“So,” Claire smiled. “How’s that for inspiration?”
“Claire, I don’t typically do nudes… but after today I just might have to start.”
She giggled before kissing him tenderly. As the soft breeze seeped into the windows, Paul and Claire held each other closer. They drifted away into a New York post-coital nap.
***
[Hope you liked the story and don't forget your 8 complimentary books, which you may find a download link to on the last page of this collection, just after the 11th story ends. Now, on to the next story!]
Memories - Treacherous Love
by
Nellie Cross
When you have the life I’ve had, you become a little battle hardened. Love doesn’t come very easily to me. I’m not open to it at all. It scares me, yet I revere it. I have not known how love feels. I hope I don’t ever have to.
***
Summer, 1994
We were supposed to be on a family vacation out to the Carolina coast, and it was supposed to be my first time going. To a five year old, taking a trip to the beach was the next best thing to going to Disneyworld. We packed a cooler filled with sandwiches, sodas and water, and took a large bag of Lays potato chips and some of my mother’s ranch dip.
The morning we were set to leave, I woke up to find my mother and father arguing, yelling at each other at the top of their lungs, faces red with anger, hands gesturing in every direction. I watched all of this in a sort of slow motion for a while — the words forming on my parents’ lips, the plate that flew by my father’s head, the shaking of my mother’s body.
My older brother Matthew shrugged his shoulders and said, “I knew it was too good to be true.” He began taking his clothing off to change back into his pajamas to go to bed.
My older sister Marcia — Matthew’s twin — turned the music up on her yellow Walkman cassette player. I took the chips, a sandwich and dip out of the cooler and went to watch Saturday morning cartoons. I learned very early on not to cry over my parents’ fights, as they happened far too often and even at five years old, I found that after a while I couldn’t muster the desire to produce any more tears about them.
They continued arguing until the mid-afternoon, until my father went to sit outside and my mother retreated to their bedroom.
By that time I had gotten lost in the numerous reruns of shows playing on the television, episodes I could by then recite like the Pledge of Allegiance that I so often recited in school. My siblings had left to play outside with the few friends that they managed to have.
I will never understand how or why my parents got married and stayed married. They were two people that, no matter what, could not and would never get along and everyone around them suffered. Their families would no longer deal with us, and if they wanted to see us three children, they would come pick us up to spend the weekend with them without my parents — my parents were no longer allowed to even come into my Aunt Cassie’s house after they broke the vase that contained her father in law’s ashes. We rarely went out together as a family, and whenever we did, it ended in what amounted to complete and utter chaos in my child mind, forcing us back to the confines of wherever we made our residence.
***
December, 1995
Matthew, followed by Marcia, carried the last of their bags to the waiting U-Haul truck that was parked out front of our apartment building. When I looked them in their faces as we received the news that we would be moving in with my mom’s parents, I saw an unfamiliar look in their eyes — a look of relief.
I held on to a teddy bear and had my backpack on, feeling cozy in my grandfather’s arms. He hummed a song that I didn’t recognize, but it sounded bluesy.
“You are not taking my children away from me!” my mother yelled at my grandmother. She tried to block the way but my grandmother pushed her out of the way. Grandma had a box of stuff in her arms to put in the truck.
“One of them is going to get hurt if they stay here. You’re throwing plates at him, he’s shaking you, next you’re going to pull a gun out and threaten to shoot him, and what if you miss and hit one of the children? You and Eddie need to get a divorce and get some psychological help, and until you do we’re keeping the children.”
“Are you telling me that I’m a bad mother? You think I’m a bad mother to these kids.”
“No Sarah, you are unstable. You always have been and part of that is my fault for not getting you any help, but I am not going to let you ruin three more lives, they’re coming to stay with us and that’s final.”
My mother tried to take the box from her but she got pushed down to her ass for her efforts.
“Sarah, just come inside the goddamn house,” my father yelled.
“Do you even care that she’s taking our children, you never gave a goddamn about them!”
“I do everything for those children—“ Another argument commenced.
Grandma put her hands up and followed Grandpa to the car and U-Haul, where they finally took off. My mother ran after us until she couldn’t keep up with the speed from the car. I looked back and saw that she had a brick in her hands, but once she lost pace with us, she looked at the brick in her hand. Realizing what she was planning to do, the brick fell from her hands and she fell to her knees, covering her eyes with her hands and wailing to the sky.
***
Almost twenty years after the fact, I’m now staring my Grandma in the face as she lies inside a lukewarm hospital room potentially on her deathbed. We don’t know how much time she has, but we try to make the most of it. So many words left unsaid, but I wanted her to hear a few.
She breathed laboriously, and mustered up a weak smile for me.
“That was a very brave thing you all did,” I said.
“We had to do it,” she replied with some labor. “You all wouldn’t have made it with your parents.”
She coughed. Her IV machine and heart monitor beeped.
“Thank you for that,” I said.
“You’re welcome dear,” she said.
I kissed her, pulled the covers up higher over her shoulders and left.
Inside the parking lot, I got into my brand new forest green BMV and pulled into the light traffic driving by the hospital. I drove for fifteen minutes into the suburbs, parking in the driveway at the house at the very end of the cul du sac. I set the alarm on the car and went inside.
“Baby, are you home?” The smell of fresh flowers greeted me. I looked around the downstairs and found it to be empty and then ran as fast as my heels would allow me to the stairs.
“Andrew?”
I found him in the large master bathroom, relaxing in the Jacuzzi-style bathtub. “Hey, there you are.”
“Here I am,” he said with a boyish grin. “You just got home?”
“Yeah, I stopped and saw my grandmother.”
“Is she doing any better?”
“Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as he swept a hand over the tub.
“There’s not really much to talk about. I thanked her for everything concerning my childhood.”
“Ah yes, this childhood that you don’t like to talk about; that was very considerate of you,” he said.
“Oh, don’t talk to me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
Like a child. Also, I don’t see you volunteering any information about your childhood.”
“I’m sorry if it came out like that, you’re right. You don’t have to talk about it.”
The truth is that I thought about it so much in my mind that I couldn't muster the mental strength to discuss it with another person. When I think about it now, all it does is cause a headache. I want to save myself the trouble.
I undressed and stepped into the tub, slinking over to him, where he draped his arm across my shoulders. He kissed me sensually, sucking on my bottom lip.
“How was your day?”
“Mercifully short.” He ran a wet hand thr
ough his graying hair. “They really didn’t need me much today.” Andrew was the CFO of a company.
“You mean they didn’t need the money man today?”
He laughed at our inside joke. “No, they didn’t need the money man today.” He started stroking my breasts. “I want to watch you bathe.”
I grabbed a loofah and made it extra soapy with some pomegranate scented body wash — Andrew liked the smell of it; some of the suds ran down my arms. He leaned back and I moved in front of him, getting to my feet as I bathed myself slowly. His mouth formed an O as the suds ran down my torso, splitting into a familiar V shape past my hips. I squeezed the loofah over my breasts, coating them in suds. I saw Andrew’s dick poke upward underneath the water.
When I finish bathing, I dipped back down into the water and gave him a kiss on the lips. He enveloped me in his arms and took me under the water with him before lifting us up and stepping out of the tub. He carried me to the bedroom and put me on the bed, where he jumped on top of me like a ravenous animal, nipping at my neck and sucking on my lips. He split my legs apart and rested there.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” He pushed my wet hair way from my face.
“Awww, thank you,” I said. I’m never ungrateful when he tells me this.
He kissed me a lot slower, more passionately, our wet bodies sliding against one another until the water left our bodies. He rose up on his arms and positioned himself to enter me, doing so with all of the ease and experience that a 47-year old man has. I held on to his neck as he thrust into me. My legs molded around his lower body; I locked my feet together to trap him.
Here we were, engaged in the horizontal dance that so many before us had done. He kissed me all over my neck and breathed heavily in my ear. I encouraged him with my moans and the gentle rocking of my hips. I watched as a sly lusty grin formed on his face. I knew what that meant.
He quickened his pace. One of my legs went up onto his shoulders. His voice turned into a low gravely growl, betraying his past smoking addiction. His rough thumb found my clit and began rubbing it in circles. “Does that feel good? Do you like that shit?”
I cried out loudly, shuddering underneath his touch. He pounded into me harder and a sheen of sweat began to cover his body. I writhed underneath him, sweat forming on me as well. He grabbed my other leg and started to fuck me silly. I whimpered like a child underneath him until he stiffened up and groaned into my hair. His thumb hovered over my clit until he finished coming. He rubbed me slowly and kissed me until I came as well, and held on to me, saying, “You’re so pretty when you come,” as I came down from the heavens.
Sleep overtook me, and when I woke up, he was still asleep, his arm over my body. I climbed from underneath him and went to the bathroom. I took a shower and put on some workout clothing to go for a run.
The sun had not yet set, but it was still very warm outside. I slipped my ear buds into my ear and let the sound of my music wash over me as I broke into a light sprint. I ran to the beat of the song that was playing before I stopped paying attention to the sound. Kids were outside playing — a rare site in these times, as most kids would rather spend the day inside with their video games.
I took my usual route, a three mile trek that ran along a little creek, a park and an open field before circling back around to the house that I lived in.
During the run I thought about how fortunate I am to live in a house at my age. My parents didn’t. They still don’t.
***
March, 2001
My mother drove up in a battered Toyota Tercel; we had no idea where they got it from and no desire to ask them. I was sitting at the dining room table doing my homework and I heard her before she even got to the door. “Where are my children?” she yelled, followed by the sound of the car door slamming shut. I inhaled sharply. My grandmother met her at the door, “What do you want Sarah?”
“I came to see my children,” she said.
“The twins aren’t here and Christina is doing her homework.” Grandma folded her arms across her chest.
“Can I say hello to Christina then?”
Grandma called for me and I reluctantly went to the door. I put on the best smile I could and hugged her and let her fuss over me like a mother who hasn’t seen their child in a few weeks should.
“How’s school, how’s middle school treating you, kid?”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“That’s good. Any cute boys?”
“Sarah!” Grandma grew protective.
“No, no boys,” I said while shaking my head.
“That’s okay. Well, um, I guess I’ll be heading back home then. We got a place on the west side now.”
“Bye mom. I’ll tell Matthew and Marcia you were here.”
“And I’ll tell your father you all said hello.” I saw sadness in my mother’s eyes as she turned to leave in the beat up old car. And for the first time, I felt a little sorry for her.
***
What happened with my parents is that they were madly in love with one another and got addicted to that love. Addiction, even to something as intangible and abstract as love, can lead you to do crazy things. My parents needed to fight, needed to yell and break stuff and have their entire families disavow them to keep the spark that so often dies alive. Matthew once told me that he walked in on them arguing one day, and went to his room only to find them in theirs fucking ten minutes later.
They wanted to be normal like everyone else, but they couldn’t, not even to the children that depended on them the most.
It was that type of upbringing that made my stance on love so hard. I never wanted anyone to do that to me. I never wanted to find a person that would drive me to such insanity. I resolved from an early age never to fall in love.
I went through adolescence hiding myself and my budding body from the eyes of little boys and grown men who promised me a world they didn’t have if I would just love them (whether for an eternity or three minutes under the bleachers). I would have none of it. I couldn’t relate to any of my girlfriends because while they talked of kissing boys and all of the fun that they had on their Saturday night dates, I had no stories of my own, lest I took the risk and fell in love with someone.
I didn’t want to lose such a big part of me. Not to love and not to another person.
***
April, 2007
This is is why I like my arrangement with Andrew; I met him a month prior to my high school graduation. I didn’t have much prospects — community college for two years before transferring to a university and getting a respectable career with long hours to keep me away from the impending loneliness I was imposing on myself. I worked a part time job at the mall (the only place that would hire someone with no experience at the time) to have some money in my pocket and potentially move out — but I found that with every paycheck, no matter how much I saved, I was no closer to leaving.
He came into the store on a day that I was set to get off early, obviously looking for something, but I couldn’t guess as to what this old guy could be looking for, seeing that he specifically was in the women’s shoe section.
“I’m looking for some shoes,” he said.
I wasn’t taken by him, and immediately went into saleswoman mode. “You’re definitely in the right place. Do you want a pump, stiletto, flats?”
“Pumps, I like pumps. And stilettos,” he said.
I took him over to the pumps first. “What size are you looking for?”
“Hmm…. about…” He looked down at my feet. “Like yours. What size do you wear?”
“I wear an 8,” I said.
“Yeah, a size 8.”
I pulled a shoe off of the shelf — a nude colored pump, 6 inch heel.
“I don’t like that color,” he said. “Do you have something a bit neon?”
I showed him a neon yellow color blocked number, another 6 inch heel.
He looked at it sideways. “I like this. What else?”
; I showed him the same shoe in a bright green.
“I like this one too. I’ll take them.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Christina, when you’re done with that customer, clock out, okay?” My boss poked her head from around the corner that separated the clothing section from the shoe section.
The Ultimate Erotic Short Story Collection 17: 11 Steamingly Hot Erotica Books For Women Page 9
