Intimate Blackout

So, what of the issue at hand? I wake up from a coma after almost six years and my wife and my best friend are partners and have two beautiful girls! They obviously sleep together, up in what was once our bedroom... and in what was once our marital bed. The woman I worshiped was no longer exclusively mine and that knowledge tore at my heart. But I was also a realist. What would I have done in the circumstances? All medical opinion suggested I'd never wake and at best remain vegetative. Jill was never going to divorce me, and that reality was not based on her loss of fortune; it was because she loved me and would never abandon me. But she had needs, as do all human beings. She craved companionship and love. She needed to communicate and feel wanted... and she had desires, desires we all have. As a barely breathing vegetable I could not fulfill any of those needs. So she had turned to our friend and he took on my responsibilities. He'd cared for my wife, watched over her and ultimately loved her. How could I negatively judge that? It was only right...

So now, around me, they acted weird, unsure of how the new dynamic of me returning home would work. I tried to shrug it off and pretend not to notice, but when they kissed, out of sheer habit and then realizing I was present and watching; they'd pull back nervously and touch fingers briefly. Jill would be affectionate and caring around me but that exuberance of life she once possessed was missing. I was the wobbly third wheel on a bicycle, of no real use and certainly not required.

Finally I'd had enough and one night after Jess and Jade had been blackmailed into bed with promises of a bed time story from 'Uncle' Jack, I called for a grownup meeting. Yes, I was 'Uncle Jack', even though I was still mommy's husband.

This was going to be tough but the situation required addressing.

Oh, and the girls always squealed with delight on any announcement of a bedtime story delivered by good old Uncle Jack, because I twisted the stories and added my own unique blend, always delivering a surprise new ending!

It was time... D-day! I rolled my chair into the middle of the room, clapped my hands and called the 'meeting' to order. The two looked about the room appearing a touch flighty and refrained from holding hands. Hey knew what was coming and nerves prevailed.

"So, I've just about had enough of you two slinking about looking guilty and anxious. Why the hell can't you both just act normal around me? I understand the circumstances and I do not begrudge you. You both had to move on, so what's the problem?" I glanced between the two lovers and tried to smile. I may have been unconvincing.

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry. We were told you'd never recover!" Jill rushed my wheel chair and hugged me. "We never meant to hurt you."

"Hey, I'm not hurting. Do you still love me?" I held her hand a little fearful.

"Of course I do, but..."

"Shhh... do you love Carl?"

"Yes..." Her acknowledgement was barely a squeak.

"Do you love your kids?"

"Yes." That confirmation was firmer.

"So what IS the problem? Go sit on Carl's lap and give the poor guy a hug."

Jill smiled and slashed at a tear. She walked over to her lover and sat on his lap. His big arms encircled her.

"That's much better." I remarked. "Now how do we proceed? Should we divorce? That will allow you to both move on with your lives?" Maybe my delivery was off because Jill burst into tears!

Carl pulled out a large checked handkerchief and offered it to his girl. "Sorry Jack, but that's the one thing she doesn't want!" Carl muttered looking distressed.

"Why, is it because of the Prenup?"

Fuck, that comment was met with loud wailing sobs!

Carl continued. "No Jack, she's never worried about any Prenup. Jill's only ever wanted to be Mrs Jack Stevens." My wife nodded furiously. "I'm just her toy-boy, her insignificant lover..."

That last statement was barely uttered as another bout of sobs ensued. Jill smacked Carl's upper arm as if annoyed. More hanky wipes and nose blows followed. My confrontation was not going well!

"I love you too you big lug!" More nose blowing! I tried a new tact.

"Okay, okay... what if we just continue as we are." I paused. "Jill and I are married but my wife has a lover. So what, we're living in a new age. Blended families are the norm, but we need to work out how the kids will introduce us, and how we move forward without all the guilt and sneaking about."

Jill had calmed and was watching me with big red wet eyes that blinked intermittently.

"You two will carry on exactly as you've done so for the past six years, and as if I am not here. For my part, I will grow used to seeing you both uninhibited and acting naturally around me. If I fail to see you kissing each other or cuddling up together all bets are off because, I'll file for divorce if that's the only way I can get you both back together." I chuckled, trying to make light of the threat, but I hoped that there was enough conviction in my demeanor to kick-start their union once more. I continued my delivery. "Now I will introduce the children as my step kids. We'll have a blended marriage, only in our case the 'ex', that's you Carl, lives with us for the sake of the kids. No one need know that the two of you are 'intimate' and sleep together. Carl, you will always be daddy to the girls and I'm happy to be called poppa or Uncle or whatever you two feel is appropriate and are comfortable with them calling me." I shrugged as Jill extracted herself and walked back to me, her appreciation more than evident in her smile.

"Thank you my beautiful and understanding husband. That idea sounds just fine." Jill sat on my lap and kissed my lips briefly. I breathed her in. God I missed her... "So, do I have your permission to kiss my lover?" She grinned at my perplexity. I nodded stupidly. "Are you okay with him touching me... intimately?" Another stupid nod, only this time I understood the game. "Are you good with my lover seeing me naked?"

"Huh ha..."

"What about us making love?" She grinned.

"Yeah..."

"You know I'll be sleeping in my lover's bed at night and... he uses me hard baby, and... I might be noisy..."

The imagery left me feeling dizzy.

"But you like that idea, don't you?" She smirked and shuffled her hips, dragging that tight denim covered bum over my crotch. Something was sparking down there but it felt like the plumbing was blocked with a thick wadded hair ball.

"Hmmm..." I tried to respond like a normal man, but I was overcome with dizziness. My wife smirked.

"Okay, Carl and I will attempt to move forward, but if things become too hard or too intense, then you need to say something. How about we all have a safe word, for when circumstances become too confronting or weird. What about 'Arretez'? It's easy to remember... it's French for 'stop'. Just think stop and remember the French translation. If anyone ever says this word, we stop immediately, what we are doing and discuss the issue immediately, even if we're in public, we'll convene to a private location and talk."

"Yeah, okay that sounds good."

Jill pecked me quickly once more, walked back to Carl and pulled him to his feet. They kissed passionately as Carl's big hand cupped my wife's bum. Eventually Jill turned to me as if to check my well-being. I smiled and raised my glass in salute. She smiled back.

We sat and talked well into the night, discussing events I'd missed both on the local scene and worldwide including the horrors of Sept 11, 2001 which mercifully I'd missed witnessing first hand. Finally Jill wheeled me into my bedroom, helped me undress and attended to my bathroom needs. Carl was summoned and he effortlessly lifted me into bed and Jill covered me before kissing me goodnight. She stepped back into Carl's big frame and he wrapped his arms about her petite waist.

"Jack, Carl and I are going to bed now. If you need us for anything just ring the buzzer and I'll be right down. Good night darling."

"Sleep well pal, I'll check on you in the morning. Come on babe, I'm feeling pretty randy tonight!" Carl winked at me over Jill's shoulder. My wife squirmed and chuckled as a big hand groped her full breasts.

"I can't wait big boy." She winked at me as well, and I smiled witnessing their playfulness.

Shit, this was going to be hard...

****

CHAPTER 6.

KATHY.

Oh my god, this place was unbelievable. The views over the bay were to die for! There was a tennis court and a huge horizon pool that offered views for miles and miles! I had my own wing of the mansion, complete with two bedrooms and an adjoining bathroom with a huge spa! There was even a big lift up to the second story!

Jack even said I could use the spare car, because it was old and unloved. When Ms Jill showed me my car, well the one I could use, I nearly fainted!! OMG, it was gorgeous. At first I thought the name said Posh! And it looked very posh and fast and sexy and silver like a diamond! Jill laughed at me, said it was a Porsche and rolled the 'e' to sound like an 'a'. I tried to pronounce it out but it still sounded like Posh. So I rang my mom and said I had a posh and she just said that's nice dear and went on for an hour about Aunt Annabelle's kidney stones. I said I was going to hop in the 'spa' and she said I shouldn't be in a 'bar' cause it wasn't lady like! I swear that momma is going senile. I said I'd talk to her later and told her that I loved her and hang up just as she started on about Uncle Bobby's ingrown toenail. Thank god she lived on the West Coast!!

I sank back into the bubbles and thought back on my unbelievable recent good fortune. Four years ago I was a mess. Stoned off my head most of the time and clinging to my asshole boyfriend Mason who treated me like shit and hit me constantly. I had no one else and for whatever reason I put up with the abuse partially believing I deserved it.

One night he came home in the early hours high on crack and drunk, waving a loaded pistol in my face and threatening to shoot my stupid brains out all over the wall if I didn't spread my legs. I cried the whole time and eventually he hit me so hard, in an effort to shut me up, that I blacked out! I woke up in a pool of vomit and pee and decided to run. I had no place to go so I went to a welfare shelter. This one was privately run and the people there seemed genuine and friendly. It was the best thing I'd ever done, as fate would ultimately prove.

The thing that hit me the most was how much strangers cared about me and it was perhaps that observation alone that caused me to inquire about how I too might get a job as a care person. Mary, the supervisor promised to check with the 'foundation head' to see if I could be sponsored into a training program.

I remember the day clearly as she practically ran at me beaming to announce that Mr Stevens had allocated money and guaranteed placement in an evening course.

It was around this time that I recognized 'him' the 'asshole' on a security camera image of a bank robbery in progress on the news whilst enjoying a bowl of hot soup at the center. Suddenly the soup tasted like cardboard. The police were offering a $10,000 reward to anyone recognizing any of the perpetrators caught on camera and the big black masked thug waving a stubby looking shotgun about, who looked up at the camera and smirked just before the image went speckled and pix-elated was instantly recognizable. The missing lower front tooth, those eyes beneath the mask and the way he dragged his left foot, the result of an old debilitating knife wound in his tendon had me shaking. The bastard glancing up at the security camera, frozen in place as the reward amount scrolled beneath it, was none other than my shitty ex, Mason Huston. With hands shaking and lips trembling I found myself ringing the Crime Stoppers number and spilling the pricks identity. The cops found him exactly where I suggested they would and the stupid fool was sprung red handed still rolling in his ill-gotten loot. Six months later he was convicted and I anonymously pocketed the reward; a small compensation given the atrocities he'd inflicted on me.

The reward monies allowed me to rent a room and feed myself whilst I worked, studied and attended classes at night. I guess the rest is history, but imagine my surprise when my very first 'real' patient in my very first 'real' job turns out to be Jack Stevens, head of the 'CARE FOR ALL' foundation, the very same man who sponsored the shelter and the very same man who'd paid for my qualification! It was certainly a small world!

Evidently the poor man had fallen down a flight of stairs and hit his head... bad. When I first attended him the prognosis was bleak. He'd been in a coma for a year before I started work, and he'd made no progress. Some family relation, who later turned out to be a brother, made application to switch of his machines, but I cried blue murder to the medical counsel swearing that he'd responded to me on occasion with eye movement and sometimes twitched a finger in response to my questions. The last bit was a big fat lie, but I wanted to claim that Mr Stevens had brain function and was not a candidate to be euthanized. I owed this man everything I now was, so a few lies were easily justified. Thank God the decision was in his favor and I spent the next four and a half years as his primary carer.

Is it possible for a girl to fall in love with a man locked up in a coma? I had no one else in my life and maybe it was the dreamy fantasies of a lost soul that had me willing this man to wake up and take me in his arms and carry me out to his carriage. During the lonely night shift hours I would find myself checking the clock at midnight and wishing for that very miracle.

Of course I knew he was married, I'd seen his wife on countless occasions. She was simply stunning; her long auburn hair flowed about her like some fiery waterfall and those vivid green eyes shone like unfathomable stars, while her long flawless legs always clicked on the linoleum flooring shod in an endless array of beautiful heeled designer shoes. Her tight blouses, ample bust, deep cleavage and designer denim or short hemlines always left me feeling small and inadequate. God, I was an ex drug addict, a pathetic skinny black girl from the wrong end of town dressed in hospital scrubs. But hey, a girl can dream! I knew his wife; Jill (as she'd introduced herself), loved her husband deeply, but even from that first introduction and the appearance of the man called 'Carl', I knew there was something else going on.

I often saw them holding hands together even while sitting beside Jack and on a number of occasions caught them kissing passionately in the hall or out in the car park which was mostly visible from the nurse's station window. When Jill became pregnant, and her baby girl was introduced to Jack for the first time, my suspicions were of course cemented. Carl and Jill were having a relationship which now included having kids, even though I knew for a fact, that she was still legally married to my charge.

So I dreamed on. My knight would one day wake up and I'd be there waiting...

And one day, that beautiful glorious day in May, he did just that. I had a feeling it was imminent. Over the previous months I'd coaxed life out of his plumbing with my gentle body washes. The amount of attention I'd given that particular part of his autonomy may have been inappropriate and outside of 'guideline' procedure, endangering my employment but when I'd noticed that first twitch, I pushed forward. Hey... as they say, the way to spark a man's brain is through his libido. Okay, so I made that up, but it was plausible! So I flicked the ignition switch constantly, and more and more the little flame flickered. I was watching his REM closely beneath his closed lids when suddenly mid stroke they opened and stared straight at me!

I screamed, threw the bedclothes over his nudity and ran for Doctor Morgan!!

****

When Jack asked me to be his full time live-in carer and come home with him I nearly died! I knew that he'd seen my tears and felt my grief in regard to his impending departure but I'd not seen this coming!

So here I was! And... Wow!

The mansion and grounds were beautiful! A little upmarket from my noisy 'El' abutting one bed two roomed apartment! Hey, I now even had a spa! He mostly called me Angel! And I had a Posh!

Jack became my sole responsibility. Other than the full time cook, Elsie, I was the only other employee. Elsie was 61 and lived with her husband about ten minutes away and arrived at about 11 am every day and went home just as soon as she completed cooking the evening meal which was generally around 6 pm. Thanks to Elsie the house was always well stocked with food and both lunch and dinner were always exceptional. I must say that she spoiled the kids though, but they loved the treats and called her grandma Elsie, so it was all good. Of course the time spent with Jack only endeared him to me even more, but I could see that he loved his wife dearly, even though it became very clear that his wife was in a permanent, stable and intimate relationship with Carl. At first I was shocked but I'd slowly become accustomed to this strange dynamic.

Carl was a massive mountain of a man and he had an easy going nature. I grew to like him but at times hated him too. As time went on he and Jill seemed to tease poor Jack endlessly. At first I thought this was really cruel, until one day I understood it all. I was actually helping Jack with his shower when Jill pranced into her husband's bedroom unannounced.

"Oh, sorry honey, I didn't realize you were taking a shower." Jill just walked in anyhow and stood radiantly before us. Her tight feminine body wrapped in a short and unquestionable expensive designer dress with a frilled hem. She looked like a twenties flapper. God I wish my boobs looked like hers! And those legs... I just froze in awe, holding Jack's chair for support as the shower nozzle continued to spray Jack's soapy chest. I stood agape, carved like stone draped in a plastic coverall, with hair pinned back and without any form of makeup. In comparison to the vision standing before me, I was a nothing.

The realization of inadequacy caused me to shrink back and feel so very small. How could I possibly compete? The plug hole suddenly looked inviting.

Jill just smiled that smile and her full red glossed lips confirmed my inferiority. "Honey," she continued, "Carl and I are heading for Vegas and we won't be back until Sunday evening. I have a sitter booked for tonight and tomorrow, including Saturday night as well, so the girls will be okay. I'll ring you form the hotel once we've settled and let you know what's happening, that is... if I can get the big guy to leave me alone for a few moments." She giggled. "But you know Carl, he's insatiable! So I might get a bit distracted, but I promise to ring you sometime honey." Jill smirked, leaned into the shower stall and sloppy kissed her husband's cheek leaving two perfect imprints of gloss lips, then turned on her heels and strode noisily from the room; her amazing frill hemmed bum swayed to some unheard twenties jazz theme.

That's when I finally understood it. Jack loved what his teasing wife was doing; his frantic breathing and now very apparent full-on arousal hiding beneath his hands told me exactly what was going on!

"So, you like it when she teases you?" I continued spraying his body with the shower head, only aiming lower. "It gets you off when your wife tells you she's about to sleep with her lover." I slapped the hands away and gently caressed him. Jack groaned and nodded, his eyes flickering shut.

If he wasn't confined to the shower chair I reckoned he'd have fallen to his knees. "You love her so much, and yet she flaunts her lover in front of you, knowing you get off on it." Jack wailed out in frustration, and pounded his palm into the shower wall... his pleasure denying him.