Chapter 17: Epilogue

One Year Later

Brenda Oliver squirmed in her seat as her husband, Steve, drove his two-year-old Camry south on the New York Thruway. It was a three-hour drive from their home near Albany to the Pocono resort he had made reservations at for a four-day weekend. They were about halfway to their destination, though she wasn’t completely sure where that was. Steve had simply told her that it was one of those ridiculous couples-only places, with round beds and whirlpool tubs and mirrors everywhere. The advertisements proclaimed they were for romance, but everybody understood that actually meant sex. Brenda had packed very lightly, since she doubted she would be wearing much at all while they were in their room.

That was fine with her. Ever since they had been to the Maltesanos and Haka Nuva, the Olivers’ life had changed, and they were happy about the change. That hadn’t started, though, for several days after they left Haka Nuva.

The initial part of the trip home, the various jumps from Haka Nuva to Papeete, in Tahiti, had gone relatively smoothly. They had met the Winstons in the lobby early Sunday morning, and had given them a ride to the ferry, and later to the airport in Maltesano. The Maltesanos were so small and so far away from anything that there was normally only a single flight in and out every day. The Olivers and Winstons had been joined at the hip all the way back through the Marquesas until they got to Tahiti, where they split up. Then Babs and Tully took a flight back to Australia. Brenda and Steve flew back to the States.

Brenda had dressed for the trip in her new ‘Always Available’ mode, wearing a calf-length denim skirt that was buttoned down to the knees, a blouse with a bandeau bra under it, and her sneakers. She figured that maybe she and Steve would have a chance during the trip to sneak in a quickie, but that hadn’t happened. The weather was acting up and the ferry ride was rough, and neither she nor Steve was a foul-weather sailor. Then after they got to the airport, things only got worse. Trip delays, missed flights, mechanical problems, and interminable security checks dogged them the entire trip home. They spent three days in the same clothes before they managed to make it back to Albany. They had simply gone home, showered, and collapsed into their bed. Romance was not in the works. The next day her parents had brought back Heather and Steve Junior, and that had tied things up so much that nothing romantic happened then, either.

Things improved after that, however. By Thursday, they had both returned to work, and Brenda made it home before Steve did. When he arrived home, he found Brenda wearing a simple khaki skirt and a t-shirt, and after giving him a greeting kiss, she had followed him up to their bedroom. Steve had eyed her curiously as she closed the door behind them. “What’s up?” he had asked.

“Well, remember when we were on Haka Nuva, and we talked about some changes to how we did things. I said that I wanted to try being more ... available, I guess you could say.”

Steve gave her a curious look as he took off and hung up his sport coat. “Okay, sure, I remember something like that.”

“Well, what I want to know is whether you really meant that. Or if that was just vacation talk and we would go back to before.”

Steve leaned against the closet doorframe. “Before wasn’t all that bad, Bren.”

“No, but it wasn’t like the Maltesanos, either.”

“What about you? What do you want to do?” he asked.

“Steve, I want to try it. I know we’re not on vacation anymore, and I know it’s not just the two of us, but I think we had something special there, and I want to try to keep that alive.” She looked at him hopefully while saying that.

Steve shrugged and smiled. “Okay, I’ll give it a go. What does it involve?”

Brenda grinned on hearing that and began pulling her skirt up to her waist. “You can start by taking your pants off!”

Her husband rolled his eyes and smiled and began taking off his pants. By the time he had them off, Brenda was laying back on their bed, skirt to her waist and her t-shirt above her breasts. She wasn’t wearing either a bra or panties, and her legs were spread wide. There wasn’t a lot of romance or foreplay required; Brenda simply reached between her legs, spreading her pussylips as Steve crawled over her and inserted his cock inside. They didn’t rush things, but it didn’t take long for them to both have a very enjoyable orgasm.

Afterwards, Brenda had given Steve a hug. “Thank you. I want to try to keep that feeling we had while we were away, and I want you to let me know how we can do that.”

Her husband gave her a wry smile. “I think this was a good start. Is this the plan? Every day when I get home, we have a go?”

“No, I mean, yes, or whatever. If you want to, I suppose. It’s just ... I’m not saying this right. If you want that, fine. Maybe I’ll be the one who wants it, like today. This is the first time we’ve made love since we came home. I was feeling horny, I guess.”

Steve rolled off her and laughed. “Well, whenever you feel that little problem come up, you just make sure to let me know, because I’ll be happy to help. I’m just that kind of guy!”

Brenda laughed and grabbed his cock and began stroking it back to life. “You’re a real humanitarian, Steve! I think I still have a problem, so you’d better concentrate and take care of it!” As soon as she had her husband stiff enough, she straddled his thighs and lowered herself onto him. Their second fuck took them both a bit longer to complete but was just as enjoyable as the first.

Afterwards they had rolled off the bed, to dress and go downstairs. Steve said, “You know, if you and I keep doing this as soon as we get home from work, the kids are sure to figure it out.”

Brenda smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. Your son is oblivious to anything that isn’t a video game.”

“And Heather?”

Brenda smiled and shook her head. “I’ll handle it.”

They had gone downstairs and that had been exactly what happened. Steve Junior hadn’t even noticed his parents were home but was busy texting while playing a video game. Heather, on the other hand, had asked where they had been. Steve had simply smiled at Brenda and left the room, while Brenda simply said she had been talking to Heather’s father for a bit.

A few days later, Steve turned the tables on his wife. He managed to get home before she did, so it was he who followed her to the bedroom and ordered her to get undressed and kneel on the bed.

Since that time, both had worked at keeping the spark alive, and were pretty satisfied with the results. Heather had indeed asked her mother why she was only wearing skirts or dresses around the house, and why she wasn’t wearing bras anymore, and Brenda had a long talk with her about that. Heather had been thoroughly disgusted by the idea that her parents still had sex, and wanted them to ‘act their ages’, which simply got her mother laughing loudly at her. It only got worse that evening after Steve got home; Brenda told him about the conversation, and he started laughing, too. Heather overheard them and loudly proclaimed, “Gross!”

Brenda and Steve didn’t just fool around at home, though. They began taking the occasional weekend away, leaving the kids behind with a grandparent occasionally looking in on them. For trips like that, Steve asked her to dress a lot more provocatively, in outfits like she had brought back from Haka Nuva. Brenda wasn’t thrilled at that idea; some of the outfits her husband wanted her to wear were extremely revealing. They compromised on that after Steve told her an old saying he had once heard about the military - ‘Keep your indiscretions a hundred miles from the flagpole!’ That meant that you shouldn’t fool around at home, but somewhere your friends, neighbors, and coworkers wouldn’t see you. They simply went further away for those trips.

The current trip to the Poconos counted as one of those trips. Brenda had worn an extremely short white denim skirt, a very low-cut black tank top, and some black stilettos on the trip - and nothing else! She had been nervous about leaving the house dressed like that but had solved that problem by wearing an overcoat out to the car, which she removed after they got on the highway. She also had on several gold bracelets, gold earrings, and some other pieces of gold jewelry that weren’t visible - a matching gold-colored butt plug and Ben-Wa ball set. That was one of the reasons she was squirming around in her seat.

Steve glanced over at his wife. “You okay?” he asked.

“How long till we get there?”

He shrugged. “We’re about halfway there, maybe more. Another hour or so. Why?”

Brenda pulled her skirt up, exposing her freshly shaved pussy to him. “I’m just not sure I can wait that long.”

Steve chuckled at that. “Well, I never did get the transporter working, so you’re just going to have to wait. You might need to take the edge off by yourself, you know.”

She gave him a theatric pout and pulled her top low enough that her nipples popped out. “Maybe you can go faster?”

Steve laughed some more. “I’ll see what I can do, Bren.”

Brenda smiled at him and rearranged her clothing. She could wait another hour.

Steve chuckled to himself as he considered the change in his wife. She had always enjoyed sex, but ever since they had returned from Haka Nuva, she was more open and adventurous. She had even asked him about visiting a nude beach again, which would take some real planning, since Rensselaer County didn’t have any beaches. There weren’t a lot of al fresco opportunities for them, either, since they lived in a development. The best they had been able to come up with was a possible trip to Hedonism II in Jamaica, though neither of them was into swinging or swapping, and the reviews had been mixed.

On the other hand, Steve’s research had been a definite assist in keeping alive the passion of their trip to the tropics. The incredible advances in computer technology in recent years had transformed the nature of his work. He had been intensely curious about the relationship of the lava lava flower and the puka puka plant and had taken samples of both for testing upon his return from Haka Nuva. One of the first things he had done was to determine the genome of both plants; a generation ago that would have been the work of a lifetime, now it was a matter of a few weeks.

The results had been very interesting. Both plants were symbionts, which he had already suspected, but it was actually a triple symbiosis. The puka puka root-tuber was really an element of a third plant, a mycorrhizoid that fixed nitrogen in the soil for both plants. That made determining why the plants couldn’t grow elsewhere a real puzzle, since it might be any one of the three organisms which was tied to Haka Nuva and couldn’t be moved.

The genetic testing also showed that both the lava lava and the puka puka plants carried some of the same genetic material. That was more surprising, since the two plants were very different in genus, but more recent research into cross-species plasmid transfer of DNA showed a pathway for how they could have common elements. There was still plenty of research which could be done in that area.

The work on the samples led Steve to wonder if he could duplicate in the lab whatever it was that seemed so powerful in the islands. All he knew for sure was that puka puka oil seemed to be involved, but the effect also involved the fragrance of the lava lava flower. He checked the ingredients listed on the tube of Island Delight lotion that Brenda had brought back, and the most common elements were palm and coconut oil, with ‘natural fragrances’ and puka puka oil listed as secondary ingredients. Not really knowing what he was doing, but happily giving it a try, he decided to reverse engineer the lotion. The easy part was the palm and coconut oils, which were readily available at the grocery store. After that, he mixed in some puka puka oil and then added some ground up lava lava flowers. The texture wasn’t what he wanted, but for a first step, it seemed to be good. It certainly smelled like the lotion.

He took a small sample jar home and showed it to Brenda that evening. “I want to run an experiment, hun.”

“Okay,” she replied, eyeing him curiously.

“I made this in the lab today, and I want to try it tonight.”

“What is it and what do you want to try?” she asked warily.

“I am trying to make that lotion you liked in the Maltesanos. I want to see if that gives us that special ooommphh it seemed to give while we were there.”

“Just how do you want to try it?” she asked, eyeing him curiously, “And what is in it?”

“It’s all natural. It’s a base of palm and coconut oils, food grade, with puka puka oil and some ground up lava lava flowers in it. That’s it.” Just then Steve Junior came into the kitchen where they were discussing it, and Steve slipped the sample into his pocket. After their son left the kitchen, he added in a lower voice, “Tonight, when we go to bed, I want to just rub some on each other, see if we go crazy. It might be fun.” He was grinning as he said that.

Brenda rolled her eyes but smiled and nodded.

In any event, the effect wasn’t what Steve had been hoping for. Later that evening, Steve and Brenda stripped their clothes off and sat down on the bed. Steve opened the jar of ersatz lotion and they spread it on each other. That was enjoyable, and the couple made love, which was also enjoyable, but it wasn’t the frenzied sex they had delighted in on Haka Nuva. Both were disappointed by the result.

A possible answer occurred to Steve a couple of days later - heat! He was driving from home to the college and noticed the thermometer on his dashboard. It was almost twenty degrees cooler in the hills of Rensselaer County than on the beaches of Haka Nuva! Perspiration was common in the islands and uncommon at home. Could something in the mixture be heat-activated? He made another small batch of the lotion mix and took it home that evening.

Brenda noticed it and asked, “Another experimental batch?” She was almost smirking as she said it.

“Same mixture, but different operating parameters,” he replied.

“Huh?”

“What was the one thing everybody noticed in Haka Nuva that is not present here?” Before his wife even had a chance to respond, he answered his own question. “Heat! It’s a hell of a lot warmer there than here! What if we repeat the experiment at the temperature we had in Haka Nuva?

Brenda wasn’t quite sure how to take that. It was certainly cooler in upstate New York than in the tropical South Pacific. Still... “The experiment?”

“Repeat the experiment from the other day but we increase the heat, up to Haka Nuva levels.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Excuse me?”

Steve hadn’t completely thought out the plan, but he was too far into it to back off now. “I don’t have the logistics totally figured out yet, but I’ll have it arranged shortly.”

Brenda crossed her arms and smiled at her husband. “Meaning you haven’t pulled the bullshit totally out of your ass yet.”

“Give me until the weekend to sort it out,” he said.

Brenda simply rolled her eyes and started preparing dinner.

It took a day for Steve to figure out how to test his theory. He simply told Brenda they would perform the test that Saturday, and she should plan to be with him all day. Brenda wondered what he had in mind. While she certainly enjoyed a good fuck, the whole thing sounded like a crazy experiment that would waste the entire day.

Saturday morning, Steve ordered his wife to dress casually. They ate breakfast and then said they were going out for the day. Their children weren’t overly concerned. Heather was going shopping with her friends, and Steve Junior was meeting with some friends to play a new video game. Steve and Brenda left the house, with Steve driving. She was curious where the ‘experiment’ would take place; nowhere in the area was a normal temperature like that in the South Pacific. Steve drove to a cheap motel on one of the main commercial strips. It was about one step above a place that rented by the hour, tucked behind a diner and a gas station, and across the street from a truck stop. He went into the office and came back out a couple of minutes later. He drove down to the end of the motel and parked.

“This is where we are conducting the experiment?” she asked incredulously.

He shrugged. “Where else did you want to run it? Let’s face it, one of two things is going to happen. It works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work, we have a fun morning in the no-tell motel and go home. I stop researching this and drop it. But what happens if it does work? What if we get that state of crazy lust all over again? Remember what some of those days and nights were like in the Maltesanos? What if we lost control and the kids came home early and found Mom and Dad getting their freak on?”

“Is that what we are trying to do? Get our freak on?” she laughed. “What does our freak involve?”

Steve refused to answer, but instead popped the trunk on the Camry. “Give me a hand,” he asked. Brenda followed him to the back of the car, and he handed her an electric space heater. He picked up a second heater and then closed the trunk and locked the car. She followed him to their room, and they went inside.

“Now what?” she asked.

Steve set his heater on the floor. “Now, we set things up.” He pulled the heavy blackout drapes over the windows closed, then turned the thermostat of the heating unit as high as it would go. Almost immediately there was a clanking of heating pipes and a fan turned on, rattling noisily. Then he took the two space heaters, set them on the dresser, and turned them on. Steve sat down on the bed next to his wife. The temperature in the small room began rising almost immediately.

“This is the craziest thing we’ve ever done, Steve.” Brenda told him.

Steve laughed. “What if it works? Wait until I am getting the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and you can say, ‘if it wasn’t for me, he’d never have done it.’”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, Doctor Einstein.”

He smiled and nodded. “Let’s get ready.” He set the jar of lotion on the nightstand, then peeled off his t-shirt.

“You are such a romantic!” she laughed. Then she began unbuttoning her blouse. For the experiment, she had worn a lightweight skirt and a short-sleeved blouse.

“Here, you want romance? Let me!” Steve twisted sideways and finished unbuttoning Brenda’s blouse. He was pleased to notice that her nipples were already poking out like little erasers when he exposed them. For all that she was complaining about what was happening, her body betrayed her innate desire. She was looking forward to a good screw as much as he was.

The twosome stood up and helped each other with her skirt and his shorts. Brenda was equally pleased to see that her husband already had an erection when she pulled down his shorts. She reached out and gave it a quick stroke. Then she looked at him and smiled. “Now what? Just get it on and see what happens?”

“You forgot the experiment. We can’t just get it on, we need to apply the secret formula!” he laughed.

Brenda groaned and rolled her eyes. “I can’t wait to see how you are going to write up this in a scientific journal!”

Steve laughed some more at that, though he had no idea either how something like that would get written up. He picked up the jar of lotion and unscrewed the lid. The room was already noticeably warmer than when they had arrived, and the fragrance of the puka puka oil and lava lava flowers seemed stronger than their previous experiment. He commented, “This seems stronger, somehow, but I made the batch the same way.”

Brenda shrugged, which made her breasts wobble pleasantly to her husband’s eyes. Something seemed different, but she chalked it up to the temperature in the room. It was warmer, and if she wasn’t already undressed, she would have wanted to take something off to make herself more comfortable. She dipped her fingers into the jar and pulled out some lotion, and then began rubbing her hands together. “How about if I rub the lotion on you and you rub it on me? Maybe it won’t be so clinical that way.”

Steve put some lotion on his left palm and then rubbed his own hands together. “Good idea.”

Brenda moved first, rubbing her greasy hands on her husband’s chest. Steve’s chest wasn’t all that hairy, but what was there felt good in her fingers. Then Steve’s oily fingers touched her breasts, and Brenda gasped slightly and closed her eyes. Her nipples felt like bullets, and she could feel Steve’s erection pushing against her right thigh. Suddenly the higher temperature in the room didn’t seem so uncomfortable. She reached for the jar of lotion at the same moment as Steve did, and their eyes locked on each other for a bit. Then he picked up the jar and held it for her, and when she had another handful, scooped some out himself. They moved their hands down to where Brenda was stroking his cock and balls, and Steve was rubbing his greasy fingers all over her shaved pussy. Meanwhile the room temperature continued to rise.

“I think we’d better start the experiment,” gasped Brenda. Her body was crying out to her that it needed fulfillment, a fulfillment that could only be provided by a hard cock driving into her over and over.

Steve couldn’t trust himself to speak. The experiment was going a lot more positively than the last one, and one portion of his brain was trying to determine what the parameters of the next batch and experiment should be. That portion of his brain, however, lost out to the much more massive portion that wanted nothing more than to fuck relentlessly into the woman now crawling backwards onto the center of the bed. He climbed onto the bed as well, straight between Brenda’s outstretched legs, and she quickly reached between them, to spread her pussylips and guide his rock-hard cock inside.

Brenda moaned as her husband penetrated her, and her hips pushed upwards, trying to pull him in even deeper. Steve lay on top of her as his hips began thrusting. There was no art or technique involved; it was pure animal passion. He was pounding down into her as she gasped and cried out, and tried to push back, savoring each thrust and begging for more. Brenda was reduced to babbling repeatedly, “Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!” Steve simply made animal grunts. Still the temperature in the room rose.