Skittish Kitten

I got her to sit down, gave her coffee, and asked what she would like for breakfast. After running through the options with her, we decided on French toast and bacon. I started getting things ready, then Meg asked if I had the makings for Bloody Marys. I normally keep a container of Bloody Mary mix in the refrigerator, as I drink that instead of orange juice, so I told her where it was, and where the vodka was and let her make the drinks while I cooked.

I served breakfast, and we drank our Bloody Marys (which I noticed had been made considerably stronger than I normally do). We talked a bit, and it was clear to me that she was deliberately steering the conversation away from last night. I let her talk on, and after breakfast, she sort of ran out of conversation. I finally asked her if I had done anything to upset her, or if she was regretting last night. She hesitated, then said that she had no regrets, but that she was afraid that I might think of her as a loose woman, or that she had imposed herself on me.

I couldn't believe my ears. After a couple of false starts and stammers, I explained to her as forcefully as I felt I could get away with, that the thought that she was a loose woman was the farthest thing from my mind, and in fact hadn't even occurred to me. I knew that she had a very strict religious upbringing, but I hadn't expected that it would create these issues. I also told her that I did not feel "imposed upon", but rather felt honored that she would grant me the pleasure and gift of making love to her. I reassured her along these lines a bit more, then told her that I would love the opportunity to make love to her again, and in fact would love to make love to her right now.

Meg blushed a bit, and told me that she had to think things through a bit, because last night had been a spur of the moment thing, that had probably been due to too much to drink. I started to try to dissuade her, but she simply laughed, stood up and kissed me, and said she had to go. I did get her to agree to dinner that night before she left, then she was off across the "park" to her place.

Having decided that I wanted to start a romantic relationship, I now put my mind on making sure it happened. I cleaned the house, searched through several cookbooks, and made a quick trip to the store for what I would need.

Meg was due to arrive at 7:00, and she was always exactly on time. By six I had the table set, long taper candles in place, music that I knew we both loved on the CD changer, and everything was completely ready. It just wasn't time yet. I went over the preparations numerous times, feeling as though the clock was stuck in molasses. I was actually reminded of Einstein's theory of relativity, and how time could pass differently for people at different speeds.

In any event, I looked out the kitchen window for what must have been the hundredth time, and Meg was walking across the "park", beautifully done up. She had obviously been to the hairdresser, and her clothes complemented her coloring and figure very well. The clothes were still quite conservative, but given what I had seen her wear before, she was making remarkable strides.

I met her at the door, complementing her on how wonderful she looked. She smiled, kissed me, and came in. She set her "tote-bag" on the table beside the door, and told me she had a surprise for me later.

I prepared drinks, and while we were sipping them, I lit the candles on the table, and got the last of the meal ready to go. We talked as I worked, and the conversation was similar to the one we had this morning, it steered away from anything sexual, and certainly didn't touch anything like relationships.

Dinner was finally ready, and as we sat down, I realized that our conversation had drifted away from our normal talk of whatever came to mind, and was being more constrained. During dinner I made a supreme effort to get our conversation back to the type of conversation that we had normally had. By dessert it was back to normal, and we were laughing and talking like the previous night had never happened.

After we finished dessert, I offered Meg a brandy, and she laughed and told me that she had something better. She got up and went to the bag she had left on the table, pulling out an extremely old port that must have cost a bundle. She told me she had been saving this for a special occasion, and as I opened it a wonderful fragrance came from the bottle.

We settled ourselves in the living room, with our port, and I thought that this was something that I could get really used to. Perhaps this was what a marriage was supposed to be. We talked and drank our port - perhaps I gave Meg a bit more than I took, but it was her port after all.

I asked Meg if she would like to go into the hot tub tonight – then hastily added that I wasn't trying to push her into anything. Meg froze for a minute, then said that would be a nice ending to the evening. She went over and got her bag, disappearing into the bathroom as she told me to get the tub warmed up.

Not wanting to push things, I poured each of us a small port, changed into my swimsuit, and was sitting in the tub when Meg came out of the bathroom. She had obviously had her "concealing robe" in the bag, as that was what she was wearing when she came out onto the deck. She leaned over and kissed me, then straightened up, and undid the robe (I had never figured out whether it needed to be unbuttoned, or just pulled over her head), and stepped into the tub. Unlike the night before, she had her swimsuit on underneath. She leaned down and kissed me, then stepped into the pool and sat down beside me. We talked for a while, then Meg looked at me, hesitated for a moment, then asked if I would mind if she took the swimsuit off. I emphatically told her that of course I didn't, and that she should feel free to do that at any time. She turned her back to me, and asked me to unzip it for her.

For some strange reason, my hands were shaking a bit as I unzipped the suit, then slipped the shoulder straps off her shoulders and down her arms. I started to ease the top down off her breasts, but she moved away slightly, doing it herself. She stood up, pulled the suit down her legs and stepped out of it - although stepping out of it is probably not the best way to describe it as the swirling water made it a bit difficult, then sat down again, close to me, but not close enough for me to put my arm around her.

A minute or two later, she told me that I seemed to have a problem with too many clothes, last night and then again tonight. This was all I needed, and quickly skinned the trunks off and tossed them on top of her suit on the deck.

We talked and touched, not being like teenagers, but simply letting the water flow over us, and our fingers trail across each other's skin. We leaned toward each other and kissed, then our bodies seemed to just sort of flow toward each other, and we were sitting hip to hip in the warm water. After awhile it seemed that the warm water wasn't necessary to keep our temperatures up, and Meg quietly asked me if I would make love to her again, like I had the night before. I simply answered, "I can't imagine anything that I would like more", and kissed her.

We got out of the tub, and went into the bedroom. It was somewhat of a repeat of the previous night, except that Meg turned down the covers. She was still quite apprehensive, so I worked very hard at arousing her in the best way I knew how. We made love, only this time she was a bit more of a participant, wrapping her legs around me, and holding me as close to her as she could. When we were both satisfied, we curled up together and listened to each other's heartbeat.

After a few minutes, Meg asked me "Where do we go from here?"

I started to reply, but then she told me not to say anything, and that she would rather let things just develop on their own. I kissed her, cupped her breast in my hand, and snuggled down beside her a bit more.

A little later, Meg disengaged herself and sat up saying that she had to get back to her place, as she needed to leave town early in the morning, and she still wasn't completely ready to go. She got up, slipped her robe on over her head, got her bag from the bathroom, putting the rest of her things in it, and I walked her to the door. I kissed her, and started to tell her I thought I was falling in love with her, if I wasn't already. She could apparently read my mind, because she put her fingers on my lips and told me to not say anything, just enjoy what we had.

Over the next several weeks, we fell back into our habit of having dinner with each other several times a week, only now we had the added spice of making love. We didn't make love every time we had dinner, and Meg was still a bit skittish if I tried to initiate our loving. She seemed to need to be in a particular kind of mood, and then she would initiate the advances, usually accompanied by a little more to drink than was otherwise normal. We had, however, progressed to the point that we usually didn't bother with swimsuits in the hot tub, and Meg didn't seem quite so skittish about me looking at her and admiring her body. I in turn had gotten more adept at understanding her, and her moods - although moods is perhaps too strong a word. Settings and timing seemed to more the key.

My world was wonderful, and I truly enjoyed spending time with Meg. The only fly in the ointment was our love making. I certainly enjoyed making love to Meg, and over time Meg had become more responsive, and more of a participant, but only to a point. Other than kisses, and her hands running over my body, she was more of a receiver than a giver. It was also difficult at times for me to get her to let me know what pleased her, and what didn't. I had absolutely no idea how to resolve this - Meg simply didn't seem to want to, or at least didn't seem to be able to talk about sex.

One evening, after a rather long, lonely week (Meg had been out of town, although we did talk fairly often on the telephone), Meg had me over to her house for dinner. Dinner, as always, was wonderful, the conversation was great, and I couldn't have asked for more, except that Meg seemed a bit nervous. We had cleaned up the kitchen, and went into the living room and sat down with our after dinner drinks. I noticed a book on the table beside her chair - it wasn't The Joy of Sex, but something similar, although perhaps a bit more erudite. When Meg noticed me looking at it, she turned absolutely beet red, and mumbled something about doing some reading on her trip. I didn't say anything much, just something like "Did you enjoy it?" and let it go at that.

Meg took a very deep breath, which incidentally caused the material of her blouse to be stretched across her breasts, emphasizing them for a moment. She got up, came over to me, bent down and kissed me, running her tongue briefly over my lips. She then took my hand and gently pulled on it, guiding me up. She kept hold of my hand and started walking back toward the her bedroom, crooking her arm behind her, so that she didn't need to let go of my hand.

Once we got to her bedroom, she turned around and put her arms around my neck, kissed me again, then started unbuttoning my shirt. This was a whole, new Meg. All the times we had made love, we had never undressed each other - at least like this. We removed each other's clothing, and as we did, I ran my hands over her breasts, and down to her thighs. We got into bed, and made love again, although this time Meg was different. I could tell that she was actively trying to enhance my pleasure as I was trying to do the same to her. She was also a bit more verbal than she had been in the past, asking me to tease gently, and later to use more pressure, or play with her breasts. We spent ourselves, and just lay there, content, with my head on her breast.

We must have laid there for thirty minutes or more, when Meg kissed the top of my head, and begin running her hand along my leg and fondling me. After a few moments I begin to respond a bit, and she told me to lie down on my back. I did as she asked, and she begin kissing me, then nibbling on my nipples - all the while fondling me, or cupping me in her hand. Slowly she moved her head down my chest, leaving little trails of moisture from her tongue on my skin. Finally I could feel her breath on me as she held me erect for a moment, then slowly slid her tongue around my head. She took me in her mouth, just a bit, and I could feel her tongue slipping around my head as she gently sucked.

This went on for a few moments, then I felt her take a deep breath and then slide me further and further into her mouth. Almost immediately she gagged, and I asked if she was all right - she said she was just fine, and that she needed a bit of practice. She took me back in, not quite as deep as the last time, then slowly worked me further into her mouth. She gagged a little a couple of more times, but soon she had me almost all the way into her mouth - her tongue still making swirls on my skin. I was rapidly reaching the point of climax, and told her so - she simply said "Uh-huh", and continued with the swirling sucking sensation. I erupted, and she held me in her mouth for a few more moments, slowing her tongue motion until finally she released me, and moved up beside me.

"Did that please you?" she asked. I told her it certainly had, and that I thought it had been simply wonderful. "And I'm not a loose woman?" she asked with a bit of a grin, although I could tell that she was only halfway kidding. I assured her she wasn't, and she snuggled down beside me, and we drifted off to sleep.

--000—

I awoke early, as I normally do, and just lay there thinking over the events of the past several days, wondering how things could have changed so much in just a few days.

Meg had been out of town on business, as she was fairly frequently, and I had gone over to her house to put the mail in and generally check on things. I walked in, and the house had looked as though a tornado had hit it.

I immediately called the police, waiting outside for them, and when we walked through the house it looked as though the entire house had been ransacked. Drawers were open and the contents dumped on the floor. Books had been pulled off the shelves and strewn around her den. Her bedroom was the worst. Her closet had been emptied, as had her dresser, with the contents dumped in a pile on the floor. Whoever had done this had poured cooking oil, soy sauce, flour etc on top of the clothes, ruining most of them. The mirror in the bathroom had been shattered, and whoever had done this had hit or kicked the toilet hard enough to crack it, resulting in water everywhere, adding to the mess.

The police were nice and courteous, but didn't hold out a lot of hope for catching the intruder - saying that they thought it probably had been kids just out to trash the house. I wasn't sure I agreed with them, but as I didn't have any better ideas, I didn't comment.

I called Meg that night, and she became almost hysterical on the telephone. She was certain that her ex-husband had found out where she had living, and that he was the one who had done it. I calmed her down as best I could, and got her to agree that she would call the police and update the report with her suspicions.

Meg didn't get back for another two days, which gave me time to clean things up, wash the clothes, salvage what I could, get a plumber in to replace the toilet and a carpet cleaning service in to do what they could with the rugs. A stranger going into the house wouldn't have noticed anything amiss, but anyone who had been there would immediately know that the house was different. I had done the best I could, but I was sure that Meg was going to feel as though her house had been violated. I made plans for Meg to stay at my place until we knew what was going on, and we had been able to put the little touches back into her home.

Meg arrived home late in the afternoon, and got into her house before I saw her. I looked out my kitchen window and saw her car, dropped what I was doing and went over. She was simply standing in her den, staring at the books (which I had not been able to get back into the order she had them) shaking and crying. I tried to calm her down, but she simply couldn't seem to stop. Finally, I picked up her suitcase and asked her to come over to my place where she could sit down, have a drink, and calm down.

Meg didn't really want to, but she also didn't seem to want to stay in her home, at least alone, and finally agreed. We got into my house, put her suitcase in the hall, and I fixed her the largest drink I had ever given her. For a while she simply didn't say anything - just sat and stared. She would respond when I talked to her, but that was pretty much the extent of her involvement with the outside world.

After what seemed to be an eternity she begin talking - partially to me, but partially to herself it seemed. Although she had told me earlier about her sexually abusive ex-husband, we had never gotten much past what she had told me the first night we made love.

He had been a sexual sadist, and used her religious upbringing for his own twisted purposes. What she told me now made her earlier fear of sex, and of him, much more understandable. Meg had tried, on several occasions, to leave him, but he always found her and dragged her home. At least once it had been literally dragging, as he cut off her car on a back road, forcing her to stop, then dragged her by the hair out of her car and into his. What happened when he got her home was not pretty, and would have been abusive by any normal person's standards.

Ultimately, she had found a battered women's shelter that got her an attorney (a woman) and divorce proceedings were initiated. He had attacked her in the courtroom when they had to be in court for a restraining order against him; told the judge that God had given her to him when they got married, and that the court had no business interfering in his marriage. The upshot of the whole thing was that the district attorney got involved and prosecuted him for spousal abuse.

He was sent to jail for spousal abuse, and Meg was granted her divorce, as well as a permanent restraining order against him. She had heard from friends that when he got out, he immediately begun looking for her, but as she had moved and left no forwarding address, she had felt relatively safe. Even most of her friends didn't know where she lived, except for those that had helped her move, and most of those were associated with the women's shelter.

It was strange - in her business life she was a strong, healthy individual. In her private life she had been so abused that she simply didn't deal with relationships very well at all, she had little self-confidence, and seemed to feel she was meant to be used. After nearly a year of a wonderful relationship, she had begun to respond to me, and we had, what I felt, were the foundations of a lifelong relationship - whether it ever involved marriage or not.

I talked to her, trying to impress on her that she was safe here in my home, and she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted. I started to say that perhaps we could make those living arrangements permanent, but then decided that I was pushing things beyond the envelope.

I gave Meg another drink, fixed dinner, and we ate in a rather gloomy atmosphere. I tried to get her to talk but she was still in a kind of shock, and only responded in a rather robotic manner. Throughout the evening, whenever I tried to hug or kiss Meg, she had been at best hesitant, and I had discovered that coming up behind her was definitely not a good idea - she would cringe or flinch as though she were going to be beaten. Obviously, sex was the farthest thing from either her mind or my mind.