Chapter 4

SATURDAY, the 21^st of MARCH — EQUINOX

I awoke to find myself in the old position. Spoons. His hand on my breast again. I felt him all along the back of me. I was too weak to face the task of thought, so I drifted off again.

Then, once more we were like spoons, but this time, I was on the outside, nuzzling against his back and ass and legs, pressing into him. I loved sleeping like this!

When next I opened my eyes, he was on his back and my head was nestled into his shoulder, my leg thrown across his waist, his arm wrapped around me. Sunshine was coming through the window. Slowly, carefully, I disentangled myself and sat up, looking down on my sleeping giant. The fact that I was in love with this man washed over me like a tidal wave. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I felt giddy and drunk and alive and amazingly happy. But then the sadness and uncertainty began to gnaw at me, an empty ache in my stomach. How could I feel this much love for such a man? I didn't know the first thing about him. And more to the point, how would he feel about me? Little doubt about that! I was just a one-night stand!

I think the only thing that kept me from sobbing out loud at that instant was the fact that I didn't want to wake him up. The tears came, though. Crying silently, I got up and walked into the bathroom. There, I collected my body soap, toothbrush, douche bag, and shampoo, and quietly padded down the hall to the guest bathroom. I figured I'd clean up in there and let him sleep. Lord knows, I needed it. I reeked of stale sex, and there was dried cum all along my thighs. After setting out my cleaning things in the other bathroom, I tiptoed back in to get a nightgown and robe.

I had to stop and look at him for a long, long time. I tried to memorize every feature. When he was gone, I wanted to remember him... all of him. This made the tears come again, and I eased to my closet and chose my favorite silk robe, my "Friday night robe." I decided against a nightgown. I think I had begun a fantasy of possibly luring him into staying. On the way out, I picked up his dirty clothes, which weren't nearly as scruffy as I'd thought the night before, and I put them in the washing machine in the laundry room. I was surprised to find a cell phone in the pocket of the jeans, and I set that on the kitchen table. In the foyer, I surveyed the damage of the dropped groceries, and found that six of the eggs had survived. I cleaned up the mess, and put everything in the refrigerator. At first, I was surprised that it was only six-thirty in the morning, but then I realized that we'd started our strange evening pretty early.

In the guest bathroom, I cleaned myself thoroughly, spending almost half an hour in the bath, daydreaming and plotting, giving up one idea after another, and finally crying again. At last, I settled on the idea of having breakfast ready for him when he woke up, and if he stayed a little while, well...

The robe is one of those short, thin, sexy things that is really the only true extravagance I had indulged in since I'd come to the town. It fell against my body almost like a liquid, and was cool and clingy. When I fashioned it by wrapping it between my breasts and around me, like I did now, it seemed to accentuate my assets to perfection. But then, of course, no one else had ever seen me wearing it. Maybe he'd like me a little.

In the medicine cabinet, there were six one-month containers of birth control pills that had not been used in almost exactly two years. I popped three of them out of their little foil holders and looked at them in my palm. I'd read that this was the equivalent of a "morning after" pill. I hesitated, thinking. If last night's episode did result in my being pregnant, would that mean I'd be able to see him later? Could I do that to him? Did I love him so much that I'd use that to hold him? Oh, yes, I thought. That much and a lot more. I loved him enough to let him go, if that's what he wanted. I threw the pills into my mouth and washed them down with a gulp of tap water.

Clothes in the dryer, coffee pot started, bacon frying, and I thought I heard him moving around in the bedroom. Rats! I had meant to go watch him sleep some more. I heard the toilet flush, and I began grating some cheese. Oh, please! Please let him stay for breakfast, I prayed. I was taking the bacon out of the pan and setting it on paper towels to drain when he walked up behind me and grabbed me around the waist. I squealed, dropped the fork, and spun in his arms. And just like that, he was kissing me. I stood there, stunned, for a long moment, then quite naturally put my arms around his neck and kissed him back. It went on forever. When he broke the kiss, I was shivering and panting, and gazing into those incredibly blue eyes for some hint that he really meant this.

"I want something, and I want it now," he told me sternly.

I actually batted my eyes. Gawd! How romantic! "And what might that be?" I said huskily.

"Your name."

I barked a laugh. "Molly Mahone."

"Herman Benson," he replied, letting go of me and stepping back so abruptly that I almost reeled against the hot stove. He thrust his right hand out toward me. "Glad to meet you, Molly."

I laughed again, and we shook hands. He didn't let go, and instead, pulled me toward him, embraced me, and kissed me again. The smoke alarm went off (no, not from the kiss; the pan of bacon grease was still on the burner), and he busied himself removing the battery while I took the pan off the stove. We were laughing hysterically, and when we finally had everything out of the panic mode, he kissed me yet again, then scooped me up in his arms and carried me back into the bedroom.

He had been wearing the same bath towel I had put on the night before, but we made short work of it, as well as the slinky robe that I had taken such pains to arrange just right. His hands were really very adept, despite their size, at making intricate little caresses and pinches and squeezes. He was incredibly strong, and I made no resistance as he positioned my legs apart for the access he wanted. He had the strangest little thing that he did with his teeth and lips and tongue around my right nipple, and as he kept doing it and doing it and doing it, he stroked up and down my slit and against my clit just right, and suddenly I was begging him to please, please stop, because I wanted him to be inside me when I came.

He rolled atop me and positioned himself at my opening. I braced myself for a brutal assault, but he was remarkably gentle, if strongly persistent. I had to reach between us and grasp his massively erect cock and guide it to my sopping opening. I don't think I've ever been so wet. His cock slithered wildly around my cunt, making me jump and gasp when it touched my clit. I tried to stammer an apology, but he was suddenly kissing me again.

Just like last night, I was filled almost to bursting, then filled some more, and I reveled at my accomplishment when he was fully inside me. He moved in and out of me with long, slow strokes for a full minute, then effortlessly lifted my hips up off the bed and rocked back into a kneeling position. From there, he could reach down and rub around my clit, and I was right at the edge of orgasm again immediately. Instead of settling for this, though, I decided he wasn't deep enough in this new position, so I sat up with him and wrapped my legs around him, burying him farther up inside of me than I ever thought was possible. I was losing all control rapidly. He had his hands filled with my buttocks, and he was moving me up and down on his cock like a piston in an engine. I thought suddenly again of the strange feeling of the night before. Had it been some bizarre sort of orgasm? Would I feel it again? I didn't have long to wait to find out; and suddenly, I was certain. Whatever the feeling had been, it hadn't been an orgasm. This, oh THIS, was an orgasm! The muscles inside my cunt seemed to be doing things all on their own, griping and releasing him mercilessly. I felt him swelling within me, and then he was arching his back, coming with me. He was pounding me. I was crying out with the rhythm of it. Oh, this was wonderful!

We collapsed in a tangled, gasping heap on the bed and just held each other for the longest time, studying one another's faces and bodies. I never knew it was possible to be so totally, utterly, completely in love.

At last he said, "I do believe I am famished." Now that he mentioned it, so was I. I hadn't had any dinner last night. I got up to get dressed, but he insisted I wear the robe again. I ran to get his clothes out of the dryer, then finished breakfast as he poured the coffee. For the next two hours, we talked constantly.

He wanted to know everything about me, and asked a thousand questions about my job, my parents, my childhood, this house (which was a short-term rental while the owners were abroad), and a dozen other things.

He talked openly about himself, too, and when the conversation solemnly drifted to Jane, his wife (which was inevitable, of course), he seemed almost glad to finally talk about what had happened and his feelings about her. He'd kept the whole thing bottled up inside for months. He had loved her completely, totally. They'd been married less than a year when the accident happened. She had been driving too fast on a rainy morning, and unable to stop in time for a red light, went skidding through an intersection and into the path of an oncoming truck. He had never been able to find out why she had been at that particular intersection at all; why she had even been driving that morning, since she had told him she was going to stay home all day. She had been in a coma for almost two days before she finally died in the hospital, never having regained consciousness. He hadn't been with her at the time of her death; he'd gone home exhausted for a little sleep, and he still hadn't forgiven himself for not being there at the end. Her sisters had been with her, though. He was at least thankful for that, but thinking back on it now, the guilt from having gone home for rest and not being there for her at the end may well have been the cause of the terrible insomnia that followed.

After we'd talked about her, I felt the weight of obligation had been lifted from the conversation, and we spoke of lighter matters, joking and actually holding hands across the breakfast table. Herman (I would never have guessed that would be his name — he looked nothing like a "Herman") had a Master's Degree in Philosophy, believe it or not. Oddly enough, though, there weren't that many openings in the slow job market for philosophers, so instead, he earned a remarkably good living installing swimming pools in the wealthier neighborhoods of Chicago. That was almost a two hour drive from here, and it took me awhile to learn how it was he had come to be here at all. Somehow, someone here in town had gotten a recommendation from a prior customer and offered to pay an exorbitant amount of money for one of his pools. The offer was contingent on a personal meeting, which was arranged for ten o'clock this morning.