Agreeing with My Wife

When we got to Applebee's, there was a bit of a wait being Friday. We thought about heading to another restaurant, but opted not to since we thought they would all be like this since it was Friday. The hostess suggested we wait in the bar, but I quickly nixed that idea. Sure, I could probably handle myself sitting in a bar section, especially with my wife there next to me. But I have been sober long enough to have worked out how to avoid temptation and one of those is to avoid bars. Even in restaurants.

A little over half an hour passed before we were seated. Which for us was fine. We began playing the game My N.A.M.E. In which we use the letters of our name as an acronym, to describe something about ourselves. We went in order based on the length of our names starting with the shortest to the longest. So I went first, followed by Alice and then ending with Rachel.

For those not familiar with the game, using my name Mark, I was going to use married for M, but the two women shot that down. So I had to think of another M word to use. So I went with multiplayer since I loved to relax with some multiplayer shooter games. A I used autumn since it was my favorite season. Railroad was my word for R. I had always wanted to travel by train, but it just took so long to get anywhere. I had a hard time with K, but went with katana. I've always loved swords and always wanted some to display. (I think Alice was shocked to know about those last two, which I admit I kinda liked being able to surprise her still.)

Alice's acronym was architect (for her career), log cabin (she loves staying in the mountains in the winter), Iowa State (her alma mater), coffee (her favorite drink), and equestrian (she used to ride horses). She really hadn't surprised me much about her answers, but this was meant more for Rachel to get to know us and us her. I was really eager to learn more about Rachel. Her words were Rome (she really wanted to visit), Australia (same thing). My wife and I told her she couldn't just name places she wanted to visit, but we allowed her to keep Rome and Australia. So she had to use a little more time to think of other words to describe her self. When she finished thinking, she used cooking (something she loves to do), Harry Potter (her favorite series both book and movie), elf (she loved fantasy novels with elves and dwarves and magic) and Lake Michigan (her favorite vacations had been on Lake Michigan).

We sat around and just chatted after the game while we waited for our table. The hostess called for us soon after. While we were eating, "I've been thinking these last couple days about what you said," Rachel directed at me, which confused me, "about what my mother would want me to do. About the house and whether to keep it or not. Then I think about the letter she wrote to me about all she wanted was for me to be happy. I think, I think I want to sell it. I mean part of me does. The part that tells me that I probably won't be coming back here. I mean I have no family...sorry, I didn't mean..."

"It's fine," I told her.

"Really? That sounded mean," she queried.

"Honestly, I understand. Promise," I assured her.

"Okay. And my friends are off at college living their lives. These last months I've felt isolated and so alone. I just don't see anything drawing me back. At least in the near future. I also don't want to keep a house I have no intention of maintaining because who knows when, or if, I would come back and what shape it'd be in if I did. But the other part of me, doesn't want to let a piece of my mother go, either."

My wife reached her hand out and grasped Rachel's hand. "Sweetie, your mom isn't in the house. She's wherever you are. Sure, the house will elicit memories of her more easily, perhaps. But those memories will come to you at any point. Hell, I had a memory of my mom one day as I was straining noodles a couple months ago and my parents died almost twenty years ago. Letting go of items is always difficult when there is meaning in those items. But this isn't a ring or bracelet or even a stuffed animal your first boyfriend won you at the fair. This is a house, which has a lot of responsibilities attached to it. If you are truly thinking you aren't wanting to live here, then it would be best to sell it."

"I'd have to agree with Alice here. I mean, you could put it up for rent, but that, too, has a lot of responsibility. Look, the note did say she wanted you happy. If you sold the house and saved the funds, by the time you wanted to move into a new house, you'd have plenty of money to afford just about anything you'd want."

"Thanks. This was a huge help. You've both been incredible to me. I don't know what I would have done without you two. I'll think things over some more. If that's alright." We both nodded and all of us finished dinner.

When Alice and I woke up the next morning, we found fresh, hot coffee waiting for us and an exuberant Rachel smiling at us. My wife, naked as she had been this entire week in bed, got up and donned a bathrobe and picked up her coffee. She walked to Rachel and gave her a kiss on the top of her head before sipping her brew.

I turned to the side and put my feet on the ground, "Thanks, Rachel, but you didn't need to do this for us."

"I know. I wanted to. I mean it was free and I was awake so it wasn't anything special."

My wife had come back from the bathroom, coffee cup still in hand, and sat next to Rachel, "Nonsense! Any act of kindness is special. How did you know exactly how I liked my coffee?"

"Well, I watched Mark making yours when he went downstairs." She blushed profusely, "I also got you a second cup. Just like Mark does." She shyly pointed to the table where, in fact, another cup of coffee sat.

My wife fiercely hugged Rachel and looked at me, "Can we keep her, please? I want to keep her, Mark."

I heard giggling muffled by my wife's body before I saw Rachel able to pop her face back into view and batted her eyes at me.

"This is not fair. I will not tolerate this. You two can not gang up on me like this. I refuse..."

My wife stood up and pulled Rachel with her. She gently pushed Rachel to sit on one side of me and she took a seat on the other. With one hand, the one not holding her coffee, she placed it on my chest. She put her head on my shoulder and looked at me with these puppy dog eyes. Alice saw her and mimicked he posture.

"Please, hubby-wubby, let me keep her," my wife pleaded.

"Please, Marky-warky," Rachel tried. She made a face. "Yeah. Sorry that seems weird. Sorry," as she stood up and retreated to her bed.

My wife just laughed and reiterated, "Marky-warky."

"Okay. You've had your fun. One of us should shower if we are to get the day started, though."

"Fine, Marky-warky. I'll go get ready." Alice leaned in for a kiss and sashayed into the bathroom.

"So, um, Mark. What would we need to do to put the house up for sale?"

"So you decided then?"

She nodded her head. "I was tossing and turning all night until I finally decided to sell it. It was like...the massive weight was lifted off me. I know there's a lot to do to sell. Have to remove everything out, but I just feel...freer, I guess."

"Well, you're right. We'd probably want to contact a realtor, since we won't be local to show the house. We'd, also, want to sell most of the items. Alice and I have a decent amount of space for three people, but not enough to store everything from a second house. If we didn't want to price, organize and be there for an estate sale, we could hire a company to do it. They'd charge us of course, but it would make things easier."

"That doesn't sound like something to be done in a day."

"No. Definitely not." I got out my laptop to start a search for estate sales companies and realtor listings. Most of the listings I found were closed on Saturdays for consultations. Probably busy with the respective sales and showings.

I heard my wife get out of the shower. Rachel asked if I was going to shower or if she could go first, which I told her I'd jump in after she was finished. I wanted to talk to my wife for a bit.

When the door closed, I told my wife, "Seems Rachel decided she wanted to sell the house."

"I figured she might. She seemed to be leaning in that direction."

"Yeah. Problem is while we got a lot done these last couple days, getting the house ready to sell will take longer."

"I was afraid of that. How much longer?"

"At least a week. Not saying everything would be finalized or even started by then, but in order to have a plan for it all. A week, minimum. If there are no snags."

"I can't miss another week of work. I was barely able to get this one off. At least this short notice. Can you?"

"I know you wouldn't be able to. I was looking at my schedule and I can manage. Tony and Alex can handle anything we have going on right now and I wasn't looking at any new projects until we had some of the ones I have going on were further along or nearing completion any way."

"So...that means what? We drive back to Indy and you head back up here Monday?"

I shrugged. "Unless there's another option. You have to get to Indy. I mean even taking a bus requires you to get back home some how. This would be the easiest solution."

"There could be another." We looked up to see Rachel having exited the bathroom, changed. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I swear, but um...I have a car. I was thinking I'd have to drive and follow you down, but this way someone can drive my car, whether it was me and Mark rode down in it or it was you, Alice, driving it down."

"Well, if that's the case, I think it'd be better if Alice drove Rachel's car since I need the truck to pull a trailer with Rachel's boxes." I looked at Alice if she was okay with this arrangement. She thought it over and nodded her agreement.

I smiled and kissed my wife on the cheek and made my way to get my shower. Before we left the hotel, I talked to the front clerk to see if we could extend the stay for an additional week. As they weren't busy this time of year, they were able to accommodate us.

The day was a relatively light day. We had most of the packing we needed to get done already. We busied ourselves with cleaning the house from top to bottom. Dusting, mopping and vacuuming. Since we planned on having an estate sale and to sell the house, we opted to keep the power on, but we got the water and gas turned off as well as internet and cable. We also forwarded all mail to our house.

My wife decided to leave that afternoon. She wanted a chance to wash the clothes and tidy up our house, since we hadn't done any cleaning for a week there. She could also use that time to catch up on any work she missed that she'd need to know for the upcoming week. We went into the garage to retrieve a remarkably nice Honda Accord hybrid. We really never even ventured into the garage all this time we spent at the house.

"This is your car?," Alice asked. Rachel just nodded. "This is really nice. Pretty expensive."

"Yeah. I told my mom it was too much, but she insisted I deserved a nice car for graduation. She had saved up money for me to go to college, but I had gotten scholarships and grants that paid for tuition. Since I lived at home, all I really needed was money for books. And there are websites I can get used text books for really cheap. So she decided to get me a car that would last for a long time and wouldn't use a lot of gas. Hence the hybrid."

"I'm surprised this wasn't in the assets the lawyer presented."

"Oh. Mom made sure, before all her medical bills started piling up, to make sure to pay off the car and to put it in my name. She didn't want my car to be repo'd because of her bills. It was also, about this time, she decided to sell off her car as well." Rachel handed Alice the car keys.

Alice and I got into my truck as Rachel followed us to the hotel. We got a quick lunch and Rachel, with her bags in the car, headed home. The following week was easy if not hectic. We had a lot to do, but it mostly consisted of phone calls and appointments and less about physical labor. But things went fairly quickly. It was lucky, in a way, that the time of year didn't have a whole lot going on.

We secured a company to handle the estate sales on Monday. By Wednesday, they met with us at the house to look everything over. The estate sale wouldn't happen for another month, but they wanted to see everything that needed to be appraised, evaluate the space and to estimate their costs and what they might be able to get out of it. It might sound callous, but they are a business and they had to make a profit. We were able to work out an agreement. Their commission was on the heavier side, but they were going to deal with any unsold items (we told them send it to Salvation Army or Goodwill, that we had everything we wanted already), advertisements, appraisals and pricing of items and, most importantly to me, run the sale. Sure we were going to lose out on some money, but I informed Rachel that with the sell of the house and the two savings accounts now in her name the sales in the house wouldn't be missed. She agreed.

By Tuesday, we hired a realtor to sell the house. On that same Wednesday, the realtor came in to inspect the house. The timing was impeccable. I was leading the realtor out of the house as the estate sales manager was coming in. So I introduced them, they knew and had worked conjointly before. So I informed them of Rachel's intentions so we were able to arrange, after the estate sale, to have the sales manager to pass the key off to the realtor. The realtor was also going to be informed when the estate sale was going to happen so as to encourage potential buyers to go in to view the house.

This was much quicker than I had anticipated so I made arrangements, after consulting with Rachel if she needed or wanted to do anything else in or with the house, to pick up a trailer to load up her boxes. We picked it up first thing Thursday and loaded it up before lunch and we were headed back down to Indy. I managed to reach Alice at lunch and tell her we were coming home sooner than we thought. I told her not to worry about dinner tonight; I'd be home to fix something. She seemed overjoyed. She told me not to go into the basement. She had a surprise for me.

Rachel and I made good time and were home well before my wife would be getting off work. I helped Rachel get her packed clothes and toiletries out of the back seat of the truck. There wasn't a lot of space at the moment where Rachel was going to be able to stay. Alice and I had arranged to have her stay on the sofa, temporarily. The best place for her clothes, however, would be in the second room we had converted over the pandemic to a home office.

Rachel wanted to freshen up after the drive. So I started rummaging through the food in the refrigerator and pantry to figure out what to eat. I saw we had some boneless chicken breasts, breading and noodles. So I opted to fix chicken parmesan. I preheated the oven and started boiling water for the linguine. Then started breading the chicken. I was preoccupied with the preparations when I felt a presence behind me sitting at the kitchen island. Since I hadn't heard the front door, I knew Rachel had finished in the bathroom.

She finally broke the silence, "Is there anything I can do to help out?"

"Well, once I get the noodles boiling and the chicken in the oven, I'll probably take a shower. So you can watch the noodles and maybe make a salad for us?"

"Sure. I could do that. So what's for dinner anyway?"

"Chicken parm. It was something simple and we had everything we needed so didn't have to go out to get anything."

"Sounds delicious."

It wasn't long after that exchange when I made my way out of the kitchen and let Rachel take over. I went and sorted my dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. I'd take care of those later. I took a nice long shower letting my muscles relax after driving all day.

I got out of the shower and changed into some sweatpants and tee. When I got to the kitchen, I saw my wife had changed into her lounging outfit and was helping Rachel as they were chatting. I slipped in undetected and wrapped my wife in my arms. She squealed when I snuck up behind her, but cooed when I kissed the base of her neck.

I looked over her shoulders to inspect how dinner was progressing and noticed the linguine had been removed from the boiling water and been set up in the sink in a colander draining excess water. Rachel had placed the Prego sauce in another pot that had the majority of the noodle water in the other side of the sink. We still had a few minutes before the chicken was done, though. I released my wife and started getting some water poured and took the glasses to the table, which I saw was already set.

When everything was done, we began eating and chatting about my wife's work, everything Rachel and I had been up to. I tried to get an idea about this surprise my wife had for me, but she wasn't telling me anything about it.

After dinner, I started gathering the dishes to take to rinse off and place in the dishwasher. Rachel got up and stopped me, "Let me get these." I tried to protest. "You and Alice have done so much already for me. I don't want you to feel like I am taking advantage of your goodwill."

"I don't think either Alice or I feel like you are," I looked over at Alice who just shook her head, "But I won't say no to any help around the house, either. Thanks."

"It's the least I can do," she said with a smile.

My wife stood from the table, "If you'd like, I'll tell you about that surprise I had for you." She led me to the bedroom. I was a bit apprehensive, but I followed her nonetheless. When we got to the bedroom, she guided me to the chest we had at the edge of the bed and had me sit down. She went to the door to pull it closed and came back shedding clothes.

"But first, let me show you how much I missed you."

"Alice, Rachel's right outside the door." She got to me and started taking my t-shirt off me.

"I know. What? Are we going to live like celibate monks while she stays here?," she asks. It was hard to disagree with her on that point. "She's going to have to learn that I love my husband." She had managed to take off my sweats and boxers. "And that he loves me. And because of that, we love showing how much we love each other."

She got on her knees and started sucking on my cock getting me instantly hard. I leaned back, resting my weight on my elbows I had placed on the bed, luxuriating in what my wife's moth was doing to me.

She stopped and pulled off my dick. Leaning over me, she engaged me to a passionate kiss while fondling my cock and balls. Pulling back, "And right now, I need to show you how much I missed you." She turned around facing away from me. "And need you to show me how much you love me." She grabbed my penis and guided me into her warm embrace as I entered her from behind.

She started rocking her hips. "God, Mark. I was going crazy without you. I kept...kept thinking about you. Wondering...what you could be doing...I used my vibe...mmmm...used my vibrator on me nightly. It felt so good...but not as...oh, fuck...not as good as the real thing."

I saw the door creak open. Turns out my wife hadn't latched the door, as it was slowly slowly swinging open. I thought I saw a shadow in the doorway, but my wife's moan of ecstasy snapped my attention back to what I was doing. My wife knew that in this position I wasn't going to orgasm quickly. So I let her use me for her pleasure, but I wasn't going to sit idly, either.

"So all you need...all you want...is some toy to please you? Or," I sat up and grabbed her arms and wrapped them behind her. If I had access to a scarf, tie, or that bathrobe belt, I would have tied her arms behind her. But I didn't and I wasn't going to stop what she was doing. "Or do you want me to take control? Really make you feel this."