Chapter 2

Ben’s house

Harborton Washington

Saturday evening

Ben was exhausted. Every part of him hurt. Even his eyelids had aches. After arriving at his modest clapboard sided Craftsman style home just outside of the small town of Harborton, Ben took a hot shower. He let the hot water stream over him until it ran cold. The water stung the scrapes on his hands and arms but still felt wonderful. After dressing his injuries with some betadine and gauze Ben realized he was ravenously hungry. He was too tired to cook but devoured an entire loaf of bread, 2 jars of peanut butter, a pound of bologna, a can of spam and an entire 6 pack of beer. Then he drug himself to bed and collapsed without even taking his shoes off.

His dreams were filled with strange images. An odd man playing some sort of flute was laughing and dancing through every dream. Ben hadn’t had a wet dream since his early teens but this one wouldn’t stop. In his dream, strange women of all types and ages seduced him. Embraces and long slow kisses, a wink and then they were gone and the next one approached. Ben had almost forgotten how much he loved women!

Next up in his dreams were images of his body changing. In this dream he could see a semi-transparent three dimensional representation of his body. Hot spots in his brain would flare up red and then subside to a greenish tint, then areas in his body, his liver, adrenal glands, hypothalamus, pineal gland, and thyroid would all flare red and then green. His nervous system showed like a string of blue beads and then each bead flared red and then green as well.

In the last dream there were smells. He could never remember having the sense of smell in a dream before. It was an almost endless montage of women that he had been close to over his lifetime. Some were just a few minutes next to each other, some were intimate relationships. Every scene of a woman was overlaid by unique scents surrounding her. Perfume, soap, hairspray and the slight musky femine smell underlying it all. It was intoxicating in his dream. He never knew how much scent communicates between humans! This must be what it’s like for some animals he thought as his dreams finally faded into deep sleep.

Ben’s house

Harborton Washington

Monday morning

After much tossing and turning Ben awoke to the early morning light with an erection that could have drilled holes through a steel beam. It had been years since that happened. As he lay there he reflected that the last time he felt even a little this way was probably when Monica shared his bed. She was a good sort and very well meaning. Beautiful as well. But he and Monica had fizzled out 3 years before and Ben had just never been able to muster the effort to try again.

Physically he was fine. Being an outdoor nut and running had kept him in reasonable shape for his 45 years. He still had much of the medium to wiry muscular build of his Marine Corps days spread out over a sturdy 5 foot 10 inch frame. And he even had most of his hair, even if it’s close cropped length was leavened by a good share of gray at the sides these days. His face was weathered with an outdoorsman’s tan and the smile lines were a bit deep around his eyes and high cheekbones. He didn’t feel old, though, maybe sometimes just tired of looking for something that would never be. He had come to the realization that being alone was his lot in life. He was happy enough with his own company and believed it was a small price to pay for not having to put up with the general population of idiots. Sometimes though, he thought it might be nice to have a female type person to hang out with on a more permanent basis. He really did miss their light voices and quirky (to him) ways as well as their delightful fragrance and soft touch. It’s not likely that he’d be able to find a woman that’d tolerate his salty ass though, thought Ben with a wry grin.

Kids were completely out of the question for Ben of course. In addition to the obvious problem of not having a woman around to produce them with, he doubted that he would be even an okay dad. He was entirely too grumpy and thought he would be too prone to let them get into and out of their own trouble. It really wasn’t that big of a deal though. He had his kids at the school. They were equal measures of infuriating, enlightening and entertaining. They kept him honest and on his toes. All in all he enjoyed his job.

Done with deep thinking for the moment, Ben sighed and struggled his way upright, wincing as his leg muscles came into play. Haltingly he staggered toward the shower. Stripping his clothes he realized that he stank with an unusual smell like kerosene or paint thinner. Ketones he thought as he remembered one of his few biology courses.

“Hmmm that might not be good” If he remembered correctly Ketones were produced when damaged cells in the body got recycled.

As he removed the gauze from his hands and arms he noticed that his scrapes were almost completely healed. That’s really strange he thought, maybe they weren’t as bad as he had thought. Shrugging he stepped into the shower and let the hot water revive him. He was still starved and disoriented. He had no idea what time it was as he reached for his phone on the way to the kitchen. No way! Ben panicked as he read the time out. How the hell is it 6:45am on Monday! He had somehow slept Saturday night and the entire Sunday away. Scrambling, he began throwing his work clothes together into a small backpack and pulling on his running clothes. Whenever the weather wasn’t a total shit show he liked to run the 3 miles into Harborton High School where he was the history teacher. If he hurried he had just enough time to grab a coffee to go. He really didn’t want to have to consume the motor oil sludge that passed for coffee in the teachers lounge. Locking the door to his cottage he dashed out across his backyard and onto the green belt trail that led toward downtown.

It took a full mile to stretch the sore spots out and then another to get into a rhythm. With his Asics runners beating out a steady pace. Ben decided to stretch the last mile just a bit. He was out of breath and blowing hard as he finished his run in the back of Old Bean Coffee. Hands on his hips, sweat streaming down his face he walked a few steps to warm down and glanced at the timer on his Casio. He was slightly astonished to discover that he was well under 7 minute miles. He hadn’t run that pace in 15 years! He smiled to himself, not bad for an old fart whose legs had been killing him a few minutes ago.

Removing a small towel from his pack he wiped the worst of the sweat off himself, threw the towel back in his pack and walked into Old Bean Coffee. There was a thankfully short line in front of him as he awaited his daily caffeine fix, and for another treat, Kelly was working this morning!

The bell on the door chimed as someone entered behind him. A few seconds later he felt a faint brush from behind. Startled, he turned slightly and looked over his shoulder and came nose to nose with a rather pretty 30 something soccer mom type who had her face pressed into the pack on his back.

“Um, uh sorry, what is that cologne you are wearing? It smells so good, I have to get my husband some!” She stuttered while blushing furiously. Her normally pale face and neck were rosy with embarrassment but she didn’t back away much. She nervously flicked her artfully tousled black hair back over her shoulder and her light blue eyes fixed on his. Wetting her lips she took another deep breath. “Wow just wow, you smell amazing!”. She continued in a low voice.