There had been one hell of a storm the previous night, with trees downed, both behind the house and along the lake front beach that was the property's only saving grace. Mary Ellen surveyed the damage, and her already crappy mood headed for the dark end of the spectrum, even more than it had been when she woke up.

"Bastard! Fucking son-of-a-bitch!", she mumbled to anyone that cared to listen. Except there was no one. Hadn't been for months, and it didn't look like that situation was about to change in a rush. Mary Ellen wanted to find a comfortable spot, sit down, cry, and pray that some Divine entity would just snuff out her miserable existence!

At 26 years old, Mary Ellen Glasser had accepted that anything and everything she touched would turn to shit. Her father had spent his whole life building the family business, amassing a considerable fortune in the process. When he succumbed to a heart attack two years earlier, his wife had unravelled like a ball of string, joining her husband within the year. They said she died of a broken heart, although Mary Ellen wondered just who the hell "they" were. She had also inherited the reins of the family business, which should have been solid enough to provide her with sufficient income to live comfortably for the rest of her life. But it just hadn't turned out that way. She'd managed to convert a thriving business into a financial horror story in just two years. In fact, she'd had to sell the old mansion that had been in the family for four generations to pay off the outstanding debt.

Now all that was left was the old summer estate that her Dad had been so proud of. Maybe "estate" wasn't quite the word to describe it any more. There were two prominent buildings on the property, an old rickety barn, and the main house, a sprawling one-storey edifice that had seen many parties and social gatherings in its life. When Mary Ellen had been a young girl, it was considered a rare privilege for the local gentry to be invited to one of her mother's gala events. Such an invitation would immediately send a person's social status into the stratosphere.

At this point in time, the barn was in better condition.

Raising her head out of her hands, Mary Ellen continued to survey the destruction through her tear-blurred vision. There was something on the beach that looked male to her because of its overall shape. Her first thought was that he was dead.

"Shit! Just what I need, another body to deal with," she cursed to herself. "Of all the places to die, why did you have to pick this one? Couldn't you have floated off somewhere else, you son-of-a-bitch?"

Dragging her sorry ass off the ground, Mary Ellen stumbled down the rocky beach to check for life signs, silently wondering if there'd be any. Whoever it was, or had been, was lying face down, naked except for a pair of old cut-offs, and looking like he'd lost a fight with the shark from Jaws. But he definitely had been a good-looking guy. His muscular framework suggested that either he had been a labourer of some sort, or spent a lot of time in the gym. Just her luck. She finally met someone that wasn't the second-ugliest man on the planet, and the asshole had to be dead. And on her beach, too!

Mary Ellen wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, but she'd never get the part of the "Wicked Witch" in The Wizard Of Oz based on her looks. She was all of 5' 8", but would need to stay dressed in the shower to tip the scales over the 100-pound mark. Her bust gave the merest hint that she was female, her waist maybe 6" narrower than her hips, and as for a butt, she just didn't have one. Her body was, in her mind, just another example of her bad luck. Even Twiggy had more shape than she did.

Stooping over the inert body, Mary Ellen checked for a pulse. Shit, he was alive! Maybe not by much, but there was still life in his Greek god-like body. How long that condition would last was anybody's guess, but she couldn't just leave him there to die. She was also vaguely aware that with her luck, she'd attempt to nurse him back to health and the poor bastard would croak as a result of her touch. Shit. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. The poor son-of-a-bitch was doomed no matter what she did, or so she told herself.

It took Mary Ellen almost an hour to drag the body from the beach into the house and get him onto the only spare bed she had. Her first idea was to roll him onto a piece of plywood and use that as a litter. The plywood weighed more than she did, and adding a man's weight made it impossible to even pick up one end, let alone move it anywhere. Instead, she had used some old logs as rollers, moving a foot along the terrain before shifting the last log from the rear of the makeshift platform to the front, thereby transporting the man's carriage over the two hundred yard distance in a leap-frog fashion. Now that she had him in the house and on the lumpy old bed, she had no idea what to do next.

Dave Neeson drifted in and out of consciousness as he lay on that lumpy mattress. Well, that was his name, but he didn't remember it. Actually, he didn't remember anything. He had no idea where he was, who he was, or how he'd gotten to wherever he was laying. In his mind, he was born this age about ten minutes ago. Sure, he had cognitive thoughts in his brain, and could form words in his mind, but that was about the extent of his cognitive abilities. Oh wait. There was something else on the periphery of his consciousness. Somebody, or something, kept poking and prodding his aching body. It sort of looked female, about mid-twenties, but looked like it was still waiting for puberty to arrive. The confusion in his head overwhelmed his senses, and the blissful blackness of unconsciousness saved him from having to think any further.

Mary Ellen had no idea of how she was going to do it, but her maternal instincts screamed that she had to nurse this poor bastard back to health. Over the course of the next two days, she fed him, cleaned him, and attended to his basic bodily needs. Unlike her usual string of luck, he actually survived long enough to regain consciousness. For Mary Ellen, it was the first successful effort she could ever remember. Eventually, this gorgeous hunk of man remained awake long enough for her to try talking to him.

"Hey, how you feeling?" she asked.

"Unghh! Like something out of the rear of a horse", was all he could think of for a reply. "Who are you? Where am I? Better yet, who am I?"

"What, you don't have a name?" she queried. "Well, mine's Mary Ellen, you're in my house on Lake Simon, and I have no idea who you are. I found you laying on the beach a couple days ago, and I've done everything I can think of to keep you alive. After that, you know about as much as I do".

"Shit, I must have a name of some sort," he croaked. "Either that or I fell out of the sky."

His anger was born out of frustration, and this ... whatever she was ... wasn't making the return of his memory any easier. The fog in his mind just wasn't going to dissipate, which scared and angered him.

"Okay, I'll call you John until you can remember. Think you can live with that?" she declared.

"Yeah, I guess it's probably better than 'Hey, you', but not by much," he groused back at her. "Mary Ellen, huh? I'll try to remember that." Then something approaching gratitude swept through his head. "Oh, by the way? Thanks."

"For what? And you're welcome ... I think," Mary Ellen almost snapped her response at him, but something demanded that she pull in her claws.

"For nursing me back to life for a start. Or was that the wrong thing to say?"

Christ, this creature staring at him had all the social skills of a sand hill.

"Yeah, well, I couldn't just leave you where I found you, but I'm not sure why I've spent the last two dayss trying to save your sorry ass This is my home! The first person that I bring into it and he has to be a snarly son-of-a-bitch. But I'm glad to see that you might survive. Just don't ask me why, though."

Jeezuz, if she only had one nerve left hidden in her body, this asshole had managed to find it and rankle her ire.

"Mary Ellen, look..."

"Call me Meg. My Dad made that name up by combining all my initials; M, E, and G" she interrupted him.

John continued, "I'm sorry for whatever has you so pissed off. So let's start again with a clean slate this time. It seems you saved my life, and I'm grateful. As soon as I get out of this ... what is this, anyway? A bed? There's things sticking out of it, jabbing me all over. I gotta move."

Hmm, that apology went well. Even though he thought her social skills were the shits, his weren't much better.

"Sorry, what I wanted to say," John corrected himself, "was that when I can get on my feet, I'd like to do whatever I can to repay you. I don't know if I have any money, but I'll attempt any chores you might need taken care of. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay ... but not until you're up to it. You've been a pain in the ass so far, and I really don't want to have to go through this nursing shit again if I can help it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and find you something to eat. You stay right there on that bed until I get back". It was more of a command than a request.

Over the course of the next two weeks, John's strength slowly returned, due in part to the exertion of cleaning up the mess that Meg's cottage had become, and because of her attention to his health needs. As a secondary benefit, they both tried to get along with each other with a modicum of success. She was a nice enough person in his mind, but that undeveloped body had absolutely no appeal. She, on the other hand, had begun to have feelings that were as far from maternal as you could get. Even in her wildest dreams, there had never been a real live person like John that could make her blood boil. For the first time in her miserable life, she actually had thoughts of sex. The reality that she was still a virgin at this ripe old age invoked a swell of anger that she couldn't explain. Over the years, Meg had accepted that she'd live her whole life like that, but it still made her seethe inside sometimes.

By the end of their fourth week together, both Meg and John found themselves becoming more comfortable in each others company, to the point where they didn't try to scratch the others eyes out. John had spent days removing the debris from the storm off the beach, and from around the house. He'd also repaired most of the broken windows, rehung all the doors that had fallen off their hinges, and even patched the holes he found in the roof. Inspired by his efforts, Meg had given the place a thorough scrubbing from floor to ceiling. It was starting to look like a house again. It was also starting to put some muscle on her scrawny frame, a fact that John didn't fail to both notice and appreciate. But she was still as flat as a fence board, and had nothing for a figure. His instincts indicated where her breasts should be, yet all he could fathom was a need for a sign on her T-shirt that read, "For Lease, or will Build To Suit."

It was at the end of that month that Meg had inadvertently walked from the bathroom into the living room after her shower without wrapping herself in a towel first. She wasn't trying to be provocative by any means. It was just a simple oversight. John picked that particular moment to come through the front door, and the inevitable differences in their physical make-up snagged his attention as he gazed on her naked body for the first time ever. Meg's reaction was to freeze in her tracks at John's visual invasion of her naked self. They stared at each other for what seemed like days. Meg wasn't sure if she wanted to run, or just melt into the floor, but his assessment of her left a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach that wasn't all that unpleasant. If the truth be known, she was actually quite happy at being ogled for the first time in her life.

John couldn't quite get his head wrapped around the fact that Meg was standing in front of him naked, and she wasn't that unappealing after all. Hell, she even had tits! Not as big as the thickness of his hand, mind you, but they were there. Well, sort of. Her nipples were almost as big as the orbs that carried them. And it wasn't as though she didn't have hips. It was just that they were scrawny enough to be almost the same size as her skinny little waist. Even her butt was only a hint, although it looked firm enough to carry her weight when she sat, but not by much. Yet, there was something about her that stirred an undefined feeling in his loins. He didn't know what that feeling was, but it wasn't one of discomfort.

They held each others gaze with their eyes for several minutes, and John found that his face was hot from the blush that had crept over him. As much as he hated to admit it, he was embarrassed that he'd invaded her privacy, but breaking that riveting stare remained beyond his abilities for what felt like an eternity. It wasn't as if she'd ever qualify as a pin-up model or anything, and her physical attributes were pretty well non-existent. Still, there was just something about her that he couldn't get over.

Meg, like John, felt that same mesmerizing magnetism. Someone was staring at her naked body, and apparently enjoying the sight. Mary Ellen Glasser, the flat-chested, no-hipped, flat-assed ugly duckling of the female persuasion, and this hunk of man was fascinated by her? She soaked the attention up like a sponge, loving every second of it, wanting him to ogle her even more. She could even detect a slight moisture in her crotch. Damned if his staring wasn't getting her horny! Now there was one for the books.

Eventually the moment faded, and John was torn between embarrassment and intrigue. All he could think to do was apologize for the intrusion.

"Shit, Meg, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare like that. I'll just go back outside so you can have some privacy, and you can let me know when you're decent again before I come back in."

"It's okay, John. I guess I should have covered myself up before I started parading around after that shower," she apologized in kind, then added, "but, to be perfectly honest, I kind of enjoyed you looking at me like that. No one has ever done that before. It was kind of exciting, actually."

What? She'd enjoyed it? Either this girl was an exhibitionist or desperate. The word "modesty" didn't seem to be a part of her vocabulary at the moment, and that realization caught him off-guard. While she didn't evoke lustful desires in his mind, seeing her naked form also didn't give him a headache either. He turned to walk back out the door, leaving her to cover herself without his supervision. As he reached for the door handle, she stopped him dead in his tracks.

"John? You don't have to leave if you don't want to," she mumbled softly. "Hell, we're both adults, and a little nudity shouldn't be a problem. Should it?"

She really didn't want him to go, to leave her feeling empty, uncared for, or about. Hell, what she really wanted was for him to ogle her some more, and maybe even drool at the sight of her.

John found himself wanting to be in two places at once. The first was anywhere but here with that uncomfortable feeling of being a voyeur. The other was to continue to drink up the vision of this under-developed woman that excited a part of him he couldn't put a name to. Despite the inner conflict, he turned and looked her straight in the eye.

"Umm, Meg? You don't mind? I mean, if I see you naked? I think I'd like that ... sort of". He had a tough time getting those words formed in his head, and they came out more as a squeak than a statement.

Meg advanced to where John was standing, presenting him with a complete panorama of her nakedness. Gawd, she wanted to wrap her arms around this man, hold him, then kiss him so hard that his jaw cracked. She wanted to feel his hands roam over her skin, touch her diminutive feminine features, and take her to a place that she'd only dreamed of. For the umpteenth time in her life, she cursed her virginity and the reality of its continued existence. The raw truth smacked her like a winter storm. She wanted this beast to fuck her until she was worn out!

As Meg cocooned his neck in her embrace, John discovered that not only did her kiss not revolt him, but that he actually enjoyed it. This semi-female apparition might even become someone that he could get quite used to. With that body, he had no idea of why, but it didn't change the fact that he was beginning to find her appealing, even on the verge of desirable. While his reaction was unfathomable, he kissed her back, softly at first, then with more need and passion. Something about her had ignited a fire in his soul. He could feel the blood begin to engorge his manhood, heralding the initiation of a full-blown erection. That was something he hadn't remembered experiencing since she'd rescued him from the jaws of death. And what was more, he not only enjoyed the sensation, but also welcomed it.

Meg was in seventh heaven wrapped in John's strong arms. Gawd, she wanted him, wanted to feel his demand of her body, wanted him to relieve that cursed virginity of hers. Animal lust began to consume her very soul. A glimmer of an idea began to form in her brain. She would have this man, this god-like creature, deep inside her womanhood, even if she had to rape the son-of-a-bitch!

"John, touch me", she whispered in his ear as they broke their kiss to gasp a much-needed breath of air. "Touch my breasts, my nipples."

Her plea was somewhere between a request and a demand. And John felt helpless to deny her. His hands desperately sought her diminutive breasts, the ones that were barely larger than her nipples. But the feel of them and the rising teats sent a thrill through his system that he found exciting. His fingers instinctively grasped her, twisting, pulling, teasing her teats as they rose under his manipulations. Gawd, but she was exciting him! His growing manhood stiffened, stretched, and became a full-blown erection. By the grace of God, it seemed to find its way towards his belly instead of down his pant leg. The latter would have been downright painful.

Meg felt John's engorging cock pressing against her pubic mound, thrilling at its impression into her lower abdomen. In her animalistic heat, she found herself pressing tighter against his evolving bulge, wanting to feel its nakedness probing her. His hands caressing her tits elicited moans of desire that only inflamed her lust even more. She wanted his cock deep inside her, needed it, craved it, demanded it. God, she wanted him to fuck her more than she wanted life itself! That fact alone had her beginning to hump against his groin in reactionary instinct. The moisture oozing from her pussy threatened to become a river bursting through a dam. She could feel the first telltale rivulets tracking down the inside of her thighs.

Meg's pelvic gyrations weren't lost on John. The pressure of her mound on his cock pushed him into the fires of her heat, calling him, begging him, almost demanding that he stoke those fires of building lust until they completely consumed the two of them. His hands migrated down her chest, over her tiny tummy, and through the forest of her soft pubic hair on their journey to the juncture of her thighs. One hand continued its questing search for that hint of an ass cheek that screamed for him to grip it as a lever to hold her even closer to his body. Its arrival on her ass coincided with the other hand's touch to the top of her now-soaked slit, generating a guttural groan of welcome and animal lust. She shifted her legs apart to grant him full access to her wet femininity, and to maintain her contact against this massive hunk of man whose sole mission in life might be to bring her a pleasure that she'd never experienced before. Damn, those fucking cut-offs were all that existed between her naked flesh and his, and she detested their presence. Her hands caressed John's arms as she moved them down to his waist where she was determined to eliminate the denim wall that stood between her and the burning source of his heat. John began to move away from her with an element of indecision until she stopped his retreat.

"No! Don't stop, John. It's just that your cut-offs are becoming uncomfortable against my skin." and she slid her hands between them to access the fasteners. "May I?" she pleaded.

In response, John moved back just enough to grant her access to the offending garment's fasteners. He'd been working outside in the warm sun, and had already taken his shirt off. When he'd entered the house, he'd removed his boots in an effort to keep the outside debris outside where it belonged. All that was left to cover his body were those cut-offs.

John moved just enough to allow her access, feeling a delicious anticipation of the release of his straining cock from its confines. She fumbled with the top button, then dragged the zipper down. Hooking her fingers into the waistband, she manipulated his clothing down his legs until gravity completed the movement for her. John stepped out of the garment, kicking it away as though it were something distasteful.

With the two of them now naked, Meg wrapped her arms around John's middle, reclaimed her position against his lips, and pulled him to her as hard as she could. Gawd, the heat of his throbbing, blood-engorged cock felt like a branding iron against her belly. She responded to its heat with a demand of her own, running her tongue over his lips until he yielded to her need to consume that part of him. Quickly seizing the opportunity of conquest, her tongue entered his mouth, enjoying the sensuous textures of his teeth, his palette, his own tongue. As they duelled with each other, exchanging saliva and sensations, neither believed that this fire inside them could burn any hotter.