Motel Summer Ch. 01: Baby Monitor

After my sophomore year of college, I decided to take a pair of courses in summer session, rather than taking a summer break at home. I couldn't really afford to go anywhere else, and I had a decent job fixing bikes at the local cycle shop. Staying put would give me the opportunity to get ahead financially and academically, so I thought it was a no-brainer.

Just before spring session ended, my landlady stopped by the house with a proposition. She was a big buxom mid-Western gal of, I guess, about sixty. She knew everyone else would be out and she wanted to get some work done on the place during the summer. My hanging out would put a crimp on that.

Her proposition was simple: she'd put me up in a local motel that she owned and forgive the rent if she could do the renovations. It would be all summer out of the house, but I figured it was a good deal, as long as the motel didn't suck too badly.

"Look, Cal, it's a family-friendly place. It's got A/C and a pool. And it's closer to school--I know you're riding your bike in, which has to be sweaty in the summer heat."

It was a fair point, so the next day I went over to check out the rooms.

The manager was waiting for me. He had a nice end unit held for me at the back, where it'd be quiet. The place was carefully maintained, even if the buildings were of mid-century vintage. There was a newer flat screen TV and a queen-sized bed that wasn't too hard to sleep on. There was even a small table and chair I could use as a desk.

I called my landlady up and gave her the green light.

The third night I was there was a Friday. I worked that day, had an early dinner, and biked back to the motel just as twilight was giving way to night. The room next door stood wide open, and a woman was taking suitcases from a worn minivan into the room. Inside I could hear a baby crying and another kid going "mamma, mamma, mamma" on endless loop. I could see her frustration, so I parked my bike quickly and stepped in to help with the luggage.

"Hi, I'm Cal. We're neighbors tonight. Let me help you," I said.

Her mouth said, "I'll be fine," but her flushed sweaty face said she was ready to scream.

"Really, it's no problem." I took a suitcase and a big square thing that turned out to be a portable crib out and marched them into the room. She went to the baby first and then her other daughter. By the time I'd carried in the last bit, calm was descending. She had a towel over her shoulder to hide where she was nursing her child, so I just said "There you go. Have a nice evening" and stepped out.

The next morning, I was able to sleep in and didn't roll over until nearly eleven. The walls of the motel were thin, so I could hear the mom in the next room talking to her kids, although I couldn't tell what was being said.

After I was cleaned up and decent, I propped open the front door and sat down to study. It was going to be a scorcher later, but fresh air is always preferable to air conditioning and airing the room out seemed like a good idea.

At some point, my neighbor tapped on the open door.

"Hey there," she said, "I wanted to apologize for being rude yesterday. That was really nice of you."

"It's alright. I was glad to help." I looked up. She was wearing a dark blue one-piece swimsuit under one of those beach coverups like my mother used to wear. Her hair, somewhere between brown and blonde, was drawn back and she had spritely blue eyes.

"Well, a gal on her own can't be too careful, but the girls can be a handful sometimes." She was hovering by the door, not willing to go into some guy's room, I guess. "We're on our way to Oregon, although we're taking a break today. The pool looks too nice and, frankly, I'm not ready to face another day in the car with the kidlets."

"I'll bet. I haven't tried the pool yet. Maybe I'll join you later." She thanked me again and I turned back to my studies.

About one I decided it was getting too hot to study. I could hear some excited kids screeching in the pool and the idea of a dip had cemented itself in my brain, so I cranked on the A/C unit to cool the room for later and switched into my swimsuit.

The pool was one of those shallow amoeba shaped things suitable for small children. There was another couple there with their two boys and Neighbor Lady's daughter was cavorting in the water with them. I looked around for a place to park myself and she beckoned me to sit near her.

She'd shed the coverup, giving me my first real look at her. She had some nice curves under the spandex of her suit. Maybe a bit of belly fat leftover from the baby, powerful thighs, and a fairly substantial bosom. The twinkle in her eye was still there too: she'd caught me surveying the landscaping.

"You're Cal, right? I'm Sara." She reached out so I shook her hand.

"Yeah, I'm a student at State. My landlady owns this place and she's putting me up here while she does some renovations on my usual place."

"What are you studying?"

"At the moment, nineteenth century English poets. But my major is civil engineering."

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!"

"Shelley! But mostly it's the heavy stuff..." and I recited a bit of Tennyson.

Dark house, by which once more I stand

Here in the long unlovely street,

Doors, where my heart was used to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand.

She laughed. "Are they still making undergrads memorize that stuff?"

"Sounds like the voice of experience. Yes, at least Professor Schott does. She says it's how the poetry is meant to be experienced."

"She's probably right, although that particular poem is rather lengthy, isn't it?"

"Luckily I don't have to memorize all of it. I think there are over a hundred cantos. On the other hand..." And then, trying to imitate my professor's voice, "By God, we'd have no Homer but for the memories of our forebears."

Her daughter crawled out of the pool then, tired and looking for a snack, and then her baby started to fuss.

"It's nap time, so I'm going to head in."

I waved them off, took a plunge in the pool, and relaxed a bit before returning to my room.

When I arrived, Sara had her door open, and everyone was cranky. Her A/C unit was producing only hot air, making the already blazing afternoon unbearable. I'd seen the "no vacancy" sign and I could see her restful day was slipping away.

"I've got an idea. Why don't you put them down in my room. My A/C works great, and housekeeping has done up the bed." We got her drooping three-year-old into the bed and the baby sleeping in her crib while my unit kept the temperature in the habitable range.

That's when she produced the baby monitor. She plugged the little white radio in, and we retreated outside, lest we disturb them.

With her A/C off her room was hot, but not unbearable. She went to the mini fridge and pulled out a couple of sodas.

"I'm sorry to put you out like this."

"I had younger siblings. I understand the importance of nap time!"

"Maybe not entirely. Mommy needs the down time just as much!"

The chairs in these rooms weren't that comfortable, so she sat down on one side of the bed and gestured me onto the other side. We propped ourselves up with pillows and sipped our sodas.

"I was working on my Masters in English before..." she waved her hands around, indicating parenthood. She couldn't have been more than a three or four years older than I was. It felt kind of funny, to be sitting in a girl's bed, drinking soda. She kept stealing glances at me, so I flirted back. I let my eyes trace her legs up to where her sex was just barely covered. She looked up and down my arms and chest. I let my eyes measure the rise and fall of her breasts. She gazed at the bulge in my trunks.

We were talking about poets all through this, about the repressed desires of the Victorians, but I started to feel a repressed desire of my own. She hadn't said anything, but the insinuation dripped from every word. I put down my soda.

The kiss was delicate at first. I didn't want to push my luck. I wasn't even sure this is what she wanted. But the response left no doubt. There was the merest hint of tongue, followed by a shuddering intake of breath.

I put my arms around her waist while hers encircled my neck and cradled my head. I had limited experience with girls, but there was no wrong move in that moment. Our mouths wordlessly spoke of desire. We both closed our eyes in the heart of each smooch, but stole glances around the edges. I could feel her bosom pressed against me through her suit and, more compellingly, skin of her naked thighs next to mine.

I put my hand on her breast, feeling how the bodice was padded for modesty. The push of my fingers against it made her pull back slightly, "Um..." She seemed about to demur, break off. I let go and held her body again.

"I want it... but I get in trouble easily."

I kissed her again, unable to think of what to say. It was intoxicating to be so close to her, especially as she let one hand slip down and feel the effect she was having inside my suddenly too-small bathing suit. And then some words came to me and I recounted them, going for a mock serious tone:

To live of love, it is to know no fear. No memory of past faults can I recall. No imprint of my sins remaineth here. The fire of love divine effaces all.

O sacred flames! O furnace of delight!

I sing my safe sweet happiness to prove, in these mild fires I dwell by day, by night.

She laughed! "Saint Therese?"

"Mm-hm."

She added, "I like the old poets better:

Come to me now once again and release me

from grueling anxiety.

All that my heart longs for,

fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love's battle.

"Who is that?"

"Sappho."

"Too bad neither of us is a lesbian."

She reached her hand back between us to feel my arousal for her, saying as she did:

"He is dying, Aphrodite;

luxuriant Adonis is dying.

What should we do?"

Luxuriant Adonis was definitely not dying at that moment. I renewed our kissing and, given her boldness, brushed her breast again. She shifted and rolled around, forcing me onto my back. Her body straddled me and her hands grabbed my wrists and held them above my head. She pressed her pubic bone against mine and ground against old Adonis, but two layers of swimwear were in the way.

"I don't have any protection," she said, reaching down to fumble with my suit tie.

"I do, but it's in my room," I replied. "We can do other things..."

"I want you to fuck me, but you have to warn me before you cum. I can't explain a baby number three..." She paused and then recited:

Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me

bittersweet,

irresistible,

a crawling beast.

And she was crawling, down down to pull at my swim trunks. Having pulled them off, she stood at the end of the bed and started to pull down her own suit. Coyly, she worked the dark material down, cupping her breasts before exposing them shyly. They hung low and round, the light pink conical tips dangling suggestively. Her smile flashed as she wriggled her body free. Her belly was creamy and soft-looking, marred only by a pair of stretch marks. Finally, she worked the narrow gusset free between her thighs and let it fall to the floor.

The crawling beast remounted the bed and came to meet my outstretched arms.

"Gently, let us steep our love In the silence deep, as thus, Branches arching high above Twine their shadows over...," I began, but her mouth shut off the rest of it. And I was more of a stabby beast than a crawling one. Adonis, rising to the occasion, touched the wetness between her thighs, helped by her guiding hand, and I was inside her.

Her face made a look something like pain, her lips trembled as she felt the invader inside her. She worked herself downslope until fully impaled. My hands went to her hips, the better to align our tenuous first coupling. "Oh!" was all she could say. A growing crescendo of "Oh! Oh! Ohs!" Her face flushed, the redness working its way down her neck and into broad expanse of her chest. The heat of the afternoon doubled the sweat of our exertions. Each push of her hips made a juicy squish against me.

I wanted it to last forever, but she coaxed me to my climax quickly. I waited, waited as long as I could, holding back, clutching desperately to control, wanting to please her. Finally, and mindful of my promise, I panted, "I'm gonna..."

She looked down at me and I could see that she was so very close. The little begging hint in her eyes wanting just that one bit more. "Uh!" I intoned, the urgency starting to boil inside me. I let her keep going, her own moans worrying their way past her lips.

I grabbed her hips again, feeling the big fertile mass of them, how they overflowed my hands. I grabbed them and tried to lift, tried to bend myself so that I'd spring free. She cried out and, in that moment, I lost control. She must have felt the first long warm pulse: she looked down, directly into my eyes, just then. Then, somehow deliberately, she pushed back against my urging and settled me deep inside. She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate on enjoying the feel of my finishing off inside her.

We were still then, panting a little. Then she twisted slightly, with a "huh".

She smiled ruefully. "I always feel when I ovulate. I always know. It's this little pinching feeling. And I just had it now." I put my arms up to pull her to me, but just then the baby monitor emitted a few tentative cries. Instead of afterglow, she was called into action, frantically pulling her suit back on and grabbing the coverup.

I gathered my clothes and darted into the bathroom, while she went to check on her kids.

It was a wonderful moment, yet a confusing one. What had happened? I might have done something irrevocable just then, and her practically a stranger.

Through the baby monitor I could hear her cooing to her infant. A rustle of cloth as she changed a wet diaper, then more, perhaps as she sat to feed her. Her older daughter sat up then and they talked about what to do with the rest of the afternoon. Going to get popsicles and then later.

The little girl asked "how long until we see daddy?"

"It'll be a while longer, sweetie," Sara replied. I gave up eavesdropping and stepped out of her room. I tapped on my own room's door.

"Come," she said. The cool blast from the air conditioning felt wonderful. Shades still drawn, the room was dim, but the domestic scene made me smile. She didn't move this time to hide the breast being suckled greedily. I glanced in her eyes and saw something mischievous.

"Hi Cal. Amanda, what do we say to Cal for letting him use his room for naptime?"

"Thank you, mister Cal," she intoned.

"You're very welcome, Amanda."

She finished up with her nursing, burped and fussed with the now content baby, and put herself together. All the while I was thinking of my massive load of sperm wriggling and swimming up inside her. She must have been thinking it too, feeling it in her, as she kept stealing glances at me, checking if I were watching her tend to the infant in her arms.

"I'm going to take them out, my poet, and give you your room back. Would it be too much to use the same setup as naptime at bedtime tonight?"

"I'd like that very much."

They went back to their room to change clothes and, a little later, I heard the car start to go on their popsicle run.

They came back after dinner and there was a flurry of baby care. Sara put the baby into a crib in "our" room, then made up the bed in the cooler room for Amanda while she was getting into jammies. I retreated to Sara's hot room and listened over the baby monitor as she read Goodnight Moon. I had the front door propped open, hoping the outside air would cool things a bit. Little Becky was quietly sucking her thumb.

Finally, Sara left Amanda to sleep and crept into the room. We spoke in a low whisper, to keep from disturbing Rebecca.

"Mmm, Cal. That was quite a day. Thank you for making it special."

"It was wonderful. Thank you for..." I trailed off. She grinned.

"I saw you brought the box of condoms over here," she said. "I appreciate the thought. And that the box is new and unopened. But after what happened earlier, I think tonight we won't be wanting them."

We were just sitting on the bed. I put an arm around her then and we sat looking out into the dark parking lot. The neon of the motel's road sign lit the space with reds and yellows.

"I..." she started, then stopped. "I know you must be worried by..." she tried again. I let her take her time.

"I've always known the moment I got pregnant," she said. "With Amanda, it was the little pinch when I was shopping at the grocery store a few hours after making love to her father. With Becky, it was just like today: he came inside me and I felt the little pinch and I knew."

"I knew I was taking a risk today, because of the time of month. But also, I don't know what it is about me, but I often feel it soon after really good sex. When I'm a good girl and used... those things..." She nodded at the box of condoms, "then it's kind of sexy and kind of sad. Because it was an opportunity, if that makes any sense."

I started to respond, but she went on.

"Today, I just know. And I'm not sad. But it's maybe going to be a problem. I'm going to Oregon tomorrow. I probably won't see you again. I'm looking to patch things up with their dad. And I'm going to do that while most likely carrying another man's child."

"I never want to lie to my children, to our child, about who their daddy is. Are you ready for that?"

I'd let the words percolate through my ears. I felt a rush of fear, the watery feeling in the gut that marks a man as a coward, but I didn't hesitate: "I think that's important too. I don't know if 'ready' is the right word, but I am responsible and willing. And, I don't know what the word is, but I think it would be satisfying, somehow?"

"I think it is too. You seem like a good man, Cal. We might be in one-another's lives for a long time. I know we don't really know each other, but I want you to make love to me tonight. I want you to want to put your children in my womb and claim it as yours. Just for tonight, I am your woman and you're my man," she said. I looked into her eyes and kissed her. Then she got up to close the door.

And thus a delicate spark

Of glowing and growing light

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams

I had given her more Tennyson, so she gave me more Sappho:

One more time taking off in the air, down from the White Rock

into the dark waves do I dive, intoxicated with lust.

"I am intoxicated with it, too," she said, as I drew off my shirt. She pulled the bedspread off and pulled down the stiff and starchy sheets. We climbed into the bed naked. This time, she lay on her back and welcomed me with open arms and legs. I stalked her there, on all fours like a panther. I started to lean, to put my face in the leaves of her book of desire, but she wanted something more. She urged me to nestle face-to-face, tasting each other's breath.

I could feel my stiff cock hanging between us, wanting to bind us up in a mating dance. I brought it between her thighs and she opened herself to the chapter, to the page she wanted marked. Our tongues touched, eyes closed, as we gently joined. I felt her parted legs draw me in, embracing me, holding me.

We were two, slowly moving, tangled together. I felt the wetness of her core, the faint sheen of sweat on her body. She grasped my muscles, felt the strength of my back, the tightening of my buns and they sent me exploring, looking the places that would elicit the most pleasure from her.