Intimate Blackout

Jack surprised the shit out of us one day when he arrived home early. I'd just come in from a hard session on the pool lounge wearing only a t-shirt over my bikini top, the hem of which barely reached my naval. We were having unprotected sex now (I was on the pill) so you can imagine the state I was in. Luckily I heard the door and darted behind the breakfast bar!

"Jack! You're home early!" I called unnecessarily loudly, attempting to warn my lover whom I'd left semi-comatose and naked on the pool edge. I pretended to fiddle with the utensil drawer.

"Yeah, I needed a break. Everyone wants a piece of me... even had to okay approval to give some poor street kid a grant to study at night school. Why is it that people can't just make simple decisions like that without me having to babysit everything they do?" He walked toward me and I'd like to have hugged him and consoled him, but that may have proved disastrous! I panicked! I prayed that the bench was shielding my lower nudity.

"Oh, you poor baby! Have a seat, I'll get you a drink and then give you a nice kiss!" I tried to look cool... I held my breath.

"Okay, thanks honey..." He stopped advancing, turned and wandered into the lounge. I grabbed an apron trying desperately to remember were I'd dropped my bottoms. I had to warn Carl! The apron was only a skimpy waist half wrap but it's all I had!

"I'll just call Carl in; he probably would like a cool drink about now as well. He's been going at it pretty hard all day today." I tried to sound sorry for poor old Carl! I knew he'd been going hard at it because my bow legged stance confirmed it. I waited until Jack leaned back and closed his eyes before darting out into the family room keeping my covered front toward him just in case he looked up. Luckily I made my escape and ran down to the pool enclosure. Carl was naked and fast asleep on the tiled pool edge. Poor baby was all tuckered out! I padded up on bare feet, grabbed his arm and overturned him unceremoniously into the cold water!

"What the...!!" He spluttered, arms splashing, trying to work out how the hell his peaceful dreaming suddenly turned nightmarish.

"Quick get dressed, Jack's home!" I was scrambling about on all fours upturning towels in a frantic attempt to find my bottoms.

"Hey, I like the view!" He chuckled. I turned my head about and realized my bum was facing him, the apron doing nothing to shield his vision of my privates. Carl was grinning like a jackal.

"Hurry you idiot, or we're fucked!" I found my bikini briefs and scrambled into them, arranging the tiny slip of material into place and smoothing down the apron. Jack had seen me flaunt myself in my swimwear in front of his friend previously, so I hoped this would not be an issue. A quick frantic wade into the shallow depths of the pool to 'clean up' followed by equally quick toweling found me scampering back into the house all to the bemusement of the smug face leering at me like some predator over the rim of the pool.

"He'll be in shortly... Carl just needs to pack away his equipment." I poured my husband his drink and swayed over to his chair, placed the drink and planted a kiss on his head. An arm wrapped my waist and then his face jerked up to stare inquisitively at me.

"What the hell are you wearing?"

"Um..." I lifted the apron quickly, just enough to prove I was in fact wearing something, because my bare bum cheeks may have suggested otherwise. I didn't quite trust my hasty clean up; the smell of chlorine hopefully masking the other 'smell'.

"My god Jill, you can't be prancing around the place like that while Carl's here!"

"Oh honey, Carl's a big boy and I'm sure he's been 'around' and seen way more than this! He's seen me in this bikini before you know."

"Yeah, but I was with you then. What if Carl gets the wrong idea?"

"Jack... I'm a big girl. I can look after myself." I couldn't possibly keep looking at him; my blush was beginning to get hold of my neck. I turned and swayed my mostly naked bum back into the kitchen just as Carl stumbled in feigning exhaustion.

Perhaps it was no act!

"Hey man, how come your home? Had an easy day at the office hey?" Dressed in his shirt, shorts and work boots Carl looked like some blonde builder hunk from some hardware commercial. I wandered in casually and handed him his iced water, turned, making sure that my ass was almost in his face, and curiously examined my husband, who knew exactly what his best friend was viewing behind my skimpy apron.

"Would you like something to eat honey, like a sandwich or something?" Jacks eyes were sparkling with lust as I innocently awaited his answer.

"I'll have some ham in a bun baby." Carl chuckled and slapped my bare bun.

"Hey, cut that out!" I turned and placed my hands on hips to pretend I was cross. Jack could not see me smile and wink, but he'd see the hand print! "If you're not careful mister, you'll get a knuckle sandwich!" I smirked. "Now, if you want something to eat come into the kitchen and help!"

He grumbled some shit about having worked hard all day... Yeah? I turned and glanced over my shoulder. Jacks eyes were caressing my rear end. "Jack! Do you want one too?" That startled him and he glanced up and nodded like some star struck child. I pointed to Carl. "Okay, you, come butter the rolls while I work on the ham." I dragged Carl up still smiling wickedly. I stole a glance at Jack as I tugged Carl into the kitchen. My husband appeared spaced out. Carl just leaned up against the kitchen bench with his arms folded and smirked at me playfully as I twirled in front of the fridge. He was still in view of Jack who sat immobile in his lounge chair sipping absently at his scotch, but I was out of his view. I playfully lifted my apron and wriggled out of the bikini thong winking at Carl and using a finger at my lips to shush him! From his chair there was no way Jack could see anything below my waist and I was feeling really naughty! I strolled over to the breakfast bench and arranged my condiments. Facing Jack I pleasantly inquired about the intricacies of his day. We chatted normally until I felt something tickling me south of the border. I pretended to look at whatever the hell I was chopping. Carl's smirk ridden face grinned up from beneath me as he helped himself to some pie whilst holding the apron aside. I groaned. The sneaky bastard had walked from view and then crawled across the floor on hands and knees shielded by the island bench to delve stickily into my treasure. Then he shocked the hell out of me as he called out to Jack!

"Hey man, we seem to be all out of mustard. I've got some sweet chilly honey?" He banged a cupboard door beside us. I groaned and then recovered quickly, turned and shoved my wet crotch hard against his stupid grinning face.

"No, Carl, the mustard is in the pantry, not in the refrigerator!" I managed to wheeze.

"Mphhh..."

****

The teasing and innuendo continued, but the further and longer we played the 'game', the more increasingly hard it was for me/us to confess our transgressions. I realized that this was entirely due to my fading excuse that, what I had with Carl, was just sex. It had morphed. I was in love with the big ape, and that fun fact scared the shit out of me! Confessing a sexual attraction was enlightenment on a whole different level when also admitting ones love for another man and the biggest problem was... I loved Jack dearly! I knew I was fucked, and discovery of my infidelity was imminent.

When it happened was unimportant. That it happened was arbitrary. How it happened was devastating!

Carl had long finished his additions to the house, a task that probably took twice as long as it should have. I think Jack was starting to worry about my constant head aches and stomach issues every time he mentioned or inferred intimacy. I always took care of his needs, only without the intercourse. He was worried about my needs but I assured him I was okay, and that I just needed a little time to get well. So maybe he was suspicious or whatever, but we'll never know what drove him home early that day, from a summit with stockholders that was supposed to continue for a full week in Chicago. If he rang to tell me he was coming home early we would have been okay. As it turned out he had rang but I'd missed the call. My call log confirmed that fact. Had I not been screaming in orgasm, I may have heard the phone and avoided what was to follow. Unfortunately for me there was no avoiding spending every night that week wrapped around Carl's powerful body and being hammered to my bed because I was hooked, lost to lust... addicted to sex. I knew I needed help, professional help, but I was in self denial, believing it would all work out. Addicts are lost souls, until they're picked up and slapped hard.

And who was I kidding anyway, because, as mentioned, inevitability catches us all eventually.

What I do remember is that we were both consumed in the moment. Carl was fully embedded in the back door when Jack walked through the front door. I was howling so loudly that neither of us heard his tentative call. I gather that he soon worked out that the noise emitted from our bedroom was not the vacuum cleaner!

I was kneeling up on the bed yelling obscenities as my lover took his pleasure from behind. Some presence suddenly made me shiver and I opened my eyes. There, standing in the open doorway stood my husband, or what resembled my husband. The grey husk wobbling uncertainly in place was a lifeless thing devoid of movement. I'd never seen anything quite so alien. I screamed, and Carl instantly realized that this sound was not one induced of pleasure, but rather one constructed intricately of pure pain. He stopped his grunting and ramming and froze, his eyes absorbing the horror of the broken creature creeping slowly backward from the horrific fatality of its marriage so vividly displayed before it.

"Jack!! Honey..." Before I could move a frozen muscle, Carl had extracted himself, bounced from the bed and ran at the creature that was once his friend. Had he not approached him in such a frantic rush things may now be different. The broken thing held his hands high as if to surrender life, stumbled backward and stepped straight of the landing... backward!

Even from my distraught kneeling pose I could hear the crash, and a sound that resembled the snapping of a dry twig. Carl cried out 'shit!!' and I screamed... and blacked out.

Someone slapped my face and through blurred vision I recognized Carl's distraught face.

"Babe, come on, get dressed. I've called 911, but I think he might be dead." If he hadn't slapped me again I may have succumbed once more to black. I scrambled into a dress, tried to get to the door, but Carl blocked passage. "No, you don't want to see him babe." Stay here and tidy up. I'll handle the paramedics. The sound of sirens wailed nearby.

Seeing my man broken and barely alive, plugged into tubes and blinking monitors nearly destroyed me. Consumed with grief and guilt I think I cried for a week. When he didn't wake up I wanted to die. Carl was there always at my side, comforting and consoling, but his grief possibly eclipsed my own. We both harbored responsibility and together we suffered horribly.

I lived in a dark world, consumed with self-pity and fearful for my sanity. The doctor's prognosis was grim. Jack may never recover, and at best would remain vegetative. My life was over, or so my guilt ridden mind kept repeating.

I was locked in my room one grey day, curled up like a foetus and sucking my thumb. I have no idea when I began down that path of pitiful comfort. The door blew open and the lock disintegrated. Carl stood there like some Greek god with tears streaming down his cheeks.

"It's time to live princess!" He marched over to my quivering form, picked up my undernourished lightweight box of skin and bone and carried me out to the pool and to a waiting spread of fruit and goodness. At first he forcibly held my nose until I opened my mouth to breath and that response resulted in a fat grape being deposited within and a hand locked over my spitting lips. I gave up after a while and just let him feed me, thinking I'd throw it up anyway. Yes that did happen the first couple of times but eventually my wracked body accepted the sustenance. It took a few days but eventually I was holding down food.

Carl held my head close to his face and with tears streaming he delivered. "Babe, we made a mistake, but it was an accident. I blame myself but the thought of you hurting has driven me forward. I need to look after you and I need you to look after me. I have no one babe... only you."

To witness Carl cry was like imagining the Sahara weep. Big tough guys never cry. His depression possibly eclipsed my own. I realized in that still moment that I'd been selfish and self-consumed. I thumbed a fat tear from my man's lined face and smiled nervously. He needed me as much as I needed him.

That was the turning point and the realization that I needed to comfort my lover, drove me to recovery. Carl saved my life.

Four months after 'the event' Carl cornered me, actually 'corralled' me might be more appropriate. For the first time since that awful day, we made soft sweet love. It was different loving for us. Normally we fought each other, until Carl would hold me down like a roped calf and just drive into me without consequence. I loved that, the dominance and the forcefulness, but this day it was different. We made love. I guess it was coming. I'd always considered our coupling as just sex, not love. But in reality it was self-denial. We made proper love that day and the result was something completely unplanned but so very special and wonderful. With all of the distress and goings on, I'd forgotten to take my birth control; like completely forgotten for months! It goes without saying that the next time I threw up I suspected an alternate affliction.

Jessica was born happy and healthy and seeing her that very first time made me cry. My husband lay broken in hospital and my daughter would never know him as her 'father'. She belonged to another man, one I loved equally... albeit differently. Less than fourteen months later I gave birth to a second daughter Jade. Her green eyes reflected my own. She was gorgeous and our family was complete. Carl decided for the good of all to have a vasectomy.

Jacks investments were self-managed. Dividends paid all expenses and every day, unknown to me, his stock and holdings increased exponentially. I'd happily signed a prenuptial agreement which I understood would guarantee me a substantial income in default of his accidental death, but while remaining alive his wealth and the mansion remained at my disposal. His shitty brother had attempted to have him pronounced dead, but thanks to the sworn testament of his pretty nurse, we'd survived the attempt and Jack slept obliviously onward.

The one thing that tore my heart out was that Jack and I had no children. We'd let opportunity pass and now it was too late. Without an heir his family fortune would eventually pass to his brother, or his brother's siblings and that knowledge stunk like a dead fish in the hot sun.

Of course Carl lived with us and slept in my bed every night. We still made mad love, but we also made soft love. I missed Jack's brilliance and softness, his care and understanding. But Carl had other qualities, not the least his prowess as a lover. We never watched any chick flicks together like I did with Jack, nor the old black and white classics. I missed that terribly. We kind of led our own lives until bed time or one of us felt randy, in which case we'd search out the other and go at it like rabbits.

I learned how to be a mother, and that was pretty cool! The girls were so much fun and they consumed almost all of my time. God they were beautiful.

I sighed as I sat in that white sterile room as Kathy the nurse fluffed about plumping pillows and checking the multitude of tubes. The girls played quietly on the mat; Jessica attempting to reattach the heads of Jade's decapitated dolls as the youngest one quickly rendered the newly fixed doll headless once more.

Time seemed to be suspended.

****

CHAPTER NINE.

KATHY.

'All good things come to those who wait'. Whoever said that was a blithering idiot. I couldn't wait. I needed to talk to Ms Jill and I found her in the conservatory reading a steamy fiction. I knew it was steamy coz I'd been reading it when she was out with Mr Carl!

"Um, excuse me Mrs Stevens, might I have a word with you please ma'am."

The beautiful woman glanced up at me and smiled.

"Certainly Kathy, and will you please call me Jill, I've told you like a million times honey!"

"Yes Mrs Stevens, I'm sorry Mrs Stevens and from now on I'll call you Jill... Mrs Stevens..."

She rolled her eyes.

Oh well... "Um, Mrs Stevens, would it be alright if I like experimented a bit with Mr Stevens. I think he has some feeling down there... you know... and I'd like to encourage it... a bit." I was lying my stupid head off, coz Mr Stevens was functioning, but his wife had never bothered to check him out. I knew the secret ingredient, which was teasing him about his wife's infidelities whilst coxing him to arousal.

"You mean you want to play with his plumbing!"

"Um... yes Mrs..."

"Honey, it doesn't even work! And even if it did, he shoots blanks! Shit that was TMI, my bad! Anyway what's the point? It would only frustrate him." She stalled in thought. "Hey, is this about you honey? Do you have a boyfriend? I've never seen you leave this place. Do you need 'it' honey?"

That caught me flat footed!

"Err, well no of course not, um, maybe but I don't know..." My brain was particle splintered. This was about me and my secret boyfriend... her husband! Did I need it? ... Hell yeah... I was squirming in my shoes!

"Honey, if you need it that bad I can ask Carl. I'm sure he'd like to help you out."

OMG! "Oh... well... perhaps. But would it be okay if I tried with Mr Stevens though, just to see..."

"Kathy honey, I know you believe in my husband. You've been caring for him for years and I'm sure you've um... experimented in the past. But he's paralyzed beautiful and the doctors say he'll never function again." She could see my disappointment. Okay, so the pout and blinked eye thing was a bit over dramatized. "But... if you want to, then go ahead... be my guest. I'm sure Jack will appreciate anything you do. Knock yourself out darlin and the offer of Carl stands if you want the real thing." Mrs Jill smiled picked up her book and resumed her steamy story.

I wanted to dance for joy. I had a hall pass! I ran to Jack's room with the good news! He was sitting on the floor puzzling over the instructions to his new motorized wheel chair which sat gleaming beside him.

"Jack, Jack, Mrs Stevens said it would be okay!" I was going a hundred miles an hour. He looked up puzzled. "She said we could do it!"

"Slow down Angel... do what?"

"You know... the hockey pokey... Make love!" I jigged on the spot.

"What... you asked my wife if we could..." Jacks mouth was agape and he went bright red. "You actually asked my wife that!!"

I nodded proudly grinning like a cat. "Huh huh, and she said I could knock myself out!"

Jacks expression turned kind of strange. There was shook mixed with embarrassment but there was a dollop of lust too. I went with the dollop and attacked! He tried to drag himself across the floor like that terminator guy but I grabbed a shoe and reefed it free. The other shoe followed. I might have been just a lightweight girl, but the poor paraplegic was at my mercy. I rolled him over and his eyes were wide with fright. Be worried Jack, be very worried! I helped him up into his new wheel chair. He clung to the handles white knuckled. The belt and zip was easy-peasy and I yanked down his trousers and boxers. I think I'd frightened the life out of him, so I knelt and kissed his lips, simultaneously gripping his cringing manhood. That seemed to quieten his pleas to stop! But, how do I invoke some action?