by T. M. Haught
“Yeah. I do. Of course, when he was away on a tour of duty or a mission I didn’t see him for awhile either, so sometimes it’s almost more like he’s just stationed overseas, instead of being....” His voice trailed off.
Penny looked over at him with concern and, even though her hand was wet, gripped his arm and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet him. He must have been an amazing man.”
Jonah nodded. “He was.” He looked at Penny. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet your mom. I know she must have been really pretty, and a terrific person. I know that, because you are.”
Penny put the knives and spoons in the rack as her lower lip trembled and moisture started to well up in her eyes. She quickly dried her hands on the towel and turned to give Jonah a hug. He held her for a long moment, then released her as she turned away toward the stove.
“That griddle should be cool by now,” Penny said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She wet her finger with her tongue and gingerly touched the surface of the griddle. “It’s cool. Soon as I wash it, we’ll be done.”
As she turned back to the sink and immersed the griddle in the dishwater, she started to wash it, then glanced toward Jonah. He was staring at her, waiting for her to notice him.
“What?” she said.
Jonah made a show of wetting his own finger with his tongue, then touching it to her shoulder very briefly. “Ssssssss! Definitely hot!” he said with a grin.
Penny laughed, then smiled. “Thanks, Jonah. I needed that.”
She scrubbed the griddle thoroughly, then rinsed it and stood it up in the rack on the drainboard. She dried her hands again, then stepped back from the sink.
“Well, that’s it, I guess,” she said. “It’s way too soon for lunch. What kind of mischief do you think we can get into?”
“Dunno,” said Jonah. “But whatever it is, let’s stay off the patio today. That was really fun, but....”
“Deal,” said Penny. She glanced around. “There is something I’m curious about and would like to check out, though, and now’s as good a time as any. If you don’t mind a little skulking around.”
Jonah was curious now. “What is it?”
“Come on,” she beckoned, crooking her finger. “I’ll show you.”
Penny led him to the front staircase and they started up the steps, reaching the second floor. Jonah thought at first that she was heading up to the third floor, but she left the stairs and started down the hall, quietly even though they knew they had the house all to themselves.
“You’re not going to go into your dad’s room or my mom’s room, are you—?” he asked worriedly.
“Heaven’s no,” said Penny. “I sure wouldn’t want them poking around in our rooms while we’re out, so as far as I’m concerned, their rooms are off limits, too.”
“So what is it?”
“This—” said Penny, stopping at the door to the other bedroom, the unused one, the space that Jonah had told her had once been planned as a nursery before Rebecca’s world had changed.
Jonah watched with mixed emotions as Penny touched the doorknob gingerly, then twisted it and found that it was unlocked. Penny pushed the door slowly open, looked inside, and then walked into the room. Jonah followed her, quiet as a mouse.
Unfiltered sunlight came in through the front windows, so even with the electric lights turned off the room was quite bright, almost in a cheery way, but more in a stark and sterile way, since the room was devoid of furniture. It also seemed devoid of the hopes and dreams that had once shaped its intended future, but perhaps that was more of a psychological thing than a real one.
Jonah looked around, his brow furrowed. “I... I haven’t been in here since we worked on refurbishing the house, more than a year ago.”
Penny turned to him and touched his arm. “If it creeps you out too much, we can go.”
“No, it’s okay,” he told her. “I know you wanted to see it.”
“Part of it, anyway,” she said with a sense of purpose. She walked toward an inner door that was closed. “This should be it, I guess, unless it’s the closet.”
“No, the closet is on the other side.”
Penny turned the knob and opened the door before her. There was also some daylight in the room beyond, but not as bright and the room was smaller, too. She flipped the switch to turn on the lights, wall mounted electric versions of gaslight fixtures. The glow was warm and pleasant and added to the sunlight. As she ventured inside, she could see that there was one small window in what must be the front exterior wall, and that it was placed a bit higher than the bedroom windows. But it was not the window that she focused on.
“See—” said Jonah. “Told you this one had an old-fashioned bathtub.”
“Oh wow…” said Penny. “And it’s a beauty.”
There, about a foot out from the far wall, stood a Victorian style clawfoot bathtub, white porcelain over cast iron, with the water faucets and spray hose in the middle, just behind the tub wall, instead of at one of the ends. It was gleaming and spotless and even the fixtures looked polished. The room’s walls were painted instead of tiled, and the tub stood on a marble patterned linoleum surface that looked newer than the house itself.
Penny’s eyebrow raised as she studied it. “Hmmm... you know why they put the faucets and things there in the middle, don’t you?”
Jonah shrugged. “So you could sit at either end without bumping up against them?”
“Yeah...” said Penny. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“And the other way...?” he asked, then his expression changed with sudden realization. “Oh... yeah. Now I understand.”
“Thought you might,” said Penny, stepping closer to the antique tub to admire it at closer range. She gingerly reached out her hand and turned the hot water faucet, then the cold water faucet. Water gushed out into the tub and down the drain with a rushing gurgle. “The plumbing works.”
“Yes it does,” said Jonah.
Penny turned off the water and looked at him, her eyes bright. “Know what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah, I think I can safely say that I do this time, without a single doubt,” he replied.
“So... do you want to...?” She fixed him with a sober look. “I mean, if you don’t, for whatever reason, I’ll understand.”
Jonah considered it a moment, then gave a slight shrug. “Part of me is reluctant. But the part of me that’s your boyfriend, well, I wouldn’t mind trying this tub out with you. And it would be nice for me to be able to think of this room in a happier way. So, yes, Penny—I do want to.”
She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll have to go to my room and get a few things, soap and a towel.”
“Okay,” said Jonah. “I’ll get a towel from my room, too, and the bathmat. Do we need a chair or something to put our clothes on?”
Penny considered it. “I don’t think so. The floor looks clean. We can just lay our clothes there by the wall, out of the splash zone.”
“Splash zone?” Jonah raised an eyebrow. “You figuring on making waves?”
She gave him a flirty look. “You never know….”
In less than ten minutes they were both back. Penny placed a few items on the small stand behind the tub while Jonah carefully spread the bathmat on the floor in front of the tub. Then she sat up her iPod and mini-speakers on the counter where the basin was, and they both placed their bath towels on the rack on the wall. Penny turned on her iPod and soft music began. She quickly surveyed everything in the room, then nodded, pleased with their preparations.
“I think we’re ready,” Penny said. She went to the tub and placed the stopper in the drain opening, then turned on the hot water and enough cold water to balance it. The flowing water felt nicely warm, but not uncomfortably hot. She picked up the bottle of bubble bath and poured a little into the tub where the water cascaded in, creating sudsy, burbling ripples.
They both put their cell phones on the
counter in a safe spot, then they helped each other get undressed. Their clothes went in two piles, almost neat but quickly dropped there. Jonah put his glasses on top of his pile. In mere moments they were both naked.
Penny smiled and flexed her toes. “I like going barefoot.”
Jonah smiled back. “I’ve noticed that.”
They advanced upon the tub and checked the level of the water. It was about halfway filled, so Penny reached over and turned off both water faucets. She took Jonah’s hand as he held it out to steady her, and placed her other hand on the side of the tub to step carefully in. Then she steadied Jonah as he joined her. They both stood there for a moment, one at either end of the tub, then they lowered themselves into the warm sudsy water. The level rose as their bodies displaced some of the water.
“Oh, that feels nice!” said Penny, luxuriating in the sensation. “So different from a shower.” She leaned back a bit, rubbing some of the soap suds up and down her arms and over her breasts.
“Very nice,” agreed Jonah.
For awhile they just quietly enjoyed the feeling. They were both sitting there with their knees up, virtually toe to toe in the space they had available. Jonah decided to stretch out a little and carefully slid his right foot around and past Penny’s feet and alongside her hip. Then he did the same thing with his left foot on her other side.
“Ooo!” said Penny. “I’m surrounded. Good idea.”
But rather than do the same, she arched an eyebrow and carefully raised both of her feet and gently placed them against Jonah’s shoulders. The texture of his skin felt good to the soles of her feet. Suddenly inspired, she angled her feet in and used her toes to play with his ears, flashing him an impish look.
“Did I ever tell you that you have cute ears?” she asked.
“Don’t think so,” Jonah replied, twisting his head ever so slightly as her playful toying tickled his ears. But he smiled. “If you see anything else you think is cute, be sure and let me know.”
Penny grinned, but her voice had a tender tone as she said, “Everything is cute about you, Jonah. Absolutely everything. I mean that. I’m so lucky some other girl didn’t grab you. Good thing for me you were shy.”
“Guess I was just waiting for you,” he said. “Which was lucky for me.”
“Aww…” she said, then leaned forward and put a dollop of soap suds on his nose. She giggled.
“Hey,” he said in mock protest. He grinned as he wiped the suds from his nose, then he reached over and drew a smiley face in the suds on her right breast. Then he drew a heart on her left breast. “You’re right. This bath tub is a lot of fun.”
“Thought you’d like it, too,” said Penny.
He looked reflective. “In some ways, this reminds me of when I was a little kid.”
“Oh, really?” said Penny provocatively.
“Except for having a sexy girlfriend to share it with, of course,” he added quickly.
“I should hope!”
“But what I meant was, when I was little I always used to take baths in a tub in the house we used to live in,” Jonah said. “Not a fancy tub like this one, but still a tub.”
“Did you have a rubber ducky?”
“No, I had a toy submarine,” said Jonah. “My dad used to joke that submarines were for Navy brats, not Army brats, but I saw it at the toy store and had to have it. I would play with it, pretending I was making it dive below the soap waves, on a mission.”
He used his hand to demonstrate, moving it first on the surface of the water, then sinking it below, to simulate a vessel submerging. Then with an impish grin, he moved his hand below the surface in her direction. It reached its target.
“Oooo!” said Penny suddenly. “Is that a torpedo?”
Jonah laughed. “No, it’s my finger.” He put both hands on the sides of the tub to brace himself and slid forward a bit. “Here comes the torpedo.”
Penny’s eyes widened as she felt something between her legs. “That’s no torpedo! That feels like the whole freakin’ submarine!”
Jonah chuckled. He started to push forward a bit more, then halted abruptly. “Uh-oh. This isn’t working so well.”
Penny made a face. “Small ouch. Afraid of that. I read that sex under water can be a problem. The water is washing away our natural slippery stuff.”
Jonah pulled back a little. “Sorry about that.”
“Not to worry,” said Penny. She reached down into the water near the right center of the tub and yanked something. There was a slight muffled pop of sound followed by a gurgling noise, and Penny raised her hand out of the water holding the chain with the drain stopper dangling at the end. “We’ll just get rid of the water.”
Jonah watched while the level of the bathwater in the tub got lower and lower as it drained out, revealing more and more of their naked bodies. Finally, the last of the liquid spiraled down the drain and was gone.
“Well, the water’s gone,” said Jonah, “but everything’s still kinda soapy.”
He reached over and turned on the faucets halfway, then as fresh water gushed out of the spout he grabbed the diverter lever and rotated it around so that the water flow now went to the spray hose. He quickly picked up the spray head at the end of that hose and directed the shower like flow of water at Penny, starting at her shoulders and rinsing the suds from her.
“Do my back,” she said, leaning in toward him till their foreheads almost met, her torso pressing against her own thighs with her legs still elevated.
He reached around her and rinsed the soap suds from her back all the way down to her hips and bottom. “Okay… got it. You can lean back again.”
She did so, and he directed the spray of warm water at her legs and the sides of the tub where a soap ring was slowly sliding down the shiny porcelain. Then with an impish grin, he pointed the handheld shower head down and playfully sprayed Penny’s private parts with it.
“Hey—stop that!” she said with a giggle. Then she changed her mind. “No wait... don’t stop. I’m kinda likin’ it. Just don’t spray too hard on my clit.”
“Okay.”
Jonah watched for a moment, both amused and turned on by Penny’s reaction as she enjoyed the sensation. Her eyes closed most of the way and she was lost for a long moment in the feeling. Then with a few quick blinks she was alert again. She reached for the spray head.
“Okay—that’s enough of that,” said Penny, almost reluctantly. “You’d better let me rinse you now.”
Jonah carefully handed over the sprayer and watched as she rinsed the soap suds from him now, starting at his shoulders. She lowered her feet and gently slid them between his arms and rib cage, stretching her legs out a bit as she continued to rinse his torso, hips and thighs. Then Jonah leaned forward and let her rinse his back just as he had done hers. In another few moments they were done with the rinsing process and Jonah turned off the water as Penny returned the handheld spray head to its rack.
“Now what?” Jonah asked her.
“Now we can try something out that I bought at the hotel gift shop,” she said. Penny reached for an object on the small stand that she had put there earlier, next to the bottle of bubble bath. It was a small glass bottle, a few inches high, with a little spray pump at the top instead of a regular cap.
“Ah, so that’s why you went back by yourself,” Jonah said. “I was wondering about that.”
“Didn’t want my dad or your mom seeing what I was getting besides the deodorant,” Penny told him. “I spotted it earlier when we were in there.”
“What is it?”
“Something called Uberlube,” she said. “They say you can use it for a lot of personal things, but mainly it’s for sex. Very slippery.”
“Oh? How do you---?”
Before he could get another word out, Penny had spritzed it three times on his still erect penis. He flinched a little.
“Ooo!” he said. “That felt a little chilly down there.”
Penny put the little spray bottle
back on the stand and gave Jonah a knowing wink. “Don’t worry, Squirt—I’ll be happy to warm it up for you.”
In a series of lithe moves she worked her legs farther around his back, then reached down to guide his manhood into her. She threw her arms around his upper torso just as her legs were wrapped around his back and hips, and pulled him to her so that there was not an inch of space between the two of them. They were virtually sitting in each other’s laps, there in the center of the tub, with Jonah’s manhood deep within her, warm and cozy.
“All better now?” asked Penny demurely.
Jonah swallowed hard. “Much. Much, much better. And you’re right… that stuff is slippery. I slid in like… like…”
“Like greased lightning?” ventured Penny. She kissed him on the lips, then as she sat there nose to nose with him, she gazed into his eyes. “Not a lot of room for thrusting this way, but I think if we kinda rock our hips back and forth, together and away, it should work.”
“Was this something else you found in Cosmo?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll pay for your next subscription renewal,” promised Jonah.
“I don’t subscribe, silly,” said Penny. “Too risky. I just buy it on the stands or read it online. Now hush!”
She kissed him again, a long, lingering kiss that was smoldering and passionate and would have been enough by itself to arouse him were he not already stirred up. Penny relaxed the pressure of her legs against his back and arched her own back and hips enough to move her pelvis slightly away from his. Then she pulled forward against him again, and began to set up a rhythm.
Jonah quickly mimicked her motions and in seconds, even though neither one was moving more than a few inches individually, their combined movements were enough to do the trick. The soft collisions of their groins and the exquisite sensation of being wrapped in each others arms and legs added to the pleasure and their steady rise toward climax.
They took it slow and steady, making the most of it and the sweetness of their embrace, alternately kissing and nuzzling each other’s faces. And then finally they could not help increasing the speed and intensity of their thrusts. They were beyond the point of control, beyond the point of no return, and they simply gave in to the urgency of their feelings.