Chapter 4: Settling Down to Bed

When David, Alice and Ellen returned to the house, Ellen still couldn't get over it.

"It's amazing, David," she said with the awe she felt evident in her voice, after they'd all cleaned up. "I can't believe that you and Alice built this all yourselves."

"Well, we did have a little help from a few construction guys," David admitted with a grin.

"Still, this is amazing, and not just because the two of you did it. It's a phenomenal work of architecture in its own right. Just look at that window. It's huge, but it's impossible to see from outside. All you can see riding up is a tiny little wooden building, yet when you come inside it opens up like the Taj Mahal."

"It's hardly the Taj Mahal," David demurred.

"You know, I'll bet you could get this featured in one of those architecture or home magazines. Can you imagine what your Ex would think if your house, which she's never visited, was featured in 'Home & Design' magazine?"

"She'd die!" Alice exclaimed, getting into the idea.

"You'd better believe it. From what I've heard about her, she'd be up here to stake her claim before the ink dried on the magazine," Ellen assured David, who still didn't look too sure.

"Nah, as much as she loves to shop and be recognized, she's just not a country person," he argued.

"No, she wants to be in the center of things," Ellen argued, despite never having met the object of their discussion. "She wants to be seen by others. But there are plenty of people who have the best of both worlds. They aren't mutually exclusive. She wanted her place in the social orbits of the city, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't like to show off a beautiful home in the country, as well."

"Ah, but there's the rub, I couldn't live in that environment any longer, and she couldn't even stand to imagine a life out here. Neither of us could compromise," David explained. "There's no way it would have worked out."

"You know, you seem to be fairly inflexible about all of this, yourself," Ellen informed him. "As much as you dislike the life you abandoned and she followed, you can't simply cut off all contact with each other. As much as people like to believe that love and marriage is about wonderful parties and beautiful people, part of it is a promise to love and honor each other, till death breaks the marriage vows. That vow isn't for the couple, it's for the family. It isn't just you and her. As soon as you began planning a family, it stopped being about the two of you. You really need to try to connect with her on whatever level you can, because you owe it to Alice. She's caught between the two of you. Her mother won't visit you, no matter what, and you'll only visit the city to pick her up.

"The two of you really need to sit down and work things out between the two of you. You don't need to become intimate again, or get remarried, but you need to make peace, because the only one to suffer when you fight is Alice."

"You have a point," he admitted. "But I don't know how to get her to agree to any of it."

"I think you need to reach out to her," Ellen suggested. "Try meeting on a middle ground, someplace more populated than here, but not in the heart of the city. Then once you start talking, you both need to compromise. You need to visit her place in the city, and you've got to renew your invitation out here. Just make sure she knows she won't be stuck out here. Try throwing a party. Invite a bunch of your old friends and invite her and her new boyfriend along. She'll feel obligated to come if you invite Alice when she's with Linda. Pretty soon she'll be coming out to visit on weekends, bringing Alice with her, and you won't be terrified of returning to the city."

Alice looked up at her father hopefully. "Can we, Dad? Can we? It would be great. I could help you plan it. You can throw a big party. I know all of my friends would love to come."

"Hey, hold on now," David said, holding his hands up in a forestalling motion. "Nothing is happening this next week. There's a lot of preparation if I'm going to try this. Plus there's no promising she'll go for it. Then again, there's the boyfriend to consider. He may not go along with it. Who's she dating now, Alice?"

Alice looked down and mumbled something, but David assumed he was speaking too loudly to have heard it. "What did you say?"

"She's not dating anyone at the moment," Alice replied, seemingly embarrassed to be talking about her mother's many boyfriends.

"Whatever happened to what's his name, Fredrick something or other? He was a nice guy. I thought they were getting along great?"

"She didn't like how he couldn't stand up to his mother," Alice replied testily, "just like she couldn't put up with Peter's politics, or Dan's stinginess."

"Well, she may be going through a rough patch, but that doesn't mean her next boyfriend is going to be OK with—"

"If he loves her, he'll accept her family," Ellen told him simply. "It's a package deal. If you date a parent, you either accept the kids or you hit the road. It's what everyone our age does. If you weren't hiding from the world, David, you'd realize that."

David stopped and considered that. Finally he responded.' "OK, you've got an excellent point. The next time I see her I'll try to talk to her again."

"No you won't," Ellen insisted. "When you take Alice back, you'll make a date to meet at a neutral group so you can talk about parenting your daughter. You'll meet, without Alice there, and you'll talk like two adults about what each of you needs to do for your daughter."

David shrugged. He was a little confused why this would be so important to Ellen, who really shouldn't care how he got along with his ex. But Ellen saw it in a different light. For her, it was a matter of taking care of one's children, and he couldn't do that if he couldn't communicate with his ex. Thus this was important to her. If she could improve their basic communications, without their having to change too much, it would help Alice tremendously without impacting either David or his ex too much.

"OK, you win. You make a lot of sense. I can see the logic when you explain it like that. So I'll make a date with my ex-wife. Does that make you happy?"

Ellen smiled and walked up to him, enveloping him in a hug. "It sure does. It's the mature thing to do, and I love a mature man who can stand up for himself," she teased. When the two of them kissed, they continued for several moments before Alice made a noise.

"Please, you two, get a room. And you already have a room. A beautiful room, too, if I have to remind you. I don't need to watch the two of you smooch all evening."

"Hey, before we turn in, I wanted to see if we could tune in a national news stations and see what's happening with the storm," David suggested, changing the topic before Ellen started to drag him off to bed.

"That's a good idea," Ellen agreed. "Where's the radio?"

"It's over here," Alice told her. She walked over to a tall wall on the side of the large central window and hit a button, and music filled the room. She reached over and switched the stereo system from the CD it seemed to be playing, and static filled the room instead. She started slowly working the dial, looking for a station.

"It seems our normal stations are all off the air," she said. The others stood there watching as Alice tried to find a station amongst the static filled airwaves. Finally she found a single weak station, so she had to turn the volume up.

" ... cial broadcast. We've canceled our normal programming to ... without commercials," the radio announced as the signal came and went. "National communications have ground to a halt. The ... tions remaining have all switched to all news formats. The meteor storm seems to have passed out to sea, but it supposedly devastated Hawaii, and any ships out to sea or on open water is ... been lost, including much of our military fleet."

Both David and Ellen sat down on a nearby chair. David sat down, and then Ellen sat down in his lap. Alice simply sat cross-legged on the floor as each listened intently to the news they were hearing.

" ... tional devastation. Major wildfires are burning across the country, planes have been lost, ships can't be accounted for, crops have been wiped out or burned, and the loss of life has been phenomenal. This is the biggest blow to the world since the Black Plague in the 15^th century, when 30% of the ... lost."

Alice fiddled with the station again, trying to get it to come in better, but she wasn't very successful.

" ... National Emergency," they heard when she got it to come in again. "Word hasn't reached many of the states, but the National Guard has been called out, but no one knows what state the National Guard is in, or even if it can respond. The Coast Guard has ... to rescue anyone, or even to locate bodies, instead focusing on restoring water going access. Emergency shelters set up in ... been overwhelmed, and the services are stretched to..."

Sighing in frustration, David told Alice to turn the radio off. "It's no use, we already know it's bad, and they aren't giving us any specific information. I'll talk to someone tomorrow. I think we can find a better source of news than this. For now let's go to bed and rest up for the morning. We've got a lot to do tomorrow, and we'll need our rest if we're to be expected to make any progress at it."

Alice leaned in to turn the radio off, but instead turned on some music which she switched from the huge living room to the back bedrooms. David and Ellen looked at her.

"Mood music," she told them simply, shrugging as if it should have been obvious to them.

When Ellen and David made it to his bedroom, David took her into his arm and gave her a tentative kiss, not sure how far he could push since he'd only known her for a little while after being out of the market for so long. However Ellen was ready for him and receptive to his advances. She received his kiss and encouraged him to continue. They kissed for a while, simply making out like randy teenagers by the door, while romantic music played in the background.

"You have no idea how ready for this I am," Ellen gasped when they broke their kiss. "I had no idea what to do when I was in my car. I was afraid to stay there, but I didn't know what else to do. But you did. You came in, grabbed me, even carrying me when I couldn't get away fast enough. You took charge of the situation and saved both your daughter and me. If it wasn't for you stumbling across me, I wouldn't be here now. Not only that, but when you saw those guys breaking into the drug store, you took action without a second thought, even though you were putting yourself in danger. I was a little shocked at what you did, but I can't deny how effective a solution it was, and I've been horny ever since. In fact, I've been turned on ever since we met."

She pulled him behind her as she backed up to the bed. "You're so sexy it's unbelievable, and I can't believe that someone else didn't snap you up as soon as you were available."

She kissed him, sat on the bed and began unfastening his pants. "I loved it when we made love out there in the field, and it made everything that was happening bearable, but I'm anxious to make love to you face to face, and I'm also ready to see what this," she said, grasping his erection as she pulled it out of his pants, "looks like."

"Ooh, it looks wonderful. Just what I would have imagined," she said, slowly stroking it as she examined it. "Not quite how I pictured it. I'm not sure if anyone has ever told you before, but each one is unique within a certain similar design. Yours is just the right size, big enough but not so big it would be uncomfortable; a nice width providing a nice heft and a good handful. Overall I'd give it a solid A-," she said with a crooked grin.

"A-?" he asked.

"Well, it leans a little to the left, and I kind of like them straight. Plus the balls are a little too hairy, but we can do something about that later." She grinned when she saw him involuntarily squirm at the thought of sharp objects too close to his balls.

"Does that mean you're... ?" he asked, leaving the rest unsaid.

"Bare? Well, I was, but I haven't been dating for a while, so I'm probably a bit scratchy at the moment. I still shave, but I don't do it as religiously as I did when I was dating."

"Oh well, if you can put up with my hairy balls, then I guess I'll have to put up with your scratchy... ," he couldn't quite bring himself to say it, after having spent the last couple of years watching his tongue around his daughter.

"You can say it. It's called a pussy," she told him with a smile.

"Anyway, are you going to do something beside weigh that?" he asked, since she still hadn't done anything with his cock, which was still leaning to the left.

"Yeah, I was thinking of trying this," she replied, holding it upright and drawing her tongue up the entire underside length of it, producing yet another shiver of an entirely different nature.

"Oh, that feels so much better than a razor to the nuts," he gasped out.

"We'll see if we can find some other pleasurable sensations," she responded. "How about this one?" she asked, swallowing his cock in one swallow.

"Ohh, I think we're going to get along great," David replied with a slightly drooling grin.

Ellen proceeded to show just how impressed she'd been with David earlier, how much she wanted to impress him, as well as thank him for saving her life. She bobbed, sucked, slurped, licked, and occasionally hummed. David was busy clutching her head, gently humping her face when she eventually pulled back.

"I was thinking I'd take the pressure off, but you haven't come yet, so despite the length of time you've gone without, you still seem to be in good shape. Now come down here and let's play," she said, as she pulled him down by his shirt.

"Sorry, but I've always had this thing about blowjobs," he explained on the way down. "Don't get me wrong, I love them, but I've never been able to achieve an orgasm from one."

"I'll keep that in mind. Now let's see if we can't work on an alternate method of giving us both an orgasm."

David went down willingly, and after a little bit of lip wrestling, during which he managed to lose his shirt, he was persuaded to go down a little further as he decided to munch at the Y. She was right, it was scratchy, but he didn't mind. After so long it was worth the wait, and both the scratches and the resulting itch, which was further irritated by the juices he found bathing his face, couldn't lessen the delight he took in her heartfelt reaction.

Ellen pulled him up and they kissed enthusiastically, before she took hold of his erection again and aligned it with the afore mentioned pussy, leaving the insertion up to him. He didn't wait long, just long enough to tease her a little. In fact, he waited long enough for her to start twitching under him as she tried to entice the head of his dick with her pussy lips. When he thought he'd teased her enough, he finally put her out of her misery by sinking his cock into her eager cunt, and both of them sighed deeply at the sensation. David hadn't felt anything like this for a long time, and although Ellen had had sex more recently than he had, this felt much more intense than she'd felt in a long time.

They both lay there, simply basking in the sensations they were feeling. It was only with great difficulty that David pulled back, withdrawing his cock from its velvet vice. Ellen sighed again as his cock, the one with the nice heft, moved away from her. But she grasped his buns with her fingers and squeezed, which he responded by shoving what he'd withdrawn with another hard thrust.

Despite Ellen's comment about his being a nice length, he still hadn't struck home yet. He'd gone partway in on the first stroke, and went further on the second, but it took a bit of wiggling and a third stroke before he managed to immerse himself fully, and Ellen moaned with appreciation when he'd achieved that small goal. David, showing great restraint, kept the pace slow and easy. Ellen appreciated it, but she'd have appreciated it more after they'd been going together longer. Right now she was primed for hot and heavy 'I'm alive because of you' raw survivor's sex. Instead she ground her pelvis against his and growled at him.

David responded by pulling back and pausing, looking at her with a 'What'd I do?' expression that was only partially spoiled by his grin. Ellen playfully punched him in the chest and he responded by pounding her right back in the cunt along with a pretend cough, to which she responded with a laugh. That got them both going. The utter absurdity of the situation hit them both. A solitary divorced man and a lonely woman meeting on the highway in the middle of a meteor storm. A long denied man withholding aggressive sex from an anxious willing woman. A man and a woman in love, slapping each other during sex, only to respond with a weak cough and a clutching vagina. Somehow, as odd as it all seemed, it had the making of some great comedy. They both began giggling as David picked up his pace.

"Somehow I don't think anything you do is ordinary," Ellen told him.

"Stick around, maybe you'll find out."

"Give me a chance, maybe I will," she responded.

"You know," he replied, giving it to her again, "we're both dancing around committing, so I'll go ahead. I really like you, and I'd like to see a lot more of you. Would you like to stick around for a while, maybe get some coffee in the morning?"

She laughed again. "I think I'd like that. I hate using the 'L' word this early in a relationship, especially when this one started under such unusual circumstances, but I think I'd like to stick around for a good long time. But we'll have to talk about my sticking around. We'll talk in the morning when we have more time. Right now I've got some more important things to think about," she finished with a twisting gyration of her own.

David grunted his fondness of that move, and his lips told her just what he thought of her. He picked his pace up a bit, which she responded to, as well as their tongues dueled at a separate pace from their other organs. David's hands grasped Ellen's round breasts, which were currently jiggling deliciously upon her small frame. Her blonde locks also jostled with each thrust David gave her, and when they quit kissing she bit her lip in a wonderful look of mixed innocence and wanton vixen. David just had to kiss her again. Ellen enjoyed the kiss so much she could almost surrender herself to them all on their own. She would have, but the cock probing her inner recesses kept reminding her of something else. What was it? Oh yeah, she was getting a grand fucking. David was somehow managing to hit all the right spots. He had her hot enough to do anything he wanted, and all he did was to make slow love to her. She almost told him she loved him, and he made her laugh. She'd frozen in fear in her car, and this man grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder and sauntered out, depositing her beside his daughter. They calmly watched a man die and a woman wander off to her own death, yet they helped dig people out of their own home. This was the biggest mix-up of odd juxtapositions she'd ever encountered, and she expected there to be many more of them yet to come.

David started pumping her a bit more aggressively, and she responded by biting his tongue. He tried a little swirling grinding motion, and she rewarded him by scratching his back. He licked her ear, in part to avoid another bite, and she shouted his name in his ear. She was primed and ready. Any more ready and she'd explode all over him. He stepped it up a pace again, grabbed her ass with one hand, twisted her nipple hard with the other and bit her lip.

That was all it took. She went off like a Roman Candle, exploding in a million starbursts, shaking like a bowl full of jelly after a meteor strike. She clutched David to her, both with her hands and internally as well. David managed to hold on. Knowing she was going to cum big, he pulled partly out to avoid his own overstimulation. When she locked up on him he was able to weather it, actually regaining a bit more composure so that when she finished quivering he was able to resume stroking into her.