There were just as many corridors upstairs as there were down. Harley held my hand until we reached one particular door that was decorated with a group of old stickers in the shape of butterflies.
“She might have taken everything out and turned it into a sewing room for all I know.”
“Only one way to find out.”
She hesitated a moment. With a deep breath, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. It was a typical teen’s room, complete with posters depicting various bands—mostly alternative rock with a little pop thrown in—and movie stars—she seemed to have a thing for Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. There were bookshelves filled with everything from the classics to bodice-ripping romances, a desk that was piled high with anatomy books and old homework papers. The bed was a twin-sized canopy bed with more butterflies on the comforter. And stuffed animals. There were bears and rabbits and owls and unicorns. It was almost amusing how typically naive the occupant of this room had been.
“I can’t believe she left it like this. It’s like she didn’t move a thing.”
“Maybe she was hoping you’d be back.”
“I doubt it. She probably just couldn’t be bothered.”
I picked up a book from her desk, a book of romantic poems. I rifled through it, stopping here and there to read a few words.
“Didn’t know you were so romantic.”
She took the book from my hand. “My dad used to read poetry to me. It was his.”
“Hmmm, so Dad was the romantic.”
“He was a dreamer. Mom said the only thing he was ever serious about was his work, and even then he tended to get too emotionally involved with his patients.”
“Seems to me that that’s what makes a good doctor.”
“That’s what makes a broken doctor.”
“I’ve never asked what specialty you’re studying.”
“Cardiac surgery. Like my dad.”
“Impressive.”
She shook her head. “Not going to happen now. They’ve released me from the program, remember?”
“Does that mean you can’t go back?”
“I’d have to find another program to take me and that’s unlikely considering everything.”
“But you’re still a doctor.”
“Sure, I’m a doctor. A doctor without a specialty.”
“When this is over—”
“Will this ever be over?” She sighed heavily as she sat on the edge of the bed. “I feel like this thing is just getting bigger and bigger, taking over everything. For ten years, this has been the focus on my life, the only thing that seemed to matter.”
“That’s not true. You went to college. You went to medical school.”
“School was always easy for me. It was the actual living in the real world thing that I couldn’t quite pull off.”
“Come on,” I said, holding out my hands to her. “You just need to eat something. Take a shower. Get out of your head a little.”
She took my hand and led the way out of the bedroom. “I’ll show you to the guest bedrooms. You can pick the one you like best.”
Once again, those corridors. I didn’t think I would ever learn my way around this continuously confusing house. After a few twists and turns, she led the way down a long corridor with doors on either side.
“This is the best room,” she said, leading me to the last door on the left hand side. When she pushed the door open, the hall was flooded with light from the French doors on the other side of the room. It had a little balcony that looked down on a beautiful rose garden down below. Jesse would have loved it. She was an accomplished gardener with a green thumb that could make almost anything grow.
“This one is fine,” I said, not even going inside, just standing in the doorway.
“Then I’ll let you settle in. Just dial thirty-five on the phone and tell James to bring up your bag.”
She started to turn, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room with me.
“What are you doing?”
I just kept walking, pulling her behind me until we were standing in the bathroom. She shook her head, but I was already untucking her shirt from her jeans. She bit her lip, standing still as I undressed her. Like before, like she’d done back in the hotel room, she didn’t seem to be bothered by her nudity. She let me do what I wanted. She stood still and let me unhook her bra, sliding it down her arms and tossing it to the floor. When I knelt in front of her and tugged at her jeans, slipping them down over her hips, she didn’t touch me, but she didn’t pull away.
I loved looking at her body. I was a grown man, closer to forty than I cared to admit even to myself, but this woman was the first I’d ever had this experience with. Three lovers I had before her—not counting the weeping widow—but I never saw a single one of them in the full glory of their nudity. The first two were high school romances, quick hookups in the backseat of my father’s Cadillac. And Jesse…my beloved wife who was so modest she insisted on the lights off whenever we made love, refusing to remove her nightgown even when I begged her, when I told her how much the sight of her breasts drove me crazy. But Harley…I drank her in with my hungry eyes, devouring every inch of her as I undressed her, as I pushed her back against the counter and just drank her in.
Maybe that’s what it was about her. Maybe it was that she was a completely new and different experience from everything I’d known before.
“Do you like what you see?” she asked softly, finally catching on to the game I was playing. She climbed up onto the sink, hooking one heel on the edge of the counter so that everything was on display. She slid her fingers along the edge of her bare cunt lips, watching my face as she separated them, exposing her slowly swelling clit, her butterfly wing-like inner lips, and that deep, sweet opening that promised all the pleasure a man could ever hope to experience.
“You like this?”
I moved into her and bent low to steal a kiss, but she turned her head, refusing to give me what I wanted.
“Take off your clothes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, stepping back and tearing my shirt over my head, unwilling to block that lovely vision for even the second it took to take it off. She lifted her fingers to her lips, licking them as she watched me, lowering them to her cunt again. As I watched, she began to play with her clit, using the moisture from her mouth to lubricate her touch, to make her own touch that much more gentle, that much more pleasurable. Her eyes stayed on mine as she teased her clit out of its hood, playing with it until it became this swollen little tongue that just begged to be sucked.
I stripped out of my jeans, obeying her demand before I dove to my knees and took her into my mouth, making her hiss with pleasure as I rolled her hard clit around in my mouth, pressing it against the back of my teeth until she cried out. And then I pulled back, teasing it with the slightest touches before I drew it deep into my mouth again, again rolling it around. She ran her fingers through my hair, tugging me close to her as my tongue joined the party, sliding over her butterfly-like lips and into that lovely orifice, tasting her juices as if they were the juice of the gods.
Her hands in my hair was almost painful, but she knew what she wanted. She pulled me this way and that, moving her hips until I hit each of the sweet spots that made her moan, that made her tighten her thighs against the sides of my head, that made her juices flow like water from a waterfall. I took my time, nibbling here, sucking there, rolling things around with my tongue, filling her with my fingers, my tongue, making her squirm, making her lose control. My balls ached in a way they’d never done before, my cock harder than I thought it capable. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted a woman. This…it was the sort of thing men talked about in locker rooms, but never really experienced. This was not marriage, not commitment. It wasn’t even casual sex. This was fucking nirvana.
I kissed her belly and nibbled at her nipples, as her orgasm passed. Our lips touched, our tongues danced. And then I pulled away. I don’t know where I got the co
ntrol, but I pulled away and started the water in the shower.
It couldn’t just be a normal shower stall. It was a long, open section of the room that held a half dozen showerheads, a thunderstorm of rain rushing over our bodies as we went inside, touching each other, but keeping our hands in areas that were more PG-13 than NC-17. I filled my hand with the liquid soap that was hanging from a bottle on the wall and turned her around, soaping up her back like she as a prized piece of crystal and I was the poor sap charged with making it shine. Her skin was silky, the soap making it more so. I moved from her shoulders down her back, taking my time on her ass and the back of her thighs before I turned her around, repeating the process on those luscious breasts, her lovely, flat belly, and those wide, sexy hips. I nibbled at her cunt as I made my way down over her thighs, her calf. She laughed when I lifted her leg and nibbled at her toes. But she wasn’t laughing when I slid a finger inside of her as I stood, stealing her lips, invading her with a need that was growing impossibly fierce.
She caught me by surprise, pushing me back against the far wall. It was my turn for the rub down. I watched her move, watched her breasts jiggle just slightly, her hips turn and twist, her muscular legs stretch and flex as she filled her hand with soap. There was almost a sad look in her eyes as she ran her hands over my chest, the scent of the soap filling my head, her touch making me a little dizzy. She was careful to avoid those places I so desperately wanted her touch, sliding her hands over my chest, my belly, then turning me around, taking her time on my shoulders, my back, my ass. I loved the way her hands felt on my body. I hadn’t thought that I missed the simplicity of touch. They taught us in the Army how to deal with loneliness, how important it was to compartmentalize our needs, our duty, and our lives in the Army and in the civilian world. I thought I’d succeeded in that in a way that other men failed. But if I’d known the pleasure of Harley’s touch then…I hated myself for that thought.
Jesse…I’m so sorry!
But it felt so good. I closed my eyes as she turned me again, her soapy hands coming around my shaft. Her hands moved down over my balls, her fingers playing with them like a pool player rolling the heavy, resin balls over his fingers. I wanted her to take me into her mouth as she’d done last night, but she didn’t. But she moved close to me, her lips dancing over my collarbone, my pecs, her tongue doing this funny little dance over my teeny nipples that I could feel all the way down in my balls.
A man could only take so much.
I grabbed her upper arms and turned her, slamming her against the wall. She cried out, but when our eyes met there was as much excitement in her eyes as there was fear. I kissed her roughly, loving the taste of her mouth, the feel of her tongue dancing with mine. I pressed my body hard against hers, my cock pulsing as it pressed against the heat of her lower belly. I wanted to be inside of her; I wanted to do things to her that would take us both days to recover from, but the walls were slick, and my urgency was too much for this wet environment. I reached over and turned off the water, lifting her in my arms as I carefully made my way out of there.
She pressed her face against my shoulder, her breath hot against my skin. I found a towel and wrapped it over her as I stumbled into the bedroom. The comforter on the queen-sized bed was down, too expensive to lay on it with water streaming over my face. And the straight-backed chair was clearly an antique. As was the dresser. But the dresser was one of those low, long ones, and it looked like it was made out of cherry. Solid.
I set Harley on the edge, sliding my cock inside of her before she had a chance to adjust her position. She moaned, her legs immediately wrapping around my waist. I pulled her forward, reaching behind her to brace myself on the wall. And then…I don’t think I’d ever moved with that much purpose before. There were no words for how it felt to be inside of her just then, no words for how desperately I wanted to bury myself deeper and deeper, and now words for how I needed to be as deep inside of her as humanly possible. I just…I couldn’t get enough.
Our skin was still wet, and she had trouble holding onto me and I had trouble holding onto her, but that didn’t keep us from doing our best. I swear my vision darkened a little around the edges as my orgasm built deep in my balls, as she clung to me, her mouth clamping down on my shoulder. She cried out when she came this time, her thighs like a vice around my waist. I picked her up and fell back into that antique chair, pressing my face between her breasts. I encouraged her to move her hips, to ride my aching cock. When I pulled back, I could see the pleasure dancing on her face, and when our eyes met, there was something else there. I couldn’t puzzle it out in that moment, though, the pleasure and pain building in my lower belly, racing up the length of my spine, making it nearly impossible.
I wrapped my arms around her waist when the end finally approached, tugging her as hard against me as I could get her. I muffled my cries against her chest, loving the feel of her arms coming around my head, her body cradling mine as I lost complete control.
Had it ever been like that before? Had I ever given up control like that before?
I was exhausted when it was done, too exhausted to answer questions like that. I picked her up and collapsed on the bed with her body tangled with mine. She curled against my chest, her face hidden there. I held her because that was what people did. And I liked the way her body fit against mine, small and perfect, like two spoons nestled in a drawer.
We lay there quietly for a long time. When the silence was broken, it was Harley who broke it.
“What was she like?”
Her voice was so low I almost didn’t hear her. But when her words registered, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t.
“Why?”
She shook her head, her forehead still pressed to my chest. “I know the facts. I know how the two of you met, how long you were married, the places where she liked to shop, what your neighbors thought of her. But I’ve never really heard much about her, about what she was like.”
I pulled away from her, rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
“I don’t think we should talk about her.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I was just…curious.”
I threw my arm over my eyes, my thoughts suddenly a jumbled mess. I tried to picture Jesse, but it was like there was a mental block. I could see her eyes; I could see the color of her hair, but I couldn’t see the whole picture. It was stupid! Her face had haunted me for ten years, and now when I really wanted to see it, it wouldn’t come to me.
I could feel the mattress shift as Harley got up. I reached for her before I knew I was going to do it, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back onto the bed.
“She liked gardening,” I said, staring at Harley’s wrist in my hand. “She liked to run her fingers through soil and tug at weeds. She liked to plant budding plants and watch them grow. She said it was like watching a child grow.”
Harley lifted her other hand to touch the side of my face, but she must have realized I didn’t want her touch because she let it fall before she’d made contact.
“She was a kindergarten teacher. She worked at the little school on base there at Fort Jackson, chasing the little kids around all day long. I always marveled at how much energy she had. After we got married, she quit because she said she wanted to remember every second of time with our baby, even the little moments of her pregnancy. She wanted to have a dozen kids; she wanted to have baby after baby. I think she was a little disappointed when the doctor insisted she wait at least six months before trying for a second one. And then…well, it didn’t happen right away and then I was deployed.”
That was one of many disappointments I’d created for my wife. She wanted me to retire then; she wanted me to stay home and be a full-time husband and father. Money never mattered to Jesse. She insisted she’d be happy living in squalor if it meant having her babies and me. She never really did understand what it meant to marry a career soldier.
“I think Jesse would have been perfectly happy to sit at ho
me, barefoot and pregnant, for the rest of her adult life. She was so content when she was pregnant. Nothing fazed her. And she was so excited when we brought Grace home. She was a great mom.”
I let go of Harley’s wrist and slid my hand over her belly, remembering how Jesse’s belly had looked when swollen with our growing child.
“She liked movies, but only the PG kind. She liked to lay on the couch at night and watch old television shows. Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O and things like that. Things she used to watch with her dad. And she hated popcorn, but she’d eat Cheetos until her fingers were permanently stained orange.”
I laughed a little, remembering how I’d teased her about that little habit.
“She went to church every weekend, rain or shine. Didn’t care if I went with her. Her dad was devout. He was a strict father and she was his only child, so he was pretty hard on her sometimes. It made her a little timid, shy. And overly modest. She hated the idea of being vulnerable in front of anyone. Including me. I don’t even think she undressed when she was alone. That was the one thing that she struggled with when she had Grace. The immodesty of it all.”
I ran my fingertip around Harley’s belly button, my thoughts a million miles away—or, more accurately, ten years in the past—remembering the coroner’s words to me when I finally arrived at the morgue after traveling for a straight twenty-four hours.
She was raped. Multiple time. When the police arrived, they found her completely unclothed. Marks on her arms and her legs suggested she was restrained. It looks as though whoever did this wanted her to suffer.
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