by Mia Moore
“Look, she hit on me when her husband was alive. I didn’t do anything then and I sure as hell wouldn’t do anything with her now. Not with YOU in my life. Think I want to fuck that up?” His voice had risen and his grip on my arm tightened.
I looked around, wondering if people were watching, if there was anyone I knew looking at us.
“I love you, and I’ve waited a long time to meet someone like you. You’re the only woman for me. When I love, I go deep, not wide. Women like Laurie are a dime a dozen…but YOU, Sara…you’re the one.” His hand rolled up my arm and he gathered me into his arms and lips brushed my earlobe. “Got that? You.”
I hugged him right there at the meat counter, not caring who was looking. I’d been alone for a few years after Jeff and I divorced. The internet dating cesspool and the jerks I’d met there definitely didn’t count for anything. I’d known on the first date with Don that he was the one I was meant to be with—a soul mate, if you will.
Rising up on the toes of my boots, I kissed him. “I love you too. I’m sorry I’m—”
“Don’t be. It’s going to take time for you to fully trust again. There are demons in that pretty head, thanks to your ex.” He smiled down at me. “If I ever meet your ex, I’m going to thank him—not for the demons but for being such an idiot to let you go.”
“Know what? So will I. If he hadn’t shown his true colors, I may never have met you. YOU’RE the guy I was meant to be with. He was a shadow of a man.”
He kissed my forehead and turned my body for us to continue the grocery shopping. “What do we have to get at the hardware store? I don’t remember.”
My smile was sweet evil when I turned to him. “Nothing. I just wanted to get you away from Laurie.”
“Who?” He laughed and darted to the side when I poked him in the ribs. He grinned and wheeled the cart around, heading for the check-out. “Let’s go home.”
****
Home was a small brick, raised ranch on a quiet side street just outside the downtown core of the city. We’d been there for only a few months and in that time had made it our own with a fresh coat of paint in most of the rooms. We tore up the wall to wall carpeting to expose golden oak, hardwood floors.
There was no dining room but instead an airy, spacious eat-in kitchen was the focal point. More often than not that was where we spent our time, cooking and talking. It didn’t matter what topic—politics, religion and of course sex. We enjoyed being with each other, over anything else.
Don was a fabulous cook and the adventurer with spices. He often kidded me that I cooked like the Irish, either boiled bland or burnt offerings.
No matter. I’d spent years of cooking, throwing parties and entertaining with a selfish man who only appreciated my efforts if it pleased the ‘right’ people in his career path. When Jeff attained his goal, or as my Dad used to say, the ‘Peter principle’, the level of success where you became incompetent in the job, he traded me in on a younger model.
I looked across the table at the love of my life. “I’d never had chicken marsala or linguine with clam sauce until I met you. It’s so good, but you can’t make it anymore. I’ll get fat.” I picked up the empty plates from the table and stacked them in the dishwasher.
He eased away from the table and came up behind me, put his arm around my waist, and kissed my neck. The feeling of his lips and teeth nibbling on my sensitive skin sent shivers of delight down my spine. Not only that, but his hard cock pressed into my ass. He moaned as his hips did a small roll over the swell of my cheeks.
I reached behind me and slid my hand between us, grasped the outline of his shaft. “Mmm…I think I’m holding dessert.”
“Me too. Let’s go to bed.” His hand rose, inching under my sweater to the lacy cup of the demi bra. Fingers inserted themselves and teased my nipples—already hard and sensitive from the kisses on my neck.
I turned and felt his hand take mine and lead me down the hall. When we were in the bedroom he stepped back and started undoing the buttons of the white, denim shirt. His eyes were crinkled at the corners and a small smile played on his lips.
Oh God, just looking at him, the straight line of his nose, flared nostrils and swarthy complexion, dark wisps of hair becoming visible on his broad chest—it made me wet.
I lifted the sweater up and off, tossed it on my dresser. His gaze dropped to my breasts, the white tops of them threatening to escape the lace cup. He adored my ‘girls’, loved to suck and kiss them, something that always made me hot.
When his fingers bunched his pants and underwear, pushed them down over his hips and thighs, his cock sprang free, bobbed once before grazing the smooth line of his tummy. God, what a body…six pack abs despite the fact that he’d just turned forty. It had to be the physical nature of his job, installing furnaces and fixing plumbing.
I slid my jeans down and stepped out of them. As I was turning the bedcovers down, his finger hooked into my panties and he pulled them down. Next, the bra…
I lay on the bed and watched him get in beside me before taking me in his arms. His cock pressed against my thigh, drizzled pre-cum as he kissed me deeply, tongue dancing with mine. A thrill of anticipation flooded my pussy when his tongue fucked my mouth, a prelude to his cock in me.
Oh God, when he touched me, his hand drifting from my nipple to the spot between my legs, my firm little pearl of pleasure…my mouth left his and I gasped. His knee pushed between my thighs, spreading me open for more. He slid his finger to my opening, wet it before returning to tease my clit in sweet torture.
I reached for his cock, rubbed it in the slow up and down motion, with a little twist on the upstroke. He’d demonstrated this move with his own hand shortly after we’d met, making out, sharing a bottle of wine. It was erotic, watching a guy masturbate, even if it was just a short demo, a lesson for me.
“Please… fuck me.” I sighed into his neck. The spoken words, words I’d never said aloud to any other lover, made me ache with lust. He’d also taught me the freedom to speak my need. It was a turn on for him as well.
I felt the wetness of his cock, the drizzle of pre-cum spreading like a sheen over the smooth mushroom knob. I wanted to taste him, lick his cock clean, take his balls into my mouth but his finger vibrating my clit, fast like the buzzing of a bee was making me crave more…to be filled, ravished by his thick shaft.
He rolled on top of me and I pulled the head of it to my opening, arched my hips upward to take him in. He waited for a few moments, not allowing my cunt to be filled. Oh fuck, he knew me too well. But it was my own fault. I’d told him I liked to be teased.
“Oh…oh…yeah.” I exhaled as he thrust deep inside, loving every fiber of his cock stretching me.
My legs wrapped around his waist, heels on the hard muscle of his ass, pulling him deeper each time he thrust forward. Oh God, Don was the biggest guy I’d ever been with and had even made me bleed a few times like I was some kind of virgin. It hurt a little but in an absolutely delicious way.
“Oh yeah, Baby….you’re so fucking tight.” He pressed deeper still, pumping slowly into me.
My finger slipped onto my clit and stroked it quickly. I was gasping, “Fuck me… harder, faster…I’m close…” I pulled him with my heels and bucked my hips under him.
His breathing was fast, soft moans and grunts from deep in his chest, filling my ears. It was driving me crazy, the feeling was so good…his cock huge and hard…
“OH GOD! Keep doing that…just…like…” I closed my eyes, riding the lust and pleasure in my pussy.
“Look at me.” His voice was a growl.
I opened my eyes and fell into the depths of ecstasy with him. Each of us bonded in our gaze as well as our groins. It was heavenly bliss that just went higher and higher. My mouth opened and something primal, guttural, screamed rapture, joy, love and lust.
We lost ourselves as separate beings in that moment, became one in body and soul.
My pussy was wet, slippery from our pleasure when my hand withdre
w from my clit. We were both there for a few moments of eternity but I had to draw back, the sensitivity of my little pearl of eros became too much. I felt him spasm once, then again and collapse onto me, heart pounding a hard staccato against mine.
“Oh my God, Sara. This just keeps getting better and better between us.” He raised his torso onto his elbows and kissed my lips. “I adore you.”
“Oh Don. I love you so much.” I kissed his neck, shoulders and reached to kiss his chin.
He rolled off me and we lay quietly beside each other for a few moments, catching our breath.
When our hearts resumed their normal rhythm I turned to him. “I’m going to take a shower. Be right back.”
I rolled out of bed and heard his wolf whistle as I walked out of the room. It was kind of corny but it made me feel good knowing he appreciated looking at my ass.
After a couple of minutes of the shower running, getting to the right temperature, I stepped in and squirted liquid soap into my palm.
It had been a long time waiting for this, a guy who could make me laugh, cry and orgasm, a guy I truly loved and respected. How come it took so long, Lord?
What the hell? My fingers pressed into my right breast and rolled over something. I moved my hand to the underside and pressed. No, that part was smooth. Back to the side, pressed again.
My heart skipped a beat--stomach drained down to the wet porcelain floor of the tub. I stared at the bottom of the tub, stared at nothing, breath erratic and raspy.
A lump? My fingers flew to the other breast, pressed into the flesh in small increments around the whole of it. Nothing.
Again, I returned to the spot. Oh my God. It couldn’t be true, but it was definitely there, a lump the size of a pea.
Chapter 3: Sixty Forty
It could be nothing, maybe just a cyst. Maybe I was getting close to menopause and that caused some weird change. Oh fuck, what if it was the big C? What then?
Mom had died of heart failure eleven years ago, not cancer. But what had Granny died of? Sure, old age but there must have been a failure of some organ or had it been cancer? I looked at myself in the mirror and my eyes opened wide. Oh my God, I was on auto-pilot, turning off the shower, drying and now standing here.
There was no way I would mention this to Don...at least not until after I talked to my doctor. It may be nothing, so why worry him? And if it was something…
My breasts looked normal enough. The right one was just a tad bigger than the left but it had always been like that—nothing weird there. I touched the lump, pushed in, rolled it under my fingers. It didn’t hurt. Shouldn’t a cyst hurt? I’d had a cyst a couple of times and they had been tender. Not this one. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes.
Stop it. I could almost hear my sister’s voice in my head. She was always the calm, sensible one, probably like most older sisters. Worrying and crying over this was not going to help. Plus, if I broke down, Don would notice the redness in my eyes and nose. I took a deep breath and slipped my housecoat on.
He was reading when I entered the bedroom. I slipped in beside him and pulled the covers up to my chin.
“Not reading tonight?” He turned from his book, regarding me with a small smile on his lips.
“No, I’m really beat, and work tomorrow, y’know.” I strained upward and pursed my lips, waiting for my kiss goodnight.
He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “Yeah, I won’t be far behind you. Good night sweetie.”
I closed my eyes, but sleep never came that night. Finally, after tossing and turning, I got up at five and made coffee. While it was brewing I called the office and left a voice mail for my boss that I was sick and wouldn’t make it in.
Nine o’clock, when the doctor’s office opened couldn’t come soon enough.
****
I ran a stop sign and at the traffic lights I almost sat through the length of a green light—at least until the car behind me yanked me out of my thoughts with a horn blaring.
Even though it was early, there were people already sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office—an elderly woman, young mother with her crying infant and a teenaged boy with a bad case of acne. It wasn’t the usual receptionist but instead a young, blonde woman with a pained expression on her face.
When I approached the window of the counter, she hesitated, shoved papers into a vanilla folder, before looking up. My hand clutching the strap of my purse, holding it at my shoulder clenched into a fist.
“I need to see Dr. Marker.”
“Your name?” She turned to her computer screen.
“Sara Elliott. It’s about—”
“I don’t see you on today’s schedule. Did you make an appointment?” She turned her head to face me, eyebrows drawn together, mouth pulled up at the corner.
I did an eye roll, up to the ceiling and back, took a deep breath, but it was no use. My words were ice chips, loud cracking ice chips, when I spoke. “NO. I don’t have an appointment but what I fucking DO have is a FUCKING lump in my breast. I NEED to see Dr. Marker, TODAY.”
Her eyes were round balloons that kept getting bigger with each word I spat out. “Please, your language… I’ll see if—”
I looked up from her when one of the doors in the hallway behind her opened and the round, tan face of my doctor appeared. “What’s going on?” She stepped next to the receptionist and looked from me to the young woman.
“This woman—”
I looked into the doctor’s dark eyes, ignoring the young receptionist. “I need to see you. I found a lump in my breast last night.”
The doctor scanned the waiting room and stepped back into the hallway. She turned to me and beckoned with a wave of her hand for me to follow her. I scurried past the counter and into a patient room after her.
When I was seated, the tears began. When she put her hand on my back and rubbed it softly trying to console me, it just made me cry harder.
“There. There. It’s disturbing but in sixty percent of women who find a lump, it turns out to be just a cyst.”
I looked up at her and sucked my lips into my mouth, holding my jaw firm, trying to get a grip on the tears.
“Take off your coat and then your top. Let’s have a look at it.” She turned and stepped to the counter and sink behind her. I took my coat off and then lifted the sweater up and off while I watched her slip blue latex gloves on her hands. I popped up onto the examining table, unhooked my bra and slipped it off my shoulders.
She stepped closer and I laid back--I’d had breast exams before and knew the drill. My hand rose to my breast, indicating the spot I’d found last night, which I’d checked at least forty times since.
“It’s right here.”
Her hands replaced mine and she pressed while rolling the flesh in a circular motion. I watched her eyes, her mouth. What was she thinking? Could she tell if it was cancer?
“Yes. There’s definitely something there.” She continued the exam moving to other areas on my right breast and then checked the left. After, she returned to the lump. “As I said earlier, the chances of it being a cyst are higher than not, but has anyone in your family had breast cancer?”
“Not that I know of.” I swallowed hard.
“Well, that’s good.” For the first time her face broke into a tightlipped smile. She turned from me and slipped the gloves off her hands. “I’m going to schedule an ultra-sound exam for you. If it’s a cyst, the exam will show that.”
I sat up and started putting my bra back on. “What if it’s not?”
Her lips drew together for a moment and her head tilted to the side as she took her seat in front of a computer screen. “If it doesn’t appear to be a cyst, we do a biopsy of the tissue. No surgery, but a needle with suction, directly into the mass, guided by ultra sound imaging.”
She clicked a mouse and peered at the monitor in front of her. “Ah, here it is. You records.”
“How long until I know?” I got off the table and lifted my sweater from t
he chair.
“The imaging is at the hospital and they will contact you with a time.” She glanced at my face, my mouth gaping open, and shook her head. “Don’t worry. You’ll get in pretty fast, maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. I’ll ask them to rush it.”
I pulled my sweater over my head and sat down again. She clicked the mouse a few more times moving around the screen. “I’m printing the paperwork I want you to bring with you. You can pick it up from Tammy at Reception.”
She turned from the screen and glanced at my hands, tightly clasped together, white knuckled, before she rested her hand on them. Her eyes were soft looking intently into mine. “Don’t worry. It’s probably a cyst but if it’s more, we’ll fix it.”
I looked down at my lap and sniffed. “Will I lose my breast if it’s cancer?” I didn’t want to face the other dire thought that had haunted me last night—death.
“Let’s handle this one step at a time Sara. Like I said, it’s probably just a cyst.”
****
She didn’t answer my question.
I didn’t drive straight home when I left Dr. Marker’s office. There was no need to. I had my cell phone for the hospital to contact me.
I was still shaky despite the doctor’s advice and reassurance. When I was younger, a lot of times my sister had consoled me when I was going through a tough patch. Even though, we were at odds in our ways—Elaine the goody two shoes, great grades, wonderful boyfriend who later became her husband and father of their two teenaged boys, while I was more of a wild child, rebellious, skipping classes and going out with one of the bad boys, Phil Jones—we were still close. A lot of times when Mom or Dad would be on a rampage about me and school, she’d stick up for me.
I pulled over to the curb and called her house. After a few rings she came on the line.
“Hello? Sara?”
“Hi Elaine.”
“What’s wrong Sara? You’re not at work, are you sick?” Although her words were machine gun fast, there was also concern in her voice.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, put a smile on my face before I answered. “Just playing hooky. You know mental health day and all that. Remember the times I did that in high school?”