Eva Pt. 20

Eva and I were enjoying a rare quiet night, no paperwork (all done on our laptops anyways), just streaming a documentary in the family room. Maria came in while Connor and Oliver were out at a UNC basketball game. "Mom, Dad, do you mind if we talk for a few minutes?"

Eva hit pause on our Roku streaming device. "Sounds serious. You know we'll always have time to talk to you. So what's on your mind?" We both leaned forward as she sat across from us on a leather chair.

"I've decided where I want to go to college, preferably. I want to go to Duke or NC State. Pratt (Duke's engineering school) and State are pretty much tied for the best engineering schools in the state. But I don't want to be an actual engineer."

Eva and I looked at her, not quite getting it. I asked her "So if you don't want to be an engineer, why do you want to go to school for it?"

"I actually want to double major, in engineering and business. I want to work on cars for a few years, learning as much as I can about repairing and rebuilding them, even designing them, and then I'd like to open my own repair shop. Maybe I'd end up owning a chain of repair shops. The point is, I want to own my own business, and this is what I'm interested in. I don't think it's that big a surprise overall."

Eva took her hand first. "Maria, if that's what you want for yourself, then your father and I will help you out like we helped all our children to whatever degree they've needed and still need us to do. If you put in the hard work, then we'll do what we can to get you started." Maria looked at me to make sure her mother was speaking for us both and I slightly nodded my head, showing I was on board as well.

"Just one thing, sweetheart" I added. "You know you're probably going to take a lot of grief when you go for a job, when you get out of school. Owners aren't going to want to hire you, and even if they do, some of the men in those shops are going to go out of their way to harass you in all sorts of ways. Emotionally and sexually. You have to know what you'll be getting into."

Maria smiled at us. Our blond, 5'5", 120 pound daughter, who was in so many ways a real girly girl, was also notoriously thick skinned and tough as nails. People tried to push her around at their own peril. "Dad, you know I can handle myself with just about anyone. I've loved taking care of my car- your old car- and I enjoy repairing my friend's cars. They gladly pay me to get it done cheaper than it would cost them to bring it to a garage. Guys and gals. I feel like this is what I was born to do."

If she wanted to go to Duke, it wouldn't be a problem getting in. Her grades and extracurriculars were excellent and Eva and I had deep connections with the school, formed over the last year. We were still doing the Shabbat dinners every Friday night and we were going to do a single Chanukah party, just a few days after Thanksgiving. It was exhausting, one right after the other, but we enjoyed doing it, especially for the small children.

Rachel couldn't join us for Thanksgiving, but she cleared a week to join us all for Christmas in California. Phyllis was living in an assisted living facility there, just a few minutes from where Will was living. The facility was expensive, and she was well cared for there, but when we all saw her in late December, it was clear time was running out for her. She needed oxygen 24 hours a day and she needed a scooter to get around as well as a full-time aide. Will and Walt took care of her expenses and they saw her a few times a week. Her mind was still sharp, but her body was failing.

Rachel's career was in full swing. Tony retired from being a stockbroker to manage her career full time. That enabled him to travel with her across the country and internationally as well. They were happy, very much in love, and they let us all know she was pregnant and due in June! They never married, had no plans to do so, but they were both happy, and it was their lives to live. Her first child, a second grandchild for Eva and me, and another charm for her bracelet, which was in a display box in our bedroom, a daily reminder of our ever- growing family.

Vince told us about a young man he was involved with, Kevin, Vince's first love. They had to be reasonably discreet since Georgetown is a Catholic University, but as long as they weren't too obvious, they were left in peace. Eva and I told him we hoped to meet Kevin someday soon and he'd be as welcome in our home as any of his sisters or brother's girlfriends/boyfriends had been over the years.

Cammy and Kyle came, of course, with Anna, who was in her first year at Penn (and she looked just like Cammy did at that age, beautiful). Cammy and Kyle were enjoying her retirement, playing golf a few days a week in the warm weather, traveling a couple of times already in those first few months. And they still talked about opening a Bed and Breakfast...in a few years, maybe. They were enjoying having time alone together when Anna was at school.

Connor was slowly getting better, and he and Oliver were getting close. That had been a problem during Connie's years serving on submarines. The two of them never developed a very close father-son bond. It was terrible that it took such an awful event for them to start to build that bond, but it came at a horrible cost, Oliver's bond with his mother. There were times he was in awful pain, missing his mother. Eva stepped in as best she could and Maria was amazing with him, but he missed his mother. Between the two of them, after a while, Oliver also began to heal.

As for Eva and myself, our second year in Durham was a huge success. Enrollment for the second year went up to 94%, we raised money to stabilize the endowment fund and put it in the black, SATs and ACT scores improved 12% and acceptances at the top universities improved significantly. By March we were at full enrollment for our third year, starting August 2023, the last year of our contract. We earned our bonuses and then some.

Just as important, we were enjoying our lives. We were back to playing tennis a few times a week, we met other couples through Duke and through our tennis club and had a nice social life. There was a vibrant theatre and music scene in the Research Triangle, great restaurants and bars. We visited Asheville to the west and Cape Hatteras and the other Barrier islands to the east. We visited Memphis and Charleston for long weekends. Maria was old enough to look after herself over a weekend her senior year and our third year, she matriculated as a freshman at Duke. Eva and I got the picture of what our life would be in retirement, and we liked what we saw.

Our love life also picked up again, especially after Maria moved out. It wasn't quite as frequent as when we were younger, but we were good for once or twice a week. The newfound privacy gave us free run of our house for the first time since we had been newlyweds in our first house back in Flushing, over 40 years before. There were times, especially on the weekends, when we made love or got kind of wild whenever the mood struck us, wherever we were in the house. And I sang to Eva more often, including playing the guitar like I used to. It was like falling in love all over again.

One night we were sitting in the library. It must have been winter because we had a big fire going, nice and warm, warm enough that we were sitting on the carpet, sipping wine in just our underwear. I had a pair of red boxers on, and Eva was wearing a matching set of a peach lace bra and boy shorts. I was playing the guitar, I think some James Taylor, Carolina in My Mind and Handy Man. Eva was smiling, as lovely as I could ever picture her. Then her foot started rubbing my leg in a very teasing manner. After a couple of minutes of that playfulness, I put the guitar aside and took her foot in my hand and massaged it.

"MMM That feels wonderful, Bear. You can keep rubbing my feet...and more. You can rub anything you like, in fact."

I moved my hands slowly up along her calves, and Eva closed her eyes with a deeply contented smile on her lovely face. "You like this, my sexy Angel?"

"Uh huh. All day and all night long."

"What about this?" I asked as I moved up behind her knee and then up her thighs. Her legs were tanned and toned from years of tennis and swimming. We were both 61 and Eva looked no older than 50. And so damned sexy. Especially when she purred as I stroked her legs. "How do you like this?"

"I think you know how I like this, my sexy man. You're getting me nice and wet. Like no lube needed wet. Wanna get freaky with me tonight?"

"Let me think about it. Yes." We both chuckled as I moved next to her, and we kissed with both love and lusty passion. My hands cupped her tits in her bra before Eva reached behind her to unsnap it.

"You want to suck my tits, don't you, my wicked Bear? Suck them until they ache?"

I already had my lips and tongue busy on her stiff pebbles and she laid back in front of the fire as she pulled me with her, not letting me free. "Suck them, bite them, Jon. I want to be dirty with you tonight like we haven't been in a very long time."

I pulled my mouth free and kissed her cleavage between her slightly sagging tits. "You're going to suck my cock, aren't you?" I swirled my tongue around her pink points.

"Yes I am. I'll suck your dick better than I ever did before."

"And you'll let me soak my face in your pussy, right?" I rubbed her gash over her panties, pressing the lace crotch onto her oozing hole.

"Yes! Dammit, Jon, get to it already! Suck on my cunt and I'll devour your hard dick! Just stop toying with me!"

I turned around as quick as I could move (a little slower than I used to) and I licked her sweet snatch through the gaps in the lace. The rough material was scraping on her lips and my tongue. as I kept licking. Eva pulled my boxers down, just past my balls and she licked and kissed my shaft, head and balls, all over. Her tongue was flicking at my thickness and I thrust my hips at her face. We were on our sides in 69, using our tongues and lips more aggressively than we had in some time.

The fire was hot, we were hot, our flesh and our craving for each other. I tugged her panties down and worked my tongue all over her lips and her swollen clit. Eva raised her hips, arched her back and moaned loudly all over my cock. The vibrations from her moans were radiating pleasure waves from my cock throughout the rest of my body, head to toes. In return I hummed as I sucked her clit and Eva's legs wrapped around my head, squeezing, smothering me in her folds and soaking my face in her slippery juices. I alternated between sucking her clit and lips and licking in circles, while she licked my balls and cock and then switched to sucking me deep so the head of my cock slipped into her throat. Things we hadn't done in a long time, or at least hadn't done while making all the noise we wanted in a room besides our bedroom.

I stopped for a moment and said "I love it when you're my dirty cocksucking slut, my Devil. My nasty Devil. I've missed this so much!"

"So have I, my wicked Bear! You do such amazing things with your mouth! But I really want you to fuck me. Hard. Dirty. Like we used to. Think you can fuck me like that?" She was smiling in a way that was so enticing.

I grinned back at her as I got up on my feet, then pulled her up with me. "Very dirty, my sexy slut. You'll beg for mercy!" I reached behind her and smacked her ass with a resounding SPANK, and then another.

She giggled, enjoying the feel of my palm smacking her cheeks. "That will be the fucking day! We'll see who begs for mercy!" She pushed me down, so I fell into a cushioned chair near the fireplace. She knew I couldn't get behind her doggy style, not on a hard surface. My knees couldn't take that anymore. But she could sit on my cock, on my lap, and ride me hard while I used my hands to play with her body. And that's what we did. She sat down, facing away, and she bounced rapidly on my hard, hot cock as one of my hands held her hip and the other tugged on her thick nipple. Then I pulled her hair, just hard enough to pull her head back as my other hand swatted the side of her ass.

"Fuck me, my Devil! Fuck my throbbing dick! Don't you fucking stop!"

"And don't you cum yet, you nasty Bear! I love fucking you like this! Oh god, I'm so fucking close.." Eva closed her eyes, grunting as she kept riding me, her ass slapping my thighs. my hand smacking her flank, both of us enjoying our nasty nature. "Dammit, Jon, I'm going to cum!"

My balls were tight and the head of my dick swelled. "Cum on, Devil! Cum on my cock now!" I tried to hold out, enjoying the way my wife's muscles gripped my cock, fairly strong even after all these years. Somehow, I kept control of myself; I wanted to give Eva a special treat, and she could sense it.

After she rode through her climax, Eva hopped off my lap and knelt at my feet. She jerked my shaft as she furiously licked at my glans. I grabbed the arms of the chair, gripping the padding tightly as my legs shook. "Eva, I'm cumming..." I cried as streaks of my semen landed on her tongue and on her cheeks. She licked as much as she could, eagerly swallowing my essence. My body slowly relaxed and I kind of went limp all over in the chair.

Eva climbed onto my lap sideways, and we cuddled as we caught our breath. We were naked but nice and warm with the fire slowly burning down. I kissed her lips, then her cheeks, sucking up the strands of my semen that landed there. She giggled when I did that, even though I had been sharing my seed since we began as sexual partners long ago. "I always have been impressed when you do that, Jon. I doubt most of the men we know do that."

"You never know for sure, Angel. What goes on in others bedrooms. It's not something we share really."

"No, I guess not. And by the way, thank you, Bear. That was amazing. I love making love with you, the way we share most of the time. But when we do these very naughty things together...you make me feel incredible. I love both sides. And I want to keep doing this while we still have it in us."

"Over 40 years, honey. You still make me burn for you. I hope we can keep going this way for a while yet. It would be a shame to lose this wild side just when we've finally got our privacy. I love when our kids visit, mind you..."

"Yeah, but I love our time alone now. I love it when they come, but I also enjoy it when they go home. Does that make us bad parents?"

"Nope. It makes us normal adults. We've had children living with us a lot longer than most parents do." I was touching her softly along her back and arms, and she was touching my cheek and chest. "Since Cammy, just a couple of years after we got married until Maria left a couple of months ago, we only had those few months between when Rachel left and when Vince and Maria came into our lives to live alone. I'm not complaining at all; I'm so glad we adopted them and brought them into our family. They've been as much a gift to us as Rachel and Connor...and Cammy. But it's time for us to have our lives. Speaking of which..."

"Yes, I've been thinking about it too. We have just a few months left to work. What are we going to do next year? I'm kind of nervous, thinking about our retirement."

"I don't know, Angel. We don't have to rush into anything. We can take a few months, even a year, and just rest and relax and enjoy ourselves while we figure things out."

"For now, let's go upstairs and keep cuddling in bed. Maybe you'd like to sing to me some more?"

"Only if you sing with me. We can sing our song. Tupelo Honey." I smiled at her with all my love.

"Deal. But I get to use the bathroom first!" She got up and headed upstairs while I killed the fire and gathered our discarded underthings, then I turned on the alarm before I followed my bride up to bed, where we sang and kissed and hugged. We also managed to find the strength to make love, slow and beautiful. It really was like we fell in love, all over again, not that we ever fell out of love in the first place.

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Connor got a job in February of 2024, teaching and doing research at NC State in nearby Raleigh, and he found a small house for him and Oliver. They were close enough to see them whenever we wanted to get together while also having a healthy distance apart as Connor put his life back together. He even took Oliver down to Georgia a few times a year to visit Leigh. He did it for the good of his son. He even started dating here and there, though he told me once he never wanted to get married again. Time would tell.

Vince brought a new man in his life, Jamaal, to meet us over the Easter break that year, a nice young man who seemed to love our son as much as Vince loved him. His family was from Boston and after spending a few days with us, they drove up there so Vince could meet them. Eva and I were happy for them; maybe it would last and maybe it wouldn't. For the time being, they were a happy couple.

Rachel took two years off from touring, one so she could take it easy during her pregnancy and then she'd have a year to bond with her baby. She and Tony refused to tell us the gender, if they even knew. They did tell us they had a due date of June 8th, perfect for our schedule as well since school ended May 14th. But bad news came before the good.

On March 23rd, Will called us to tell us Phyllis died in her sleep the night before. Even though it was pretty much expected at some point (and she lasted more than a year beyond what we expected), it was a terrible blow for the entire family. Eva cried for hours, regretting that she hadn't gotten to say goodbye to her mom. I was pretty distressed myself; Phyllis had treated me like her own, especially when my own mother died all those years ago. But I needed to be strong for Eva and our kids (and Ollie, Phyllis' great-grandson).

Her funeral was in New York, so she could be buried next to Harold, but no one lived in New York anymore. So after the burial, the whole clan flew back to North Carolina to sit Shiva at our home for a few days, then Walt and Will and their families returned to California to sit a few days there so they could receive their friends. It gave us all a few days together to comfort each other, including Cammy and her family. Phyllis and Harold had been very good to her as well those first few years.

Rachel was almost 7 months along by then and looked it. She reminded me of her mother when she was pregnant, petite, beautiful and all belly. She was recording music, classical and jazz, while she was home in Chicago. Seeing all our children and our grandson at the same time was the one good thing to come from Phyllis' passing. The entire family together at once happened very rarely by then.

Maria was enjoying college, living on campus at Duke (class of '27!) and coming home every few weeks to visit us. She fit right in there, just like she did at Durham Academy. She was a leader of her freshman class and she made friends easily. She loved college life.

One Saturday afternoon in April she came to visit us. We always enjoyed when any of our kids came to visit and due to her proximity, we saw Maria most often. Eva and I were getting ready to retire; we were gradually packing away books and papers we had accumulated over 33 years. It was a sad process and any excuse to see our children cheered us up.

After having a light lunch with Eva and I, Maria asked if we could all talk for a bit. We sat in the family room with warm sunlight filling the air. We sipped iced tea as Maria came to the point of what she wanted to talk about.

"Mom, Dad, you know, I love school. I'm having a great time there and I've made a lot of friends, male and female. But I'm sure you've noticed I haven't brought around anyone special since I've been there." We knew what she meant by 'special'. She was talking about a boyfriend. In high school we knew each of her boyfriends, as they were also students in our school. It was a little unfair for Maria; it may have scared off a couple of potential dating opportunities.