Chapter 1

The rain had been falling steadily all day, as it's been known to do in Portland, Oregon. The somniferous white noise drumming on the roof had put me to sleep on the couch, well before Letterman came on the air.

I was dreaming of a cabin; a bed and breakfast on the Oregon coast, where my wife Jennifer and I had once vacationed in the long lost time before children.

In my dream, the sound of the rain on the roof had turned into the sounds of the surf on the beach. Jen and I were lying together on a lounge chair, hiding from the morning chill under a thick blanket. I could taste the sweet afterglow of hot chocolate in my mouth; the empty cups were on the deck next to us.

We watched seagulls hanging nearly stationary before us as they faced directly into the steady breeze off the ocean, like airplane models in a wind tunnel, flying but going nowhere. The wind's constant force had made all the trees and bushes near the beach list away from the ocean, conceding to the wind the sculpture of their shape as the price of their survival.

Jen gently shifted her shoulder that was touching mine. It was intimate; it was soothing. I sighed contentedly. We snuggled together without a care in the world.

The lounge chair dipped briefly under me. A second sensation joined the touch on my shoulder, this one a grasping of my hip. I couldn't say if it was a moment or an hour later, when I was gently rolled onto my back.

I kept my eyes closed, stubbornly holding on to the thinning threads of my pleasurable unconsciousness. It was Jen who I felt roll now, coming to a stop lying flush on top of me. I caught the scent of her hair. I could feel her curvy body resting on mine, from her chest on my chest, and on down to where she notched my shin bones into the cleft between her big toes and the accompanying rows of smaller toes.

I resisted as long as I could, but when I could feel her breath rippling the hair of my mustache, I had to give in. I cracked my eyes open, just enough to see my beloved wife's face inches from mine, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"How's my big... strong... man... doing?" she asked, using her best imitation of a breathy Marilyn Monroe wishing JFK a happy birthday.

I looked up at her suspiciously, blinking to bring her into focus.

"Hmgfhumf."

"Really? That good, eh?"

"Hmph."

"I know what you mean, sweetheart. I hadn't realized tomorrow was paper recycling day either."

"Oh, son of a..."

Before I could complete the oath, she plastered her lips to mine, playfully opening her mouth wide to trap the vowels, narrow enough to catch the consonants.

I soon stopped struggling and returned the kiss, wrapping my arms around her to hold her to me. When I tentatively touched her lips with my tongue, she made a surprised little squeak and returned the favor.

But when I began gently rolling her from side to side in my embrace from below, rubbing her body over mine, she pulled back from my lips with a loud smack.

"Hold it right there, buster," she said sternly. "You get paid after you do the recycling, not before."

"But I'm not awake yet. I shouldn't use power tools when I'm sleepy."

"We've already discussed that. If you become disabled, I'm supposed to turn off the machines."

"That's only if I'm brain dead in a coma; not euthanized for stitches in my hand!"

"Oh. Well, six of one and half a dozen of the other."

"What?"

"You say potato, and I say patahtoe."

"I do have this stuff in my will, you know."

"Are you sure? Your filing system is so bad I'll probably never find it."

I sighed in resignation. "I guess I'll just have to take my chances."

She slid sensuously off me, stood and held out her hand to help me up.

My lady sure seemed to be... lascivious, the last few days. Who was I to complain? I kept the image of her sultry expression firmly in mind as I busily collected the waste cans from around the house, taking them out to my sorting area in the garage.

My sorting duties are considerably smaller now that my sons are away at college. You could never tell what you'd find in the cans from their rooms. In one respect it's too bad — emptying their garbage cans was one way to see what they were up to. It was the way we found out when they became sexually active, and... oh, sorry... too much information.