Chapter 3

Martha Connor was June’s second cousin. She had grown up in Millersville, a farm town that had been slowly decaying for decades. Martha’s and June’s family had visited very rarely when she was a girl, at family reunions. They still exchanged Christmas cards. She remembered the excitement of going to the big city Omaha for the reunions, one of the few times she had been any distance from Millersville, way out in the Nebraska farmland.

She never thought her life would turn out like this. In those far-gone days right after high school, she had really hoped Tom would propose to her, but Tom married Penelope. She had always found Fred annoying, from the time they were in school together. But he was the best option she had. So they married. And at first being a married couple appealed to her. He worked at the farm equipment dealership and brought home money. She cooked and kept house, and she had someone to share a bed with at night. Sex was a wham-bam affair, and he took any suggestions of trying to give her pleasure as an assault on his masculinity. But the whamming and bamming had its intended effect. Ralph was a joy. Jennifer appeared a couple years later and Martha felt blessed. But then the business at the equipment dealership faltered, and Fred got furloughed, and he became irritable and even abusive at times. Eventually the dealership took Fred back, for much reduced pay.

Ralph did OK in school but kept his thoughts to himself. After graduation, he went off to the city -- New York. He visited a couple times a year for a while, but then the visits became letters and then the letters stopped. Jennifer started a life in the nearby town of Silver Creek and came home at least every other weekend. She casually mentioned going on dates. Martha hoped she would become a grandma before long.

But then during a fight Fred had lost his temper and threw Martha down the stairs. It left her a paraplegic. Fred felt bad and initially did a decent job as her caretaker. But he still wanted sex, and the one time she reluctantly agreed it was horrible. She couldn’t feel a thing herself, she just saw Fred’s organ pushing in and out. When he finished he pushed too hard and the pressure somehow resulted in excruciating pain. He promised to never push so hard again, but Martha just could not face another encounter. Fred started drinking more heavily, and then in the wee hours of a dark night, Martha awakened to the sound of a gunshot. Fred had taken his life. Martha had long before adopted very low expectations of Fred, but this combination of disabling her and then not even sticking around in life to care for her -- it made her angry whenever she thought of it, even now, a couple years later.

She was grateful that one person still stuck by her. Jennifer cared for her from a distance at first. They looked into Martha moving to the town to live with Jennifer so she could keep up with her job, but Martha learned it was a part-time job, and Jennifer’s wages weren’t enough to rent a place big enough for the two of them. Whoever owned their little place in Millersville hadn’t asked for rent in years. So instead Jennifer moved back to her home town.

Jennifer never thought her life would turn out like it had either, though she and her mother rarely talked about such things.

She had gone to live in the only nearby town of any size, Silver Creek, right after high school. She got a job as a secretary. A few men asked her out on dates. There were a few awkward sexual encounters. Then when her mother got disabled and her father killed himself, there was no choice but to move back to Millersville. Thinking back to the year before, she wished she had not turned away that one young man Tom, who was short, balding, and not much of a conversationalist -- but he did have a job and seemed to be a decent fellow. She had moved back four years before and was now 38 years old.

Millersville had gone from a declining town to a dying town, and now it was nearly dead. Total population was seven (7). There was Jennifer and her mother, the Widow Anderson, crazy old Clyde, the elderly Johnsons, and Harry Stoertz.

Harry had come to town seven years earlier, when the town population was thirteen (13) to take over the general store when the owners gave it up and left. Anyone with a bit of sense could tell that the store wasn’t going to survive, but Harry tried for a year before giving up.

When Jennifer moved back to care for her mother, Harry had expressed interest in her and she had given the polite signals that any ordinary guy would understand as rejection. But he wasn’t very perceptive, and he kept asking. So she told him explicitly that while he was a fine man, she wasn’t interested in him that way and never would be. After that he was just rude to her, leered, and made suggestive remarks whenever they met. She tried to arrange things so they met as little as possible.

Widow Anderson and crazy old Clyde paid Harry a little to make the 100-mile round trip to the grocery store in Silver Creek to pick up their food and other necessities. The Johnsons had a daughter who dropped by with provisions every couple months. Jennifer made the drive herself, because she didn’t want to be beholden to Harry for anything.

And then Jennifer got BFT. Her mother was sympathetic but had no ideas. She shared the bad news with Mrs. Johnson, who told her that while she would have been happy to encourage her husband to try to treat her, he would not be able to, and asking him would just embarrass him. Crazy old Clyde sometimes rambled on about things without much attention to what was socially acceptable, and that had included admitting his inability to do the thing that Jennifer needed. Harry was the only one in town who met the most basic requirements, and going to him was out of the question. So it was time to go out of town.

She arranged to stay overnight in Silver Creek the next time she went in for provisions. The handful of young men she had dated had all left town. She tried to calm herself and remind herself that what she was doing was entirely honorable, since she had a medical problem. But her confidence wavered when it came to actually asking for what she wanted. It was easier with the women, who were polite in suggesting a possible man or two or in saying they knew none. Two men politely said they would be unable to help her, but another two actually looked her up and down and then shook their heads. The last one leered as he did, which was humiliating. She wasn’t ugly ... was she?

The itching got worse. The burning got worse. The shooting pains became more and more frequent.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Jennifer rarely drank. Now she got drunk. It was to relax her inhibitions, but it also made her less able to keep her mind off that wretched itching and burning. She walked over to Harry’s house at 8pm and knocked loudly on the door.

“Well, well, it’s Jennifer! Decided I’m irresistible after all?”

“No. But I’ve got BFT. You know BFT? The female bug?”

“Oh, yeah, that ... I never thought it would come way out here! And ... you want me to fuck you to make it go away? Wow!” He burst out laughing. “That’s the funniest thing ever!”

“Yeah, Harry, that’s exactly what I want. I know I’ve turned you down and you hate me, but this is a medical problem. None of the other men in town have what it takes. Seems like there aren’t any in Silver Creek either, or at least I couldn’t find them.”

“You want a favor of me ... after you being so mean all these years.” Harry looked at her with revulsion.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. But I’m not suggesting I be your girlfriend or anything. I’m just suggesting you have sex with me. Just once. Now. No strings attached. This BFT hurts like hell and maybe you could help me.”

“I’m mad at you.”

“I know! But men can have sex with women they’re mad at.” Jennifer wondered if being more explicit might help her cause. She pulled up her skirt to show him her underpants. “Right in there. In there is my vagina. You could put your penis in it. I’d really like it if you did.”

Something about her presenting it that way made Harry engage his more animal nature. He quickly took off his shoes and socks, then pants and undies, and there was his stiff cock.

Jennifer looked around for some place to lie down. There was junk on every surface. She looked into his bedroom. The bed was mostly covered with junk, but there was a clear place big enough for one person to lie down, which is evidently where Harry slept. She lay down there now. The sheets smelled. But she pulled her panties down and spread her legs.

Harry mounted her and she guided his dick to her pussy hole. “You bitch,” he said. “You damned, lousy bitch. But you wanna get fucked? Yeah I can do that for you, bitch...”

That was as far as he got before he groaned, spewing sperm up into Jennifer.

She hated Harry. But on her back, barely fitting on the edge of his dirty bed in his dirty house, the smelly boorish Harry had stuck his cock into her pussy and dumped his sperm ... And in one heartbeat after another the pains lessened, lessened more, and then they were all gone.

“So there, that’s what you wanted, eh?” sneered Harry, getting up.

“Yes, Harry, it is exactly what I wanted. I thank you very much. It seems to have solved my problem.” She somehow found herself hugging him and saying, “Thank you, thank you...” When she realized what she was doing she stopped, then quickly left.

It was a shock when Jennifer got BFT. Martha watched helplessly as her girl suffered more and more. Jennifer was the first case anyone in Millersville knew of personally. But she was also the only woman young enough for it to affect. Likely the insidious bug lived inside all of them, but only made its horrible presence known in Jennifer.

She listened to Jennifer’s abbreviated account of looking for a sex partner in Silver Creek, and read between the lines as to how humiliated she must have felt. And after returning from her brief mating with Harry, Jennifer cried. With the physical symptoms gone, the floodgates opened about her miserable life and what she had had to submit to, and she couldn’t hide the obvious fact that she had given up her independent life to care for her mother. Martha mused about following Fred’s example and shooting herself, allowing Jennifer to go back to town to have a normal life. But she wasn’t that brave, and told herself that her suicide wouldn’t magically solve Jennifer’s problems.

Jennifer reported that Harry wanted to have sex with her again. He said since he had done her a favor, it was only right that she do him a favor in return. But naturally Jennifer refused, and had to fend off Harry’s repeated requests.

But Martha wondered ... what would happen if the bug struck Jennifer again? Sometimes a woman had a single episode in her life. Other times it might come back in a year. More commonly a couple months.

She tried to raise the subject with Jennifer. But Jennifer had been already considering the prospect and regarded it with horror. She lit into her mother. It was the biggest fight they had had since Jennifer’s hormones had settled down late in high school. Martha heard Jennifer say some very hurtful things, but she tried to keep them in perspective. Jennifer had reason to be furious at what life had served up for her. If she took it out on Martha that was OK. That’s what she tried to tell herself.

“I think the Bug is coming back,” said Jennifer when the emotional temperature had fallen a bit. “The itching. I’m not sure. But ... Is dad’s gun still around the house?”

The gravity of the situation made Martha take stock. She said, “Let me tell you more about my past.” For the first time, she described how she had wanted to marry Tom, but that she had settled for Fred. About how things had not been great between them -- which was in its broad outlines no surprise to Jennifer of course. “And as for sex ... well, most kids never want to hear about their parents’ sex lives, I get that ... but it’s relevant.” Jennifer hesitated but nodded.

“Wham, bam, thank you ma’am,” Martha said, and Jennifer smiled. She also described how Fred felt doing anything different to make it better for Martha would make him less of a man. “So it was ‘wham, bam’. Pretty much every night.”

“Mom! You didn’t have to let him do that!”

“No, I guess not,” sighed Martha. “But of course that’s what produced Ralph, and then you. Your father and I didn’t have much in common. I figured I shouldn’t stop one of the few ways we had. I had an insight that made it a bit better. Your father was an animal. A male animal, doing what male animals do. So I could be a female animal, and not ask for more. And when I talked to my friends, it seems like most of them stopped having sex a few years into the marriage, or did it very rarely. They missed it -- mostly they missed something that resembled love-making, at least now and then, but they also missed just having sex at all. And I realized maybe my situation wasn’t all that bad. At least my female animal was getting what she was designed to get.”

But after a moment Jennifer glared at Martha. “So, are you suggesting I let that slime mold Harry do his ‘wham-bam’ all the time so I can at least get the satisfaction of a female animal?”

Martha changed course in a hurry. “No, dear, not at all ... It was rude of me to even suggest any sort of parallel. Your father was an angel compared to Harry.”

But Jennifer kept thinking about what her mother had said and the entire situation. In between her fits of rage and resentment at her mother, she saw she wasn’t so far off the mark in sizing up the entire situation.

Jennifer could see Harry bristling as he saw her approach. She figured she’d better get straight to the point.

“Would you like to fuck me? I’d like it if you’d do that.”

Harry smiled, then hesitated. “Is it ‘cuz you got BFT again? Want me to treat you? Do you a favor? Then you go back to treating me like dirt?”

“You know we’re not the best of friends. That’s what would suit me best, if I was just being selfish. But I can see that’s not fair. No, I’ve got a better deal for you. You can fuck me now. But also tomorrow, and the day after that. Every day. And while there’s been tension between us, it’s not like I hate your or anything. Honest.”

Harry hesitated. “That’s what you say now...”

“I know I’ve been mean to you sometimes, but I don’t think I ever lied. Besides, it wouldn’t be terrible, would it? If I go back on my word you can keep your dick in your pants next time I get BFT and watch me fall apart and die and gloat about it.”

Harry suppressed a smile, then shrugged. He led her back to his place.

There was a bit less chaos. The entire bed was free of junk. When Harry mounted her and began thrusting, he muttered “Bitch ... Cunt ... All those years, you led me on...” That surprised Jennifer. How had he seen it as leading her on? Maybe just being there as opposed to being somewhere else qualified as leading him on? Along with his demeaning talk, he was shoving up into her hard, another expression of his anger. But Jennifer’s body had the padding that nature had allocated to the female so that even the most violent thrusts didn’t damage her or even hurt, at least not much. She didn’t feel any great relief when he came, but she hadn’t been sure she was getting the bug quite then anyway.

With his penis retracted from her body, Harry had a goofy post-orgasmic smile. “So, you come back tomorrow night?”

“Yes, I’ll come,” she said. She managed a little smile.

When she returned, the place was notably cleaner and more picked up.

Once more he called her names and banged his cock up into her hard.

When he was done, she kept her arms around behind his back and didn’t just let go. He didn’t object when she maneuvered them so they were side by side hugging. And they stayed that way for a whole minute.

Day after day, Harry fucked her. Sometimes he took a good long time about it. But whenever he lost a load of sperm, he also seemed to lose a bit of his anger.

As for Jennifer, she remembered her mom’s ‘wham, bam’ stories about her father, and could feel a bit of the same. However angry or even disgusted she might feel with Harry, there was that inner female part of her that just wanted to be fucked. And that part was getting what it wanted.

She asked if he wanted some tips about what would make his place more fun for her to visit? He did. So she explained how things could be cleaner. She offered to do a load of laundry over at her mother’s house. He seemed to appreciate the clean clothes, and after a bit of investigation and cleaning they found that his own washing machine and dryer still worked.

One evening, lying together after sex, he said, “I know I’m kind of dumb and miss things other people understand. Could I maybe get better that way? So maybe you wouldn’t hate me so much?”

Jennifer started to object, but then realized he was right. She did hate him. She didn’t have her own stiff cock to mete out sharp thrusting and intravaginal ejaculations to help ease her anger. She had given her mother brief reports on how things were going with him, and when she relayed his comment, Martha had an idea. “Why don’t you suggest he come see me, and I’ll give him some lessons on being more polite.”

Jennifer didn’t ask for details, but whatever her mother was doing with Harry had an effect. Within a week, when they got into bed, he said, “I want to do something. I want to kiss you down there where your vagina is, before we do it.”

No one had offered to go down on Jennifer before, and she was taken aback. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

She felt she could almost hear him reciting something her mother had suggested he say. “I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Willing to at least try it?”

Jennifer took it at face value, and experienced a man’s tongue down there for the first time. A few things did not feel good, but it was amazing how quickly he could take in her suggestions. Within ten minutes it felt good. It felt very good. This time when he mounted her she was eager for his cock to slide in, and felt lusty feminine pleasure.

Now and then Harry said a bit about how it had been growing up as the youngest, with everyone teasing him, and his brother beating him up, and sister making fun of him. Jennifer began to understand a bit better why he was the way he was. And how he might get a bit better.

“Mom, it would be nice to spend the whole night with Harry, but I don’t want to leave you alone at night. But the walls are thin here and he’s not very quiet. Should I try to teach him?”

Martha laughed. “Oh, heavens no. You and I know what’s going on. Maybe I’ll even get a little vicarious thrill out of it.”

Jennifer got another bout of BFT -- she was sure of it. But it barely got started before Harry’s enthusiastic fucking cured it.

And then Jennifer missed a period. At the age of 41, she’d already been having some irregularity for a couple years. But she missed another one, and her body felt strange. She was pregnant!

When she and Harry started doing it regularly, she had thought she ought to go on the pill, but had never gotten around to it. She vaguely figured she was old enough she’d probably never get pregnant.

Now she could have an abortion or have the baby. She knew what her mother would favor. She thought she ought to have a conversation with Harry. Did he want to be a father? He did! They weren’t going to do anything pretentious like getting married, but they sort of made a commitment to each other. Harry spent more and more time with Jennifer and Martha, and eventually gave up his own place. He had a bit of money stashed away and that helped them out. Harry was eager to learn how to be an involved father, and he did a decent job of it.