Snowed In Ch. 01

Safely covered up again, though Sherry’s heart was still thumping in her chest, Vanessa crossed the room to greet her father.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said.

“Hi, sugar. Are you decent now?”

“Yep. Just showing Mom my titties.”

Sherry watched them peck each other’s cheeks with a sinking feeling, a smoldering in her heart so akin to jealousy it surprised her. She couldn’t help it -- in Neal’s eyes Vanessa could do no wrong. Oh, he might rant and rave at her occasionally, or criticize her actions and attitude out of her hearing. But ultimately that girl had kept her father wrapped around her finger since the day she was born. Even this, getting pregnant by some local eyesore -- even this breach of trust, this shattering of innocence was not enough to disrupt the easy affection of their relationship. The kiss, the friendly embrace, the loving look bestowed upon Vanessa before she disappeared down the hall (getting out of harm’s way, Sherry thought) lay in stark contrast to the greeting she got herself: a disembodied and hollow “hi” from across the room. Even Jasper, who had always been “that dog” to Neal, got more of a greeting than she did.

With Vanessa out of the room he quit acting. His features hardened, and he lay down his coat and flopped into an easy chair without paying her the slightest attention. Sherry turned back to the nativity set. Joseph was now bending indecently over one of the sheep. She snatched him up and lay him on his side, away from temptation.

If only she could do the same with Neal.

***

“ . . . and this high pressure area is going to get things crankin’ for us over the weekend. Crankin’ down low, that is. As you can see here, the front is going to extend down well below the central part of the state, certainly reaching Ocala and probably into Northern Orange county. That’s gonna push those temperatures down into the ‘teens , and with strong chances of precipitation for the weekend, that means we could be looking at some genuine snowfall for the holidays. Sandy?”

“So we might be getting a white Christmas after all, huh? Thanks, George. Coming up next --”

“Did he say snow?” asked Vanessa incredulously, buried in gloom on the couch.

“Oh, that’s horseshit. It’ll be flurries, nothing more.”

“Would be kind of neat, though.”

“It would.”

“Does it ever snow in Florida, Daddy?”

“It did once, when you were little -- don’t you remember?”

“Kinda.”

“Just an inch or so. But it shut down the whole town.”

They fell silent again, remaining so for the rest of the news. On the floor before the television, the dog snored softly.

Neal wasn’t really paying attention -- the news was the same every day anyhow. As the talking heads droned on, he stayed perfectly still in the armchair, occasionally wondering where Sherry was in the house, but more often than not, feeling miserable and lost.

It was very simple -- he was missing Melanie.

They met at work, as so many men meet their mistresses. Not that Melanie could be described as such, really.Mistress had such an air of mystery and sophistication about it, even glamour. Married men who were insanely wealthy and frighteningly powerful -- they had mistresses. A man like Neal, of an average intelligence and income, a cog within the wheel of commerce and office politics -- he had nothing so urbane as a “mistress.” A squeeze, a bimbo, a symptom, a sideline, a piece of ass: these were terms that might be applied to Melanie, depending on who you asked.

He worked in a Sales Solution team for a software company; she was a programming assistant. It was as simple as that. They both worked in the unreal world of computers. There their professional similarities ended.

Their relationship had been the result of two months solid flirting that suddenly turned serious. Every man flirts on the job; it’s expected of him, almost a prerequisite of his being accepted as a man. Most women make nothing of it. They may enjoy it if he’s reasonably handsome, powerful, or especially good at it. They may object to it if he’s too forward, too sleazy, too clumsy or too damned unattractive. Very few women take it seriously, as a promise of things to come, a precursor of actual intimacy. Melanie had.

Their first time together was on a long lunch break -- cliched but true. They arranged to meet without seeming to, retired to a cheap motel, and got back to work late. He wondered the entire time what the hell he was doing, but found himself unable to stop. Afterward he felt wretchedly guilty.

When the world didn’t cave in around him, and the anchor man failed to mention his little adventure on the six o’clock news, and Sherry welcomed him into her bed as though nothing had happened, then it began to get easy for him. Perhaps too easy. They met whenever they could, most often at her apartment, near the office. Soon he had invented various clients and problems to keep him at work late, or to explain overnight trips, thus allowing he and Melanie better and more leisurely play time together. He was shocked at just how well he could lie to Sherry, how much bullshit she would swallow so that he could get what he wanted. It was astounding the sacrifices he would make just to satisfy his dick, and even more amazing that she would let him get away with it.

Hon, it’s me.

Hi baby!

Look, I can’t make it home for dinner tonight.

Uh oh.

Yeah -- the VoxPop thing again. Bob wants me to take them to dinner, wine and dine them -- you know the routine.

All right, well . . . I’ll see you when?

Oh, eightish maybe. I’m not sure, depends on how much the old farts can eat.

“Kay, well, be careful on the roads.

I will -- bye, sweetie.

Hon, baby, sweetie -- then right into Melanie’s bed, devouring her naked body. It got to be childishly simple, so simple he couldn’t not do it. And in exchange for a missed meal and a few readily swallowed lies, he got everything that Melanie had to offer him. Which was considerable.

Put together a large book of women he might go for and Melanie would not have been in it. She wasn’t especially his type physically: a slight figure, not terribly pretty, possessing little conventional sex appeal. Neither was she particularly adept at being sexy, either in manner or deed. She was bookish, smart, rather shy, even a little awkward. The kind of girl men befriend, not pursue. In high school she would have been the go-between for various romantic partners, never involved herself. It would have been her job to listen to her prettier girlfriend unravel the lovely details, to console her when the guy broke her heart, or to seek out and counsel with the offending male. In due time she might become a Lesbian, so little did she understand of men.

What Melanie did have was youth. She was barely twenty-one, to Neal’s forty-five. Everything about her was fresh and unspoiled, new, vulnerable. Her body, for all its lack of womanly curves and crevices, was tight and gleaming and smooth. Compared to his wife’s, her breasts were ridiculously small -- just little hillocks, no wider than his palms. There was no burying his face between her tits, one of his favorite things to do with Sherry. Not when he could suck almost all of a tit into his mouth. On their first time in bed he had almost felt embarrassed for her, she was so tiny.

But she was also clean, and white, magically serene and unvarying. All over her body she glistened with youth; there were no blemishes, no stretch marks, no history. Even her pussy hair was soft and downy, almost transparently blonde. He had wondered at its silky translucence, like it was baby hair. And when he decided he wanted her to shave it, she did. Right there, while he watched.

That performance was a good example of another invaluable feeling Melanie brought him: complete and total control. He was not, she told him, her first lover, but he was the first who “knew what he was doing.” The remark, highly flattering in itself, set the tone for much of their sexual relationship. If Neal wanted slow, steamy, passionate sex that lasted for hours, she gave it to him. If he wanted things hard and fast and dirty, she also obliged, just as happily. If they didn’t really have time, and he just wanted a blow job in her car, she sucked him hard, took all his cum, swallowed it and wiped her lips, smiling.

Many, many times he spent hours licking and kissing and touching every inch of her -- in a trance of disbelief at how young and beautiful her body really was. On more than one occasion, however, he had been short and rough with her. He threw her on her bed one night and ripped her panties apart, trying to get to her pussy. When he got them off he lashed her cunt with his tongue, savagely and selfishly, like a brute. He used her body to channel his angers and frustrations, treating her far less sensitively than she either needed or deserved. She just took it.

So far as he could tell, she didn’t want his money, his job, or his baby. She just wanted him: his time, his attention, his cock. To a man his age, there could be no more addictive arrangement. He couldn’t believe his luck -- had no idea why she was so enthusiastic to love him -- had trouble believing that younger guys were surrounded with so much easy pussy that they could afford to pass her up. It was all so improbable that it was impossible to stop.

Yes, there were times when he wanted more from her than she could give. At times he wished her body darker, less angelic. Often he wished she had bigger tits, or that she would gush when she came, like his wife did. He regretted her lack of experience, and could think of many a nearly perfect moment that had been spoiled because of her ignorance or hesitation. He had to teach her to suck him right (although honestly, he thought, all men should have such problems), to use her tongue as much as her lips, and her teeth not at all -- and even when he had done so, he knew Sherry could do it better any night of the week. But Melanie would blow him enthusiastically, extemporaneously, and at “no charge.” She would suck him any time, and almost anywhere -- all he had to do was pull his dick out. And though he loved making her cum, it wasn’t required. She expected nothing back, and her pleasuring him was not just one step in a set routine. There was something so gratifying about possessing such total power over a young woman that he sometimes abused it just to revel in the feeling.

He did not love her, not with one ounce of his soul, one bone in his body. She probably did love him, though she had never said so. Somehow it wasn’t important -- their relationship was about needs, not about love. He fulfilled some need for her . . . father? brother? teacher? And she definitely satisfied his own needs for youth, excitement, variety, and domination.

Sherry had discovered Melanie at the eleventh hour, right when his interest was beginning to flag. He had overdosed on Melanie’s selfless sexuality, and was beginning seriously to consider what risks to his life and family he was regularly incurring, when Sherry got tipped off by a colleague’s wife, and ruthlessly dissected every gory detail of their affair, right down to their last bed session.

Neal had eventually opted for the “smart” course, choosing wife and family to oversexed coworker. But now, sitting alone in the dark, a cold wife haunting the house and the news girl preaching death and destruction, he wondered just how smart he had been. He hungered for Melanie’s soft, slim pussy, and the look her pale blue eyes assumed as she watched him eating her. He longed to lose his whole hard length in her, feeling how impossibly small and light and cool her body was beneath his bulk. To hear her prattle on about her ridiculous concerns would now be music to him; the moods and mannerisms that had seemed so childish were now feverishly erotic. The lightness of her voice, the clean smelling skin. The nonchalance of her sexuality once their affair had acquired its rhythm . . .

There was that time when he came over after work and sat in the little recliner by the door. They were chatting, talking shop, things that happened at work that were beyond understanding. The look on the boss’s face, what a colleague said in reply. All the while she was straddling him, swaying against him; he held her tiny waist as she leaned back to pull off her shirt. As she added her own opinions, she was feeding him her pert little titties, pulling his head close. The story lost substance as he rubbed her through her shorts, as she unbuttoned his shirt. He finally stopped talking when she melted to the floor to unzip him . . .

Neal sat up in his chair and peered through the half-light at his daughter. Strange.

Yes, it had been some motion of hers, some gesture, that had brought that night to mind. That had got him thinking of Melanie in the first place, in fact. When she had arced her back and stretched out on the couch, maybe -- such a smooth, liquid motion, so like Melanie during sex. Or had it been when she nestled against the back cushions, so childlike and unselfconscious -- like Melanie after sex?

He sighed and shook his head: what animals men were. So insidious were his lusts that even his own daughter could trigger them. He had nearly resolved to pop into the bathroom for a quick wank when the back door jogged open and his son strode into the room, reeking of cigarettes.

“Hey, boy,” said Neal.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Y’allright?”

“Yeah.”

The boy immediately collapsed onto the floor next to the dog and the coffee table, his youthful senses detecting the nachos and cheese even in the dark. Impossibly loud crunches filled the room, drowning out the news.

“So . . . what’s up?” Neal said, trying again to make some effort at conversation.

“Nothing,” Josh replied, then added, incongruously, “Broke up with Jeanie.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you are shitting me!” moaned Vanessa across the room. She sat up quickly, preparing to do battle with her brother. “What the hell is your problem?”

“I’m not the one with a problem, tubby,” sneered Josh derisively. She ignored him.

“Josh, you galactic dipshit -- Jeanie Crews actually liked you! She wasn’t just dating you for your car, or ‘cause you could buy her cigarettes! When’re you gonna wise up, dumbass?”

“Yeah, that’s right -- you’re one to talk, you slut!” Josh snarled back. “Go ahead and tell me what to do, you old fat-titty bitch!”

Neal leaned forward and stopped Josh from saying more, but not before Nessa’s contemptuousfuck you had been sounded. After that they were both silent for a few seconds until Josh finally left the room. His daughter then muttered a few curses for good measure and switched the lamp on beside her.

“I cannot believe he did that,” she told him. “Jeanie’s nice -- a hell of a lot nicer than most of his little twits! She actually has some class. And she really does like him. Myra -- that’s her sister -- she works at Denny’s too and she told me . . . ”

Neal nodded now and then, grunted in acknowledgment, but he heard none of it.

The movement Nessa had made -- that oh so graceful movement, reminiscent of Melanie in all her glory -- she had been taking off her bra. It was the first thing he noticed when his eyes recovered from the lamp’s blinding glare: those unthinkably large cups and wide straps, discarded on the seat beside her. The next thing, which he couldn’t help but notice, were the broad fleshy lines of her cleavage, and the sharp dents her nipples made in the thin blue cotton of her tanktop. When his daughter gestured, those enormous breasts swayed hypnotically beneath the scrap of material.

He muttered some response, but he was thinking, unguardedly --that’s twice, three times, five times as much tit as Melanie has! More than enough to lose your face in . . . more than enough to wrap around your cock . . .

Neal broke away as soon as a pause occurred in the conversation, as soon as she was looking at the television and not at him. He was so hard inside his slacks that walking ten feet to the bathroom felt like walking a tightrope.

Okay, so I’m a pig, he thought minutes later, as the rhythm of his fist finally slowed, and great blobs of cum spilled from his cock into the toilet.But I desperately needed that.

***

The house was incredibly still, and quiet. Sherry could hear the wind whistling through the attic -- or was that the barn? It may well have been; there were no other noises to interfere. Occasionally she heard the heater kick on, filling the house with a low, ominous hum that was somehow even more silent than dead silence. What she did not hear, and had pretty much stopped listening for, were Neal’s steps outside the bedroom door.

The glowing red digits on her bedside table read two fifteen. It was obvious that he wasn’t coming to bed. If he had come to bed two hours before, they would have argued. She would have asked him who the hell he thought he was, giving her the silent treatment when she had done nothing wrong. If he had come to bed an hour ago, after she had lain there alone and tearful, there would have been no argument. After all, he had been trying to appease her lately, attempting to push start the normal rhythm of their life together. And she did love him, despite everything. No matter how crushed were her feelings, her trust, and her vanity, she did love him. An hour ago she might have welcomed him into her bed -- they might have kissed and touched each other, and stayed awake until two fifteen making love, trying to get to know each other again.

But he hadn’t come at all. No words, no kisses, no presence even. She felt divorced already.

She knew where he was: asleep on the couch, in front of the television. The kids had gone to bed already -- she heard their feet on the stairs, their doors shutting. He alone would be downstairs, bathed in the flickering light of the TV screen, snoring and squirming in his sleep, unable to get comfortable. And here was a perfectly good bed, with fresh sheets and a down comforter, not to mention a girl in it. He preferred the cold discomfort of the den to this, solely because she was the girl. In some ways, it was the final insult.

Sherry turned onto her other side, hugging the coverlet around her. How did they ever get here, she wondered. How did two people with so much together let it all crumble away? Couldn’t they fight for it? Did everything have to be so bitter, so final?

They fought, all right. Incessantly, and usually in circles. When she first found out about Melanie, Neal had been apologetic and shameful. He had shouldered all the burden, taken all the blame. Perhaps he had not expected her to agree with him so wholeheartedly. When she did -- when she made it clear that she had done nothing to bring this on, nothing to deserve it -- then, she supposed, he had sickened of humble pie, and had gotten angry and spiteful. Then the accusations had come pouring in from his side, and all the things she “might have done” to prevent his straying were laid out before her.

If she worried more about being a wife, and less about being a mother, then maybe . . . , he said. If she were more of a mother and less of a layabout, then perhaps . . . If she contributed more, and criticized less -- if she listened to him instead of putting him down -- if she acknowledged him instead of tolerating him . . .

Everything she did, everything she was fell under his withering scrutiny, and he fired callous remarks with a rapidity and venom that made her head spin. Everything, from her sexuality to her spending habits, even her housework, came under the gun. They spent hours wickedly debating the details while the bigger picture -- their marriage -- quietly decayed.

Sherry had tried valiantly to understand it all, to fathom the source of his hatefulness and malice. She knew he felt trapped, of course -- every married woman expects a forty-something husband to feel “trapped” sooner or later. She thought she could relate to this emotion, since it was not uncommon for her to feel trapped herself. Helpless to prevent Vanessa’s waywardness, her insistence upon dressing and talking and living like slut despite all her talents and intelligence. Doomed to watch Joshua’s initiative sputter and die, so that he lived up to none of his promise, and gradually became just an ordinary man. She was even trapped in this bad play about mid-life crisis and “the other woman,” even though she had anticipated it, had taken steps to prevent it! No, it was no unusual thing for him to feel trapped. What was the line from that old movie?We are all caught in our private traps. Something like that. FromRear Window orVertigo -- definitely a Hitchcock film, she was sure of it.