Chapter 10: Lessons of the Heart

When I awoke the next morning I was so comfortable I didn't open my eyes right away. I was snuggled up against a soft warm body, my head resting on her breast, her arm around my neck. One of my arms lay across her chest and my hand was embedded in silky hair.

The change in my breathing may have told her I was awake.

A sweet voice whispered, "I love you."

I felt very relaxed and very happy. All was right with the world. I opened my eyes to see a long lock of blonde hair.

Blonde? It should have been black...

Oh Shit...

Thoughts and feelings I had been successfully suppressing came rushing in.

Maria...

I thought of my old life. Craig, who will be soon graduating from engineering school, and Tim, who will be starting college about the same time I would be going back to high school. I thought of all the 'maids' who shared a bed with Maria and I - several were regulars and had become fairly close with us. I thought of all Maria's friends who had become more than just friends over the past years.

But mostly...

Maria...

Sweet, lovely, tender... Maria... My love.

A giant hole opened up in the pit of my stomach. A feeling of loss and sadness swept over me.

I felt hot tears run down my face and land on Melody's smooth breast.

"Danny?" She said with concern, "what's wrong?"

"I don't know," I began, not sure what to tell her. The moment seemed too intimate to lie. "I guess I just realized how much I lost. You know, that day. Since I woke up in the hospital, there is just... so much I no longer have."

She tightened her hold on me and brought her other arm around protectively.

"I know you lost everything, but you have me now. I hope that can make up for at least some of it."

Funny. We were talking about completely different situations but her words fit perfectly and were - surprisingly - very consoling.

"It helps, ' I said truthfully.

"I love you." She said again.

Another wave of guilt. "You can't love me. You don't even know me." More tears stung my eyes.

"Don't be silly," she began, but I cut her off.

"You don't. You may think you do, but I'm a different person now. It's like... the Danny you knew died that day. I'm completely different."

"I know," she cooed, "that's why I can love you. I don't think I could have loved the old Danny."

I reluctantly pulled myself away form her, turning to face her.

"Was the old Danny so pathetic?"

"No, nothing like that. Before... well, before 'it' happened, you never expressed much emotion. You may have sat with us last night while we were reminiscing, but you wouldn't have been laughing and joking with us. You would have sat quietly, not saying much, maybe smiling a time or two. I don't even know if you would have taken me up on my offer. You were just, I don't know, emotionally flat all the time."

"You walked around all day with almost no expression on your face. You interacted with people fine, but never with any emotion. In fact the only emotion I ever saw from you was anger, and then, only a few times. Mainly when we were little, and always when someone was messing with Sarah. Or me... but I was always with Sarah so anyone picking on me was picking on her too." She stopped for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"Seemed like she was the only thing you ever really cared about. People could do stuff to you all day long and you would just take it. Not responding, not even running away - I never got that. But boy oh boy, if someone started calling us names or God forbid, started pushing us around... you really came alive. You would be right there."

"I got in fights over her before?"

"Not really fights. When you stuck up for us you were so angry... so... crazy, that whoever you were mad at would either get the hell out of there or start in on you."

"And then later, we grew up and bullies stopped picking on us and were after you most of the time. I never even thought about those days in the park until I that day you went after Tom and Paul."

"Did my temper scare you?"

"I was never afraid of you. Even when Sarah and I became snobby bitches - shut up," she said quickly as I opened my mouth to protest, "you know very well that's what we were. We would pick on you at school so the rest of those elitist fucks would think we were cool, and then later, here, you would act like it never happened. We would be sitting out by the pool you would offer to bring us lemon aide or some other nice gesture."

"So if I was that nice why couldn't you love me?"

"Because I don't think you could have loved me."

"But why? You are so" then she cut me off.

"Not because of me..." she cut in, "because I don't think you 'could' love. Not like you can now. Whatever was going on inside you, it seemed to just turn off your emotions. You were either angry... or... nothing."

She went on, "When I made my offer I really wasn't sure if you would accept, but if you did I was sure that it was going to be an emotionless fuck. You would have been nice about, but it would have been just that... a fuck. Instead, you... 'made love' to me. In a way I am certain the 'old' Danny couldn't have."

She smiled down at me. "So it is you that I have fallen in love with. Not my memories of how you used to be. The 'you' that you are now."

I lay back down on her breast. She wrapped her arms around my head and sighed.

I felt wonderful... Damn it...

I never felt this way cuddling with anyone but Maria. All the other women... the sex was great and they were mostly very nice (or at least they were when I got done with them). But they never made me feel so comfortable. So contented. So... Happy.

I missed Maria.

I had made sure she and the boys were taken care of. I had bought several life insurance policies and she must have gotten just over a million dollars when I died. Plus there was close to half that much hidden around the house. She knew about the stashed money of course and the precautions about using it. Financially she would be fine so I wasn't worried about that.

But, emotionally... I wondered how she had held up these past few months. I made up my mind to find a way to look in on her and the boys. Maybe a private detective could work up a dossier or something... would they even work for a minor? Maybe I could figure out how actually meet up with her. Go home? Could I go home again?

I missed Maria, but here, snuggled up with Melody I felt as contented as I ever did with her. I didn't know if it was just transference, (love the one you're with... ) or if I was falling in love with Melody.

Many studies indicate that love is merely a release of certain chemicals in the brain. Was love a physical thing? Was this body falling in love with Melody and taking me along for the ride? Then why was my heart singing for Melody while at the same time pining for Maria?

There weren't any studies on how a person's second body reacts to the memories of their first. Was I going to have to go through this every time I switched to a new body?

Well there was always the 'Gone to Hell' clause in my immortality wish. That clause that said I could forgo entering another body and just let nature take its course. Shit... more to think about. But for now...

I could hear Melody's heartbeat.

Maria and I used to snuggle like this, one resting upon the other. If I mentioned that I could hear her heartbeat she would answer that it was beating for me. I would say the same thing to her if she heard mine. At the time I always thought it was contrived and corny. We had lots of little exchanges like that. As though we were following a script. They were cute but I always thought of them with a little cynicism. I missed them now.

I was about to tell Melody that I could hear her heartbeat.

What if she didn't say it? That would only expand my sense of loss.

What if she did say it? That would intrude on a private intimacy I had with Maria.

Was I trying to replace her? I didn't want Melody to be Maria. She couldn't be. But if, in time, I loved her as deeply as I did Maria, would that be disloyal to Maria?

She had buried her husband. Hopefully she would move on. She was still very attractive even approaching 50. She had money and a delightful personality. She also wouldn't take any shit. She would find another. And she would make sure he was a decent guy.

The thought of that squeezed my heart even more. Maria... loving another man. Not just having sex with another. That didn't bother me so much. I had had sex with hundreds of other women during our last years together but I only loved her. There hadn't been any other men because that wasn't what I was interested in. But now that I was gone I was sure she would seek out other partners and that didn't bother me. But eventually she would fall in love with another just as I was (maybe) falling in love with Melody.

That hurt. It hurt that she would give her heart to another. And it hurt that I could do the same. It was confusing and heartbreaking. The void inside me opened even wider and a renewed flow of tears fell on Melody's soft warm chest.

She was cuddling me protectively, allowing me to cry out my loss without judging or interfering. Just letting me know just by her presence that she was here to support me. I snuggled deeper into her embrace.

We were like that; quiet, just being with each other, for a long time.

Finally I decided it was time to get moving around. With a big sigh I sat up. I turned to her, reached up and stroked her face with the back of my hand, wondering at how smooth her skin was. She turned and kissed it.

"I think, that I love you, too." I said slowly, "but, honestly, I don't know. I know I want to be with you. I know being with you makes me happy. I know I don't want to lose you. But maybe I don't know what love is. Maybe we can figure it out together?"

"That's good enough for me. As long as I am with you." She said with a smile. "But, right now," she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "in case you haven't noticed, we both stink."

"Then... to the showers!" I said with a laugh, pointing towards the bathroom door.

I pushed all my recent ruminations to the back of my mind and headed for the bathroom I used. Melody always used Sarah's bathroom.

I had just gotten started washing when the shower curtain pulled back and there was Melody.

"I need a shower too. Got room in there for one more?" she asked innocently.

She had only been out of my sight a few minutes, but it was enough for me to be stunned by her loveliness. A stray thought from the past did slip in and I wondered if even the impressive Heather had been anywhere near this beautiful when she was sixteen. I doubted it.

"Absolutely. Come on in."

She entered the shower and started soaping me up. She carefully lathered my shoulders and back, my chest and even my legs. When she got to my cock she spent a long time caressing it with her soapy hand. She was staring at it as well. She rinsed me off, and then turned me so the water was running on my back.

"Last night you got to study my pussy, today I want a good long look at this."

She knelt down before me and looked intently at my rigid manhood. It was around eight inches long and about as thick as her wrist.

"How... in the hell... did this... fit inside me? It's almost as big as I am." She laughed. "No wonder I'm sore this morning. I don't know how you got this monster into me, but I'm glad you did."

Looking at my cock she said, "you and I are going to be good friends." And she leaned in and gave it a kiss.

Backing up about three inches, she licked her lips, then, keeping her eyes on mine, gave it a long lick from my balls to the head. She smiled and said, "MMMM, that tastes pretty good. You don't mind if we stay here a while do you?"

"Not at all... please... be my guest." I answered impishly.

She started licking my cock up and down, turning her head from side to side trying to lick every part of it. Her gorgeous face looked very small moving around my massive hard-on. The sight of it thrilled me. Finally, she wrapped her mouth around the head and began sucking me in earnest. She wasn't very accomplished at giving head, but it was her first time. And since I have had only one orgasm in the past three days she didn't have to be very good. She could have been giving me a literal blowjob (meaning just blowing on it) and the results would have been the same.

Her mouth and tongue danced around on the head of my cock. She suckled at it for a while, then licked it then sucked it some more. Even wet, her hair had a golden quality to it. She had one hand stroking the part of my dick that wouldn't fit in her mouth and one hand cupping my balls. She kept this up for about five minutes before I felt my balls start to tighten, then, she looked up at me with those stunning blue eyes, I could see her lovely lips around my cock and I couldn't take any more.

"I'm coming!" I warned.

She pulled back but continued stroking. Thick jets of hot cum sprayed onto her upper chest and throat. Four or five shots coated her upper body with cum which then began to run down over her tits. She watched - amazed, letting it shoot out and splash all over her. When it was done and she was sure no more was coming out, she gave my cock one last quick kiss and released it. She studied the jism dribbling down her body. She stood up but was still looking at it curiously.

With one finger she scooped a small portion off her left tit and stuck it in her mouth. Seemingly lost in thought for a few moments.

"I wondered what it would taste like. I like it. At least I like yours." She added that last part with a smile.

It was my turn to wash her. After lathering her up all over I took care to ensure her firm globes were as clean as I could get them. Then for good measure I spent just as much time making sure her well-rounded ass cheeks were nice and clean. After I was done groping - I mean - 'washing' her we left the shower and got dressed.

We went down to the kitchen hand in hand to find Sarah reading the directions on a box of pancake mix. She looked up when she heard us and smiled.

"It's a good thing mom and dad weren't here last night. Though they may have heard you in 'Vegas."

Melody laughed and dropped my hand. She went over to Sarah (I noticed she was walking somewhat stiffly but hiding it well - I only noticed because I was enjoying the view of her walking away).