Chapter 37: Return

Anne and Mary drove back to the university a week before classes began. The others were due to arrive late in the day. On the way they bought beer and English muffins and stocked up on other supplies. There was a message on the telephone from Sarah.

"Mary, this is Sarah. Happy New Year. Call me."

When she hung up after returning the call, Mary said, "Sarah knows we're looking for a house. She said she'd just seen a For Sale sign on the house next to the stables. She knows we want to rent, but she said it's been vacant a long time and we might be able to make a deal. She gave me the number. It's a bank. Shall I call?"

"If you want, or you can let Saul do it tomorrow."

Mary called, didn't seem to get anywhere. She hung up.

"Some weird, snotty guy. Says the house is in liquidation of trust, or something. Really didn't want to speak to me, the macho snot. I'll get Saul to call."

"Why don't we ride out there and look? Nothing else to do until the rest get here."

The house was at the end of the road, beyond the stables and almost invisible from the road. It was built of concrete, modernistic, with a sloping roof. The yard was choked with brambles, the hedges and trees wild and overgrown. In front were two stories, perhaps two or three rooms upstairs. Four wide concrete buttresses sloped from the roof to the ground across the front of the building. When they looked through the filthy windows, they saw bare walls and floors, large rooms and big windows at the back.

They scrambled around the side of the building, where the ground fell off to a huge lower yard surrounded with high, wild hedges. There was a big, empty swimming pool, partially filled with dirt and leaves that must have taken years to gather. From the back of the building the two upper floors seemed to have windows across the whole width of the building. The bottom floor was a combination of doors, windows and wooden walls. Looking in, the space seemed to have been used for storage.

"Spooky," said Anne.

"Interesting," said Mary. "It's big enough. Plenty private. Let's go see Sarah."

Sarah hugged Mary.

"You've got to be Anne. You get the same treatment." She hugged Anne.

"We took a look at the house. Couldn't get two civil words out of the bank."

"It's been there forever. Empty. I heard it was built in the '20s, remodeled in the '70s sometime. Hasn't been used since I've been here. Five or six years. The sign went up right after New Year's... When you coming out?"

Mary said, "Tomorrow afternoon okay?"

"Any time. You know that. Hero misses you. So does The Bay."

"You ridden him?"

"No. I'd rather you did that."

"I got some ideas from my Aunt Bessie. See you tomorrow."

"Kiss me, Tom," Sigrid said. She folded herself into his arms and enjoyed a deep, long kiss.

"Now, Tom, undress me."

"Your folks are downstairs."

"They won't bother us. Believe me."

"What is this, anyway?"

"Tom, I want you to make love to me. Almost all the way. I want you to eat me. I want to make you come in my mouth. I want to do everything but what we really want to do: intercourse."

Tom ran his hands down her back, cupping her buttocks through her jeans, feeling her breasts pressed against his chest.

"And when your folks hear us, they'll bust us."

"Not likely. I told them the other day I was planning this. I think Mom wants to watch."

"You're crazy."

"No. In fact, Dad said, 'Do we get to watch?' and then Mom said, 'If your dad does the play-by-play, I'll do the color."

"Shit. That's crazy."

"So, undress me." Sigrid began working on Tom's belt, undoing his jeans. "Sit down so I can get your shoes off."

They tumbled onto the bed, frantically undoing buttons, zippers, pulling clothes off and tossing them on the floor.

"God, you're beautiful," Tom said.

"Come on, you've seen me naked before."

"Every time is new. I can't believe it."

Tom's mouth covered hers, cutting off her reply. Their hands ran over each other's body, caressing, pressing, digging into the soft places.

"Yes!" Sigrid said, "suck my nipple... Yes and play with that one. God, I love that. Squeeze it a little harder... Oh, it goes right into my pussy."

Her hand captured his cock, and began stroking it. He moved down to tongue her navel, bringing an hysterical giggle, finally settling himself over her mons, where he began kissing and caressing her inner thighs, the pleasure prompting her to spread her legs wide, giving him ready access to her already swollen lips.

"Lick me, Tom. Eat me. Give me your cock."

She took his cock deep in her mouth, her tongue washing and rubbing the sensitive places.

At the same time, Tom slipped his tongue over her hooded clit, pressing his fingers deep between her labia, reaching for her G-spot. For long minutes, they moaned and worked on each other until, finally, Sigrid's hips began to buck and heave. Tom followed her moving target, fully conscious of the effect of her sucking mouth on this dick.

And they came, huming and moaning together.

When they had cooled somewhat, Sigrid kissed his face, his lips and probed his mouth with her tongue.

"I'm so glad you're here. You've made this whole vacation work so well for us both."

"You get the credit, too."

"Well it's a surprise, what I've learned about myself these last days. Thanks to Mom and Dad — and to you — I've finally got myself where I want to be."

"Where's that?"

"Here, naked with you. Ready to go again?"

When they got back from seeing that unusual house, Will was there. He'd dumped his bags at his room and was sitting outside the door of Room 350. They let him in and spent some time hugging and kissing.

Alex, Tom, and Saul arrived together. "We took the plane from Chicago together."

They went to supper, talking about all kinds of things, telling about their holidays.

Anne asked, "Tom, where's Sigrid?"

"Decided to stay the rest of the vacation. Talking heavy with her folks. Not sure what it's about."

"Were you up there?"

"Yes. A lot."

"How'd the picture go over?" Will asked.

"Her mom and dad loved it. By the time I got there, they'd framed it and hung it on the wall. But they said it's just to protect it until she brings it back. You know, one of those glass sandwich frames like we have in North. Sigrid said she'd been a little surprised. They were having a lot of guests over the holidays and there she is on the wall. But, she agreed to it."

"Maybe they're not quite as strict as she is." Alex said.

"It's a little confusing, but I don't care. I like her just the same. More, probably. She grows on me."

Saul leaned over to Anne. "Do you mind leaving early?"

"Just us, or everyone?"

"I don't care. I just need to hold you and feel you a lot. Mary, too, now that you mention it."

Anne spoke up. "Anyone want some cappuccino?"

"Uh, we're already in the coffee bar, Anne."

"Well, I got a machine for Christmas." She lowered her voice, "I've been practicing making nude cappuccino."

"I'm stupid," said Will. "Tell me what that is."

"Cappuccino. But you have to be nude to drink it."

"Sounds like it's worth trying, anyway," he said.

"Pig."

Saul called the bank, talked with someone for a while.

"He says the place is in liquidation of trust, as you said. That means it's owned by a trust that is being liquidated, the assets sold off so they can distribute the proceeds. He agreed to show us the place, but he's not very friendly, and obviously thinks there's something fishy. I made a date this afternoon to go look. I say we get everyone together and all go. We may not get another chance."

The group assembled for lunch, climbed in the cars and drove to the house. They got there early, and the men had time to prowl around the outside of the building, peering in the windows as Anne and Mary had done.

"See these concrete piers here in front? I think the whole building is cantilevered," Tom said.

"Speak English, please," said Will.

"The roof, the upper floor and the main floor are attached to these things, here," he patted the wide, sloping pier. "They hang off them, and there's nothing else that holds them up. No posts or anything. All the interior walls are non-load-bearing. I don't know about the side walls, but they may not be load-bearing either. Really unusual."

"Will it fall down?" Anne asked.

"It's been here a long time and hasn't fallen yet. I doubt if it will. These supports seem to go deep in the ground and they're really massive."

The man from the bank arrived, looked at them disapprovingly, and opened the door.

"We're pricing this at $250,000," he said, confident they were not prospects. He guessed the grounds inside the hedges were two acres, more or less, and admitted that the place had been vacant 'for some time'.

The wide front door opened into a hall with walls and doors to left and right. Directly ahead was a ceiling-high glass wall revealing a massive wooden stairway at right angles to the entry. Behind the stairs was a rough stone wall. The door to the left led to a large, open living space. The building was cool, no heat or light. The walls and floors were filthy, but sound. The floors were wood.

"Looks like oak over a sub-floor on the concrete slab," said Tom. "The trim is very nice, and absolutely solid, just dirty and in need of care."

The living room had a central, free-standing stone fireplace, the back of which was the stone wall they had seen on entering. The front wall was all floor-to-ceiling windows at the edge of the slab, with another line of sliding doors a few feet inside.

"Place faces south," said Tom. "You'd get great sun all winter. It's cloudy right now, but it's warmer in here than it should be. The two rows of windows hold the heat in, and the overhang looks like it will keep the sun out in the summer. Probably wouldn't need much air conditioning."

To the right of the entry was the dining area and kitchen, still a part of the open plan of the whole floor. There were utility rooms for storage.

"Look at that stove," Mary said. "An old, professional range. And the whole kitchen is semi-pro. Just right for a big family."

"What kind of heat, here?" Saul asked the banker.

"I'm not really sure."

Mary said, "Could be gas. The stove is gas, so there's gas in the building."

In the middle of the living room, behind the fireplace, the wide stairway led up and down. Upstairs, two large bedrooms at each end of the building shared almost the whole frontage. At the back, each front room connected through a big bathroom to one of two slightly smaller bedrooms along the back of the building.

The bottom floor held the furnace, an old gas-fired hot-water boiler. The rest of the space was open, except for stubbed-in plumbing along the western end. A brick column supported the fireplace above.

"Alex. Look at this."

"What, Tom? Oh. Do you think it might come out?"

Anne came over. "What's the mystery?"

"I think this used to be a fireplace, too. It's just been bricked up, and not too carefully, either."

After looking around some more, they thanked the banker and left. Saul promised to be in touch. Outside, Tom went running up the nearest buttress and stood on the roof briefly before walking across to the chimney. When he reached the ground again, he said, "The roof slopes up from here to the front. Roof looks solid, and we didn't see any sign of water damage inside, probably because the slope sheds water. The chimney has two flues. Must be two fireplaces. This thing is built like a fort."