by JT Harding
Jenni laughed, her mood lightening as the conversation forced her to draw her back from that gray place she had drifted into. She added cream and sugar to her coffee and sipped. “This is good. I take care of the six houses this end. I prepared your place before you moved in. I left you clean linen last week, on the porch.”
“I wondered where that came from,” Kim said. Joe was thinking about the state they had left some of the bed sheets in, wondered what Jenni thought of the milk and cum stained sheets, found no shame in his heart nor guilt in his head.
“So how many changeovers tomorrow?” Joe asked. “We’re a bit out of season now, aren’t we? Will we be getting new neighbors?”
“In the Harper place? No, not next week. The week after I think a family’s coming down, but they’re in the Parker house which is right at the far end. I’ve only got two places to clean and make up. I’ll bring your linen and take the old stuff away.” She stared into Joe’s eyes, passing a message back. Yes, I have seen what you have done, but it’s okay. We’re all grown-ups here and know what goes on behind closed bedroom doors. “This really is great coffee, Joe. How did you manage to land a catch like him, Kim, rich and obedient.”
“I lied and blackmailed him,” Kim said. “And of course I f-”
“Kim did no such thing,” Joe interrupted. “She’s an editor. Was an editor. No, is an editor,” he laughed. “She worked on my first book. We spent a lot of time together, and I fell in love.”
“Only you?” Kim asked, raising her eyebrow.
“We fell in love. Sorry, babe, we fell in love.”
Kim stuck her bottom lip out and Jenni laughed. “God, a normal family. Wonderful.”
Normal? Joe thought. Are these thoughts in my head normal? Is the growing obsession I have about you, about your body, is this normal, with my gorgeous wife sitting across the table from me?
“Try and come over,” Kim said. “Ami likes you, and I’m simply desperate for some female company. Are we going to be friends, Jenni?” Kim leaned over the table and took Jenni’s hands inside her own, stared into her eyes with the question hanging in the air.
Jenni flushed and her eyes sought escape by staring at the distant breakers, their sound faint as the breeze came off the cooling land, bringing the hot scent of sun baked earth. The day was moving toward dusk.
“I hope so,” Jenni said, so quietly they barely heard.
Kim laughed, sitting back. “Yes, we will. The three of us.” She looked brazenly at Joe, passing a message he would ask her about later. Jenni glanced at him as well, her steel-dark eyes bright with a message of her own, one he thought he understood but needed to be sure about. He would definitely need to talk to Kim.
“I really am going to have to go.” Jenni finished her coffee and stood. “I’ll bring your linen over last, after I’ve finished the other houses, and if you’ve got time we’ll go for that swim.”
“Not me.” Kim raised her hands. “You and Joe can swim. He’ll enjoy the company. I don’t like to think of him swimming all on his own, and he loves it so much.”
“I don’t mind,” Joe said, and then realizing how that might sound added, “But I’d love to have your company, Jenni.”
“Oh, get a room, why don’t you,” Kim said, and after the flare of shock in Jenni’s face flushed bright beneath her tan she burst into laughter.
“I did warn you about Kim,” Joe said.
“You did?” Kim asked. “What exactly did you warn her about, Joe?”
“Your honesty, my darling,” Joe said.
“I should think so.”
“Hey, guys, I do have to go. Thanks for the coffee, and letting me steal your daughter for an hour. I’ll see you tomorrow if I can.” Jenni stood on the top step of the porch, hesitating.
Kim rose and went across and hugged her, kissed her softly on the side of her face. She turned back to Joe and raised her eyebrows. Jenni was just starting to turn away and Joe rose and went over and hugged her as well, a little awkward because she was on a step lower than him and her head barely came to his chest. She lifted her face and he brushed her cheek with his lips and caught the scent of her as he had before, salt and sun oil and something deeper and more animal underlying everything else.
***
Kim went inside, and when Joe found her she was standing on the upstairs balcony watching Jenni cross to the other house. Joe stood behind Kim as Jenni climbed into the cab of the old pickup. The engine started noisily, clattering until settling after a moment. Jenni’s arm waved through the window as she drove off. Kim’s fingers reached across for Joe’s and found his hand. They stood unmoving until the truck crested the rise in the road that ran back between the dunes, and Jenni must have been aware they were still looking, because her arm came out through the window again and then she was gone.
“I like her,” Kim said.
“Me too.”
“I know you do. You were practically salivating watching her.”
“Was not!” Joe turned to go inside but Kim stopped him, slipping her arms around from behind, pulling him back against her.
“It’s okay, Joe. You can let your eyes pop all you want. Mine were doing the same. She’s some piece of work, isn’t she?”
Joe found himself nodding, heard Kim chuckle.
“I might even let you fuck her,” Kim said, her face pressed flat against his strong back.
“Very kind of you, I’m sure.”
“No, I mean it. I wouldn’t mind, not at all.”
“Kim?” Joe turned inside her arms and slipped his own down around her waist. “Where’s this coming from, babe?”
Kim shook her head. “Nowhere. I have no idea, Joe, I really have no idea,” and she lay her head against his chest, sobbing.
“Hey, babe, what’s wrong?”
Kim shook her head and pulled from his arms and turned away, leaning against the balcony railing, the blue cover-up billowing in the wind, Kim’s hair tugging around her face. Tears continued to streak her cheeks and Joe held her again, Kim tensing, only slowly relaxing against him as he continued to hug her.
“Tell me,” he whispered into her ear.
“I don’t know. Hormones, I guess. I’m just so fucking horny all the time these days, Joe, so fucking horny. I was looking at Jenni and wondering what it would be like to have my tongue between her legs, what it would be like to suck on those big titties of hers... God, Joe, am I disgusting you?”
Arousing me, he thought, his cock stiffening quickly, aware Kim would feel it too as he pressed the bulge between the cheeks of her ass.
“Joe?”
“Mm?” He nuzzled into her neck, gooseflesh speckling her arms.
“Am I awful for thinking these things?”
“Nothing you think or do is awful, babe. Nothing at all.”
“But I’m not normal,” she said.
“Good. Normal is dull.”
“I’ll try and behave myself, Joe, I promise.”
“Don’t try, babe,” he said, reaching under the cover-up and finding the knot of her bikini behind her neck. He tugged, letting her breasts tumble free, cupped his palms over them and Kim pushed back against him.
“Make me come, Joe, please?” Kim said, a harsh need in her voice he hadn’t heard before. She leaned against the pale wooden railing of the balcony and stepped back, setting her feet apart. Joe went to his knees and tugged at her bikini briefs, pulling them to her knees. The scent of her pussy enveloped him, and when he lifted his hand and pressed a finger between her legs, as soon as he parted her tight opening juices gushed out wetting his hand.
He kissed the back of her thighs. Kim lifted one leg and placed her foot on the bottom rail running across the balcony six inches above the boards, pushed back against him. Joe licked up along the crack of her ass but he knew she didn’t want that. He lifted her against his mouth, arching his neck back so his tongue and lips were against her pussy. He kissed her labia, tasting the copious juice that flowed from her, reached wi
th his tongue and flickered against her clitoris which was hard, ready.
Kim pressed against him, her breath ragged, her head hanging over the porch. Despite the thickening air anyone passing along the beach now would be granted a full view, but neither cared or even thought about what they were doing so publically.
“Make me come, Joe. I need to come so badly.”
He pushed three fingers inside her, not gently, opening her wide while his tongue flickered and joined them. Kim came fast when she needed to, and Joe knew this was one of those times. She was rocking back against his tongue, each movement accompanied by an animal grunt, and before he was ready, wanting to tease her longer, Kim cried out, her voice sounding across the empty sand, so loud gulls rose and wheeled away from the breaker line as she gushed against his mouth, squirting on his tongue and he lapped her, swallowing the delicious fluid she offered, aroused now beyond restraint. Kim’s knees buckled and he rose and gripped her waist, holding her up. He fumbled with one hand, tugging his trunks down and his cock slapped out against Kim’s ass and she grunted.
Joe pushed his leg between hers, dipped and Kim reached back seeking his cock, helping guide him to her. She leaned over further and Joe pushed hard into her pussy, lifting her feet off the ground. He gripped her hips, holding her off the floor as he pounded hard into her from behind.
“Uhn–uhn–uhn.” Kim grunted with each thrust, touching her breasts with one hand, holding herself against the railing with the other. “Imagine I’m Jenni, Joe. Imagine you’re fucking Jenni like this. Imagine how tight her pussy is around your cock, this big, thick cock, imagine her big tits bouncing and swaying. She’ll have long hard nipples, Joe, and a wonderful ass. Imagine I’m... uhn... I’m watching you fuck her... Imagine... oh shit... imagine I want to watch you fuck her... Oh God Joe, I’m gonna come again!”
So was Joe, so fast and strong he was unable to control himself. He slapped Kim on the ass, something he had never done before, and she yelped and shook beneath him. A violent jet poured from his cock as though his entire body was emptying inside her. Kim felt the force of his climax too, and it triggered another deep inside her. Joe pulled her against him, trying to force his cock beyond any place he had reached before, emptying again and again and again.
He gasped, pulling away, his cock sensitive beyond bearing and Kim dropped to the floor, spun around and took him instantly into her mouth as he deflated, drawing the entire flaccid length of him onto her tongue and pressing her lips hard against his pubic hair. She rocked her face against him, her hands cupping his ass, pulling him tight against her lips. Kim held his cock in her mouth until Joe felt himself twitch and harden. Only then did she release him, sitting back before climbing up his body and allowing him to taste his cock on her mouth.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Joe gasped, breathing hard.
Kim shook her head. “No idea. Wherever it was we need to find the place again, Joe. My God, I’ve never come like that before. Twice times in as many minutes!”
“What are we going to do?” Joe kissed her hair.
“What we’ve always done, babe. Fuck each other’s brains out.”
“I love you so, so much,” Joe said.
“I know. And I love you even more. More than anything in the world.”
Joe laughed. “Except Ami,” he said, and Kim giggled, recovered now.
“Of course except Ami; that goes without saying.”
Joe knew he and Kim were one thing, and the other was Ami. He recalled the shock of emotion which filled him the instant he first laid eyes on his tiny daughter, bloodied and bedraggled and a little blue in the face, and the wave of love bursting inside him was something only a parent could experience. His love for Kim was constant and deep, but his love for Ami was visceral and raw and he knew the emotion all fathers experienced, that he would protect her with his own life if necessary. He knew Kim felt the same; perhaps, if possible, even more so because she had carried this jewel of life inside her own body for nine months.
Chapter 7
Jenni put Mark’s plate in front of him. Cheap steak, fries, no vegetables because he refused to eat them. A beer sat open near to hand and he sipped from the can before picking up his knife. He cut his steak into chunks, put his knife down and used the fork in his right hand to spear meat, a fry, more meat.
Jenni sat across from him, her own plate holding a different meal. She had grilled half a snapper, boiled potatoes from the garden, added salad from the same small plot. Growing anything with the sea all around was difficult, but she persevered, rewarded when she ate her own produce. The corn would be ready soon and she loved it coated with butter. She would need to eat that when Mark was out because he said watching her disgusted him the way she attacked it, butter dripping down her chin.
“There’s one house still open on the beach,” Jenni said, trying to draw him into conversation.
“Mm-hm.”
“Young couple from away. They got a baby. Six months old.”
Mark stopped chewing and looked across the table at her until she averted her eyes, only once she was concentrating on her own plate did he pick his fork up again.
“I don’t know how you can eat that crap.”
“I like it.”
“Fuckin’ rabbit food. No wonder you’re so skinny. Need a bit of meat on you.”
Jenni looked up, something sparking inside. “Would you like me more if I put weight on, Mark? If I was bigger?”
He snorted. “Can’t turn shit into gold.”
Jenni had no idea why he treated her this way, putting her down constantly, making out she was ugly. It caused her to doubt what the reflection in the mirror showed, made her doubt her own judgment. She ate the rest of her food in silence, all taste gone so she chewed without being aware of the clean sweet sea tang of the snapper. She was trying hard not to let tears flow, trying not to let him catch a glimpse of how much he hurt her.
It hadn’t always been this way. Jenni loved him once. Thought she loved him. Now she couldn’t remember if the emotion was love or something else. She had been escaping her reputation, escaping her wild past. Nineteen, a year out of high school but the wildness had started long before then, the word out about her. Jenni no knickers. Blow job Jen. Want a good time, want to get laid? Hey, try Jenni, she’ll fuck anyone. What made the whole thing worse was that everything they said was true; in those days she would fuck anyone, try anything. Not because she was easy, but because she loved sex, loved how she felt as another body moved against hers. She became frustrated, trying to find satisfaction somewhere but ending up giving satisfaction only to others.
The winter after she turned nineteen she made herself a promise to stop sleeping around, to find someone who loved her, who didn’t want her because she had a great ass and big tits and would let them fuck her any which way. That promise led her to choose Mark.
He hadn’t chased after Jenni, instead it had been the other way round. Mark was quiet, two years older than Jenni, a steady job working for his Dad’s auto repair shop and he looked okay; not great, but okay. He didn’t want to fuck her every second of the day and night. That had seemed a blessing. If only she had realized what it meant, but instead she welcomed the respite, welcomed the lessening of the rumors. When she and Mark married a year later it was like a comfort blanket wrapping around her.
At the start life had been okay. Acceptable, anyway. She grew used to the fact he didn’t want sex as often as she did, learned to live with that. She grew used to his moods and the comments, always denigrating her, always making out she was nothing special until she doubted all the things anyone said to her that made her believe differently. Things had changed so slowly Jenni couldn’t pin down any exact moment when she started to hate the marriage and what she had become. Like a toad in a pan of water, not aware it was growing hotter until too late, she accepted more and more degradation. Sometimes the contrast between what was then and what was now stopped her cold and she wondered how things h
ad managed to get so bad.
Jenni started looking around for satisfaction elsewhere only when she could stand the frustration no longer. Always with visitors, always with strangers until Paul, never with anyone from the island. She had been discreet. Mark might not want her, but she believed if he discovered what she did in secret he might kill her. Sometimes she wondered if that would be a better solution. Let him find out; kill or cure, literally.
Jenni cleared the plates and Mark went to the hallway and pulled on his coat.
“Are you going out again?” she asked, instantly aware it was the wrong question tonight when he whirled back, strode across the kitchen and slapped her across the cheek.
“Why? D’you care?” he snarled, turning away. “Don’t bother waiting up.”
The door slammed and Jenni ran water into the sink, allowed her tears to run free across her cheeks and drop to mix with the hot water. Through the window the evening lay dark on the hillside behind their small house, made even darker by heavy cloud. In the distance she heard thunder, saw an occasional far off stab of lightning glowing through cloud.
Maybe she’d get lucky and one of those bolts would seek ground through Mark, when he finally made his way back from the bar. She went upstairs and searched through the small bookcase in the spare bedroom. Somewhere, she knew, she had copies of both Joe’s books and she wanted to read them again. She found the first, a battered hardback she had bought from a thrift store. She took the book downstairs and curled up on a chair and opened it to the back cover where a photograph showed Joe. He looked younger, his hair shorter. He looked sexy as all hell. She turned to the front page and started reading.
***
Joe and Kim took Ami out in her sling, walked the dark beach, pale phosphorescent waves rolling in, the sound soft in the night. The moon had risen three-quarter full and stars filled the sky other than to the east where high thunderclouds gathered. Wind blew in intermittent gusts, and from far over the sea came a faint, distant sound of thunder. The smell of seaweed gathered above the tideline offered its half-unpleasant scent to the air, and they walked close to the surf where the wind blew in over the ocean
