by Brent, Amy
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “You’ve been though a lot. I understand. Do you want me to handle it for you? I mean, I can take care of everything if that helps.”
“No, you’re a good friend, but that’s my job,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
“Do you know what her last wishes were?”
“Her last wishes?” Maybe I was being overly sensitive, but Quinn made it sound like Bethany had gotten three wishes from a fucking magic lamp and still had one to go. If that was the case, I was pretty sure her last wish would be to still be alive.
“Yes, did she want a formal service and burial in the cemetery where her folks are, or in a mausoleum or…”
“Fuck, dude, I don’t know. We never really talked about it,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Look, let me shower and shave, then I’ll call you back.” It hit me that I didn’t even know where Bethany’s body was. “Shit, I don’t even know where she is.”
“It’s okay, man,” Quinn said in that reassuring tone he used to calm his SEAL team when things weren’t going according to plan. “I spoke to Emily earlier and she asked me to have her taken to a funeral home in Falls Church near where her folks are buried. They’re waiting on you to let them know how to proceed.”
“Okay, I appreciate that,” I said. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and rested my elbows on my knees. I felt just slightly more human that I did when I went to bed earlier in the day. “I need to call Emily to let her know that I’m home. I’ll go by and pick up Cody after I make the arrangements.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked. “Really. I don’t mind.”
“No, this is something I need to alone,” I said. “Just text me the funeral home’s number and I’ll take care of it myself.”
* * *
I called Bethany’s sister Emily and told her that I was back in town and would be by to pick Cody up after I left the funeral home. She sounded cold and distant, which was to be expected given that her only sister was dead, I supposed. Emily and I had never been huge fans of one another. She always thought that her sister could have done much better in the husband department (no argument there) and I thought she was a meddling Jesus freak that couldn’t keep her nose out of our business. It wasn’t really her fault. I knew that Bethany shared every detail of our troubled marriage with her, so I could only imagine how low I had sunk in Emily’s eyes. I wondered if Bethany shared her other secrets with her sister. I didn’t want to bring up the pregnancy over the phone. That could wait until we were face to face.
Emily told me to take my time and hung up the phone.
I went downstairs to retrieve my duffel bag from the foyer. I set the duffel on the bed and pulled out my shaving kit and carried it into the master bathroom to take a shower. I stood in the door and looked around for a minute. It was just as I remembered: neat, orderly, uncluttered, clean, spotless, smelling of potpourri and soap and Lysol. Bethany was a clean freak. She cleaned the bathroom every day and bitched about what a messy pig I was. Now that she was gone I could only imagine what this bathroom would look like in a couple of weeks.
I stripped off my underwear and kicked them away, then stood naked at the sink to unpacked my shaving kit. I leaned in and frowned at the man in the mirror. I turned my head from side to side. It didn’t help. One side looked just as bad as the other. My hair was plastered to my head with three days’ worth of sweat. I had dark circles under my bloodshot eyes and I needed a shave. My lips were dry and cracked. I went through a ton of ChapStick in Iraq. I turned on the hot water in the sink and was pulling the razor from my kit when I heard music coming from outside the window.
I moved to the window that overlooked the side of the house and used one finger to slide the curtain aside. What I saw made the breath catch in my throat.
The music was coming from an iPhone in a dock sitting on a small glass table next to the neighbor’s pool. I had never been the neighborly type and when I was home, did my best to ignore them. I tried to remember the neighbor who lived in that house. Single mom, I thought, nice looking woman my age or a little older. Great tits and legs. Wore tight sweaters and miniskirts a lot. Cindy or Sandy, I think was her name. She had a daughter: Lois or Lolita or Lulu, something like that. The last time I’d seen the daughter was probably two or three years ago when she was a teenager. I remembered a cute blonde girl with big tits and a tight ass washing the car in the driveway wearing a red string bikini. Every guy in the neighborhood drove slowly by to gawk at her hot and soapy body as she got on her toes and leaned over to soap up the hood. She was a sexy little thing, too young for a guy my age to be staring at. I didn’t know how old she would be now, but she had to be at least nineteen or twenty. Regardless of her age, she had one of the best sets of tits I’d seen in a long time. I knew this because they were on full display in the pool down below.
She was lying on an inflatable raft with her top off and her hands behind her head. Her long blonde hair was pushed up and over the top edge of the raft. She was wearing a yellow bikini bottom and dark glasses that hid her eyes. Her brown body glistened in the sun, as if it were covered with oil. Despite the exhaustion that was still lingering in my bones and muscles like a cancer, my blood started to boil, pooling in my crotch. I looked down to find my cock getting hard. I wrapped my fingers around it and started slowly tugging it back and forth.
“Damn…” I said, my eyes drifting slowly over her magnificent body. She was long and lean, with toned arms and legs and abs that looked like they were the product of hours in the gym or amazing DNA. My eyes settled on her tits, big fleshy globes with dark areolas the size of golf balls and nipples like little brown thimbles. I wished like hell I had my binoculars handy, but it was okay. I could see well enough to get the job done.
My cock sprang to life, growing hard and stiff as a rock in my hand. I turned toward the sink for a moment. Bethany kept a bottle of lotion there. I pumped my hand full, then slathered the lotion around my cock and balls and went back to the window.
I was careful not to move the curtain too much. I was sure she couldn’t see me from down there, but I didn’t want to take any chances. God forbid I get busted for jacking off to a teenager. I peered through the break in the curtains and slowly stroked my cock back and forth, back and forth, rubbing in the lotion, causing my cock and balls to heat up like they were on fire.
What happened next could only be called coincidence or fate. Or very shrewd planning. The girl leaned her head up and looked toward her house, like she was looking to see if someone was there. Then she lifted her ass off the raft and wiggled the bikini bottoms down her long legs and tossed them to the side of the pool. Then she lay back and rubbed her hands down her stomach to lube them up with sweat and oil, then spread her thighs and started massaging the suntan oil into her clit. I nearly came on my hand.
Her pubes were as blonde as the hair on her head. She held them back with two fingers of one hand as she rubbed her clit with the other hand. The speed at which I was stroking my cock matched the speed of her fingers rubbing her pussy.
“Holy fucking shit…” I said, my hand furiously sliding up and down the length of my ten-inch shaft. My cock was so hard it felt like it was going to burst. The head was purple as a plum. My mouth was hanging open. I was literally panting like a dog.
“Yeah, baby, that’s it… play with that beautiful pussy… yeah... rub that clit, baby… fucking rub that clit and make yourself cum for daddy… that’s it… yeah…”
I watched as she brought up her knees and spread her legs wide. She slid two fingers inside her pussy. I saw her gasp when the fingers slid in up to the knuckles. She plunged the fingers in and out, in and out, deep as she could go. She lifted her ass off the raft and bit her bottom lip. Her left hand went to her left tit. She took the nipple between her thumb and forefinger and tugged on it until it turned dark purple.
“Fuck…” I moaned, my hand jackhammering up and down my cock as I watched her fingerfucking herself to orgasm.
When she started bucking her pussy into her hand my cock exploded, shooting long white ropes all over my hand, the wall, and floor beneath the window. Our bodies shuddered together as we came. I fell against the wall and bit into my lip to keep from screaming.
“Damn…” I said, struggling to catch my breath. My cock and hand were covered in jizz. It was everywhere. I took a deep breath and peered back through the crack in the curtains.
She was still on the raft and still naked and still rubbing her pussy, although slowly now, enjoying the afterburn. But now the dark glasses were pushed back to the top of her head. She was looking up at me with a devious smile on her face.
“Fuck…” I said, though I didn’t pull away from the window. I could feel my heart beating through my cock, which was still gripped tightly in my hand.
She brought up the two fingers from her pussy and held them up to her mouth. As I watched in fucking awe, she stuck out her tongue and licked and sucked her fingers clean.
It was the sexiest fucking thing I had ever seen.
The thought of it would be with me the rest of the day.
Lolita
I knew he was watching me. I could feel his eyes burning into my body like the fire from a torch, scanning me from head to toe and back again, his gaze probably lingering on my tits and bikini bottoms. I had been lounging in the pool for an hour or so, waiting for a sign that he was there. When I saw the curtains flutter, I thought what the hell. The poor guy could probably use a little diversion to take his mind off things.
Mom said he had come home around seven-thirty, just as she was getting ready to leave for work. She even woke me up to tell me that he was home, like I was the freaking neighborhood watch and it was my turn to go on patrol or something. I said “whatever” and rolled over and went back to sleep.
After lunch, I put on my bikini bottoms, greased up my body, and went out to the pool. I watched the window from behind the dark glasses. It wasn’t long before I saw the curtains move. I knew he was up there. I knew he was watching me. Like I said, I could just feel him.
I put on quite a show for him, rubbing my tits, oiling up my pussy, spreading my legs wide and making myself cum with my fingers. I closed my eyes and pictured him up there, all naked and pumped up with his cock rock hard in his hand, shooting his load all over the place as he watched me cum. I could only imagine what he thought when I licked my pussy juices from my fingers. Guys don’t want to kiss you after you’ve sucked their cock and they’ve cum in your mouth, but they really dig a girl who’ll lick her own pussy juices. Go figure.
Poor guy, I hoped it made him feel better.
It certainly did the trick for me.
Ryder
Bethany’s sister, Emily, and her husband, Hank Perkins, lived thirty minutes away in an older part of town called Arlington Acres, just outside of Fall’s Church where Bethany grew up. They had a nice brick ranch with a big yard for the kids to play in and plenty of room for Hank’s work trucks and vans. He made a good living as a plumbing contractor, working mostly in DC for the government and the various defense companies with facilities there. He was a good provider, a good husband, a good man, and a good father. I knew all this because Bethany used to throw Hank in my face every chance she got. Hank this and Hank that… Hank does this and Hank does that… I wanted to hate the son of a bitch, but I couldn’t because Hank really was a good dude. There was a time when I’d have given my left nut to be more like him. If I had, maybe things would have been different today.
Hank and I could not have been more different. I was loud, egotistical, intolerant, sometimes quick to anger and slow to forgive. Hank was quiet, thoughtful, usually smiling, never in a bad mood. He was a few years old than me, in his early-forties, probably 5’10, and 200 pounds. He had always been on the pudgy side and had started losing his hair right after high school. With his buzz cut and pudgy face I thought he looked like a big two-year-old. But everybody loved Hank; especially my son Cody. Bethany said more than once that his Uncle Hank was more of a father to my son than I could ever be.
Ouch. Just fucking ouch.
Hank was in his driveway when I pulled up in the Range Rover, loading tools into the back of one of his white work vans. He tugged a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands with it as he watched me walking up the drive.
“Hello, Hank,” I said.
“Hello, Ben.” He held out his hand and I shook it despite the grease from his tools. His hand was like coarse sandpaper. He pulled me into an awkward “bro hug” and patted me on the back. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Well, I guess it’s your loss, too,” I said, pulling back and letting go of his hand. I’d never been much of a hugger. “And Emily’s, too.”
“That’s true,” he said, blowing out a long breath that puffed up his round cheeks. He tucked the rag into his back pocket and glanced over his shoulder toward the house. “Em and the kids are inside. Cody’s fine. He doesn’t know that anything’s happened yet. Em figured you’d want to tell him.”
“I appreciate you looking after him,” I said. I reached around for my wallet. “I’d be happy to give you something for you time.”
“We’re family, Ben,” he said holding up his hands. “We don’t charge for looking after our own.”
I felt my cheeks flush. What the heck was I thinking. I gave him an embarrassed nod and said, “You guys are the only family Cody has left now. I mean, other than me.”
My parents had been dead for over a decade and I had no siblings. Bethany’s folks had both passed the year before, so other than a few second and third cousins he’d probably never meet, Emily, Hank, and their three boys were the only family Cody would ever know.
“You home for good now?” Hank asked, holding a hand over his eyes to look at me in the bright sunlight.
“Yes, I think so,” I said, nodding. “I haven’t really had time to think about anything. I just got in this morning, so...”
“How long was that flight?” he asked with a frown. “From Iraq to DC?”
“About twenty hours with layovers,” I said.
“Damn. Where’d you have to layover?”
“Uh, Turkey, then London.”
“How long from London to DC?”
“Nine hours from Heathrow to Reagan.”
“Nine hours from London,” he said, shaking his head like the notion of international flight confounded him. “That’s a long time to be on an airplane.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “A very long time.”
“Bet you’re tired.”
“You have no idea.” I gave him a smile and he smiled back. There was a slight gap between his front teeth that just added to his boyish charm. Hank and I had never been big pals, mainly because other than our wives, we had absolutely nothing in common. Small talk was all we’d ever made, but now even that felt forced and awkward.
“Well, go on in,” he said, tipping his head toward the house. “Em’s probably in the kitchen. The kids were out back last time I looked. You’re welcome to stay for supper if you like.”
“Thanks, Hank, but we should get home so we can settle in,” I said. I took a couple of steps toward the house, then turned back and held up a finger. “Hank, can I ask you a question, just between us guys?”
“Sure.” He folded his thick arms over his chest and leaned back against the side of the van.
“Was Bethany seeing anybody that you know of? Has Emily said anything?”
His high forehead split into deep lines. He closed one eye to look at me. “Seeing anybody? You mean like having an affair?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Why would you even ask such a thing, Ben?” he asked, giving me a look that for a moment made me think that he was going to punch me. He took a step toward me and put a stiff finger in the middle of my chest. There was anger in his eyes. “Bethany was a good girl, Ben. She loved you with all her heart. Surely, you must know that.”
“Look, Hank…” I thought briefly about
telling him about the baby my wife was carrying in her womb that could not have possibly been mine, but thought better of it. Hank was a good guy and he thought the world of Bethany. He didn’t need me adding my dirty laundry to his basket or staining her memory in his mind. I held up my hands and backed away.
“You’re right. It was a stupid question,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’m just tired, is all. Forget I said anything. I’ll go find Emily and the kids.”
“Ben, can I give you some advice?” he asked, leaning in and lowering his voice. He smelled like sweat and grease. The dingy white t-shirt he was wearing was stained with spots of brown and gray.
“Sure,” I said.
“Your wife is dead, Ben. There’s no need to drag up anything now. Let her rest in peace. Focus on your son. That’s all you can do.”
* * *
I found Emily in the kitchen, standing at the sink peeling potatoes for dinner. Through the open screen door, I could see Cody and the other boys playing in the backyard on the homemade jungle gym Hank had built. Sadly, it took a minute for me to distinguish Cody from Hank’s twins, Joey and Jack. They were all about the same age, blond hair, round cheeks, loud and spastic. Christ, I thought, you can’t even spot your own kid twenty yards away. Bethany was right. I was a shitty father. My guts started to churn as a knot of guilt started cramping its way through my intestines like a bad Mexican dinner.
Emily didn’t hear me come in through the front. I stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment with my hands in my pockets, just watching her work. Emily was two years older and twenty pounds heavier than Bethany, but from a distance they could have been mistaken for twins. Her dark hair was cut short so she didn’t have to mess with it, she said. She never wore makeup or did much to herself unless she was headed to church, which her family attended twice a week without fail.
“I’m a mom,” she would say, “Not a freakin’ runway model.”
