pretty huge, but at the moment, it felt really tiny. The entire place looked and felt like my aunt. There was no place for me. How was I going to survive the quarantine?
Kell pulled out a couple of beers, opened them, and handed one to me. We sat down on the couch.
“Tomorrow we’ll figure things out. For now, let’s just relax. Do you want to order something for dinner?”
“Sure,” I murmured, lost in thought. My mind was running a mile a minute. Maybe Kell could just relax and worry about things tomorrow, but that wasn’t my style. I need to figure out a plan. Once I had a strategy, I could relax. Plan and execute. That was how I rolled. I got up and wandered over to an open space near her studio where we had dropped my carry on. There was just enough room for a bed and a small chest. A couple of folding screens could provide some privacy.
“Come on, Jacob, please relax. It’s going to be okay. Do you want pizza, Chinese, or Mexican?”
“Pizza,” I said. I pulled out my phone and made a list of things to buy at the store tomorrow or to fetch from storage. I had a plan – or the beginnings of one. That was all I needed. Now I could relax.
I wandered back over to my beer and took a swig. Kell was sitting on the love seat, so I intentionally sat down on the couch.
“Bet you didn’t expect this when you moved out here,” Kell finally said, breaking the silence.
“No,” I said. “This was the last thing on my mind.”
The corners of Kell’s mouth turned down just a bit at that, then she rallied and shot me a big grin.
“You mean you didn’t move out here just to be nearer to me?” It was said with just enough goofiness to be taken as a joke, but just enough seriousness in her eyes to make me pause.
I hesitated. That chink in the brick wall between me and my feelings for Kell grew a smidge.
“I . . .” I stammered for a second. “I was excited that one of my options was near a family member. I wanted to be away from home, but being nearer to you was a lot less scary than being all alone in a strange place. And . . .”
I paused. I considered what role Kell might have played in my thought process. I was Mr. Planning. I had my official story straight, but maybe there had been some underlying motives I held in my heart that didn’t make it into the spreadsheet I showed the world.
My hesitation filled the room.
The doorbell rang. Pizza guy. Saved by the bell.
I paid the pizza guy and Kell came back with dishes and napkins. I moved towards the dining table, but Kell set up on the coffee table next to the love seat. I took a seat next to her. My legs touched hers.
She cut two slices and handed one to me then started flipping through options on Netfix.
We debated what to watch, and finally decided on a subtitled foreign thriller. We both liked foreign film – that was a plus.
We finished the pizza in relative silence watching the movie. When we were done eating I leaned back. Kell leaned back. About halfway through the movie, she leaned against me and put her head on my shoulder.
“It’s nice to have you around, even if it’s not under the best circumstances. And I’m glad you moved out here.”
I smiled and put my arm around her shoulder. Her hair cascaded around my neck and shoulders. I could faintly smell her perfume.
We had sat like this before, in the intervening years since our dalliance on the beach, and it never meant anything. I didn’t give it too much of a second thought. Or did I?
Kell put a hand on my knee, her forearm resting against the top of my leg.
I was intensely aware of her, of her warm body next to me. I couldn’t deny that I wanted her. But it was wrong.
I looked down at her – her hair, her face, her breasts that moved slowly as she breathed, her legs curled under her like a cat. She was beautiful.
On the television screen, the protagonist and his main love interest were slipping into a love scene – a scene that had been building all through the film. It was one of those intense, sensual, erotic European scenes with lots of beautiful camera angles and breathlessly opened mouths.
I realized I was getting hard, and my erection was dangerously close to Kell’s arm. I didn’t dare move for fear of bumping into her. I froze.
Kell sighed softly as she watched, snuggling closer to me, pressing herself into me, her breasts against the side of my chest. Her arm moved and now rested against my erection.
She didn’t give any sign that she had noticed, though there was no way she couldn’t avoid it. She lay like that for the rest of the movie. Thankfully, my erection eased some once the sex scene ended. But I know that Kell knew I had been turned on.
My arousal wasn’t just purely sexual. I couldn’t deny that I felt a connection to her, a love that I had stuffed ever since the beach incident. I wasn’t sure I would be able to stuff it any longer.
When the movie ended it was getting near midnight. It was Saturday, so I didn’t have to rush to bed, but my body knew it was getting near time for me to turn in.
Kell saw me yawning. “You tired?” she asked sitting up. I nodded.
“You can sleep on the couch,” she said. She got up and returned with sheets and a blanket. “You can go ahead and turn in now, I’ll hang out in my bedroom.”
I felt bad, kicking her out of her own living room. I said so.
“Well, it’s either that, or you go lay down in my bed and go to sleep. When I’m ready to go to bed I will wake you up and you can come out here. Does that sound better?”
I considered this. It sounded fine, I just was a little uncomfortable being in her bed, especially considering our history together – and her seeming nonchalance about it. But I was tired. I would at least give it a try.
My luggage was on an airplane, so all I had for clothes was what was in my carry on. Most of what I stuffed in the carry on had been computer equipment, since I knew I had a few clothes at my folks place if anything went wrong with my luggage. As I dug through my carry on, Kell heard my swearing.
“What’s the matter,” she asked.
“I don’t have anything to sleep in,” I said.
“Sleep naked. That’s what I do.”
I would have been happier not knowing that – but I figured I would probably have found out that particular intelligence soon enough on my own. I sighed.
“I’ll sleep in my jeans, thank you.”
“No regular clothes in my bed, sorry. You can wear your underwear if you’re uncomfortable.”
“Okay.”
I carried a few toiletries into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face. When I came out of the bathroom, Kell was standing in the bedroom next to the bed. She hugged me.
“I promise, everything is going to be okay,” she said.
“I hope so.”
She stepped around the partition back out into the main part of the studio. I undressed down to just my boxers and climbed into the bed. The linen sheets were soft and cool. I pulled them up around my head. In the other room I could hear the television news playing softly.
The beer had helped calm my spinning thoughts. I had not expected to get to sleep, but to my surprise I drifted off quickly.
Someone shook me in the darkness. I slowly opened my eyes. Light filtered in from a light that was on in the studio. In the dim glow I could see Kell standing beside the bed.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “I made up the couch for you.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“3:30.”
Kell pulled off her tank top. I realized she was starting to undress to get into bed. I needed to be out before that happened.
I started to get up, then realized that I had a monstrous erection that was going to become blindingly obvious even in the dim light as soon as I got up. I hesitated.
“You know,” Kell said, “this is a king sized bed. There is more than enough room…”
I didn’t even let her finish the thought. I rolled out of the bed and tried to hide the tent in my shorts.
“Don’t I get a bedtime hug?” she asked. There was a tight squeeze past the chest and out of the bedroom area. Kell completely blocked my path.
“Uh…” I hesitated. That was all it took. She stepped forward and pressed herself against me. Her skin was soft and warm against mine. I could feel her chest through her bra, and recognized them from our encounter those years ago. Like old friends.
My erection pressed against her thigh. It took all my maneuvering to prevent it from popping out the fly of my boxers. When she let me go I scurried past.
Kell had made up the couch and I fell onto it, desiring more sleep but now I was wide awake. You know those nights when you are so tired that you fall asleep right away, but so wound up that if you wake up during the night you can’t get back to sleep? That was me.
My emotions were tearing me up. My desire for Kell. My self-loathing for desiring her. The joy I had felt cuddling with her on the couch. My discomfiture at her bumping into my erection – twice now. What the hell.
Like I always do when I am troubled by events, I started planning in my head. Plan A was to talk to Kell tomorrow about bringing my bed and a chest of drawers in from the storage area and setting up the unused section of the studio as my bedroom. She had alluded to that herself with her comment about screens. Check. Plan B. I needed a Plan B.
Skipping Plan B for a moment, Plan C was to get a new apartment of my own. Regardless of the virus, I could still get an apartment somewhere. I could make that work if the situation here became untenable.
Which brought me back to Plan B. Plan B, I realized, was the storage space. The bed was there and I had 24 hour access. If I had to I could crash there for a couple days until I got a new apartment. Plan B was temporary.
I had a plan. Finally. I could sleep. Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t because my brain was formulating Plan X without my permission. Plan X meant a relationship with Kell.
Plan X, which had been unthinkable hours before, was an option in play.
The erection that I had woken up with stirred back to life. Images of romantic interludes with Kell, dinners by candlelight, walks on the beach, or just sitting on the couch watching steamy foreign thrillers like last night. Thoughts of passion, her body against mine, unabashedly making love. Her hair, her lips, her breasts, her legs.
I couldn’t take it anymore. My balls were about to bust. I stood up, stumbled to the bathroom, intending to jack off into the toilet. But in my sleep-addled mind, I changed direction. Creeping on tiptoes, I peeked around the edge of the partition into Kell’s room. In the dim glow from her clock I could see her stretched out on the bed. She was on her back and the blankets were pushed down to her waist. Her hair fell across one of her breasts, the other was bare in the blue glow. It was exactly as I remembered, pert nipple perched high above a full, firm mound.
I had never in my life seen a woman who looked more beautiful, more desirable, than Kell looked right then.
I pushed my boxers to the floor and stood naked in the doorway to my aunt’s bedroom, stroking my cock. Every fiber in my being strained at me to go to her, to get in bed with her, to take her in my arms.
I stepped forward until I stood at the foot of her bed. My balls begged me to come, but I didn’t want to, I wanted to hold this moment forever. I slowly, gently, worked my hands up and down my cock. The tip was damp with pre-come.
She moaned in her sleep and shifted her position. The sheet slid down, revealing a tidy dark bush that matched her hair. I moaned, edging myself. Her skin looked soft and silky. I let my eyes wander from the shape of her legs under the sheet, to the shadows between her thighs, up her stomach to her breasts, pert and high, and finally up to her mouth, that was parted, and to her eyes.
Eyes that were open and staring back at me.
She said nothing, just slid up on the bed to a sitting position against the headboard, and turned on a light, her eyes locked on mine. My heart sank and I prepared for the uncomfortable questions that were to follow. It always seemed that any time I got involved with Kell, it ended with uncomfortable questions. This, I knew, would be the end of any chance I had at Plan X – if I even wanted Plan X. In the morning I would have to find a new place to live. Damn.
My cock softened. I hung my head, looking at the floor, waiting for the inevitable lashing out.
Silence.
I dared to raise my eyes. She was looking at me, her eyes filled with the same need that had compelled me to come to her room. Her eyes were open wide, her lips gently parted, her hair falling around her shoulders.
She had one hand caressing a breast. She ran her fingers lightly across the underside, and across the nipple, back and forth, back and forth. Circling the nipple with a finger, she lifted it and lowered her head, running her tongue in circles around the aureole.
Her other hand was buried deep between her legs. She saw my eyes looking and pulled them apart, revealing strands of auburn, curly hair plastered to the edges of her drenched slit. She ran a finger down her labia, then parted them, giving me a look at something I had only ever dreamed of since that night on the beach.
My cock leapt back to full attention. Our eyes locked and I stroked. I took a step forward towards her, then another, and another, until finally I was positioned just a couple of feet away from her. She stared at my cock, the aperture at the tip was gaped wide by the erection and pre-come was dribbling out. The sheets between Kell’s legs were soaked with her fluid.
She moaned softly and whispered. “Come for me, please come for me.”
I had been edging, but that was all it took. My balls contracted and a thick, sticky shot of come arced out and landed in the middle of the puddle of grool on her sheets. Shot after shot of the ropy jizz landed on her sheets.
Kell’s own rubbing had become frantic. Her eyes were still locked on my cock, but the hand that had been rubbing her breasts reached out to the puddle of juice in front of her, rubbed it across her fingers, then smeared it across her chest.
I had thought I was almost done coming, but this added fuel to my fire as a fresh load shot out, landing on her hand as it scooped up more of our combined juices to rub on her body. Finally she arched her back and lifted herself up on her knees as she came, a fresh flood of juices mixing with mine on the sheets.
She sank back onto the bed. I leaned back against the wall. We stared at each other.
I was the first to break the silence. “I’ll change the sheets,” I said.
“Only if you’ll join me in bed,” she answered. “If not, at least I have something to remember you by,” she added and ran her hands along the puddle again, lifting her fingers to her mouth. Her tongue darted out, licking slowly up her fingers, tasting the gaps between where the juices stuck together and lingered. She individually put each finger into her mouth and sucked it clean.
She held out her other hand to me.
“Want a taste, baby?” she asked.
The enormity of what I had just done struck me. My cock sank. I shook my head. Silently, a broken man, I withdrew, my head spinning even worse than before I had shot my load.
I was frightened.
Plan X was starting to look dangerously close.
[TO BE CONTINUED]