Jessica

Jessica #1

It had been almost twenty years since winning the state lottery and I was still being hounded by panhandlers, especially after my wife's death had briefly put my name back in the news. So I explained why to my kids, sold the house and vanished for six months before buying a piece of property I had had my eye on for several years. That was five years ago; five years before she walked into my life; a time where I was wandering at the edge of the forest of doubt wondering where the daze of youth had fled off to.

The property was seventy miles from where my wife and I had raised our family, from where I had lived half my life raising three kids. It was thirty acres of exalting excitement, imagination inducement, absolving anonymity. It was thirty acres square, still zoned agriculture. 

The original farmhouse sat eight hundred feet back off a two lane highway that ran east/west. It was an older highway, one for the history books. The interstate twelve miles to the south had whittled the heavy traffic away for several years --that is until of late when crawling suburban creep began a migration of unwanted work-day rush hour traffic. The house was a two and a half story affair complete with a widows-walk up on its flat roof. There was a large walk around porch on its north and east facing fronts with the front door jutting out halfway down on the east side, facing north toward the road. It had eight large white columns running from one end of the porch to the other. The gentle sloping tin and tar porch roof extended out from the house a good ten feet. A swing hung on the far north west side of the porch, in front of a large, eight by eight, dining room window.

The house was really larger than I wanted or needed. The kitchen, facing south, was twenty-two by eighteen with a small bathroom between it and a twenty foot square bedroom with two eight foot windows facing south and one facing east. Standing in the kitchen, next to the door leading to the bathroom was a door leading to the basement with yet with another door next to it that opened to a quarter sawn spiral oak staircase leading up the second floor. Beyond the kitchen was the dining room with its large, north facing picture window. There was a fireplace on its west facing wall that was more decorative than useful. Turning right out of the dining room, you passed through one of two ten-by-ten, sliding-into-the-wall heavy oak paneled doors that welcomed you into the large living room. The living room had three windows that faced north in a half-hexagonal fashion.

I imagined that was were the annual Christmas tree always resided. There was only one other window in the living room and it was one of the smallest windows in the entire house. That window allowed the house occupant to view who it was knocking on the front door. The second ten foot in-the-wall door slid open to gain access to the circling stair case on your right and the foyer on your left. Upstairs were four nearly equal sized bedrooms at each corner of the house separated either by utility rooms, linen closets or the bathroom (complete with cast iron claw foot tube). Ascending the stair case, master bedroom immediately to your right, turning left was the hallway to the second bedroom, linen closet, third bedroom before curling around to the fourth bedroom and the door leading into the upstairs bathroom. Across from the forth bedroom was the door that lead up to the full attic which had one four by eight foot window in the middle of each side. There was a steep staircase that led up to the roof and the widow's walk. I had quickly found that to be great place to spend a summer night.

When I had first moved in, I slept in the ground floor bedroom before choosing to move up into the second story north/east facing bedroom. It had two windows facing north and two facing east. Gentle summer rains pelting on that tin roof porch sang to me a siren's songs of childhood memories as I fell off to sleep with all four windows opened wide,. 

Though it had been built the 1800's, it was a good house and had been well taken care of by the original family who has passed it down through the years till there was no one to pass it down to. That is when it came to my attention. And estate sale had emptied the house of all its heritage, leaving a stark bare building demanding a lot of loving arm wax. I put a new coat of tar on the widow's walk and new boiler in the basement. Next came a thorough draining and cleaning of the cistern, along with the removal of the huge fuse box replaced with an up to date circuit board. Then came a wall hugging drainage system and ten yards of concrete poured over the dirt and clay basement floor. It took time but I had replenished the downstairs rooms with some period piece furniture from other estate sales, flee markets and newspaper ads. Pictures and mirrors and curtains had all been required as well. This had kept me more than a little busy for the first two years. Yet in all that while, something was missing.

Over a long cold winter, I had drawn up plans, found the appropriate contractors and set about raising a thirty by sixty ranch about three hundred feet southeast of the main house. It was designed to have earth bermed up over three sides with its cedar log front facing southeast on an angle away from the back of the original house. Running a line east from the farmhouse's south wall, the new structure stood at a forty-five degrees angle to the house. 

After completion of all that construction, including a large unattached three car garage complete with utility shed and a second story woodshop, I started on yet another project. The original driveway drove straight in. That gave allowance for the house being viewed directly from the highway. I wanted my privacy. So I had the original drive plowed and sodded. I replaced it with serpentine brick pavement that entered from the highway further east than before ending in a big circle drive back behind the main house. In the middle of the circle was the old seventy-five foot deep open well covered by its original large limestone block pump house. It supplied fresh water for both houses. There was large apple tree, probably planted soon after the well had been dug, that remained in the circle of the drive. Standing between the main house and the new ranch, was a small wedge of wood consisting of two large burr oaks and one shagbark hickory. It was impossible for one house to spy on the other. 

Thankfully, twenty of the thirty acres were equally wooded. Roughly three acres had been cleared for the buildings both old and new. Along the southern most rim of the property, five acres were farmed. The new serpentine drive had taken another acre leaving one acre unaccounted for. 

At first it was my hope that one of the kids and their family would stay in the new house while visiting. In my way of thinking it would have made for a relaxing mini-getaway for their families without having grandpa's weird hours and mannerism stifling their own. However, busy with life, they rarely visited and never stayed for long. So I told them I was going to rent it out to help pay for some of the bills.

I had never owned a piece of property before which I intended in renting out. Still being outside the zone of development and factory work, I didn't know what to expect in the way of applicants. Farmhands needed for planting and harvest were always looking for a place but usually they didn't need something as nice as what was being offered or at the price being advertised. And though there was a small college in the neighboring town, I didn't really expect much response from there either. 

So my third summer came and went without much fanfare. Fall was now in full bloom with it being hot one day then chilly the next, all tempered with some occasionally but much needed rain. I remember it being in the middle of the week in the middle of October when the gray Toyota van pulled slowly back behind the house. I had installed a sensor out at the entrance of my drive which rang an old gas station bell letting me know when someone ventured on to my property.

"Is this the place with a house for rent," the young blonde girl asked upon seeing me step out from the back door. 

"That would be me. But not this big old house. It's the one over there," I said pointing down the lane.

She was young. I would have guessed her at being eighteen but something told me she was more like twenty-eight. She had a common yet pretty face. Full cheeks and comforting smile. She had a quiet way about her which was unassuming and completely disarming. No one would mistake her for a marathon runner or a gym rat. Still, she wasn't carrying any extra baggage other than a well rounded rump and two very healthy looking bumps on her chest. The young lady was what I called, "voluptuous." She had straight blonde hair that was just long enough to fall across the top of her shoulders. In typical midwestern fashion, she was graced pale white skin which gave every indication of not having seen much of that summer's sun.

"It's all new. It's not your typical house," I explained to her. "It is covered with a couple of feet of dirt on top. There's only the southeast side which is open. I put in specially tinted windows to keep out most of the heat from the sun in the summer while, with a flick of a switch, letting it in during the winter. This will be its first winter so we'll see how well it all works. Would you like to look at it?"

"Sure," a soft, quiet, some would say reserved voice replied.

"Is it just you or do you have a family? It's not a big place. I had it built thinking my kid's might want to come stay occasionally their families but I found out they're all too busy to come down here as often as I had hoped. So, I suppose if you like what you see and want to give it a go, you'll be the first to occupy her. By the way, everyone calls me Ted."

The young girl smiled and offered her hand, "I'm Jessica. People usually just call me Jessie." 

I watched as the short black skirt with a worn ivory colored satin blouse surveyed the house. I sensed her reluctance at having no windows on three sides of the house but the day was sunny and the southeast facing windows were working their magic. Regardless of what others thought, I was much pleased with my little design.

"Well I have to confess, this is a bit further out of town than I imagined and a bit back off the road. But then again, I like that it is probably very quiet out here," she commented without looking at me.

"Oh, I wouldn't have it any other way. I lived on a busy state highway for more than 30 yrs with the interstate only a half mile away. This is heaven for me now. But I could see where a young lady like yourself might have second thoughts at its remoteness."

She pulled back one corner of her hair and looped it behind her ear, turning to look at me as she spoke, "No. Not at all. I come from being raised on a farm in Nebraska out in the middle of nowhere. I hate subdivisions. By the way, I'm attending Rayford and even that sort of makes me feel uncomfortable. It's not a big school, as you probably know, but I guess I'm just a country girl at heart and miss what I have grown use to back home."

"Your parents are farmers?" I asked.

"Yes. My brothers, both older than me, are doing most of the work now. Daddy's owns a little over two thousand acres and share crops another fifteen hundred acres. So it keeps everyone busy. He wasn't real happy with me not choosing the college there in town so that I could still help everyone on the farm. But I felt I needed to spread my wings now if I was ever going to get the chance to."

"You're not just a pretty face, are you little lady?" I commented, smiling at her as I began to change my first assessment of her. "Well, this isn't exactly a farm any more. I had main barn and two corn cribs torn down. And though my thirty acres here sort of insulates me from all these blasted houses that keep popping up around here, at least for the moment, we still got a few miles of uninterrupted corn, cattle, wheat and bean fields surrounding this little bit of paradise. If you're a horse lover, there's Rice's Stables just a few miles south of me. I'll put in a good word for you with Marvin and Shirley. They're always complaining about people boarding horses there and then never coming to ride them. Maybe you could earn a few bucks getting them out of their stalls and riding them in that big indoor pavilion of theirs."

With the mentioning of that option, I sensed a more casual, unconcerned way settle in over her. "I'll take it," she said with hip slouched over to one side as she played with her hair. Big blue eyes looked up at me with a shy smile. 

At beginning I didn't see much of Jessie. I suppose school kept her busy. She was up early and home late. Weekends sometimes were for football. Sunday's were for church. And she had taken me up on my offer to introduce her to Marvin and Shirley. From their report she would make it over their way once or twice a week to ride either out on their farm or inside in the arena. They were thankful for her help, informing me that she was so good at helping out that they were going pay her more than what they had initially offered her.  

And that was the way it went until the first snows began blowing. The trees and new hedge out front, even without their leaves now, largely protected the drive from snow drifts occurring. Just in case, I had purchased a small tractor that summer, complete with a twin mowing attachment and a twin bladed snow blower for the rear. I liked my solitude but I also liked not being held captive. And now there was the matter of a renter who needed to get to school every morning.

I couldn't have asked for a better renter. She was always a day early in paying her rent. Also, she occasionally had me over when she wanted to cook something for more than just herself. It wasn't difficult to tell she had been farm raised. She knew how to cook. She kept the house clean. When weather permitted, she grilled burgers outside with a beer in hand. When winter set in and the snow began to blow, she cooked pasta dishes while holding a large glass of wine in hand. Everything was going along storybook fashion except for one thing and I began to worry about it.

Though I hadn't asked and Jessie hadn't volunteered any specifics, I had come to the conclusion that having worked the farm for two years after high school while attending that nearby junior college, Jessica was now only just old enough to buy hard liquor. I, on the other hand, had finally applied for my long overdue social security. Being easily fifty years her senior, Jessie had never once made me feel like age was a barrier to friendship. In point of fact, I think she rather enjoyed being with someone older. 

We had gotten into the routine of having supper together at least once a week, sometimes more. About once a month I would drive north to visit the grandkids. While there I made it a point to do grocery runs. Jessie seemed to look forward to my return and what I was going to introduce her to next. I guess Nebraska farm life didn't have much in the way of wide ranging cuisine offerings. Personally, I had an affinity for Chicago style deep dish pizza and just about anything Mexican. 

"Ohhhhh, Ted! You've out done yourself this time, " Jessie enthusiastically commented as she quickly put another spoonful in her beautiful mouth.

"You like it? Not too hot for you?"

"Noooo! Perfect for a cold winter's day." She laughed. "I'll have to cook this when I go home for Christmas. I guarantee you, my mother won't even try it and my dad will take a spoonful and laugh but say 'thanks but no thanks.' I'm not sure about my brothers. They'll eat just about anything but I know their girlfriends will think I'm an alien."

I had grown quite fond of her laugh and the easy way she had about herself. I watched as she ate my tortilla soup with almost a child like glee. It was totally new for her and she seemed to gravitate to things that my own children didn't. Jessie was taking on a dimension I had tried not to entertain.

Helping me put everything away, drying dishes as I washed them, knowing where everything went in this cupboard or that, it finally happened. As I sat the last dish in the rack as she reached to take it to dry, our hands touched. Her giggling and carefree chatter suddenly stopped as she continued holding my hand as I held the plate.

I could divine no shock or repulsiveness in either her body language or her eyes. Then again, neither did she make a gesture indicating any of the emotions that were racing within me. She just curled her blonde hair behind her ear while a child like smile crept across her face. 

Neither one of us were of the nature to presume. Though she had become more open and talkative over the last couple of months, she was still reserved and unassuming. I had done my level best not stare at her though I took increasing pleasure in doing so --especially when wearing certain articles of clothing. Today she wore a familiar green, deep v-neck lamb's wool sweater along with boot cut jeans. Heavy woolen socks skated across the wooden kitchen floor while her boots sat discarded by the back door.

Jessica put the last plate in pantry while I wiped off the counters and table before letting the wash water find its way down the drain. My mind was at war. She had never brought anybody home with her that I was ever aware of. She never talked of anyone special at the school. It seemed going to school, doing schoolwork, riding horses and occasionally cooking for me was all she needed in her life at the moment. She exuded contentment. Nor was I ever able to discern a single high maintenance bone in her body. I confess, I had never met a sweeter, more selfless young lady in my life. Thus, as I turned around, expecting to see her putting on her boots before thanking me for the meal and returning to her own residence, instead she had escaped my presence completely. The bathroom door was still open so I doubted she had wandered in there. Then I caught sight of it. I drew a deep breath when I saw four naked fingers and a left arm clinging the pantry curtain from within. Two very wide and bright blue eyes cautiously looked out at me over that shy, mischievous smile.

Slowly she stepped out from behind the pantry curtain into the kitchen, playing with her hair, wearing only her jeans and a light blue lacy bra. The color of her large areola matched her lips. I then noticed that her jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped, riding low on her hips. It was a sight that eclipsed everything I had ever encountered to that point in my life. I could tell she was teetering between hope and sudden regret.

"Wow!" I said with as much approval as I could muster. "Wow!" I heard myself say a second time.

Mostly through genetics but also through hard work and discipline throughout my life, I knew that if you chopped my balding head off along with its white goatee, my body could pass for a man easily half my age. Often I wondered why I never became what I imaged other people my age became.

"Jessica." I called out her name but in a tone by which I both questioned her intent while at the same time expressing my deep appreciation of having done it. "Wow!"

Jessica continued to remain silent as she slowly and without gaining much confidence, made her way over to me. Twirling her hair she just smiled, granting my eyes permission to wander. 

Her breasts were even larger than I had imagined. F cups? G cups? The pale white skin of her naked stomach was smooth and spotless. Only the briefest of visions of hair were witnessed escaping from her unbuttoned jeans. My eyes returned to hers, each questioning the other before closing and leaning in.