by Morrel, Amy
“Okay, you get to pick the movie again though. I don't know what you like for movies but I'm willing to learn.”
“Comedies mostly, I think because it helps me laugh and I always feel better after I do. I haven't had lots to laugh about, at least in a humorous fashion, in my life. The bittersweet laughs and crying laughter don't count.”
“That will be fine by me, I like hearing you laugh.”
“You know, I'm awfully glad that I keep finding little things that keep you from being perfect or I'd be afraid that I'm dreaming and going to wake up soon.”
Greg cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, like most men, you don't put the toilet seat down after you pee.”
It was Greg's turn to blush. He hadn't expected her to be so blunt but was happy that she felt comfortable enough to do so.
“Sorry, I'm used to living alone now. I used to be trained to not do that when there were three females in the house.”
“No need to apologize, I just keep worrying that this is all a dream and I'll wake up in the hospital, or still be in my car and never wake up again.”
“You don't need to worry about that. I'm as real as anything, I doubt I'd be this aware of myself if this were a bad dream on your part. Speaking of being aware of myself.”
Greg pulled down his bottle of painkillers and took two.
“It was about that time so I figured I'd better take them now before my back had to remind me later.”
Margaret shook her head:
“Oh Greg, if you could only look at all of this from my point of view. No-one, especially my ex-husband, has been as kind to me as you've been. And you don't even ask, or expect, anything in return.”
“Oh really? And all of this is?” he said, gesturing to the dinner she was cooking.
“Something I enjoy doing, and that you enabled me to do by providing a kitchen and food to cook.”
Margaret took the steaks out and put them on a plate, then she busied herself with the broccoli. She added melted butter over it and some grated cheddar cheese. Finally she took the potatoes from Greg:
“Hah, how long have these been not dripping?”
“They're still dripping, I just saw a drip.”
“Greg... You weren't paying attention to the potatoes were you?”
“Nope, sorry. I got engrossed in talking to you. It's still surprising to me that I enjoy talking to you. It seems that a week ago, I was totally disinterested in females. I think maybe I just hadn't had the chance to talk to the right one yet back then.”
Margaret blushed again as she poured the chopped, boiled potatoes over a stick of butter and a bit of milk in the bottom of the mixer. She turned to face it and started it running. A minute later she removed the mashed potatoes.
“Please take the steaks out and put them on the table, I'll bring the potatoes and broccoli out.”
Greg brought them out as requested and set them on the table.
“Go ahead and sit down.” Margaret said, “Feel free to serve yourself, I'll go get us some milk to drink. I imagine with both of us still doing some healing it might do us some good.”
When Margaret came out and saw that Greg had a steak and mashed potatoes on his plate, she served him a good-sized helping of the broccoli also.
“Trust me, I think you'll enjoy it.”
She sat down herself and served herself portions of all three dishes. They ate mostly in silence until Greg tried the broccoli:
“Wow, this is actually good.”
“No need to sound so surprised. It's how I get Jack to eat his broccoli. The cheddar over the top and a hint of black pepper changes the taste dramatically.”
“I just didn't think I liked broccoli. I may need to change my mind.”
“You probably had it cooked some other way. You just need to steam it until the green darkens a few shades and it gets hot. Any more and it gets very mushy and much less tasty.”
The finished the meal, once again mostly in silence as each of them cleared their plate.
“I guess I was hungrier than I thought” Margaret commented.
“I knew I was hungry but now I'm stuffed.”
Margaret began to pick up the dishes from the table, as she turned to head for the kitchen she called back over her shoulder:
“Would you bring your plate and other things in please?”
Greg picked up his plate and as he was gathering his silverware and glass he noticed that there was a piece of paper on the bottom of the plate. He set everything but the plate back down and looked at its underside. A folded piece of paper had been taped to the bottom. He removed it and unfolded it:
I'm not nearly daring enough to say this out loud. But, if you would like me to sleep with you, in that way, I'm willing. If you are sure you want me, then when you are heading to bed tonight just tell me that you are going to bed and ask me if I'd like to join you. I'll tell you now that the answer will be yes but if you don't still want me that way I will not be offended.
Margaret
Greg slipped the note into his pants pocket. He picked all his dishes up again and brought them into the kitchen.
“Margaret, I was thinking that maybe we should go to bed early tonight? What do you think?”
Margaret turned, her face beaming with the smile that dominated it. Greg's heart accelerated like a jet getting ready for takeoff. He literally couldn't breathe for a moment.
“I think that we can wait until later for bed. We have a nice evening planned. We can follow that plan and then make it better later on. But yes, we can go to bed later on this evening.”
“You... you, you're smiling!”
“Yes, you horrible man, you. You made me smile. Thank you again.”
“There is no need to thank me. The smile is more than enough. You're attractive when you aren't smiling. You're downright gorgeous when you are smiling.”
Margaret blushed:
“You know, I think I've blushed more in the past couple of days than in the two years prior. How you do that to me, I don't know.”
“Well, mostly it's happened when I tell you what I see as the simple truth but you disagree. I find it endearing though, it lets me know that you're actually listening to what I say and reacting to it.”
“Well, let's get these dishes loaded and get on with our evening, shall we?”
Greg helped as best as he could. Although he had been looking forward to the evening with her, now he was looking forward to what would happen after the end of their previously planned evening.
They checked the hours of the phone store online. He was almost dismayed to learn that they still had an hour before it closed. At the same time, he was happy that they could put some more of her life back together for her. They headed out quickly and drove to the store.
Margaret confounded the clerk by asking for a simple flip phone after explaining what had happened. The clerk had already assured her that the replacement SIM wouldn't be a problem. When he finally understood that she didn't want a fancy smart phone or data plan or anything, or maybe just gave up on trying to upsell her, he found a couple of flip phones still in inventory. They were tucked away in the back of a cabinet. The entire process was mostly painless and under fifty dollars. After he assured her that the SIM card should be activated within twenty-four hours, they left.
The Redbox was across the parking lot in front of a convenience store and they walked over to it.
“Let's see, what nice long movies do they have in here.” said Margaret in a teasing tone.
“You pick whatever you want and I'm willing to watch it with you” Greg said, “even if it's a 'chick flick'.”
“You mean those horrible things that are the female equivalent of male 'buddy movies'? I'll pass, thanks.”
Greg was astounded, Margaret was the first woman he had met that professed a distaste for the classic chick flicks.
“But this looks like a decent comedy.”
Greg was surprised, the movie she had picked was a co
medy about a teddy bear that came to life, but it was given a R rating.
“Are you sure? It's rated R.”
“We're both adults, I think we can handle it. But I heard about this one, it's supposed to be very funny although it does have some vulgar spots.”
“I said the movie would be your choice, let's get it.”
They got the movie and headed back home. After Margaret set her phone to charging, she asked Greg if he'd make some more coffee.
“Could you make some of that first stuff you had me try? I liked that a lot. I need to run upstairs for a couple of minutes and then I'll be down and ready for the movie.”
Greg set up another pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain and set it to brewing. Then he went into the living room and put the DVD in. He didn't know if Margaret liked previews or not so he hit pause as soon as he could. A few minutes later, he heard Margaret coming down the stairs and turned to ask her.
“Wow, just... Wow!”
Margaret was wearing a satin robe that came to just above her knees. It was obvious that she was wearing nothing underneath it as her nipples were clearly outlined and tenting the fabric. There was no way that anything could be between the robe and her flesh.
Margaret smiled again:
“I hope you don't mind, when I was getting my underclothes I also stopped to talk to that nice employee again. I asked her what they had there that was attractive and maybe even sexy, but wasn't too risque, that she thought you might like. She had pointed out to me earlier that if I liked you I'd better do something to make sure that you didn't get snapped up by someone else. When I thought about that and realized just how devastating that would be to me I realized a few other things also. Anyhow, this was what she suggested so I just put it in with everything else. If I shouldn't have, I'll gladly give you the money for it, it was only twenty dollars.”
“No, no, you definitely should have. I may have a hard time concentrating on the movie now though.”
Margaret blushed again, but this time she maintained eye contact with Greg. After a few moments of holding eye contact she continued the rest of the way down the stairs and sat on the couch.
“I was going to ask if you liked watching previews or not before you stopped me in my tracks there.”
“Yes, yes I do. Thank you for asking and not just skipping over them.”
“Well, let me get us some coffee then and we can start the show.”
Greg went into the kitchen and tried to get his head back to normal. Somehow Margaret kept managing to set it spinning. He poured coffee for the two of them and brought it out to her. When he sat down on the far end of the couch from her, she turned sideways and slid across the couch so that she was leaning against his shoulder and could still see the television. As Greg started the previews with the remote he realized that he hadn't been kidding when he said concentrating on the movie would be hard. Her robe hung open slightly at the top, offering him a view of the slope of her breasts. If she moved around very much at all it would probably expose a lot more than just their slope.
The movie was amusing and drew some laughs from them, despite being incredibly vulgar in a few spots. Greg found himself surprised by a few of the things that Margaret laughed at. Also, her laugh was much deeper now, almost as though she had been trying to control her laughter the previous times he had heard her. Now, she was just letting the laughs roll out with no restraint. Amazingly, she seemed to stay very relaxed and didn't even tense up when Greg slid an arm down around her stomach, slowly sliding it up her torso until her breasts rested on his arm.
She snuggled more tightly against him at several spots in the movie and he found his earlier estimate to be correct. As she moved, the robe gaped more at the top and he found himself able to see straight down to her sternum. He tried to avoid looking as much as possible but, as he rationalized it, he was a red-blooded American male. Looking at tits was almost as traditional a pastime for men as baseball and apple pie. He could tell that they were medium-sized and had a good bit of sag to them. She had, of course, had a child, and from what he could see of her nipples, she had breastfed him for a decent length of time. Greg had noticed, during his first marriage, that a woman's nipples and areolae darkened and grew larger with breastfeeding. They lost some of the size in time after they finished breastfeeding, but tended to remain larger than they had been before getting pregnant. From the looks, Margaret had breastfed for at least a year and maybe two.
Greg caught himself as he was pondering about her breasts and managed to tear his attention away from them and back to the movie. If she didn't lose her courage, and it appeared that she still had it in abundance from her current position and actions, then he'd get to see them much better in just a little while longer. Not only would he get to see them better but he'd be able to do more than just see them then.
Once the movie was over, Greg took care of putting it back in its case and shutting down the television and DVD player. Margaret requested one more cup of coffee before bed so he went to the kitchen and refreshed both their cups. They sat on the couch, Margaret no longer leaning against him but looking straight at him instead, and sipped their coffee.
“Greg, you need to know that the only person I've ever done... that... with is my ex-husband. Knowing what I do about him now, I think everything I thought about it was probably wrong. But I don't know what's what. I mean obviously I know about the act, I did manage to get pregnant and all. But I often wondered if there wasn't more to it than I was experiencing. Most of the time I heard someone talk about it they were saying how great it was, but I couldn't understand that. I mean what's so great about a guy being on top of you, then inside you for a little bit, then rolling off of you. I felt like there was more to it than I was getting and I almost had it in my grasp a couple of times but...”
“Oh Margaret, I'm so sorry. Are you telling me that your ex always did the wham, bam, thank you ma'am deal with you? Where he got to cum and you got nothing? That he didn't do anything else to you at all?”
“Well, I'm still having some problems talking about this but, I think what you're describing sounds accurate. He'd tell me he wanted sex, I'd lay on the bed, he'd get me wet by spitting in his hand and rubbing it on my... area, then he'd push himself inside me over and over until he was done.”
“Well, the reason you never understood what they were talking about was because you weren't getting to experience the good parts. It sounds like Freddy was just using you in more ways than you knew. I'll be happy to try to show you the good parts you were missing out on if you're willing.”
“I knew there should have been more to it than that!” she said angrily, “This is something else he was denying me and never told me about.”
“Let me play Devil's Advocate here, he may not have known.”
“Oh, I'll guess he knew. I did hear him talking about some things with a few of his friends once that I didn't understand at the time. Later on, I realized that he had been talking about sex, but not any things he had ever done with me. He knew, all right. Oh he's such a Bastard!” Margaret quickly glanced about, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”
“What, the curse?” at her nod he continued, “Curses are words, they have real meanings. From what you've told me about him, that one fits him well. You won't offend me using curses, I work on a construction crew. I've heard them all and I've probably used most of them myself also. I've just been watching my language because I thought they might bother you.”
Margaret shook her head:
“You needn't worry about me on that score. I used to curse up a storm, well I at least used them infrequently. Freddy told me it was unbecoming of a mother and a wife, so I made an effort to stop. I'm thinking that there are lots of little control issues like that still buried in me. That's why I said you wouldn't want me after you got to know me.”
“Well, not to contradict you but I know you better now and, if anything, I want you more than before. I think we just sort of fit together, like tw
o interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces. Now, in addition to other things, I feel the desire to show you the things your ex denied you.
I'm also looking forward to continuing to help you rebuild your life. Both the physical things like we did earlier today and hunting down the little control issues and other surprises buried inside of you. Helping you to find the ones you don't want so you can remove them. We can, if you'll allow me to help you, replace those to make things more the way you want them. It's kind of like rebuilding a house which, as I've mentioned, is one of the things that I do. Okay so normally on a physical level with houses and garages and such but I'm more than willing to help you do so mentally and emotionally.”
Margaret was seemingly near tears again:
“Greg, oh Greg. I wish we had actually talked to each other a few years back when you moved in here. Why did I become a hermit and wait so long.”
“You might not have been ready. Sometimes it takes a major shock to help people get over things. You've had several recently so that might have been what it took to get you moving on with your life again.”
Margaret drained the last of her coffee cup:
“Is it bed time yet?” she asked with a shy smile.
“I do believe it is, and I'll be going to bed now. Would you care to join me?” Greg answered, draining his cup after he finished speaking.
“I think that would be a very good idea.”
* * *
Chapter 9 – Margaret's Discovery
Greg held his hand out to Margaret. When she reached over and clasped his fingers, his heart began to race. He'd told the straight out truth when he had said it had been a long time for him. He hadn't had another woman since divorcing Emily. A little internet porn, a box of tissues, and his right hand had taken care of the intermittent urges. Now he had a woman that he suspected he was falling deeply in love with accompanying him to his bedroom.
“Wait, please.” Margaret spoke.
Greg looked at her, unsure of whether he should be dismayed or relieved.
