Reminders

I

Three months after her mother's death, Kara stood outside the bedroom her parents had shared. The mourning period was over. Her father had moved back into the room the night before, and today Kara was to clean the room as her mother had done every day of her marriage.

She pushed open the door quietly. Her father was asleep on the bed. He had taken a second job, working nights, to help take his mind off his wife's death. After the worst of his grief had passed, he decided he liked the extra money he was earning. He was now able to buy some things his wife had forbidden when she was alive. He kept the job even though it wore him out physically and kept him from seeing his grieving daughter very often. Most days, they saw one another only at lunch. He ate quietly, as was his lifelong habit, but after many meals he would say "You remind me of your mother more and more" as he left the kitchen and prepared his things for his afternoon job. Every morning, he sat down and ate only half the breakfast she prepared. Then he dragged himself to the sofa and slept for four hours. Now, with the mourning period over, he dragged himself to his old bed in the big bedroom in the back of the house. The first night time there without his wife was not as odd or as lonely as he had feared, since he fell right into a deep sleep from being so exhausted from working all night.

Kara turned 18 just after her mother's death, but she looked much younger. At her mother's graveside, all of her aunts took hold of her face, looked down into her eyes, and said, "You're not strong enough or woman enough to manage a house. Your father better marry again, soon, or his house will go to ruin." Her father simply put an arm across her shoulders and walked all the way home with her. As he stopped to feed a few yard hens, and she went inside ahead of him to make their supper, he called after her.

"Don't listen to those old women. You have always done a fine job in our house. You remind me of your mother more and more."

That was three months ago, and over time she watched her father grow older, much older. Now, she stood in the doorway of the room where just a day before neither of them could go. She took a long look at her father then walked inside and tiptoed around the bed. She set her cleaning bucket on the small stool under the window. To bring in the morning sunshine that would show her the worst of the dust, she started to pull open the curtains but quickly remembered her father was asleep behind her. She quietly pulled them shut again and turned to make sure the brief infusion of light had not disturbed him. In the gray shade of the room he looked more dead than asleep, his skin ashen and his face twisted from some dream that had overtaken him in the deepest realms of his unconscious. Kara stared at his face until a slight movement under the sheet drew her attention down to his middle area. She blushed and turned away as soon as she knew what was happening to him. (She had seen her father walk about in his nightshirt, and her mother once had to explain that sometimes men wake up like the bull in the corral when a cow is nearby.) Quickly, she reached down and pulled a rag from the bucket and began to dust the furniture. Afterward she folded some clothes her father had left laying carelessly around the room. She carried them to the closet next to his bed.

With the closet door open, she saw all the things her mother had left in place when she died. The top shelf was full of hat boxes and scarves and gloves. The floor was covered with pairs of shoes. Her father's things occupied only a small shelf on the left and a short portion of the bar where all the clothes hung. Her mother's dresses and heavy wool sweaters dominated the rest of the space.

Kara breathed in her mother's smell as it came off the clothes. For three months she had kept away from this room, and the time had allowed her to take over the home. "You remind me of your mother more and more" her father kept telling her. And she, too, reminded herself of her mother, doing all the work her mother had done. But now, here, breathing in the old living scent of her mother reminded her of the woman who had for years lived in this room, cared for the man asleep behind her, and taught Kara to grow into a young woman. For the first time since just after her mother died, she had time to miss her. She grieved again and sobbed in careful silence. Then she put her father's folded clothes in the closet, closed it, and left the room to prepare lunch.

The next morning she returned to the bedroom to finish what she had been too upset to finish the day before. Her father again slept on the bed, and she again had to fold his discarded clothes and put them away in the closet. This time there were no tears. Instead of crying she pulled one of her mother's sweaters, a thick woolen one, off a hanger and held it to her nose. She inhaled the scent and embraced the garment. She thought of slipping it on over her head, but as soon as she imagined it she abandoned the idea. It was too much. She quickly hung the sweater where it had been and she closed the door. Again she left the room without finishing her cleaning.

This habit of staring into her mother's closet went on, day after day, until a week later when finally she stopped thinking and slipped an old sweater over her head. She pushed her arms through the sleeves and let the body of the thing fall over her. Then she closed the door and looked in the mirror that her father had nailed onto the outside.

She was not the stature of her mother. She had neither the height nor the breadth of body to fill out the sweater as her mother once had. Her hair did not fall over the shoulders and down the back as her mother's had. Standing there looking at herself she began to wonder what her father had meant when he told her she reminded him of her mother. Here it was plain to see that the two women were nothing alike. Except in the breasts, perhaps. Kara saw her two, growing, womanly mounds as they filled adequately the front of the sweater. It struck her just then that never before, not even when naked in the bath, had she noticed herself in this way, taken any appreciation at all for the change that had occurred. But here, looking at her reflection as she wore her mother's clothes, she did notice, and did appreciate. She wondered if it were a new change, a sudden one brought on by the death of her mother and the sudden duty to take over the home as a much older woman would have done. Or was it all an illusion? Was it the sweater itself that made her look older than she felt? She turned a little to the left, then centered herself, then turned a little to the right. They were large, sure enough, but so had her mother's been. Maybe it was this sweater after all that had given her mother such a fine womanly shape.

She opened the closet and tore off the sweater, dropping it at her feet. She pulled another one off a hanger and tried it on. Closing the door, she saw again in the mirror a woman's frame and the two large, firm, round breasts pushing to get out. If anything, this second shirt made them look even bigger – and better – than the other one had. She had to see if it was just a trick of the cloth and the mirror. These sweaters were for the deadest of winter and were made of stern, heavy wool, after all, and they must have added some shape and size to her reflection. She closed the closet again.

This time she grabbed a dress, one of much thinner material. She raised her arms and let the thing shimmy down her sides. She adjusted the fabric to suit her form. The cut was low in the front. She was almost embarrassed to look down and see so much of her own flesh almost spilling out the top. Was this a nightgown, meant only for this room, she thought? This very idea embarrassed her still, and quickly, to get her mind off what she was thinking, she stepped aside and pushed the door closed. Then for the third time she caught her reflection in the mirror.

She let out a small, barely audible gasp. There in the mirror was a woman like she had never imagined herself to be. The sleeves of the gown stopped where her shoulders became her arms, and she looked down the long smooth white skin that led to her thin, attractive hands. She moved her hands in small circles as if she was swaying them to some soft music she could not hear. Then she dropped them at her sides and looked in the mirror at the flat stomach that was hugged by the fabric of the dress, and she followed her stomach up to where her breasts looked as if they might tumble forth from the top that was cut so low. And for the first time ever she looked with purpose at her nipples. Had they ever been hard like this before? And why were they? And what were they hard for? Why did they—

Oh! She had touched them! Oh! again... Is this why they make dresses? Do women buy them or make them and wear them to feel like this—Oh! She wanted to go on touching herself there. These two hard fleshy points were growing longer still, but she wanted to feel, too, the fullness of her shape. She left her nipples and cupped her breasts from the bottom where the weight hung them so low. She lifted them, pushed them back into her a little and saw them spread. She liked that. She did it again. Then she released them and ran the palms of her hands lightly across the front, sure to brush the nipples again (for she missed the sensation... again, Oh!) How delightful it all was! She would keep this dress and take it to her room. Her father would not know, and why would he care? She lifted her head to get a last look at herself in the mir—

He was on the bed, on his knees, tall still above her. His eyes, hot and alive now unlike the dead ashen face of his sleep, came over her shoulder from the back and met hers in the mirror. Hers widened in shock, then mixed with fear, then she began to wonder what he must be thinking of his young daughter who was there – for how long now? – showing so much disrespect for the mother who—

"I told you, you remind me of your mother more and more."

Kara swallowed hard, suddenly noticing her hands now balled into fists as she gripped the fabric covering her hips.

"Turn around, Mish-- ... Kara. Turn and look at me."

The girl did. He stepped toward her and reached up to touch her hair. He brushed strands of it back off her face, then did the same to the other side. He touched her shoulders lightly and turned her back to the mirror. They both looked at her reflection, avoiding one another's eyes.

"Your mother looked like this the first time I saw her. This dress..." He ran a hand down the back and across her bottom. "Your mother's mother made her this dress to wear at the dinner where I asked her to marry me. She never wore it again. She wanted to give it to you, one day, when you were ready to be with a man."

Now both his hands ran slowly up and down the fabric that hugged her hips and her sides. Kara trembled, and no words at all came to her mind. She was aware of no language, only of the sensations of his hands and fingers running across her skin.

Then his hands ran up to her shoulders and down the bare, smooth skin of her arms. As his fingers trailed across it they left tracks of goosebumps and tremors of mild ecstasy. As the hands moved back up her arms they stopped, then moved across, without warning, to cup her breasts as she herself had done before.

"Papa..."The word came out of her mouth like an offering, in shallow, hoarse whisper, meant not to top him but to alert him that she was there, awake, alive.

He said nothing. His hands lifted her breasts, pushing them against her, bulging them into large, round, warm balls of her young flesh. Then he took his fingers and stripped away the little bit of fabric that held them inside, and his young daughter's tits fell to the open air for the first time and into a man's hands.

"Papa, no!" It was a matter of form, but it was no use to her to protest. Her father's fingers went right to the nipples she had herself been so fond of touching. He pinched them, lightly, then harder, then twisted them in small tight circles. "Ahhhhhhhhhh, Papa!" was all she could mutter now.

He stepped aside behind her and pulled her back away from the closet mirror. Moving around in front of her, her bent his head down and took a nipple into his mouth. The girl moaned louder and her hands reached up to his head, her fingers roaming eagerly through his hair, pulling his head closer still to her breast. He sucked as if he wished to drink life from her, and life began to grow in his pants. He reached up and pulled one of her arms down until her hand rested on his front where his growing erection ached to get out.

"Ohhhhhhh!" she let out and her eyes widened, as if she wondered what to do next. But she asked no questions. Greedily she played with this thing throbbing under her hand.She rubbed the tip of it, making circles on it and feeling the heat growing in the palm of her hand. Soon she sought the buttons of his fly and tore them away. When his stiffened cock sprang forth, she gripped its heated shaft in her virgin hand and squeezed. He moaned. She squeezed tighter. He moaned louder and bit her nipple. She shrieked and clamped down on his cock. He reached down and showed her how to loosen her grip and stroke. She took over, her hand gliding up and down in hot strokes that seemed to add an inch to his cock with every finished motion.

He could wait no longer. He lifted his mouth from her tits and shoved her away, causing her to fall, sitting, onto the edge of the bed. She gasped, her face a mix of fright and confusion and a sense that she had disappointed him, but he simply moved in, placing his cock at her lips. She looked down at it and opened her mouth. He titled her head back and started fucking her there as the mouth widened. "More, open it" he said, and she complied. Soon she was sucking him as much as he was fucking her. He pulled her hair up and enjoyed staring down at her young, thin, sleek neck as it carried her head to and fro on his bursting cock. His wife had never been able to fully receive him. "Szcherbuto," she called him. "Big horse" in their language. But Kara was eager to satisfy him, and eager to satisfy her own apparent wonder at what was happening. She sucked faster, feeling her mouth get wetter as his cock grew still larger. When he reached down to twist a nipple again, she moaned with a sound as throaty as the whores near the river, and she sucked him even faster.

It was too much. He had been without the touch of any woman for more than a year. Kara was sweeping over his entire length, wet, fast, greedy with youthful hunger. He took her hands and placed them behind him, on his ass, and told her he was about to give her something he wanted her to taste and drink. "Pull me tight into you," he gasped and shouted, " into your mouth.... NOW!"

His cum shot out and she buried her face deep onto him. He continued to thrust. She backed off only to swallow what he gave, then sucked him deeper to coax more out of him. He obliged, letting stream after stream pour forth.

"AAGGH!! Kara! Deeper, yes, like that! AAGGHHH!!!!! Take it ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!"

He was pumping in short bursts, hard, like the horses he bred every spring. The girl was gulping and gasping and seemed unwilling to stop. He had no idea how much was in him. He kept fucking her mouth. She kept opening to him, her fingers now clutching tightly the skin of his bottom. He put a hand behind her head and sunk a last, deep thrust into her throat as a final stream of his cum shot out. She steadied herself and let it all trickle slowly down.

They stayed like this until finally he was empty, finished. The girl never moved, her mouth locked to the base of him. He had to slowly ease her off. He lay her gently back until her head rested on the pillow that once rested her mother's head. He smoothed her matted hair and stroked her cheek. She looked up at him. They smiled.

"Papa, what did Mama do after you did that?"

The old man stood and started to pull the dress she wore all the way down off her body.....