The Beach House

by JT Harding

  She gasped, aroused, her eyes fluttering shut. Through the wall she sensed, or imagined she sensed, the faint vibration made by the shower. The sound stopped. Jenni stood alone, fingers thrust inside herself, ashamed of the thoughts in her head. Paul might be about to turn eighteen, but still so young. She withdrew her fingers and dressed, hoping to cover her arousal.

  When she emerged carrying the two mismatched parts of her wet bikini in her hand it was Jenni who avoided Paul’s gaze as he came on the porch toweling his hair dry, dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt.

  “Are you swimming tomorrow?” Paul’s eyes locked on hers and a thrill coursed through Jenni. He had become more adventurous, bolder.

  “I swim every day.”

  “I’ll probably catch you then, if you don’t mind some company.”

  “Don’t mind company.”

  Jenni drove back over the island into town. As she came down the hill a ferry was docking, bringing more visitors, ready to return day-trippers to the mainland. The ferry, regular as any clock, said a few minutes after five and Mark would be home by six wanting his evening meal, would likely be out again by seven drinking with his buddies. At least it meant he wouldn’t be home. Jenni preferred it when she had the house to herself, ever since Mark started taking his frustration at life out on her. Nothing much to begin with, words and shouting at the start, then a year ago the physical stuff began, a light slap, a punch to the ribs. What worried her was the escalation. Sometimes Mark didn’t seem aware just how hard he hit her.

  Had she allowed herself to imagine an escape, had some feasible option existed, she was starting to think she might take it, wondering how long it was going to be before any other option was better than the one she had accepted.

  ***

  Sunday Jenni beat Paul, same again on Monday, but he was catching on to her style, getting closer each day. Or perhaps she was letting him get closer. Her resolution of Saturday not to think about him sexually had blown to the winds; she couldn’t stop thinking about him, conjuring fantasies of his tight young body, picturing him naked, picturing what she wanted to do with him.

  Tuesday morning when Mark left for work Jenni showered and after she dried stood naked in front of the tall bathroom mirror. She leaned forward to wipe the steam stippled surface, stared at her distorted body appearing slowly as the air cooled and the mirror cleared.

  She turned sideways, put her hand on her flat belly, examining herself. Like many women Jenni accomplished that dichotomy of thought more common than each individual realized. In private she considered herself hot, in public believing her looks less than average. Perhaps because of the way people treated her. Looking at herself, her high breasts self-supporting despite their size, her lean belly and long legs, the neat tuft of hair covering her sex, she considered she looked pretty good. Jenni knew in company her confidence would leach away, eroded by Mark’s words and actions. She resolved to dismiss all doubts, dismiss the years of verbal abuse which had grown so endemic she hardly noticed the constant denigration. Looking at herself in the mirror she allowed herself to believe in her beauty.

  Jenni turned again, twisting to stare over her shoulder, noticing the way skin tightened along her side, outlining the lower ribs. Good ass, she thought, round and tight, narrow hips and slim thighs. A horizontal ledge showed between her legs and she leaned forward, putting her palms flat on the floor, shocked at the wave of arousal crashing through her as she stared back between her legs at full pussy lips, shivering at the sight and knowing she was not doing herself any favors.

  Turning herself on was going to get her exactly nowhere other than back on the bed with her hand between her legs. Temptation whispered in her ear, and on another day she might have given in. She frequently resorted to pleasuring herself, at least every other day. Mark seemed not to care about sex anymore, and when he did the act was always short and brutish, often as not accompanied by acts of minor violence.

  Today was different and Jenni knew the reason why. Today was Paul’s birthday. Today he turned eighteen, and although Jenni acknowledged her thoughts were foolish she couldn’t help wondering if there wasn’t something she had to offer him. Foolish, because absolutely nothing – nothing – was going to happen. The hopeless fantasy warmed her, making her wet between the legs, and she nourished that warmth, allowing the arousal to seep through her body, stiffening her nipples and bringing a flush to her neck.

  Tuesday through Friday were good days, quiet days when she would go to the beach and check everyone had what they needed, nothing was broken or damaged, ask if anyone needed help or advice. Dressed in cut off denims and a tank top, her mismatched bikini worn beneath, a change of underclothes in the pickup, she parked behind the Harper house at eleven. As she came around the side she found them on the porch. Paul had his long legs up on the railing, binoculars to his face. Kate and Tim drank coffee, working their way slowly through a pile of fresh chocolate brownies.

  “Hey, Jen, come and have a birthday brownie.”

  She laughed. “I don’t want to spoil the party.”

  “Since when could you ever spoil anything,” Kate said. “Come up here. Paul, get Jenni a coffee.”

  Paul dropped his legs off the rail and went inside. He came back a minute later with a plain white mug billowing good fresh coffee aroma. The smell hit Jenni and she had no choice but to sit and savor.

  “How’s the swimming,” she said to Paul. “Think you can beat me now you’re an adult?” She held his gaze, trying to communicate something even though she wasn’t exactly sure what message she was trying to send.

  “Oh yeah, I’m so much older than when you beat me yesterday.”

  “You’re going to try though.”

  “What do you think?”

  She sipped her coffee and nodded. “I think you are.”

  “Are you swimming now?” Kate asked. “Because Tim and I need to go into town after lunch, so if you’re going to stay for the birthday lunch as well, Jen, you’d better swim now.”

  “We can always do both, Grams,” Paul said. “Before and after lunch. Once Jenni’s tired I might stand some sort of a chance.”

  “In your dreams, young ’un.” Jenni laughed. She saw Paul smile, a secret inner smile, and it sent a shiver through her.

  “I think they forgot to buy anything for my birthday,” Paul said, “so they’ve got to go into town and find something quick.”

  “You won’t be quick if you’re looking for a present in town,” Jenni said. “Or maybe you will, because there’s not much!”

  “We have something we need to do,” Tim said, his face pleasant but closed.

  “Let’s go humiliate you then,” Jenni said. “Again.”

  Paul grinned and stood up, stretching his muscles. Jenni went round the back and stripped her denims and tank top off and walked back to the bottom of the porch.

  “Why don’t you let me give you one of my old suits, Jen?” Kate asked. “I don’t use them now, and I’m sure they would fit you.”

  Jenni shook her head, long tresses brushing her shoulders. “This is my lucky outfit, Kate. If I change it now Paul might beat me.”

  “We can’t have that,” Kate said.

  They walked down to the line of surf. Families, kids, teenagers and old folks dotted the sand, sun loungers arrayed, each one an unspoken but understood and accepted distance for the others. Balls bounced, kids yelled, romances sparked. Jenni glimpsed the sixteen year old girls from the Bradley house talking with two boys their own age. Jenni guessed Paul had missed his chance, despite his protests he wasn’t interested. The girls were cute in tiny bathing suits, white zinc on their pretty noses.

  When their swim was over and they returned from the water the sun said midday, Paul laughing because Jenni had beaten him again, but only by twenty yards.

  “I’ll get you after lunch,” he said. “You’re staying for my birthday lunch, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure I should, Paul. You ought to be spending y
our birthday with family.”

  “I am. But I’d like if you stayed as well.” He slowed and when Jenni turned her head it was to see him staring hard at her, staring into her eyes as they met his, and the flutter started up in her belly and she wondered if Paul noticed her nipples suddenly peak against her top.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, knowing the argument, if one ever existed, was already lost.

  She showered and changed, pulling clean underwear over her still damp body and when she knocked on the door and went in the table was laid with fish, mango salsa, fruit, bottles of wine beaded with moisture, and a small chocolate birthday cake decorated with eighteen unlit candles. As soon as they finished eating Tim put a match against each candle and placed the cake in the center of the table.

  “All at once,” he said. “Then you get to make a wish.”

  Paul leaned over the table and blew. He blew long and hard until every candle was extinguished. He closed his eyes and kept them shut for half a minute.

  “Some wish!” Tim said.

  Paul opened his eyes, blushing, glanced shyly at Jenni. “Might as well make it worthwhile. I’m only going to be eighteen once, even if this is my second party.”

  “Ah, youth,” Tim sighed.

  “Okay,” Kate said. “Let’s clear up then we really have to scoot.”

  “We’ll do this, Grams.” Paul glanced at Jenni. “If that’s okay with you?”

  “Do you mind, Jen?” Kate asked. “It doesn’t seem right asking you to a party and then letting you and the birthday boy clean up, but we could use the extra time in town.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Something had loosened inside Jenni over lunch. Perhaps two glasses of wine had something to do with it, perhaps something else, but her skin tingled with anticipation. She was, she reminded herself, only seven years older than this young man. Okay, maybe eight years; but eight years was nothing.

  As his grandparents drove away Jenni helped Paul stack dishes in the machine, knowing she could not prevent herself instigating the next step. What happened after that was up to Paul.

  Chapter 3

  Through the kitchen window the beach was quiet. While they had eaten low gray clouds scudded in, discouraging all but the most adventurous. Leaning towards her while Jenni passed the plates Paul asked, “You want another swim later?”

  “In a while, maybe. I need to let some of that wine work out of my system first.”

  “Yeah, probably a good idea. What do you want to do then?”

  Fuck your brains out, she thought, but what she said was, “Oh, I’m easy. It’s your birthday.”

  “I don’t mind.” He finished with the last plate and rose on his toes to stack it in the high cabinet, his body lithe and powerful. He half turned, close now, and Jenni became instantly aroused as his scent enveloped her. Salt and sun oil and something deeply masculine underlying everything.

  “I thought I might give you a present,” Jenni said, her words soft.

  “You don’t need to do that.” Somehow, although neither of them had moved, the space between had shrunk.

  “I want to.”

  “It doesn’t seem right. I hope you didn’t spend much.”

  Jenni smiled. “I didn’t spend a thing.”

  “Oh… okay. What have you got me?”

  Jenni took a pace toward him, placed her hands flat against his chest. “This.”

  She lifted on her toes and pressed her lips against his. For a moment she thought it was a mistake, Paul stunned, or afraid, or shocked, she couldn’t tell which and a flare of panic filled her because she was doing the wrong thing. Paul’s sudden gasp drew air from her lungs. His firm young body trembled beneath her hands and Jenni stopped worrying she had stepped over the line. His lips parted in response. She had not meant things to go so fast, intending the kiss as a promise for the future, but before she could prevent herself she pressed hard against his chest, her mouth opening, tongue probing. Paul’s hand pressed into the curve of her back, pulling her closer, pulling her against his instant arousal pressing her stomach.

  The kiss went on and on, changing, Paul pushing past her tongue and between her lips. Jenni dropped her hand to his waist, the slim tightness of muscle along his flank beneath her fingers. She wanted to move her hand lower but hesitated, because this was going fast, maybe too fast. How long did they have? How long could she wait? She knew the answer in an instant. She could not wait at all.

  Jenni pulled back, breathing hard. Paul stood as though stunned, the long hard ridge inside his jeans obvious.

  Jenni darted back and kissed him again, a fleeting peck this time.

  “Happy birthday.” She took his hand.

  “Uhm.”

  “Come on,” Jenni said, “there’s more, if you want.” She had moved beyond restraint. Pent-up lust boiled inside her, scorching away any doubt she had. How long, she wondered, as she led Paul through to the living room, how long before his grandparents returned? She had the impression they might be gone a while. Perhaps they had planned it this way.

  Jenni led Paul by the hand, his features slack with disbelief, a dream state on his handsome face. Jenni drew him to the sofa and pushed him back on the cushions, straddled him and kissed him again, her hands holding his face and after a moment his hands slid along her back and clasped her. She ground her hips against him, the hardness inside his jeans pressing back, offering a promise she intended to fulfill. Her cut-off denims allowed the nakedness of her thighs to rest against Paul’s jeans, filling her with a sensual longing. She wanted to feel his skin against hers.

  Jenni dropped her hands, pulling at the buttons on his shirt, opening them and slipping her fingers inside, her fingertips experiencing his hard smoothness. She kissed his neck, put her hands on her own tank top and drew it up. Jenni watched Paul’s eyes widen as she revealed her breasts cupped inside a small white bra, their nipples hard, peaking against the lace.

  “Touch me,” Jenni’s voice a whisper. When Paul failed to respond she took his hands and lifted them to her breasts, gasping as his palms closed over them. “Like this, touch me like this.”

  She returned to his buttons until his shirt gaped wide, leaned and kissed his neck, moved lower and nipped at his nipple with her teeth. Men were sensitive and got hard there too, and she licked and sucked at him as he jerked between her lips.

  His hands grew bolder against her breasts, probing, pushing down inside the cup of her bra, searching for and finding her nipples. Jenni reached behind and flicked a clasp and the bra fell away, granting Paul’s hands full access. She arched her back, presenting herself to him, rewarded when his mouth closed around her nipple. His tongue caressed the stiff nub and sensation arced through her, a direct line drawn from nipple to clitoris. Paul, she decided, still had too many clothes on.

  Jenni allowed him to suck on her nipples, as a reward, and also because his lips were so good against her breast, then she pulled away, slipping down to the floor between his legs. She put her hands on the brass clip of his jeans and looked up at him, asking the question without forming words, and Paul gave the merest nod. Jenni twisted the clasp, slowly popping each brass button along his fly, her eyes devouring the sight revealed. When all the buttons were loose she tugged at his jeans and Paul lifted his hips, allowing her to pull them down. His shorts caught and came with them, not all the way, only as far as the base of his pubic hair, the root of his hard cock showing.

  Jenni kissed his hip, his belly, placed her hand directly over the long shape formed by his cock and Paul gasped.

  “Oh Jesus, I’m going to have an accident if you do that.”

  “Not an accident,” Jenni said her voice hoarse. She tugged at his shorts, wanting to see all of him, wanting to taste him. He lifted again and his cock worked free, slapping back hard against his belly. Jenni grasped him, impressed at the length and thickness of his cock, impressed at the hard smoothness. She stroked him once and saw him twitch. Oh yes, accident on the way, a delicious accident. S
he had no idea how this felt for him but she could guess. He would be on a hair trigger now, trying to hold himself back and about to fail. Jenni determined to make him fail.

  She leaned forward and put her mouth against the side of his cock, licked the smooth hot skin and he twitched again.

  “No, no,” he gasped, but Jenni was relentless. She shifted upward and her lips found the head of his cock and closed around his glans, pulling him inside her mouth. The taste of his cock was sweet against her tongue, the head slick with pre-cum. Paul tried to hold her head and pull her away but she knocked his hands aside.

  “I want to do this.” Freeing her mouth only long enough to say the words.

  “You’re gonna make me come,” he cried, anguish in his voice.

  “Good.”

  “But…”

  “It’s okay, honey, I want you to. I want you to come in my mouth.”

  Jenni took him back between her lips, deeper this time, she had always given good head, had a reputation at one time she hated, but now she knew she gave good head, wished her husband wanted her to do this to him, knowing he was a lost cause. Instead she would enjoy the pleasure of this afternoon. This beautiful boy with his long, thick cock was all hers.

  “Ahh!” Paul cried out, and Jenni pressed down, his cock touching the top of her throat and pressing down again so he filled her. She pulled back at the moment he tipped over, unable to prevent himself, his hips jerking upward and the first explosion of sweet slickness filled her mouth and she accepted his offering, swallowing what she could but he jerked too much and pulled free of her lips, spurting enormous arcing jets of semen which caught in her hair, splashed against her face, spattered across her breasts and he came again and again and again, the fecundity of his youth covering Jenni in cum.

  She grabbed his cock and drew him back against her tongue, ignoring his gasp. Still rock hard, still rigid, still ready. She played with his glans, explored the tip of his cock with her tongue, moved up and kissed his belly, his chest, coming finally to his mouth and kissing him, her bare breasts smearing semen against his chest.