A Lifetime Romance Pt. 06

I started wild crying. But I swear the baby within me said, "Have them search in the direction the wind was blowing last night."

I got ahold of myself and said to Chuck, "Have them search in the direction that a raft would drift in front of the wind. I will pay anything."

A mere half hour later Chuck called to say that the same helicopter had found him and a dog in a raft almost 20 miles southwest of the debris field. They had a rescue helicopter headed out to pick him up.

The sweet voice of my unborn child said, "Have a little faith mother - Really!!"

I was thinking that she was only negative six months old and already shaping up to be a spunky little thing.

~

Paul

The storm blew past sometime in the night. I was actually drying out when the sun came up. I broke the top seal and folded down the side of the protective clamshell.

Zeus and I were now drifting in a totally empty sea with the sun beginning to get hot. We had a couple of gallons of drinking water a flare gun and three flares and some energy bars.

I unwrapped one split it and handed him his half.

He said, "Merci mon ami" and daintily took it in his front teeth. One gulp later he was finished with it. I poured some water in my hand and he lapped it.

We now settled down to wait. My watch told me that it was 10:00 AM. I had seen contrails overhead so I knew we were in some sort of air corridor but I also knew that nobody would be able to see me from 35,000 feet.

I was trying to think of my favorite times making love to Janey when I heard rotors in the distance. I was still in 5-10 foot swells and it is not easy to see toward the horizon but on one upswing of a wave I saw a chopper way off in the distance.

I loaded my flare gun and fired. The green flare arced up into the sky. Nothing! I reloaded and fired again. This time it was red. Still nothing!

Then I heard the rotors much closer. I fired my final flare. As I did it I saw a Sea Stallion with Italian markings on it nearby and headed my way. It went into a hover directly over me and dropped a harness.

I loaded my dog in the harness. Zeus was clearly Legion infantry, not airborne. He complained bitterly all the way up. They dropped the harness again and I was inside a CH53 for the first time in 20 years. It felt good.

~

Janey

My phone rang at 1:00 in the afternoon. The hospital had moved me into a room and then sedated me once the nurses became aware of my situation.

I could hear two of them out in the hall talking, "Her father is dying and she just lost her husband at sea."

The other voice said, "Oh the poor thing, I don't think I could survive that."

I would have started to cry if I had not already heard from Chuck that they had picked up Paul and his dog and were flying him to Valetta for a medical checkup. I was deciding whether to buy Chuck a Ferrari, or a California beach house as a little "thank you."

I was still a bit under the influence of the drug when I answered the ring.

The last time I had heard that voice was yesterday and it had been under considerable stress. Now it was HIM and he sounded gloriously healthy and cheerful. He wanted to know how I was doing and in conjunction with that how my daddy was. I told him that I was suddenly marvelous and that there was almost no hope for my dad.

I was amazed that after surviving a nearly fatal shipwreck his first concerns were about me and my dad. I told him that the thought of almost losing him as well as my father put that entire situation in perspective and that I was ready for it to happen now.

I told him that I could take care of everything on this end and to rest up and join me when he could. He told me that he was about three hours out of Philly and that he would see me at the hospital before dinner.

My heart tried to leap out of my chest, but it just had to settle for beating wildly. I said, "What did you say?"

He said, "I am inbound over the Atlantic right now. The ETA is three hours to PHL. I chartered a jet as soon as they let me out of the clinic, couldn't put my old comrade Zeus in a commercial baggage hold could I?"

I had a vision of Paul and that animal drinking Champagne and guzzling caviar as they flew along in luxurious splendor. I smiled.

~

Paul

I was greeted by a U.S. rep as soon as I swung down out of the Sea Stallion in Valetta. I was wondering if I would have gotten the same treatment if I had not had a couple of billion dollars in the bank. He handled the transient visa details for me.

There were a bunch of reporters who wanted to interview me about my experiences out there in the storm but I brushed right past them to get to the car that Chuck had waiting for me. I was thinking to myself, "That dude is really going to like his year-end bonus."

I was whisked to a local clinic trailing a cloud of paparazzi and protesting all the way about the delay. But Chuck told me over the phone that it was going to take an hour or so to get a charter lined up anyway and I might as well humor the local government officials, since they had gone all-out in the search and rescue.

Zeus was helping himself to the ham sandwich I had bought him at the airport. He told me that he personally had no thoughts whatsoever about the rescue as long as I kept the food coming. He said, "In the words of Bonaparte - an army travels on its stomach, Messieur."

The NetJets Cessna Citation XLS+ was waiting and ready to go when I got to Malta International. Both Zeus and I clambered on board and we were wheels-up within minutes.

The flight attendant had been warned in advance and so she had a bowl ready with sufficient food to keep Zeus happy. I was happy because I was going to see my love.

~

Janey

He looked a little haggard but nonetheless it was the same dear face. He had parked Zeus at my apartment and picked up some of the clothes he leaves there. He was in a black mock turtle neck, blue jeans and wearing a pair of old loafers that he had deposited there the day he had moved in with me.

That was only six years ago but it seemed more like six hundred. He was standing there jauntily relaxed, brown as a berry with a serious nautical beard and those bright blue eyes under his white blond hair.

I flew across the lobby of the hospital and threw myself into his arms kissing him frantically all over his face. Then we had one of the hottest tongue swapping kisses administered in the City of Philadelphia since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

While all of this was taking place my feet were dangling about a half a foot off the marble floor.

He finally put me down and extended me to arms-length looking at my face like he was trying to memorize it. I looked at him with the adoration anybody would feel who thought they had lost the love of their life.

We couldn't keep our hands off each other. Not in any sexual way, we just had to keep touching each other.

He said, "How is your dad?"

I said, "His status hasn't changed but he is still in super critical condition."

He said, "Well let's get up there and wait until it changes for the better."

We sat for three days, eating at the cafeteria or out of vending machines. Paul left for a couple of hours each day to take care of Zeus and once a day I would go home for a shower and change of clothes.

We held hands for hours as I read and Paul fiddled with his laptop computer doing whatever internet gurus do. I also spent hours with one leg thrown over his, or lying sleeping with my head pillowed in his lap.

We were in a perfect place in terms of our intimacy without a single sexual moment. Although there were a couple of times in the night I deeply wanted to turn my head and take what I was sleeping on into my mouth.

Finally, on the morning of the fourth day a nurse dressed in those ubiquitous green scrubs came hurriedly out of the ICU and said, "He's awake and he wants to see you."

Both Paul and I started to get up but the nurse put her hand out and said, "Only her I'm afraid."

I was overjoyed that he was awake and so I, probably unkindly, abandoned Paul without a word and rushed back with the nurse. I knew he would understand.

When we got to the critical care pod I saw him sitting among all of those beeping and blinking machines with his eyes open. The look of love that came over his face almost made me drop to the floor crying, but I had to be his "Janey" for him.

He smiled weakly and said, "I just had to see you one last time kitten."

He didn't ask where mother was. I must have looked aghast because he quickly added, "It is very easy to pass on to the next world knowing that I have a daughter like you. I know it is selfish to make you go through this but have always been my hope, my pride and my joy and I need you to know that before I go."

I broke down at that point, sobbing, unable to speak. He took my hand in his and kissed it and then waved weakly to the nurse. The nurse put her arm around my shoulder and said, "You have to leave now."

I was going to make a scene about staying at his bedside. But we are not a family that makes scenes. So I had to be brave for him. My last glimpse was of him lying there, looking totally at peace. He died less than an hour later.

~

Paul

Janey got the news lying crosswise in a waiting room couch with me holding her. She sobbed into my shoulder for some time and then did what she always does when she has cried herself out.

She dried her eyes and blew her nose with a handkerchief that I had given her. She gathered herself with extreme dignity. And with her catlike grace she rose from the couch and walked to the nurses' station. She asked to see him one last time.

They took her back and she was there for several minutes and then she came out looking tough and composed as if she had passed some new milestone and was ready for the next phase of her life. I asked her if I could handle the funeral arrangements for her. She said, "Only if you let me pay Chuck what he deserves."

I chuckled and said, "Between you and me he is going to be one rich surfer dude."

The funeral was excruciating, not because they were celebrating the passing of a man of great humanity and courage. It was because her mother insisted on turning the funeral of her husband into a mass spectacle of her personal anguish.

Although she had never actually made it to the hospital during the time he lay dying, she left the impression that she was about to commit suttee out of sheer grief.

People flocked to her, cooed over her and catered to her every wish. It was almost as if the person being buried was a secondary part of the show.

I knew how that was affecting Janey so, although I am not a big fan of humanity and "those people" in particular, I spent a lot of time buffering her from her own relatives, just to keep her from killing one of them.

She wept and sniffled of course. But she had clearly made up her mind to honor her father with the pride and resolution that he deserved.

Needless to say, she was reaching new heights of personal respect in my book if that was even possible given how I already felt about her.

The most uplifting part of the whole ordeal was her clearly visible "baby bump", which her relatives were having a hard time ignoring. Nonetheless they all managed to accomplish that task.

~

Janey

I was so mortified by the behavior of my own family, especially my mother, that I wanted to sink into the ground. Paul was a rock. He kept me from strangling anybody while seeming both respectful and witty and urbane at the same time.

I was well into my second trimester by that point and little Helen, we knew for sure that it was a girl at that point, was kicking the daylights out of my insides. It was almost as if SHE was embarrassed by the outpouring of totally self-involved and self-centered emotion that she was awash in.

We saw my father into the ground with the medals he had earned in Vietnam laying proudly on his coffin. We endured the well-wishers at the reception and then we were blessedly alone.

We drove back from Laurel Hill in a soft and gentle spring evening. We were both in a pensive mood and so when we let ourselves into the apartment neither of us wanted to talk. Paul took Zeus out for his daily constitutional.

As Zeus walked by he said sincerely, "Mes condoléances", which was several notches above anything my family had expressed.

I said, "Thank you for your sympathy soldier." I was alone for a while and I walked around the place just looking at things.

It had all started here six years ago and it almost seemed like it had come full circle. The girl I was back then was entirely different now a wife and soon to be mother, married to the most spectacularly wonderful man in the world.

Because I was the executor I knew from the lawyers that my father had bequeathed a small but adequate trust to my mother and the rest of his vast fortune to me. I was now almost as rich as Paul. I had wanted to break THAT news to him at some other opportune time, because it changed nothing.

As the street lights came on outside of the windows of the apartment I could only think about the future. I knew that I would forever love Paul and Helen and even that mangy old reprobate Zeus and that whatever roadblocks were thrown in our way we would overcome them together.

In the meantime there was a gesture that I had to make for myself.

~

Paul

Zeus finished his business and I demonstrated my "good citizenship" with the doggy scoop. He sniffed around a bit and I headed up the steps to "her" apartment. Because she had been living there when I first met her it has never seemed like "my" apartment.

It wholly reflected the maturity and innate excellence of her taste and breeding. And I remembered wondering how a mere 23 year old girl could have such profound depth of character.

Of course once I got to know her better I found that that had only scratched the surface. There was an infinite amount more about her that I had yet to discover.

In many respects the impressions and joys of that day six years ago have never faded from consciousness. In fact, the romance of those early times when we were discovering each other has never ended, as it does with many couples.

I had actually gained incalculably more insight into the depth and wisdom of her magnificent soul than I had that first day. But there was also a slight sense of unease floating around in my brain as I trudged back up the stairs. It was the thought of how close I had come to missing that opportunity.

I remembered how I had marveled at the expensive steps and the wealth and taste of her apartment when I first laid eyes on it. I remembered her incredible beauty as I walked into the place for the first time.

I opened the door and it was like some kind of insane flashback. There she was, as gorgeous as ever sitting in the same place in the same outfit.

I got it immediately. She wanted to mark our new beginning by hearkening back to where it all began. I dropped the leash and in a daze I walked over to her. As I did she was talking to me, reminding me of that day.

Without stopping I sat next to her, as I had that time, and took her into my arms. We fell backward into that spacious leather sofa as we had before.

We kissed passionately and her robe came open revealing that spectacular body, with its huge tits and slight baby bump right between her fertile hipbones. That was the only new feature in that lush landscape.

She began to pant. I was breathing like I was in the middle of a marathon. We kissed again and I placed my hand on her massive right tit. The nipple was rock hard and extended almost a half inch. I could feel her heat and hunger. I reached down between her magnificent dancer's legs and found her very wet and ready.

I adjusted her entire body so that she was fully on the couch and moved between her legs. She moaned loudly and her eyes flew open looking startled, as if I had never inserted myself into her before. Then her eyes rolled completely up into her head as I moved up into her heat not to be seen again until we had finished.

I began to move in her and she fucked back with impatience, like she was already several minutes ahead of me arousal-wise. Perhaps she was thinking of the same things while I was gone.

We built to a resounding, floor shaking rhythm that I was certain the people in the bar below would be able to hear. All of that time she was literally yelling, "Ahhhh, Ohhhhh, Ahhhh, Ohhhhh, Ahhhh, Ummmm, Ummmm, That's it, Fuck me! I love you! Fuck me!! I'm yours!! I'll always be yours!!"

That went on for a much longer time than I could have thought possible and then the pressure was too much and I shot everything into her. She tensed every muscle in her body, including her pussy. Then she shrieked and spasmed so hard I had to restrain her body with my arms or she would have bucked herself off on the floor.

Then she began to shake and quiver wildly and her breath came in explosive little gasps.

It took me a while to corral all of the pieces of my consciousness but when I did I opened my eyes to see those intense hazel cat eyes looking at me, absolutely solemnly.

I said, "It has been six years and it hasn't changed one day. I loved you then and I love you more now and I will always love you. This is the place where it all began but it was nothing more than the starting point for a journey that you and I will make together, hand-in-hand and step-by-step.

"If you recall, I pledged to you that if you gave yourself to me you would never regret or doubt my commitment to you and I pledge that to you once more absolutely and forever."

She smiled like the benevolent goddess that she is and kissed me with absolute tenderness.

~

Janey

When he and Zeus reappeared I was sitting on the same couch in the same place that I had when I had proposed our marriage to him and I was wearing the same wrap.

He came in the door with his buddy all full of doggy affability and literally dropped the leash on the floor. Zeus ambled past him toward his food bowl without giving either of us a second glance.

He said, "What in the world!??"

I said, "If you recall, I was sitting in this exact same spot wearing the exact same thing when this journey began."

He actually got the same nonplused look on his face as he had that time. Then he came over to me. I had not been thinking about it but it suddenly hit me that I needed to reaffirm our commitment in a way that involved more than mere words.

That is a woman thing that no man would understand. But the easiest way to translate it for their simple brains is that I needed him to "take" me and "claim" me as his in the most carnal way possible.

And I needed him to do THAT immediately!! We kissed open mouthed and wildly passionate and he slid his hand under my wrap opening it. He began to manipulate my breast and the sensation made the ache even more for him.

I could smell my own arousal. When he found me so wet and palpitatingly ready I told him in no uncertain terms what he needed to put in me and where he needed to put it. When he entered me I remember gasping loudly. The sensation was so intense that my eyes either closed or rolled up in my head, I can never tell. And we began the age old fucking motion.

That built to a point where I could hear the couch, which is a very large and heavy piece of furniture, hopping around on the floor with loud bangs and booms.

I didn't care what the people downstairs thought. This was me paying homage to our lives together. I screamed and howled and scratched. I told him over and over how much I was his. I wanted to hold him inside me and love him forever.

But there was no way we could keep up that level of intensity. He came inside me with a huge, scorching blast that set me off in ways I have never experienced. It felt like every muscle in my body contracted and then I was throwing myself around under him totally uncontrolled.