Chocolate Kisses 2: Pearl Ch. 01

She stopped short, seeing the look on John's face. He didn't know if she was joking or not. Talking about him and Jim... well, he thought, I've heard no complaints, yet.

He walked off, leaving Eliza to listen to her sister climax again with a somewhat loud response to whatever Jim was doing. Maybe, she wondered, maybe she could get Bethany to have Jim and John compare notes, one night, maybe... It was something to think about.

When they had built the home, one side reflected the other. Jim and Bethany's family's personal living space was at the north end and John and Eliza were at the south. John walked around the back of the house to where the girls' room was and knocked on the window.

Olina looked up from the floor where she had been coloring. "Uncle John! Why are you outside? Aren't you going to come in?"

"Sweetheart, we're locked out. Open the back door, please."

"But, Daddy said..."

The older girl spoke up. "Olina, don't be silly. Uncle John, we're not supposed to leave the room. Mommy and Daddy are taking a nap and we need to be quiet."

"OK... I'm going to open the window all the way and come in this way."

He boosted himself up and through the window, landing with his face on the rug. The girls laughed at their uncle who looked like a seal on the beach.

"Uncle John, you're funny," the younger girl laughed.

Smiling, he patted her on the head and went to unlock the back door for his embarrassed, red-faced wife. As she came in, he put his finger to his lips and said, "Shhh, c'mon, let's take our own nap."

"But my pies..."

"Pies can wait, Liza, pies can wait..."

After a while, Jim looked up at the ceiling, frustrated. After the wild oral sex he and Bethany had, when it was time to make his way between his wife's open and willing thighs and penetrate her moistness, he felt himself lose it and go soft. No matter what she did with her mouth or hands, there was nothing...

She held him, laid next to him, put her arm across him... and said nothing. His 'problem' as she thought of it, was happening more and more often lately and as much as she loved him, it was becoming very, very disturbing... worrying... troubling... distressing... upsetting... alarming... and a tear paused for a moment and then tumbled to her pillow.

Yes, she thought to herself, he did give her earth-shattering, sheet-gripping, can't-breathe orgasms... but she needed a man to love her fully and her husband wasn't doing it.

She cried, quietly, inside her heart-broken soul. What was happening with her Jimmy?

Later that afternoon, Lizbeth and her sister, Grace finally came home. After spending the day with their friends at the beach, they were dirty, tired and hungry.

Eliza was putting the last two pies into the oven. She was still moving slowly, following John's aggressive loving. She was both surprised and happy. She knew John was getting older... was older than her... and their loving had slowed over the last six months... she was happy that Bethany Rose was getting enough loving from Jim... even if he was twelve years older than she.

How both sisters married such older men would always be a mystery to everyone except them. To them, it was impossible to imagine life without them. She thought back to that first cup of coffee she gave him and his shyness around her. Something happened after that... often she wondered if Jim had something to do with it. After all, John was given time off from work whenever he seemed to want to visit her.

"So, perhaps you'd like to tell me why you couldn't take your cousins with you?"

"Our friends don't like them, Mom; they said..."

"What did you say?" Eliza didn't like the direction the conversation was heading and was afraid she was going to have to make a hard decision very soon.

Lizbeth whispered into her mother's ear. Eliza's eyes widened in shock at what her daughter told her. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no...

"And you just let them talk like that, without saying anything? How could you? First, you know it isn't true and second, family always comes first, before friends... these girls aren't your friends or they would never have said something so mean. Right now, just go to your room, both of you."

"That's not fair! We didn't do..."

"That's right, you didn't!"

Her daughters saw the cookies on the counter-top. "No! No cookies for you. Go shower! Git! Go to your room. RIGHT NOW!!!"

She sat down at the kitchen table. She didn't know how to tell her sister what had happened. It was too painful. And, her nieces... what about them?

The huge influx of military personnel and their families from the mainland had changed the easy-going, superficial live-and-let-live attitude of the island into something very different from what they experienced ten years earlier.

It was as if the snake had arrived in their own personal Eden. A snake? More like hundreds of snakes...

She knew that while Jim and John would fume and find a way to deal with it as men would, her sweet, loving Bethany Rose would have a broken heart.

Bethany was already depressed and her approaching birthday only seemed to make it worse.

Eliza decided to keep the secret to herself, as much as possible. One thing was sure, she realized: her daughters weren't returning to visit those horrible people again.

She busied herself, getting the fine china and silverware ready for Friday's birthday dinner. Although neither she nor Bethany worked outside the house, the two sisters had maintained their unspoken agreement that she would continue cooking and Bethany would take care of everything else in the house.

She laughed. As usual, the men would have liked to just sit back and watch their women do all the work, but that wasn't the case. For the last seven years, John had overseen the CCC reforestation project on the north side of the island. With more than twelve million trees in the ground, the islands were quietly returning to their primeval beauty... or, at least that was the story that she and Bethany had believed. After Jim's startling declaration last night, she didn't know what to believe.

Eliza remembered the trip to the Big Island with John to see the volcano erupting. It was majestic, terrifying and... surprisingly erotic; they spent an extra night because of that one eruption.

"Oh, shit!" She smelled her pies burning and ran into the kitchen.

That evening, Bethany Rose warily watched her sister. Something was bothering Eliza, she just didn't know what. Eliza's two girls, Lizbeth and Grace, excused themselves immediately after dinner and quietly returned to their room. She decided to wait and let Eliza approach the situation on her own good time.

Bethany's own two girls went into their room to play, finally leaving the four adults alone in the living room.

"Lemonade?" Eliza asked.

"That would be great. What time are you fine ladies getting up tomorrow to fix our dinner?" John laughed, protecting his face from the cushion flying in his direction.

"Keep talking like that..." said Bethany in defense of her sister.

Eliza went outside to the propane refrigerator.

"...and there'll be no dinner," she finished.

Eliza came back in carrying a tray with four glasses and a full pitcher of lemonade. "What'd I miss?"

"Oh," laughed her sister, "I was just telling these two... men... about what time I wanted them to start bar-be-queing the chickens, tomorrow. What time do you want, Liza?"

She looked at her sister. "Well... maybe around four? We could start eating maybe five-thirty or so. Would that be all right?"

Jim lifted his glass in agreement and nudged John.

"OK, fine with us," he said, "fine with us." He whispered to his friend, "easiest job of the day.

"In a more serious note, did you happen to see they're building another gun installation at Waimea? The Army is expanding all along the coast. They know the Japanese are coming... it's going to be bad, I'm sure of it.

"I've learned more about them in the last few years than I wanted to know. Damn Japs are going to blow up the Pacific, just you wait and see.

"They have that crazy mentality that we think the same way they do... that if they can knock us out quickly, we'll sue for peace or something and give them whatever they've already taken, just like in China and French Indo-China.

"Even if they invade here and kill every single one of us, America won't take that lying down, we'll come back and blow this place into the sea if that's what it takes."

"James! What if the children hear you? Don't talk so loud. Talk about something else, will you?"

"Sorry, Eliza, it's just that... ah, the hell with it. We're gonna get screwed, no matter what happens. We're a couple thousand miles away from California and California is at least that amount from the rest of the country. All those farms don't count, you know that. Speaking of farms...

"How much more food do we have room for? I want to get as much as possible canned foods before something happens and it becomes rationed."

"There's just a little more room. Anymore and we won't be able to walk into the two rooms and the floor would probably give way."

"Good."