A Sensual Possession

"So remind me, David my love, why we are driving out to Hemet." There was little love in her choice of the word 'love'. It might be January and it might be eight in the morning she thought to herself, but the outside thermometer in the truck said it was already 84` and the dashboard was already hot to the touch.

"So, one of his neighbors died and so he's helping with the estate sale and so he thought we might want to look and some of the stuff for our house."

"Dave, one of his neighbors dies almost every damned day," she replied, "that's what people in Hemet do, they hang around in their prefab houses until they die." She continued to look out the windshield at a blazing yellow sun in a shimmering blue sky. At least there wasn't any traffic.

"Heaven's waiting room," she added, "that's what they call it..."

"... yeah Steph, I know that old joke so it's a Saturday morning and we haven't seen my dad in a couple of months and so he thinks we might like some of the stuff so he told me about these two people were married like 75 years and they died within like a few minutes of each other on their 75th anniversary..."

"Is that the stuff we're going to be looking at? Jeez David, that's mostly gonna be old junk from maybe the 50's or 60's, you think?" She had spoken too soon about the traffic: it was backing up from the 15 and they'd just passed Main Street in Corona. Still, it was kind of sentimental, a couple married 75 years dying together on their anniversary.

"So he says there's this great set of china and some real silverware, some interesting pottery and vases, a couple of couches and a beautiful bed and so we need a bed and maybe a couch so I thought we should go."

"What'd he say about the couches?"

"So he says they were made by the guy who died named Wren and so he was a furniture maker type carpenter from Georgia before he retired and he made all their furniture so it's all really beautiful and well crafted."

"Charles Wren?"

"Yeah that's what my dad said so he was from Georgia and moved out to Hemet with his wife in 2000 or so because of their health and right after her brother died."

Charles Wren. Father of the New Modernism movement in interior design in the immediate post-war period. Rubbed more than shoulders with Faulkner, James Dean, Steinbeck, Frank Lloyd Wright and most of the other luminaries of the 50's; a mover and shaker until well into the 80's. This could be fun.

"OK, Dave, I forgive you," she said. Traffic started to open up just past the 15 and they were in Hemet before 10.

The estate sale was not in front of a trailer with a carport and green gravel in front. The house was a beautiful and carefully tended mid-century; the cars on the street and in the driveway ranged from their Dodge 2500 to a Bentley. By the time they found their way inside, many of the better items had been sold.

The two saw Dave's dad hovering by a beautiful bed frame. Dave went over to greet him while Stephanie started to wander through some of the remaining stock. The pickings were still good but it was clear they would not last much longer. Dozens of people, most in well-dressed cool casual, milled around the shelves or found their way to the circus tent covering the back yard. She didn't know there were such elegant homes in Hemet.

The silverware and china had long since been claimed, as had most of the furniture. There were still some bar stools and a rocking chair but they didn't interest her. She did see something interesting, though: a vase. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was a modern interpretation of a Grecian urn, beautiful even if it was a knock-off. It had apparently been used on a regular basis because it still had green stains along the rim and smelled of... she couldn't place the scent but it was delightfully fragrant. She picked it up to show David.

He and his father were waving, trying to get her attention. "So Steph, c'mon over here quick" he mouthed.

They were standing next to a headboard and footboard, both made in the sparseness of the New Modernism style. Ash, she suspected. Simple clean lines with no frills. No turned posts or grand arches but, instead, angled squares and rectangles. She touched the skin-smooth edges with her fingertips and the frame seemed to touch her back. It was both warm like a lover's kiss and cool like an ocean breeze.

"So you like it, Steph?" Dave asked like a child who was about to get a new puppy.

Yes, she liked it. She liked it a lot. It was beautiful, the wood was sensual, and it was a Wren. A nice upgrade from their barren mattress resting on rails of a cold steel frame.

"You know, Stephanie," his father said, "he made this bed just before he and his wife got married. Only bed they ever slept in, 'cept maybe if they had to go out of town or something. It's where his daughter found them last week. First the cops thought it might be joint suicide because she was in really poor health, but they said they both died of natural causes, pro'ly within a few minutes of each other."

Again, she was touched by the sentiment. Such an elegant, simple thing: to die together on such a meaningful day in the same bed that you've slept in for every night of your married life. Beautiful.

The late morning was becoming unbearably hot. Sweat stains had formed on the Dave's collar and drops of perspiration began dripping down Stephanie's neck. They looked at a few other things, mostly bobbles and some interesting jewelry. Nothing caught their imagination, though. After saying good-bye to David's dad, they loaded only the two items purchased: the bed and porcelain vase.

The air conditioning in the truck was a blessing. A cool breeze from one of the vents blew along the passenger window across her neck, rustling a tuft of hair behind her ear. A faint fragrance, something that almost could not be sensed, drifted up from the vase. Sweat cooling between her breasts and along her spine gave her the delicious sensation of fingertips teasing her skin. As she drifted between dozing and absently watching the miles roll off the large green off ramp signs, she realized it felt mildly erotic, like foreplay, like someone blowing in her ear and feeling her up.

He had no idea who Charles Wren was and, in fact, didn't really care. Steph cared, she knew who he was, and that was enough. There were a couple of bar stools he'd liked to have bought but didn't think the wood would weather well outside on the patio by the pool. And why she bought that vase, well, he had no idea. It was a pretty lavender color, he thought, and would probably look good in the bedroom, but the reliefs on the surface were, well, downright pornographic. Sure it had the usual Greek flowers and grapes and arbors and stuff but it was about an orgy, or at least a threesome.

They pulled off at Imperial, stopped in at In-and-Out for burgers, fries, and a cold drink, then drove home through the winding hills of Yorba Linda.

"So Steph, can you help me set up this frame before you go shopping?" Dave asked.

She laughed. "You really want me to help you construct something after the last time I helped?" They laughed about it even as it happened but it really had been a disaster.

He thought about it, then agreed. "So I guess you're right so why don't you head out while I do the bed so can you at least help me unload it, ok?"

"Ok," she replied, walking through the garage toward the door, "but let me put this vase in the kitchen and grab the shopping list first, then I'll help." She would add flowers to the list but couldn't decide which kind. She'd think about it on the way.

David could not nail two pieces of wood together without bending the nail, but he always wished he could. He loved wood and things made from wood. He laid each section at each end, marveling at the workmanship and the finish. It was beyond his comprehension on how it was made. There didn't appear to be any joints, almost as if each end had been carved from separate pieces of solid ash.

There was a faint but distinct smell, a scent of turpentine or resin, which seemed to come from the heart of the wood itself. For some reason it made him think, more like a flash of vision than a real thought, of a shirtless man with a brush and sandpaper; of him sensuously stroking the wooden staves of the headboard to a smoothness like the inside of a woman's thigh. He heard the garage door open just as he slipped the last tongue of the iron frame onto the leg of the footboard.

"Hey babe, can you help me unload the car?" She decided on lavender. The sharp aroma from the flower shop next to the market had triggered the missing smell from the vase. It had been lavender. It would look ok with the vase, especially the green, but the flowers were small and not really remarkable and she'd really wanted more of a contrasting color. It was the fragrance, though, that brought her into the florist and which now dominated every other smell in both her car and the garage.

"So I'll be there in a second as soon as I drop the mattress back on the box spring, babe," he yelled back. She started to unload: bags of coffee, milk, veggies, eggs. And the bouquet of lavender, which she set into the vase after filling it with water.

Dave pulled out the heavy stuff, cut off plastic wrappings, stored cans and jars, then came up behind her and nuzzled behind her neck. He reached around with his hand and quickly unbuttoned the top buttons of her summer dress down to her waist, nearly pulling out the thread on the last. He imagined himself shirtless, pulling the dress off her body, feeling his chest press against her back, feeling her squirm as he gruffly palmed her breasts and pinched her nipples hard. I'm going to fuck her right now, on the counter top, he said to himself.

It was Rafe. Charles never treated her this way. He was the one seducing her on the way home, gently sending shivers up her spine while he whispered sweet and dirty things in her ear. When Rafe touched her body it wasn't soft, ever; it was brutal, was always raw animal lust between them. Her pussy was wet instantly, the lips swelling to a purple plumpness, ready to take his manhood and feel the shock of his every thrust. Her dress fell to the floor as he bent her over the sink and spread her legs with his thighs.

Dave pulled the thin blue sundress down over her arms and it fell to the floor. Unbuckling his pants he thought that, somewhere along the way he had taken off his shirt, too. He had a raging hard-on and pressed it hard against her back while he yanked down her panties, leaving her naked. She was wet, so wet and vulnerable. He pushed her ear down onto the countertop as he spread her legs with his knees and thrust himself deep into her body. Her hips pushed back against him as she gasped, impaled her body onto his thick cock, and took it deep into her hot, moist pussy.

They had never fucked like this; it was as if she were a woman possessed. There'd been no long lingering kisses, no gently biting her taut nipples or palming her soft firm breasts, no teasing her swollen pink labia with his tongue, or her taking his erect cock in her mouth. Their usual foreplay, which could sometimes last for an hour or more, simply never happened, yet he had slid his erection into her as if they'd been all over each other's bodies all afternoon.

"Oh god Rafe fuck me baby," she moaned as his thighs slapped against her ass in staccato rhythm, "oh god yes baby take me fuck me, fuck me." He was going into her deep, so deep, crushing her engorged pussy lips with each thrust and she was going to cum. She could feel the voltage build in the animal part of her brain and explode down her spine directly to a spot deep inside her loins. Yet he kept fucking, kept moving his cock in and out of her pussy, kept pumping her with his thick fleshy piston. And the explosion kept exploding and exploding while she cried and moaned like a bitch in heat. "Harder baby oh god harder fuck me harder faster harder oh god oh god oh god fuck me Rafe fuck me fuck fuck shit fuck..." He spanked her hard on one cheek, then the other. Again, then again. Each time the bright red welt from the first slap got redder and redder, and her moans got louder and louder. Oh yeah! He would fuck her, he'd ride her like a wild pony, oh yeah!

With each thrust she guided his body with her fingertips, gripping his ass cheeks and pulling him into her flesh.

Rafe? Had she said 'Dave'? or 'Rafe'? He pulled her head back, using her long blonde trusses like a set of reins. Her shoulders quaked when her orgasm raced through her, again and again. Her chest came up off the countertop; her firm full breasts bounced up and down with each stroke, the chocolate drop nipples traced crazy elliptics in the air. He'd never seen her cum like this before.

Her frantic lovemaking was having its own effect on him. He could feel the head of his cock swell and the shaft start its final throbbing spasm. A final deep thrust and he was pumping his thick sticky cum deep into her wet quivering cunt.

David collapsed on her back and kissed her gently on the nape of the neck. She could feel his penis become flaccid and slip from her still swollen lips. Her body was still tingling from the intensity of this incredible screwing. It was like nothing they'd ever done and her brain was still spinning from the pure lust of it all. I guess you could have called it lovemaking she thought to herself, but it was really fucking, just plain fucking.

"Jesus Steph, where in hell did that come from, baby?" he whispered as they kissed.

"You started it, lover," she cooed. Semen dripped with syrupy slowness down the inside of her right thigh. She turned around to face him. They kissed deeply. She fondled him, rubbing her swollen clitoris with the head of his cock; he was still oozing. She was ready to do it again.

He wasn't, yet. "So who is Rafe?"

"Who?" She still diddled herself.

"Rafe. So we're fucking like rutting animals and you say Rafe fuck me fuck me so who is Rafe?" He wasn't jealous although he thought maybe he probably should. They didn't know anyone named Rafe, she couldn't be fucking anyone at work because she didn't work so there was no one to worry about there and he was sure she wasn't fucking anyone else because they both knew everyone the other knew so he was just curious. Who was Rafe?

"Rafe? I don't know." She looked perplexed. "I've never known anyone named Rafe. Are you sure you heard that name?" The fondling stopped.

"So that's what it sounded like. Rafe. So just forget about it babe..." but it stuck in the back of his mind like a post-it note. They'd both had a great sexual life- hell, they were both in their 20's so it better be that way, ya think? But she'd never fucked like that before, nor had he, with so much unabated lust and abandonment. There had been no inhibition to their passion. She'd just rocked his world and if it took an imaginary lover to rock it again, he didn't care.

It stuck in the back of hers, too. Did David now think she was cheating on him? She didn't think he did but he was so quick to dismiss it- but that was like him, though. Truth was she didn't even remember saying that name, even as she was feeling blast after blast of orgasms burn like fire through her body. It just sort of popped out of some unknown place. Rafe. She didn't know him, had never heard that name before, but she'd just had incredible sex with him, sex like she'd never had before. And she wanted more. More unhinged fucking. More of being treated so roughly just for his pleasure, a blow-up doll just for a place to deposit his sperm, something just to be used and disposed like a condom. Just like a slut. She bent over and pulled the wrinkled sundress up over her shoulders and rebuttoned the front but left her bikini panties on the floor.

He pulled up his cargo shorts, buckled his belt and finally found his tee shirt draped over the foot of the bed. "So I'm going out to clean the pool before Jim and Becky get her so I guess you're gonna get ready, huh? 'cause it only takes me a few minutes and so I'll take a dip in the pool too." He heard the shower patter on the glass stall just as he closed the screen door.

The blue sundress fell around her ankles and she kicked it into the hamper. It had been blistering all day and she was still spent from her little tryst with, well, whom? Her husband had done all the screwing but it was like someone else was, what, watching? No, this someone, Rafe, was as much a part of it as if it had been a threesome.

The water was too hot when she first stepped into the stall so she played with the hot and cold knobs until it felt like a Georgia August in a summer rain, warm in the air but mostly cool on the skin. With her eyes closed she could picture, really more sense than visualize, the meadow and its surrounding forest of emeralds and crimson, the smells of ash and hickory. She leaned up against the wall, her palms flat against the cool tile. The water trickled down her back and over her shoulders. It was a familiar sensation. She'd felt it earlier, in the truck, on the way home from Hemet. Dennis. The smell of freshly milled wood was as much a part of him as his slight southern drawl. It would not occur to her until long after that she'd never been in a warm summer rain, let alone ever been to Georgia.

His fingers were everywhere. He was running his fingernail along her backbone, from neck to crack. He was touching the inside of her thighs from knee to pubic mound. His touch was playful and soft, a tease without urgency or sense of purpose. Now it was her nipples, then the underside of her breasts. An exploratory tongue behind her ear, to her cheeks, to her lips. He was touching her clit, the warmth flowing between her swollen lips. It had started raining while he'd had his head between her legs, after his tongue had brought her to the edge of madness, after their picnic, after he'd come home from the mill where he'd spent the day searching for the perfect piece of wood. Hickory, or ash, or even pine if the mood struck him. She was on her knees, the blanket beneath her drenched and the potato salad drowned.

His penetration was slow and it made her crazy. Several times the head of his swollen manhood slid between her crimson petals and across her throbbing clitoris. She tried to move her hips up and back with the hope of devouring his stiff cock with her wet, wanton pussy. He cupped her breasts, pinched her nipples, glided his rod between her parted lips, moving in and out of her with sensual electrifying slowness. Cool rain still beat on her back while her loins tingled with liquid fire; with each thrust new sparks ignited new fires until her whole body was consumed.

His legs stiffened, his whole body stiffened, his plunges became more erratic, more punctuated. He was cumming. Her body was wracked with lust taking all of him deep inside of her.

"So Stephanie you're still in the shower?" The voice seemed to come out of a hole in time. "So I finished cleaning the pool and still heard the shower so you 'bout done?"

"I..I..I'm coming... just getting out now." Her voice was trembling. There was no way of knowing how long she'd been there. She was still standing, palms against the tile, but her legs quaked; they felt like rubber bands. She turned off the faucets but wasn't sure if she could walk. She was swollen and sore, and her tender nipples were still hard and erect.

"I'll be ready in about ten or fifteen minutes, honey," she lied. Thirty minutes if she hurried; she didn't think she had the composure to hurry.

She'd been fucked. Incredibly fucked. Beautiful exploding volcanos and hot lava-type fucked. She didn't know how, but it had been with Charles, someone she knew she didn't know and who was nowhere to be seen, and she was totally spent.