Chapter 1

Alice had left their bed when the TV in the bedroom stopped working. Its failure didn’t unduly bother Doug, he was more of a reader than a watcher, although he had to admit it was good to catch the late news and for those nights he couldn’t sleep. Many a morning, he awoke to the sound of some cartoon character’s voice on the station when he fell asleep watching mayhem and naked women the night before.

Doug replaced the TV but Alice didn’t return. She had moved to the family room with the big TV and now slept on the sofa using an afghan for cover. The TV in the family room was now on almost twenty-four hours a day. Doug would turn it off when he came down in the morning as Alice was still sleeping. He would fix his tea and go to his den where he spent most days since his retirement three years ago. There was a closet and small chest where he kept everyday clothes such as pants, shirts, shorts, socks and a few pairs of shoes and his penis pump. He had given up wearing underwear several years ago. It seemed such a bother. He no longer worried about having clean underwear if he was in an accident. He smiled at the thought of underwear. Years ago Alice had liked for him to wear her bikini underwear. She liked the way his dick felt in them. She used to rub it through the fabric and watch it grow. For some reason his dick always looked bigger to him with Alice’s panties on. Maybe that’s what Alice liked.

There was a bathroom a few steps down the hall from his den where he now showered. He would come out of the bathroom naked and walk down the hall the short distance to his den to dress. If you asked him when he had started this routine he would only be able to tell you that it was sometime after Alice moved to the sofa in the family room.

In the den there was a large six foot desk where Doug spent much of his time. Occupying a significant portion was a desktop computer with its twenty-four inch monitor and the attendant all in one printer/ copy machine. There was a cordless keyboard and mouse and a little vertical box-like thing that held pens, scissors, nail files and markers. Also his container of chocolate covered almonds and his blood pressure machine had their place. Although Doug kept his appointments on 30 Box on his computer he still kept a calendar in his desk that he maintained manually. He liked the feel of what he considered the real thing.

One wall of the den was covered with bookcases and cupboards except for a portion between the bookcases where there was a window with a comfortable recliner beneath. The chair was navy blue with ivory piping and had the indentation of his ever spreading ass firmly in the cushion as evidence of its frequent use. There was a TV on the wall opposite the chair and a seven foot couch on the wall opposite the desk upon which Doug occasionally napped. There was lighting from three lamps which gave the room a pleasant warmth. The pictures and prints were of campus scenes at the University of North Carolina and of Doug and Alice at frat parties and various other spots on campus. Identically framed pictures of the four lacrosse teams that Doug had played on. Above the desk was a large framed print of the “Skater” and on a back corner of the desk a framed picture of a younger Alice.

There was no doubt that this was a man’s room; the dark sturdy furniture, the pictures, the cherry bookcases, chair rail, and wainscoting on the lower half of the walls, the books on various wars, the spy novels, the books by Hemingway, Fitzgerald and James sprinkled among classics and pop fiction. The walls above the cherry wainscoting were lacquered pale blue. Next to the chair was a dog eared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, in Doug’s opinion, the finest fiction novel ever written. It was far superior to the very good movie as was usually the case with good books.

Doug and Alice lived in a big old house. Much more than they needed with the children gone and the grandchildren no longer under foot. The only time the house got full use was when they were all gathered. Usually they were all there for Thanksgiving and those who were not too distant came on Christmas but it had been some time since everyone had been there for Christmas what with Pigeon and Charlie with children in college and the others spread around the country. They really should move to a smaller place but whenever they discussed it, selling the house and moving just seemed more than they were up for. So they stayed and rattled around in the twelve room house just the two of them.

They had lived on Fair Oaks Drive in Carter’s Grove, Virginia for forty of their forty-three years of marriage and the thought of moving was more than either of them could bear. When they moved in, there was only Pigeon and the newly arrived Charlie. Pigeon had been christened Paige Irene Greene after two aunts, one from each side of the family. When picking the names Doug and Alice had not stopped to think what the initials spelled. Once it dawned on them they knew what other children would call her and since they couldn’t very well change her name after the munificent birth and Baptismal gifts from the aunts in question, they decided to beat everyone to the punch and at Alice’s suggestion they called her Pigeon which took care of the initials problem.