A STORY OF JANE (IN THE FIRST-PERSON SINGULAR)

Chapter Four


SATURDAY, the 21st 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.

When we began cleaning up the breakfast dishes, I was mortified to notice a spot on the kitchen chair I’d been sitting in, and was even more embarrassed when he noticed it, too.  His juices were leaking out of me. I told him that I simply HAD to go clean up, but he grabbed me and told me that there was really no need to clean something that was just going to be used again so soon. He held me, and I pointed out that the clock was rapidly approaching ten o’clock, but he told me to get my priorities straight, and we started a bit of a one-sided wrestling match, in which I more or less participated for the sole enjoyment of surrendering.

That’s when his cell phone rang. At first, he wasn’t going to answer it, but when he remembered how much money was at stake in his little business deal here, he relented. Indeed, it was the customer, who was calling to make sure he was on his way. I could hear her voice from where I was standing, and I cocked my head a little, listening to the tone more than the conversation. Where had I heard that voice before? It sounded very familiar.

He switched off the phone and apologized to me. He held me and kissed me (which was nice) and told me that he would be back (which was even nicer), and then he was gone.

I stared at the door after he’d left. I tried to think of any time in my life that I had ever been happier, and I was forced to admit that this was the best. Whatever he decided to do about “us” after he returned, this was the one, true love of my life. I thought about that as I dumped the dishes in the sink and finally started toward the bathroom to clean up. The doorbell rang. Had he forgotten something?

I rushed to open the door, expecting him to tell me “to hell with the damn meeting,” when I was absolutely astounded by the sight of the four sisters from the restaurant. Jo, in the lead, marched right in, took my arm and led me back through the foyer toward the living room. 

“Tell me you haven’t cleaned up yet, dear,” she said urgently.

“What?” I have never been more confused than I was at that moment. Jean, Jan and Jill entered the house behind us, appearing to be in a big rush. They were all carrying oversized black cloth purses.

“This is YOUR fault, Jill!” Jan was saying hotly. “We should have stayed by the side of the house and kept an eye on her! This could be the end! All this work, and we are so close!”

“We can’t do ANYTHING if we’re in JAIL!” Jill responded back, just as angry; two sisters in an all-out quarrel. “The neighbors saw us watching, I tell you!”

“You didn’t clean yourself, did you? His stuff is still inside you, isn’t it?” Jo was asking me. She sounded panicked.

“What?” I was too shocked and disoriented to answer.

Exasperated, she spun me around to face her and pulled the silk belt around my waist, tugging open my robe. I impulsively resisted, trying to hide my nakedness. With a sharp curse, she ordered me to stand still and put my arms down by my sides. I had to obey her (I HAD to!), but I didn’t want to degrade myself in front of these women, and my arms quivered as if straining against some powerful force. To my utter horror and humiliation, Jo peeled the robe from my body, and I stood completely nude in front of them.

“Spread your legs a little,” she ordered sharply. She was extremely upset, and it showed in her face and voice.

“Oh God, no,” I pleaded. I was starting to cry. I looked frantically toward the others for help, especially, Jean, who I sensed was the nicest of the group. They had formed a tight little semi-circle in front of me, and were leaning forward expectantly. I suddenly realized that none of them was breathing. The suspense among them was profound. I moved my feet apart slightly, and Jo immediately thrust her finger between my legs and into my sex. The sound that escaped me was not so much a gasp as a sob.

“She’s soaked!” Jo declared triumphantly. “She’s absolutely filled to overflowing. He came through for us!”

“No pun intended,” Jill muttered. They all laughed, and the tension was broken. Jo jerked her finger free of me and bent to pick up the robe. I instinctively reached to take it from her, but she ignored me, turned away, wiping her finger on it, and dropped it over the back of the couch.

“Let’s go ladies!” Jo said sharply, a general leading the troops. “Get a move on! We only have ....” She hesitated, looking around the walls of the room for a clock.

“Fourteen minutes,” said Jan. She wore a gold watch and chain around her neck.

What happened then is difficult to describe, since the four of them seemed to be doing all sorts of tasks; and yet the things were done in concert, as if they’d been practiced. They began by moving the couch and two easy chairs back from the center of the room. Jean even asked me to help her move the coffee table. I was still crying, but did as she told me, and when the task was complete, she came to me and put an arm around my waist, trying to calm me.

“Please let me get dressed,” I begged her.

“There, there,” she said, as if to a crying child. “You can’t get dressed, but we’ll join you, so you won’t be so self conscience.” As I tried to figure this statement out, I was flabbergasted to see that Jo had removed her blouse and draped it across the back of the couch next to my robe. Jean started unbuttoning hers, as well.

In the meantime, Jill had removed four rolls of white cotton surgical adhesive tape from her purse, handed them to Jan, then wildly rooted around inside the bag, looking for another. “I can’t find it!” she wailed.

“You fool!” Jan chided. “We don’t have time for this!”

“Here it is!” screamed Jill, exalted. Another crisis averted. Together, she and Jan began unrolling the tape, which had obviously been pre-measured and cut, and laying it out on the carpeted floor.

“Jean,” I said in a low voice still heavy with my tears. “I don’t understand any of this! What are you doing? Why did Jo ....” In my humiliation, I couldn’t find the words. To make matters worse, Jean had just removed her bra. Her breasts were magnificent, perfectly suited to her gorgeous frame. Why did that thought seem so familiar? To my astonishment, I had to suppress a tremendous urge to reach out and touch them. 

“I don’t have time to explain right now,” Jean said, truly concerned about me. She finished removing her pants and underwear and stood before me, smiling sincerely. I couldn’t keep my eyes from moving over her body. All my life, I had been very impatient with men who looked at me the way I was now looking at her. I blushed crimson. She held me by the shoulders at arm’s length, and when I finally had control of my roving eyes, we locked gazes for several seconds. She said something I didn’t understand, then slowly pulled me toward her. For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me, but instead, just as our breasts pressed into each other’s, she placed her lips to my left ear and whispered “Remember!”

And I did. Just like that, I remembered it all: the lunch on Wednesday, the “episode” with in the employees’ lounge on Thursday, what I’d been forced to tell them, my feelings for the woman who was now holding me. I remembered everything.

Jean pushed me back, still facing me and clasping me by the shoulders, and studied me to make sure I was okay. I ached to hold her the way we’d done just two days ago, but now I was wracked with guilt.

“Jean,” I said solemnly, “I’ve met a man.”

She laughed out loud at this. When she saw how hurt I was at this response, she quickly got herself under control. “Yes,” she said, smiling broadly. “Herman.”

I was frantically searching for the smallest bit of understanding. “You know Herman?” I asked, amazed. “Is he part of ... of ... this?” I looked around the room. Jan and Jill had finished laying out a pentagram star in the middle of the room using the adhesive tape, and were now busy stripping off their clothes. Jo was fitting tall black candles in black metal holders and arranging them in some pattern in the exact center of the star.

“Yes,” Jean answered. “Herman is a vital part of this, but he doesn’t know it yet. I’d like to explain it to you, but we just don’t have time. I just want you to know that ... that something’s about to happen to you and that ... well, I’m sorry. Soon, I think you’re going to hate me. But I’m sorry, Molly.”

My head was spinning with unanswered questions. Jean was pulling me by the hand toward the pentagram in the center of the room, where Jill and Jo were already sitting, cross-legged, at two points of the star, and Jan was getting situated at another. Jean pointed wordlessly to my place, then took the last remaining point. I was about to protest, but Jan looked again at the watch around her neck and said “Four minutes!” and I just did as I was bid, feeling meek and very confused.

There were four candles spaced around a fifth in the center of the star, and Jill, to my left, picked up one of those long wooden fireplace matches, which she had arranged beside her place, lit it with a cigarette lighter, and held it in front of her. This was some sort of ritual, obviously. No one said a word as she leaned forward and lit one of outer candles, then passed the long match to her left, to Jo. Jo lit her candle and passed the match to Jan, then Jean. Now, the four outer candles were burning, but instead of passing the match to me to light the fifth, Jean blew it out and set it down behind her. Then she took my right hand in her left, while Jill took and held my other one. I was painfully aware of the differences between us: my top-heavy body next to their near-perfect ones, my red hair and pubic bush next to theirs of raven black, and worst of all, the wetness oozing from me (I dared not glance down, for fear that with my legs open in this cross-legged position, I would see what I could so well feel).

I couldn’t stand it any longer. “What’s happening?” I whispered in Jean’s direction.

“Equinox,” she replied. And then together, they all began to chant. The language was not Latin (I know now that it was Welsh), and was very strange in my ears. The phrase was ten or so words long, and repeated over and over again. To my utter amazement, I soon found my own lips moving in accompaniment, and in another minute, I was saying the words along with them, though I was not consciously doing so. It was if they were coming up out of my throat of their own accord. The center candle lighted all by itself. 

That’s when I screamed.

