Chapter 3

Same day, 9 at night, at John’s house.

I had just pulled into my driveway and turned off my car, but continued to sit in the truck. I had driven all the way to Helen, a Bavarian village in the Georgia mountains, which was about three and a half hours away.

After having to stop to fill up on gas, I also stopped at another nearby store advertising they were having a huge sale, then drove home, still confused as to exactly what happened this morning.

I had been expecting tears.

I had been expecting anger.

I had been expecting to be called every name in the book.

Yes, there had been a few tears in Megan’s eyes, but she had meekly agreed that, “You are probably right, John. It is better like this.”

Somehow the words “meekly” and “Megan” just didn’t seem to go together.

“I’ll never understand women,” I thought, finally exiting the truck.

I had almost made it to the door when I noticed there was a light in the kitchen.

“I swore I turned that off this morning,” I thought. After leaving the hospital, I drove home and took a quick shower and changed clothes before finding the apartment for Megan.

I unlocked the door to the porch and walked over to the door to the kitchen.

I opened the door, stared in complete astonishment for a minute or two, then began laughing ... and laughing ... and laughing.

“What are you laughing at, Jackass?” Megan asked, as she stood glaring at me.

Megan was wearing an apron, and as far as I could tell from my spot over at the door, nothing under it.

There was flour on the kitchen countertops, flour on the floor, flour in Megan’s hair, on her forehead, on the end of her nose, on her cheeks and her arms, at least up to the elbows, were covered in flour. The front of the apron was also covered in flour, and I suspected there was also a lot of flour inside the apron.

I finally stopped laughing, but still had trouble breathing since I had been laughing so hard.

“How did you get in? What are your wearing? And why is the whole kitchen, and why are you, covered in flour?”

Megan was still glaring at me, but then she pointed over to a chair at the kitchen table.

“Sit down and shut up, you jerk,” she ordered.

Since she was holding a rolling pin in her hand, I walked over, sat down and shut up.

Megan walked over until she was about three feet away. She was still holding the rolling pin, I noticed.

“As far as how I got in, no thanks to you, you dumbass Marine, Jack let me in.

“As far as why the kitchen and I are both covered in flour, well ... that was Plan A.”

“Plan A?” I asked.

“Plan A was that I had always heard that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Only I had not realized how bad I was in the kitchen. I mean I used to help my Step-Mom cook some, but for the past seven years, cooking meant I heated up a can of beans, or corn, or beef stew before eating it. Not cooking meant I ate it cold.

“I was trying to make you biscuits ... only ... only they either came out hard as a rock, or they were burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.

“The apron was Plan B, my first contingency plan. Jack told me Marines were always having a Primary Plan, but then would have contingency plans if anything went wrong.

“I have also heard that the way to a man’s heart actually originated a little lower on his body.”

“You mean my feet?” I asked, barely able to keep from laughing again.

“No, I don’t mean your feet, you brain-dead Jarhead,” she said, then turned around and made sure I could see that I had been right. She was wearing absolutely NOTHING under the apron.

“If that didn’t work, then the rolling pin was going to be Contingency Plan C,” she said, holding up the pin for me to see.

“One of us is not going to get out of this house alive tonight,” Megan said. “At least without one of us screwing the brains out of the other.”

“So, just a Primary Plan, and two contingency plans,” I asked, smiling broadly at her.

“Contingency Plan D consists of a pound of C4 plastic explosives,” Megan said, still not smiling, still glaring at me. “The plastic explosive would have been shoved up your ass, since that seems to be where all your brains are located, you butthead!

“Now, what is it going to be, Buster? And you better answer correctly,” she warned, holding up the rolling pin.

“You had me at ‘what are you laughing at, Jackass,’” I told Megan, paraphrasing the famous line from the movie, Jerry Maguire.

“I have driven for over nine hours today,” I told her. “And I could not get you out of my mind. No matter where I went, no matter what I saw, all I could really see was your face.

“I could not tell you how many hours ... dozens and dozens ... in the past week I have spent just studying your face. At night when you were asleep, I would just sit beside the bed and watch you sleeping. I love watching you sleep. You smile a lot when you are sleeping. I love to see you smile.

“When you are awake, I try to not stare at you. I usually wait until you are doing something else, then I can’t take my eyes off you.”

“I ... I knew you were watching me,” Megan said. “And I think I knew you were watching me while I was sleeping. I think that is why I was smiling in my sleep.

“John, why haven’t you ever told me any of this?” Megan asked. “I didn’t know for sure how you felt about me. I even told Jack a few days ago I thought I was losing you. That you had never told me that you love me, or really even cared about me that much.”

“Megan,” I tried to begin, “I couldn’t help but consider the fact ... the fact that you are only a few years older than my daughter would have been.”

I could tell Megan was getting angry again and started to say something, but I held up my hand and said, “Please ... please let me finish.

“I drove ... and drove ... and drove today. But at least a dozen times I had to pull off on the side of the road because ... because suddenly my eyes weren’t working very well. I ... I would have to pull over and dry my tears and I remembered ... remembered how you ordered me to dry my tears at the hospital, blow my nose and then kiss you like I meant it.

“I realized ... I realized there wasn’t anything in the world I wanted more than to hold you ... and kiss you. To kiss you like I really want to ... to make you understand just how much I mean it. Suddenly ... the difference in our ages really didn’t matter to me anymore.

“The only thing that mattered was to hold you ... and kiss you ... and tell you ... and tell you, Megan, that I am in love with you!”

I slipped off the chair until I was kneeling in front of Megan.

“I ... I stopped at a jeweler’s today. And made a small purchase. I was going to ask you tomorrow, after I begged for your forgiveness. Instead, I will beg for your forgiveness now – please forgive me for being such a complete idiot this morning – and... (I reached my hand into my pocket), will you marry me?

“I love you, Megan, please, will you marry me?” I opened the box with the engagement ring and handed it to her.

I THINK that what happened next ... at least I HOPE that what happened next was an accident, not an indication of things to come.

I THINK that Megan forgot she still had the rolling pin in her hand, and as she dropped down to kneel beside me and reach her arms around the back of my head to kiss me, that it was a pure accident that the rolling pin caught me just behind my ear ... well it didn’t knock me out, but it definitely knocked me over.

As I lay on the floor, slightly stunned, Megan realized what she had done and immediately began crying and yelling, “Oh, John, I’m sorry, John, please talk to me, John, please say something, John.”

“Plan C worked,” I told Megan. “I love you!”

Then Megan and I were both laughing, but not for long, because then we were kissing as I was laying on my back with Megan laying on top of me.

The apron was tied in the back and I quickly untied it, before rolling Megan over onto her back. As soon as Megan’s naked backside encountered the cold tile floor she shrieked, then we were both laughing again.

I finally stood up, then helped Megan get up before scooping her up into my arms and carrying her to my bedroom. We kissed the entire way.

Once we were in my bedroom, I gently laid Megan down, then stripped. After I slipped into bed beside her, Megan and I began kissing again.

I could not get enough of her mouth and tongue.

Finally, though, Megan broke the kiss then began pushing my head downward. I engulfed one small breast into my mouth and starting flicking my tongue across her nipple.

Megan breathing harder and faster, urging me on, “Harder, John, a little harder.”

After several minutes, I moved to the other breast and again begin sucking hard, alternating with light kisses across her nipple, then vigorous tongue action on her hard, engorged nipple.

Megan pulled my head back up to hers, and we resumed kissing but now she grabbed my hand and placed it over her mons. I slipped one, then a second, finger inside her tight channel. I have no idea how long I fingered Megan, but finally she pushed my hand away.

“I want you inside me, John. NOW! Now, John, Now!”

I positioned myself between her legs, then Megan reached down and guided me inside her waiting flesh. As she felt me bottom out inside her, Megan gave an inarticulate scream as her body shuddered with the force of the orgasm racking her.

I knew I wouldn’t last long. I knew I couldn’t last long. Perhaps 10 long, slow strokes later I cried out as I exploded inside her, triggering another orgasm and scream from Megan.

Putting my hands behind her back, I simply rolled over, pulling Megan with me. I was still buried deep inside her.

I think that within seconds, the events of the incredibly emotional day caught up with both of us. We both fell asleep.

I woke up about an hour later and Megan was still asleep on top of me. I gently eased her off, then woke her with my kisses.

Megan still had flour all over her, so we finally got up and took our first shower together, then came back to bed and made long, slow love again. This time I lasted much, much longer.

As we were lying together, Megan had her head on my chest and one leg thrown over my thigh, I finally realized I had never heard Megan’s answer.

“Hey,” I began, “I never did hear if you accepted my proposal. What about it? Will you marry me?”

“Oh, God, John,” Megan said, as tears begin filling her eyes, “I have never wanted to say “Yes” so much before, but I can’t, John, at least not yet.”

“Why?” was all I could ask.

“John, you know what I offered you the first time I met you.

“I ... I sold myself, John. I was a whore. Not even a high-class whore. I sold myself sometimes just for a meal or two. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many men I have had sex with over the years. I can’t do that to you, John, I love you too much.”

“Megan,” I told her slowly, “If I have learned ANYTHING about you in the past week or so, it is that you NEVER sold yourself. Yes, you may have sold your body in order to survive, but you never sold YOURSELF. You did what you had to do ... HAD TO DO ... in order to survive.

“If there is ANYTHING that a Marine understands, it is what we will all do in order to survive. Did you know that the Marines used to take us 40 or 50 miles out in the middle of nowhere, drop us off with just a single canteen of water, and then make us find our own way back? We would have a knife as a weapon, but that was all.

“I made snares to catch rabbits and other small game, but I have had to eat those raw at times if it was too wet to start a fire. I have eaten snakes, lizards, crickets, grasshoppers, even earthworms.”

“Earthworms? Ewww!” Megan said.

“Yes, earthworms! It is called survival. No one knows what they would be willing to do until they are faced with life and death choices. The fact that I ate earthworms doesn’t define who I am. The fact that you sold your body doesn’t define who you are.

“And I just so happen to love WHO you are.

“Now, are you going to say “Yes” or do I need to revive parts of Plan C? You know, with the rolling pin?”

Megan sat up in bed and I could just see the love pouring out of her eyes.

“Yes, Yes, Yes, Oh, God, Yes!” she said, then began covering my face with kisses. Slowly she kissed her way down my body until she reached my manhood, then took my hardening self deep inside her mouth.

When I gently told her I was getting close, she redoubled her efforts until I could hold it no longer and flooded her mouth. She continued her ministrations until I had softened, then I pulled her back up to me and kissed her.

At first Megan tried to avoid my mouth, but I forced her lips against mine, and plunged my tongue deep inside her mouth. I could taste myself, inside her mouth.

“I can’t believe you would kiss me ... kiss me after that,” she said.

“That’s not all I’m going to kiss,” I told her with a smile, then kissed and licked my way down her body, stopping for a while with both nipples, then moving down until my tongue was deep inside her innermost being. The fact that I had already cum inside her twice did not matter.

Megan’s screams of pleasure were all that I was concerned with. By then I was hard again, and we made love for the third time.

In the afterglow, we were again lying down, Megan’s head on my chest, with a leg thrown across my thigh. I was softly caressing her hair.

“If ... if you really want to marry me ... God, I can’t believe you want to marry me, I suppose I need to tell you a little more about myself,” Megan said. “My full name and about my childhood.”

“Yes, Miss Farraday,” I said, “what would you like to tell me?”

At first Megan didn’t notice.

“I actually grew up in Flor...” she stopped. “What did you call me?”

“Miss Farraday,” I repeated, “Miss Megan Lynn Farraday, lately of Huntsville, Alabama, and before that Boca Raton, Florida.”

“How did you know?” she asked, amazement in her voice. “And how long have you known?”

I explained that for her first night in the hospital, I had simply sat by her bed all night long, holding her hand. The next day, however, I had asked Jack to stop by my house and bring my laptop. I explained how, while she was sleeping, I searched, using what little information I had, such as “Megan, 15, missing or runaway,” then would enter different states.

“When I searched in Alabama, I had an immediate hit, complete with a photo. That story indicated you had grown up in Boca Raton, so I also searched Florida.

“Of course, the search is not perfect. I thought the ‘Mrs. Farraday’ mentioned in the story about Florida was your mother. I didn’t know she was actually your step-mother until you told me that when I was brushing your hair.”

“Then you know that my father...”

“That he killed himself as the FBI and Treasury Departments were getting ready to arrest him? Yes.”

Megan didn’t say anything for several minutes.

“Growing up, we lived in one of THE most exclusive estates in THE most exclusive golf course in Boca Raton. We were rich ... I mean seriously rich. My father was president of one of the largest banks in Florida.

“Most of his personal money was tied up in the housing market. Then the real estate market crashed. He was wiped out. We went from being rich to almost penniless overnight.