Summer Rendezvous

Author's note:

Special thanks to Darkniciad and Dianthus who did great jobs of critically reading earlier drafts of this story. Your honesty and friendship are greatly appreciated and treasured.

*

Now

The rain pelted the windshield coating it with a thick sheen of water the wipers barely touched. Karen's chin was scraped by her white knuckles that gripped the steering wheel. Her breath fogged a small spot on the glass where her mouth was almost touching it, just adding to the poor visibility.

Any sane person would pull over and wait for Mother Nature's tempest to end. Out in the middle of a summer squall like this was never a good place to be. This was not an option for Karen Matthews, but had people known what she was driving towards they would not consider her sane at all anyways.

It wasn't so much where Karen was driving towards. Her destination was a fairly innocuous lodge on a promontory point of Lake Superior. A cabin used regularly during the hunting season and occasionally at other times as a get away from the real world was a fairly understandable destination.

The destination was very understandable, it was the fact that she was driving to meet with her dead husband that would cause others to question her sanity.

As Karen tried desperately to follow the edge of the road while maintaining the safest speed she could manage, she thought back to the first trip she had made as a widow to this lodge. It was two years since Paul had died and still she could not escape the dark clouds that overshadowed her entire world. Since kindergarten Paul had been her whole life.

Twenty-three years ago

Karen did not want her mother to leave nor did she want to see any of the other children in the colourful room. Karen was more than happy enough with her own room and all her stuffed animal friends, the only friends she had ever known. She grabbed her mother's arm and hung on for dear life.

"Ahem, excuse me, miss."

Both mother and crying child turned to look at the little boy standing before them with a very serious face.

Looking straight at the girl the boy continued, "Could you help me please? I have all these animals waiting for me to give them names but I can't think of any. They're getting very sad and angry." He waved towards the corner where there was a pile of plush animals stacked haphazardly.

He leaned closer to the girl and whispered, "I'm afraid the tiger will eat me if I don't come up with something soon."

"O..Okay." Karen nodded.

He reached over and took her hands from her mother, and the two walked over to the animals.

Karen's mother watched the two play for a couple of minutes and then left smiling.

Much later when all the animals had been given satisfactory names, the boy, Paul, and Karen sat eating their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with chips and chocolate milk together at a wooden table outside.

"You did a great job coming up with all those neat names. I would have been eaten if it wasn't for you," Paul stated solemnly.

Karen first and then Paul smiled at each other with teeth smeared in purple jelly.

"Sit next to me this afternoon. What the teacher says is really tricky. Maybe you could help me." Paul looked deeply into Karen's eyes.

Karen just nodded.

Even at five, she was completely smitten.

At the end of the day, the two were busy placing the animals in their cubbies and tucking each in for the night.

"Karen, we need to get going. I still have to make dinner you know." Her mother watched the two children.

Paul leaned close to his new friend, "Will you come tomorrow?"

Karen ducked her head and looked at the serious boy, "Do you want me to?"

Paul took her hands and spoke in the serious way only a five-year-old could speak, "I want to see you every day for the rest of my life."

Karen smiled shyly, "Okay, then I'll come back."

Two Years Ago

Since meeting Paul in kindergarten she could count the number days that they hadn't seen each other on both of her hands. He had always been a presence in her life and she in his. He pretty much did see Karen every day for the rest of his short life - and now she was lost without him. Her family was worried; what friends she had left were equally worried. Finally, her boss as more a friend than her boss offered the use of his lodge to just get away and try to bring some sense of meaning back into her life.

She never planned on the place solving any of her problems or even remotely affecting her mental state, but it was a chance to get away from everybody's whispers and concerned gazes as they shook their heads when obviously talking about her. She didn't even really believe that she had a problem. She was grieving. Her soul mate was gone. Case closed. She would have to muscle through this life on her own. So she packed her car with a boxful of books, a suitcase of clothes, and a trunk load of groceries and followed the handwritten instructions to her summer getaway. It was a gloriously beautiful day and the lodge took her breath away.

It really was peaceful. But it didn't make her miss Paul any less. In fact, Karen felt his presence even closer to her without the distractions from other people surrounding her. She often found herself talking to him as she hiked, canoed, and explored the hillsides and shorelines. At night as she read, she often felt he was sitting right there in the room with her.

Summer Solstice marked one last week before the return to all the frowners and downers in her life. She was happy in her sadness and grief; she didn't understand why everyone else couldn't just let her be. The thought of home aggravated her enough that she took an extra long journey out on the lake in a canoe. Before she knew it the sun was setting and she had yet to come in sight of her lodge. She never thought she would be out so long and so failed to leave any lights on as a welcoming beacon. She wasn't sure if she could find the place in the dark.

Just as the twilight sky exploded in the deepest hues of purple and pink, she rounded a familiar looking shoreline curve to see the lodge in full blaze of lights with a huge bonfire out in the yard before the water. Looking carefully, she could see a man's shape behind the blaze, the form facing the water and her.

She sat back in the canoe and rested the oars on her lap mindless of the water trickling off them onto her khaki shorts. No one was supposed to be visiting her, and no one had called to tell her of any impending visits either. The lodge was completely isolated from any other people with the nearest house some twenty miles away. Beside the house, she could just make out the silhouette of one car -- hers. If someone was here, he meant to be here.

"Kar, it's alright. It's me," came the voice she had been missing more than she thought ever possible across the water.

Karen was stunned. It couldn't be Paul. She had stood in the morgue identifying his broken remains, stood stoically beside his casket as every one cried and voiced their meaningless thoughts and well wishes in the face of her loss, and stood in the drizzling rain as clods of dirt were dropped upon him forever distancing them.

She leaned forward and peered out over the distance and darkness. Who was that standing behind the licking flames?

"Kar-bear, I only have until sunrise. Please come here." The shape walked around and stood at the edge of the water, the waves now the ones doing the licking.

'Kar-bear?' No one ever, ever called her that except Paul. Her mind, not even considering any other possibility, shut down as her arms yanked the paddles into the water and faster than she thought possible pushed herself through the water towards the shore.

Towards the shore and the form that solidified very much into Paul.

She leapt from the canoe and slogged through the last few feet of water to throw herself into the open arms of her husband.

It was his arms that held her. It was his smell she breathed in from her face pressed against his chest. It was his heartbeat that she heard through the thin wall of flannel, skin and tissue that separated his heart from hers. It was Paul.

She gasped as tears cascaded from her eyes, "Have I gone mad? How is this possible?"

The arms tightened around her, "It's Summer Solstice, the Heavens, and this place my love. I am yours until the sun rises."

He let himself be driven to the ground by her force as she ripped his red flannel shirt off and tugged at her own clothing. Looking into her eyes he joined her in the mad rush to strip themselves. Kneeling above him she lowered herself onto him feeling his long lost flesh enter and fill her.

Karen threw her head back and cried out, "Oh my God" to the silent night as the connection between them was completed. She dropped down and pressed as much of her body as she could into his as they both pumped in the rhythmic dance that neither had forgotten.

Her body shuddered as the feelings she thought never to be experienced again washed through her very core. She pushed and flexed her thighs, ass, and hips drawing every bit of him that she could into her moist channel. It had been too many years for both of them and their bodies exploded far sooner than ever before for either of them.

Karen lay still, kissing the corded neck beneath her. She drew up and looked into his eyes, "Wait a minute. Could I become pregnant from this?"

She cried anew as the smile and twinkle in the amber eyes that she thought never to see again flitted across his face, "Ever the practical one, Kar-bear. No, I am afraid the seed is as dead as the rest of me."

"You are dead. How can this be?" Karen ran her hands over all the exposed flesh beneath her afraid that it would vanish at any moment.

"Some gifts we just don't question. We accept them and be grateful." Paul let his own hands wander over the flesh above him.

Karen shuddered, "Ohhh, I've missed you so much."

The tingling in her stomach began again as his hands caressed her breasts, and he brought his face up to rub the stubbly growth on his cheeks across her nipples just the way he knew she loved. She started to rock her hips again feeling the flesh still trapped inside her rear up and strengthen again. She brushed her hands through the hair on his chest and pressed down again feeling the pounding heart locked inside his strong frame.

"I feel your heart beating," her voice was filled with wonder.

Paul chuckled, "I may be dead, but for just tonight I am very much alive."

Karen just shook her head and gave herself to the rolling motions of her hips.

This coupling lasted much longer and was far more satisfying. This was the love making that both of them knew so well. The end came as a slow burn for both of them that sent small quakes up and down their spines.

Karen rolled over nude in the grass, the waves tickling her heels as they lapped back and forth in the moonlight. Her left hand grasped his right as they interlocked their fingers and her right hand traced small circles on his chest.

She turned her head to stare into her lover's smiling face, "You said you're here until sunrise. Then what?"

His smile left, "Then I go back."

She leaned up but he put a finger across her lips, "I know that face Kar-bear. Don't do or say anything crazy. This is what we get. We enjoy this and thank the heavens for it."

"What if I die? Will we be together forever then?" Karen rested her head on his chest so he couldn't see into her eyes. She shook in pleasure as his arm came around and gripped her tight.

"It doesn't work that way. You can't force your death. It won't work; we won't be together that way. We have to be happy with this until it's your time. I'll wait for you; you know I will." Paul pressed her tighter into himself.

She leaned back up, nodded and looked deeply into his eyes, "But we do have all night tonight right?"

As his head nodded in affirmative her hand grasped the stalk between his legs again and she crushed her lips into his.

The night was filled with passion, and, fight as hard as she could, she did eventually give into sleep.

When she awoke the next morning and her head cleared her body racked in anguish at the loss and fear that she had lost her mind and had imagined everything.

But the marks and feelings in her body made her realize otherwise; a certainty that became all the more pronounced when she found the red flannel shirt amongst her clothes discarded in the sand next to the still smoldering bonfire.

Now

That one night of utter joy gave her the feeling of completeness that no one else could give her and got her through living without him. She was wearing the same red flannel shirt as she steered through yet another hydro glide the glistening road put to the test of her driving abilities. The day had been dark from the horrific storm that refused to end, but Karen was sure that sunset had already passed and still there were wet, slippery miles of road between her and her love. She chewed her bottom lip and pressed her foot to the gas and slid through one more curve bringing the lodge and Paul all the closer. "You can't force your death. It doesn't work that way" echoed in her head from the past as she lifted her foot from the gas. She wasn't sure how any of this was supposed to "work." But knowing the only man she ever loved was out there in some form made each day more bearable than before. The thought that they would be together again made each breath a little easier to breath in. But as she found last year even though she was scared to dream it would be possible she could have him again now. Even if it was just for a day at a time.

One Year Ago

She had begged her boss to let her have the lodge again the next year. Even though she had come back and appeared to have returned to the world of the living, she was able to convince him that she desperately needed to recharge her batteries at the lodge. She actually had done a better job of living knowing that somehow in some state of being Paul still existed and just maybe the next Summer Solstice she could see him again. She had worked her ass to the bone to secure another three week vacation making sure Solstice was right in the middle.

On Solstice day, she had stood on the edge of the water watching the sun slowly push itself into the mountains off in the distance. She clutched the edges of the flannel shirt wrapped around her body and breathed all the prayers to all the deities she could think of. She watched as the last orange, yellow beam flashed and then dropped turning the world into a purple cloud of twinkling stars.

She had never been so scared in her life as she was to face the possibility that she would be alone this night like every other night.

Her breath caught so fast and hard she actually felt pain in her chest as Paul's arms wrapped around her. She spun and smothered his smiling face with her own. Again as if time had skipped back a year the couple crashed to the ground shedding all their clothes to perform the dance they both so desperately longed for.

Karen had slept almost the entire day before so she was more than ready to wage battle with the sandman and triumphed. They had made love and talked the entire night. She had lain in bed as the sun crested the east hilltops holding Paul's hand, and watched as in a blaze of white light, his body vanished, sparks of warmth tingling her fingers where she had last touched him. She heard his voice soft in the morning air.

"Until next year, my love."

Now

It had been an even harder struggle to get the Lodge this year. She had to finish a major project before she could leave and then the storm threw her timing all out the window. It was now Solstice and Paul was waiting for her. Within an hour at most she would be lying in his arms at least for some time.

Finally, after one more fish-tail spin around a corner, Karen could barely make out the glittering lights of the lodge in the distance. Paul was there and had lit beacons for her. She resisted the urge to stomp on the gas as there was no way she was going to crash right before getting to him. She crested one more curve and knew she had a straight away. She allowed herself to press down on the gas a bit and felt the car fairly soar towards her love. At this rate and distance she would be there in moments.

The rain pounded down drenching her as she slammed the Lodge door open and raced into the arms of the smiling man standing before the lit fireplace.

Paul laughed as he was drenched by the water coming off Karen. He ran his fingers through the wet clumps and strands of her burnt sierra hair. He picked her up off the ground and swung her around both of them laughing as the water flew off her in arches splashing everything in sight.

"Come Hell or high water, nothing will keep my Kar-bear from me," Paul laughed.

"A typhoon wouldn't stop me," Karen said before again sealing her lips onto his.

Paul carried her to the couch and slowly used a huge, white terry cloth towel to dry all the flesh that his unbuttoning and unsnapping fingers exposed. Karen laid back, closing her eyes, enjoying the sensation until it stopped. She opened her eyes lying fully exposed beneath him watching as he ripped his own clothes off.

Without any preamble, he thrust forward and his hardness sank to its depths inside of her. She reached around with her arms and legs and drew him in tightly against her. The couch rocked in the rhythmic sway of their bodies. Paul leaned up and gazed into her flushed face, smiling as she chewed her lip as the throes of her first orgasm coursed through her body. He leaned down and captured the swollen flesh of her lip between his teeth softly nibbling it. Karen pushed her chest up driving the hard points of her breasts into his chest as she grabbed him and rocked harder trying to give back her pleasure and drive him to his first orgasm. She smiled, pulling her lip from his teeth as he groaned and shook in his own eruption. He pounded and pounded, and, before she knew it hit her, she exploded in yet another wave of pure ecstasy. Her smile left as she smothered his mouth and screamed her passion into him. The throes and spasms of both threw them from the couch to roll on the floor next to the blazing fire which added warmth to their bodies.

The sweat drenched couple lay sprawled on the bearskin rug, the softness of the fur and the warmth of the fire adding to the pleasure coursing throughout them both.

Karen looked up to see a soft pale glow through the window. The rain had stopped at some point during their passion.

She jumped up and opened the door to see the sun just start its rise across the wet horizon.

"Wait. No. I had hours still. What happened," she spun in hysterics to see Paul smiling at her holding out a hand. In the center of his chest a blaze of white light sparked and slowly inched out across his body.

"Nnooo!" screamed Karen as she threw herself at her glowing love grabbing his hand focusing so hard on keeping him in her sights she failed to notice the other whiteness flare in the room.

Paul took her hand and held her back, "Shh. It's alright come with me."

Holding hands, Paul led her out of the door where he stepped up into the open air. Karen felt a lightness she never experienced before as she lifted off the ground.

Paul turned to look at the baffled girl, "We don't have hours left my love. Look." Karen turned towards where Paul pointed. She could see the cliff below the curve of the road, and the twisted metal of a car tangled in the shattered remains of the trees.

Paul smiled, "We don't have hours any more; we have all eternity."