A Wife's Gift: A Halloween Romance <*> {Redman}
(c) October 2000
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Authors Note: The lack of codes for this work is
an intentional device of the author. An author's note
at the end explains my reasoning. If you think that
might offend you, please accept my invitation not to
read this story. I would be interested in any comments
or corrections that readers might care to share with
me. I can be reached at redman@seductive.com.
If you're a minor or it is illegal where you live to
read erotic literature with frank sexual themes,
please to not read this work of fiction.
A Wife's Gift: A Halloween Romance
When I was a it was hard to even think about
being married, much less for twenty years. I
was only a when I met Janet, just
nineteen. I had gone to a party with a friend on
Halloween, but I didn't know anyone. It was an
crowd than I was used to. My buddy was dating the
hostess's younger sister, so as soon as we got there
he on me to be with her.
A dressed as a pirate asked me to dance. Even
though we were both masked, there was something about
her that I found alluring. She was forward enough to
ask me to dance, but she was shy and elusive too.
The pretty pirate was Janet. From that dance on we
were together. We left the party with her and
her sister's date to get some coffee. We talked for
hours, learning about each other, shyly flirting with
one another.
She was 23 and fresh out of college, working on her
first real job. I had quit school after three
semesters and was a bookstore manager at the mall. It
was my first real job too. The pay was lousy and the
hours were long, but I thought I was doing something
special.
Neither one of those jobs lasted in the long run,
but our relationship did. On the third night I knew
her, took me to her apartment. It was mostly
empty because she spent almost all of her time at her
parent's house. I remember looking in her refrigerator
and there was nothing but a carton of orange juice and
a jar of honey.
That night I willingly lost my virginity, but I
unintentionally found the love of my life. The one
woman that I wanted to grow and gray with.
We lived together for a year and a half. We were
never apart. We married.
Three years later we had our only child. I was in
the delivery room when they induced labor. I saw Lisa
being born. I held her in my arms and she was quite
small. It was one of the best days of my life - of our
young lives.
It wasn't always easy, those twenty years. We went
through ups and downs, but through everything we had
each other. We worked. We raised our daughter. We
lived simple lives that were centered on our mutual
love and respect.
Shortly after our twentieth anniversary,
began experiencing discomfort during intercourse. We
had always had an active sex life. I can't say we were
the most adventurous couple, but we both most enjoyed
pleasing the other. We fulfilled each other's physical
needs as easily as we fulfilled each other's emotional
and spiritual needs. We had always just seemed to -
fit- together.
Her OB/GYN ran test after test. A week or so later,
they did a biopsy. had pre-cancerous uterine
cells. In June she had minor surgery, scrapping the
lining of the uterus and removing a few polyps that
concerned her doctor. They put her on medication. She
recovered gradually. In September, the symptoms
recurred. Janet's doctor told her that the only
course of action was a hysterectomy.
We were worried, of course, but it's a common
procedure. We thought we were happy with just Lisa,
but in the days before the operation, began to
mourn all the children she had never born and now,
never would. After a while though, we laughed uneasily
about it together. We were both in our forties.
Neither one of us had wanted children that late in
life.
I was holding in our kitchen several days
before her surgery, silently expressing my love for
her. Lisa was in the dining room where we could see
her, gathering her books for school. She is long and
willowy like her used to be. I never knew
at seventeen, but at twenty-three she had looked
a lot like Lisa looked right now. She was tall,
thin and graceful. Lisa could have been a dancer but
had chosen to play piano and take voice lessons.
"I think the one we had turned out pretty nice. She
reminds me of her mother, don't you think?" I asked
Janet, both of us looking at our daughter.
"I don't remember being that thin, and I don't think
I was ever that beautiful," replied. Her body had
changed over the years, but she was always that beautiful
to me. had gone from a 34B to a 38D as she had aged
and gained weight, but I loved her body and her
through all their changes. She was a lovely, passionate
woman and she was my wife.
I remember sitting in the waiting room with her
family. I hate hospitals and was nervous about
being in surgery, but everything was fine so far. I
had seen her as they were giving her the initial
injection to put her under. I had kissed her gently.
Her last words for me were not to worry. That was
funny for both of us. was always the worrier.
One moment everything was fine, there in the
waiting room. Then I felt it. It was like a sudden
wave of sadness and loss washing through me. The depth
and abruptness of it overwhelmed me, like a sudden
punch in the midsection. I knew, without knowing why,
that something was terribly wrong.
As I began running to find Janet, the nurse that
had administered her injection was coming toward me.
She grabbed my hand and led me to a set of doors to a
surgery room and told me to wait outside. The doctor
had to talk to me.
When he walked out, there was so much blood. At
first, it reminded me of the day that Lisa was born,
but this was different. He said something about
complications. They were still trying. Don't give up
hope.
As he walked back through the doors, I slid down
the wall until I couldn't slide any lower. The doors
to surgery swung back and forth three times until they
stopped.
I remember it more clearly than a million other
more important facts that I have forgotten over the
years. The doors swung back and forth three times
before they stopped.
Whatever the doctor thought he was working on, it
wasn't Janet. was gone. It was as clear and as
profound a thought as I had ever had. Wherever she
was, she wasn't here. And a part of my soul went with
her.
I held together for a while. I arranged the Mass. I
bought the plot. I spoke to the lawyers that Janet's
sisters wanted to hire. They said someone had screwed
up. There would be damages. I got mad for about a
minute and a half and broke some things. Then the gray
numbness returned. Nothing that lawyers could do would
bring back. I told them to do whatever they
wanted. They could do anything except ask me to
care.
I wasn't a very good just then, I suppose.
Lisa and I mourned together once. I held her that day
and for just a moment, I cared about someone else. Her
hair was a rich black, her dress a deep, royal blue
and her nose was as as mine from the tears. But as
soon as the moment ended, all of the color drained
from my life again and the gray numbness returned.
Lisa stayed with a friend one night and I drank
myself into a stupor. But it didn't help. Neither did
the sleeping pills. My doctor prescribed anti-
depressants but somehow it seemed wrong to take them.
They couldn't fill the emptiness in my soul.
On October 31, our parish had a Mass in preparation
for All Saints Day on November 1. The priest had made
a special point in inviting me. It was a Mass to honor
all those that had died this year. We had never been
particularly devout, but had gone to Mass more
often, especially on holidays. It sounded like
something she would have gone to. I felt I needed to
go in her place.
But there was no consolation there. Even when they
read her name, I didn't feel anything. wasn't
there. Nothing that the priest said brought her back
to life for me or filled the emptiness. It was worse
than being numb. I left, vowing to never go back.
I went home and Lisa was preparing to go to a
Halloween party. She asked me if it was alright if she
went. I should have cared I suppose, but I couldn't.
I sat in our den as the sun set, watching the
shadows cross the floor as night fell. The sounds of
her preparation floated through the house: a bath
running, a hair dryer and an occasional fragment of an
aria in Italian that she would sing. I heard without
listening. I sat without thinking.
She came bounding down the stairs on her long legs
and as soon as she saw me she started fussing that I
was sitting in the dark. It was too much like
something her would have done. My grief
threatened to overwhelm me once more, but I pushed it
back. My didn't need to see it anymore. Not
when she was finally going out again. I realized I
hadn't heard her singing since before died.
Lisa hugged my neck in the darkness and told me not
to wait up. I wish I could have given her more. I had
been such a terrible lately. But I felt too
empty to give anything else.
I should show some interest in her life, I thought.
At least I could fake it, for her mother's sake.
"Will you be late?"
"Not too late, Dad. Mary will drive me home."
"What are you wearing to the party?"
"The only thing I could throw together at the last
minute. I didn't know if I would feel like going. Turn
the light on by your chair and tell me if it looks
OK."
It wasn't an exact match. She had on the same black
leotards and the same type of black body suit. She had
made the hat a little different, but the felt eyepatch
was about the same.
The pirate that stood before me could have been the
same one I had met twenty-two years before. If she had
asked me to dance, it might have been more than I
could have borne. Somehow I choked out that she
looked lovely and turned the light out as quickly as I
could.
As soon as she was gone, that same wave of grief
swept over me again. More grief than I could abide. I
lay on our bed and I cursed God. I cursed the whole
universe that would take away the one person I cared
about more than anything else in the world. She
deserved to live more than I did. Why not me, instead?
I had grieved for a month. Tonight, I felt the last
full measure of grief.
I slept, exhausted. When I awoke, I was naked on
the bed. One instant I had been overwhelmed by
sadness. The next, everything changed.
There was dim light coming through the blinds of
the window. I could see well enough to know that I was
alone, but I had a sudden sense I was not. The LED
clock read 11:58.
For the first time in a month, the overwhelming
emptiness was gone. Even through my stuffy nose, I
could smell Janet. I had lived with her for more than
twenty years. I knew her as intimately as any had
ever known anyone. I couldn't see her, but she was
here. It didn't make sense, but she was here. The
emptiness that was in my soul was filled. She was
here.
The air thickened and swirled. I felt touch
me, first, lightly on the cheek. I tried to grab her,
but there was nothing. Then I felt her hands and lips
on my chest, moving sensuously over my body. When they
reached my groin, I was instantly erect. All the
passion of our twenty years together seemed to fill me
in a moment.
I pleaded to see her - to hold her. There was
nothing but the gentle swirling air and the fragrance
of my dead in the air.
Then as suddenly as the air had stirred, it
stopped. Her fragrance lingered, but began to fade.
Even so, she was still here. I could still feel her.
In the sharp quiet, I heard footsteps. I could hear
her. was coming. I could feel her presence,
walking toward me in the darkness. Then I saw her,
beautiful and naked, walking toward the end of our
bed.
looked at me with those wonderful eyes that
always read my soul. I could feel her love and her
passion for me. She began to crawl on the bed toward
me, her bottom sticking high into the air as it always
did.
When reached my waist, her head dipped
familiarly toward my shaft, engulfing me in a moment.
She took me deeply in her warm mouth, like she always
did to tease or reward me for some pleasure I had
given her. Then she pulled back and her tongue
lavished the head in recognizable ways, licking the
surface lovingly. She had done this a thousand times
and a thousand times it had made me shiver.
But I had missed her too long for even this
delight. The next time she engulfed me, I put my hands
deep into Janet's hair and drew her up toward me. I
needed to hold her so badly.
I grabbed her fiercely, pulling her toward me and
holding her as firmly as anyone who has felt so great
a loss can hold. I tasted her sweet breath and those
lovely, familiar lips and the tongue that knew my own
so intimately. always loved to kiss and we
shared a kiss like I have never shared with any other
woman except her.
She raised her leg, taking my penis in her hand
with practiced ease, placing the head at the entrance
of her sex. She slowly eased herself down on me,
smiling that same hungry smile she always gave me on
first penetration. Before she took it entirely, she
let me reach down and spread her labia gently with my
thumbs like we both enjoyed so much. Then she set down
firmly until we fitted together perfectly once more.
We held each other. The warmth of her, the smell of
her, the feeling of being buried inside her was all I
needed to feel whole. For the first time since Janet's
death, I felt alive. We were suddenly both crying. But
there was no sadness - only a bittersweet sorrow that
it had been so terribly long.
We began to move together with the practiced ease
of long familiar lovers. Each touch was not just the
sensation of flesh on flesh; it was also the memory of
every time we had touched like that before. It was
twenty years of passion and love. It was twenty years
of intimacy and pleasure.
Our longing rose together, perfectly matched in our
need for completion and yet with the same strong
desire to make this moment last forever. Her hips
began to slow from exhaustion so I grabbed them and
thrust myself into her more forcefully. When she
leaned backward and took her nipples between her
fingers and her thumbs, as she liked to do, I knew she
was very close. Each thrust became more precious. Each
movement brought us closer to an end.
We arched together like two bows straining and
quivering, vibrating in tandem until the aching arms
of the archers can bear no more. Then we sprang
together in release, her warmth flooding over me, my
warmth spurting into her. We stared wide-eyed,
overwhelmed by the sensations of mutual ecstasy.
It was my Lisa's body that raised up off
of me. It was my Lisa's body that lay on my
left side, nuzzling in to me.
But it was my that took my nipple in her
mouth and suckled it, just as she always did when she
wanted to be comforted after sex.
And it was that spoke to me with Lisa's
sleepy voice.
"I can't come back again, Robert. You have to keep
on going. Lisa needs you now."
"I know Janet, but I've been so lonely. You just
don't know."
"I know, love. Don't you think I felt it too?"
"I didn't know you could. If I had just had a
chance to say goodbye. That's all I really wanted."
"It's not goodbye, love. It's never goodbye for you
and me. I'll always be with you."
I held her for a time in silence, wanting it to
last forever.
"Thank you for coming back. Thank you for giving me
this one last chance."
"I wouldn't have missed this for the world,
Robert. You're my one true love."
"Janet, what will I do without you?"
"You'll go on. You still have Lisa. She's shared
this with us willingly, Robert and she'll want more.
Don't deny her."
"I can't do that Janet, she's our daughter!"
"You better do it, or I'll come back to haunt you!"
she said, chuckling. "It's only for a while and as much
for her as you. She's promised to another, even though
she doesn't know it. He's almost as special as you
are. But only almost."
"Will I be with you again, eventually?"
"You're always with me, my love. But it will be a
while yet."
"All right Janet, I'll do what I have to do. But I'll
never stop loving you."
"I know, love. Now sleep. I have to go."
************
Author's note: I hope no one is offended by the lack
of codes. For my own part, I feel as though they
should be {MF rom}, but some people might well be
offended by that and want a {Mf inc} code. Such coding
would not only offend the spirit of the (pun
intended), but it would give away what little surprise
I didn't foreshadow too obviously. I would be
interested in any feedback on this subject. I can be
emailed at redman@seductive.com.
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