Renewal Ch. 01-08

Everything was perfect for Danny and Joy until their daughter Jenny, age 10, was killed in a freak accident. Here the story picks up ten years after Jenny's death. I've been writing about these characters for a long time and am pretty intimate with them, so excuse me if the story is too familiar. Sending them into this world of sexual transformation has been a bit of a personal journey as well. An earlier teaser version of this piece,"Till the Morning Comes," has been removed from Lit.

Chapter 1

The candle sat by itself on the kitchen counter, a solid block of wax in a small glass; too small a container for the grief they carried. Joy struck the match. It flared and she put the flame to the wick; the wick caught the flame, and that was it. No prayer, or ceremony; to honor and remember their dead the flame would last twenty-four hours, the light of a short life burning for a short day. Each of their sighs slipped out, mingled, found the dust in the moldings, the empty room upstairs, the railings worn smooth with grief. Danny wrapped his arms around her waist; she held his arms and leaned firmly back into his body.

"Ten years," Joy said. "We'll go say Kaddish in the morning."

"She's been dead for as long as she was alive. Junior year at college." Danny said.

"Phi beta Kappa."

"Career planning."

"Gap year."

"Birthright trip."

An advantage of your child being dead is that any future can be imagined. Right after Jenny was killed, imagining all of things she would never get to do exacerbated their grief and made their marriage grim and joyless; for quite a while grief had replaced sex as the currency of their intimacy. Yet you accommodate to your child's death, you adjust, you accrue repeated years without her until the indignity of that loss becomes shadowed by all that has happened since. So as much as Joy resisted, as if living an affirmative life would somehow betray her daughter, life had indeed reasserted itself. Work for both of them grew, their son lived, they found each other in bed again. They celebrated birthdays.

"Jake's doing well." Their sixteen-year-old son was in France on a student exchange program. He'd been gone for a week, to a new world as far as he could get from San Francisco, far from his broken parents, with a suitcase and a backpack and a yahrzeit candle of his own.

"Thank god for that," he said. "At least we have one child alive."

"It's a blessing." Sometimes, Joy almost forgot that it could end instantly. Back then that knowledge had been so pervasive that she had withdrawn emotionally from her son, his vulnerability too much to take. Of all the changes bereavement had put them through that was the one that angered Danny, but he remained steady and his selflessness in the face of her selfishness ultimately had helped Joy find a route out of her pain, into reconciliation with her new life. And that helped her love her son again. And her husband.

"Still," he said. "I wish I could be selfish. So many things to do with her that I'll never do."

"You'll just have to do them with me, Danny."

"The time that I have to do things with you," he said, "I have a very different agenda for." His hands moved to her breasts.

"What, exactly, might that be?" she said. She twisted, nestling against his side, her head in the crook of his arm, slid a hand down his belly, pressing on the emerging stiffness under his zipper.

"I remember," he said, "the night we made her." He thrust against her hand, gripped her butt; she pushed lightly back against his touch.

"That was a nice night," Joy said.

"And an amazing week. Can we do that again?"

"What, exactly?" She loved teasing him. He wanted what he wanted so much.

"You know." His face flushed.

"Tell me anyway." She pressed on his cock encouragingly.

He squeezed it out like a boy showing his mother where he hid the Halloween candy he was supposed to throw away. "You. in Hawaii. . . Naked and available. Your pussy. Your mouth. Ready for anything . . ."

She could shoot him down in so many ways, but she didn't. This is real for him, she thought. She felt like a really good wife for knowing that. It's painful for men, the depth of their desire cast against the independence of their women.

". . . especially without my asking."

She turned, leaned away, looked at him. "We've had a lot of great sex, Danny. I'm still relieved that we can love each other again."

"That's been enough," he agreed. "But I want more. I have more. More love. More orgasms. More cock. More licks."

Joy knew that to be true; she felt a vague memory of what that week had been like. A nice memory. "And more sucks, I imagine." Joy had found hat her propensity for giving blowjobs waxed and waned according to an inner rhythm that never had really emerged into her consciousness. Some weeks she'd suck him five times, then go for months where it didn't even occur to her.

He smiled. She frowned. "I'd like to want that again, but it often ends up feeling so lonely." Jenny's absence colored everything.

"I can never fill that loneliness. Please don't be afraid of me. You are desired fiercely. I promise you; you'll be best loved woman in the islands."

"I'm fifty years old," she said.

"You're always twenty-two to me," he said. "And you definitely are in bikini shape."

Joy knew that was true. "You like me in bikinis."

"You bet. And miniskirts."

She lowered his zipper, slipped her hand into his briefs. "You're pretty hard."

"Duh," he said.

"Anything else you want?" She gave his cock another squeeze and it jumped in her hand. He blushed, paused, stammered.

"Pictures," he said. "Videos." He had a new camera.

"Sex videos?"

"Yes." His cock pulsed under her hand. "If you agree. I'd like to see us. You."

They had looked at porn. Joy didn't like the pornstar movies, with the ridiculous huffing and puffing and objectifying dialogue, but some of the home movies had turned her on; seeing regular women enjoying passionate sex with their husbands and friends and/or girlfriends. But she had never imagined herself in one.

"I don't think so. You can take bikini pictures," she said. She could do those calendar-model poses. Arch her back, or something.

"If that's what's okay with you." There was a difficult pause. Every bikini she owned she bought for him.

He wrapped her up, loving. His desire for her still was a big turn-on.

"I'll do my best Danny. It's scary to be so vulnerable."

"It's really hot, though. I promise I'll keep you safe."

Not too safe, she thought, with a quick rush of blood.

It was complicated, being married.

Chapter 2

As always, Hawaii was magical. Warm air, beautiful flowers, pristine beaches, papaya, pineapple, people at ease. The ka'ma'aina spirit is ruach, in Hawaiian. It was a relief to let the City wash out of her body. Joy wore the promised short skirts and reasonable bikinis and held her husband's hand walking along the beach and took his arm on their way to nice dinners. Whenever they saw families with college-age daughters they were both wistful and joyous and it made them hold onto each other a little more tightly—Jenny's eternal absence both wounded and armored them. "I wish she was still alive," Danny said, "but I love you and I love the life we have." Joy could not have agreed more, and her husband's vulnerability touched her heart and opened her sex.

True to his word, Danny was easy and Joy didn't feel pressured at all. They kissed a lot and when he slipped his hand under her skirt in a restaurant she smiled at him and let it happen. They made love every morning, and the one time she went down on him he stayed still and let her give only what she wanted. At night when they were tired he would wrap both of his arms around her with her breasts in his palms; she would hold his penis with a gentle pressure that would make him sort of hard, not all the way hard, and that was nice for her, easy, and he liked it, too, he said. Sometime she would put him inside her, when all felt right with the world.

Then one afternoon it was just Joy and Danny, at the end of a verdant trail high on a cliffside with the sun and the land and the breeze and the ocean. Everything was beautiful. He hugged her from the back and they watched the elements. After a time, she felt a stiffness pressing against the small of her back. She pressed back.

"What's that?" she asked him.

"What do you think?" His mouth was at her ear; his voice quiet, breathy, and the growl of his desire made her shiver.

"A flashlight?"

"No, guess again." She felt it sliding up and down her back. His hands caressed her neck, slipped down her shoulders, slid the sunshirt down her arms.

"A tube of sunscreen?"

"No."

"What is it then?" She giggled. His breath resonated in her chest. Something in her jingled. She let the shirt slip off her wrists. It fluttered to the ground.

"It's a cock."

"Whose cock?"

"Your cock," he said.

"I don't have a cock."

"Yes you do. This one is yours."

"Eeew," she said. "I don't want to have it. I only like to borrow it."

"It's available now." His hands were inside her top, rubbing her stomach. The fabric pulled across her nipples and they stiffened. He popped the snap and slid his hand into her shorts.

"Are you taking my clothes off?"

"Unless you stop me."

"We can't do this here, Danny."

"Why not?"

"Anyone could see."

"Only me, Joy. We haven't seen a soul all day."

He was right. There was a whisper of something tugging at her heart; the memory of the thing that meeting Danny had changed. Before, being in bed with boys was like a wrestling match or a bullfight, where she was both combatant and referee. But Danny had wanted to learn her; that felt like being loved. And that took her to places she never had even dreamed were possible. Wild places. There was Danny, right now, in one of those places, standing about three feet away from her, his shorts tented, their backpacks in his hand.

"Take your top off, Joy." His voice was tightly controlled. His hand reached in invitation.

If I take my top off, she thought, everything else will come off, too. She looked around. She saw no one. There was only one trail, and they could see a long way down it. Danny stared at her like a man, and she wanted to kill him and fuck him.

"I'll get sunburned," she said.

"I have sunscreen," he said.

"I'll get cold."

"It's hot now," he said.

"You first," she said.

Too easy, she realized. Danny dropped their packs and peeled off his shirt. His eyes captured her hands and made them lift the tank top over her head, lifting the elastic of its built-in bra over her breasts. She heard her hair slide through the Coolmax as the top dropped to the ground. The sun caressed her chest and her nipples stiffened and his face reflected a love and the hunger she remembered in him from when they were whole. We can have this again, she thought, even though Jenny never can, and it was okay be naked, there, with him. He came close but didn't touch; she smelled his lust. He reached out his hand to hers and she went with him. After a minute or two he found a place he liked. He patted down the grass. He took their jackets out of the packs and spread them out, then carefully layered their shirts on top. He sat down next to the bed he had made for her.

"Come lay here," he said.

She kicked off her shoes. He took her shorts. The breeze loved her skin. He reached between her legs and touched her exactly right. Then he used his tongue and there was irresistibly building desire; touch and sun and the breeze and her delicious nakedness. Even the rough surface under her was perfect. She buried her fingers in his hair. She moved her hips against his tongue and everything down there was throbbing and delicious and suddenly fluid was running down her leg. She liked it a lot.

Danny looked up, his face wet. "That was fast."

"You got me," she said, "right where you want me."

"Yay," he said. "I hope you aren't done?"

"I don't have to be," she said. Her breath caught between the have and the to be. His body shaded hers as he slid his other hand down between her legs. She saw his cock straining against his shorts.

"Hold out your hand," Danny said.

He squeezed two liberal gobs of sunscreen into her hands. It made her happy.

"Always taking care of me, aren't you, love?"

"It's kind of selfish. Sunburn would not support my plans for later. Put it on."

She looked into his eyes as she covered herself in the places he wanted her to, stray fingers lightly touching everywhere they could. Then he pressed her hand to her breasts and she left them there. Gravity was ascendant and she couldn't move her body against it "I can't reach some places," she said.

"Of course. Let me help."

His voice was as soft as when he was whispering in her ear right after their son was born and she remembered the way he had touched their son's soft chest. Jake was still alive, and Joy felt a great wave of gratitude sweep her even deeper into the moment. He spread sunscreen over her hips and upper thighs; then ever so gently between her legs. She crossed her arms under her head and pressed her hips into his fingers. She wanted. Him. Her. It. Them. Sex. Love. Sunshine. Sky. " Aaahhhh . . ." She came again.

After the quivering stopped she said, "Come and fuck me now." She opened her legs a bit.

"Do yourself," he blurted it out.

"Really?"

"Please." His hand was inside his open fly.

"Okay." It wasn't weird to do that for him, today. The sun warmed her. She rolled her body against the fingers she couldn't get in quite deeply enough. Her mind was exploding and she saw glorious sunsets, and nursing babies, and graduation, and when her father first told her she was beautiful, and how Jake's hair was so thick when he was born, and walking with Danny in the park, and how the fog at home looked in the hazy half-light of the morning, and dear sweet Jenny, so full of love. She crashed down over the waterfall again, into the pool of her bliss. Her breath returned.

"I'm done now," she said. "You missed you chance."

"Later," he said. He never seemed to want to fuck her right after she masturbated for him. Like it was a weakness. She wondered if she should be offended.

"Did you cum?"

"I dribbled. I think I held it mostly."

"Why?"

"For later."

"Do it now," she said, impulsively. She wanted to make him do it. He watched me, she thought.

"You do me."

"No." She wondered why he wasn't enthusiastic.

"This should help." She worked up a big glob of spittle then leaned over and applied it to his cock with kisses. "There. You can cum on my tits. I want to see it."

His hand sped up and she stayed pretty close, watching him and encouraging him and it didn't take too long before he shot off all over her chest and tits and nipples. He fell back to the ground, panting heavily. "No man has a wife like you." He reached for his pack and took out their lunch. She saw the camera, sitting out, its lens cap off.

"Did you take pictures of me?"

"Yes."

"You didn't ask me."

"No."

"Don't you think you should have?"

He picked it up and shrugged. "Can I take pictures of you?"

He did. Three, actually, of her smiling face and cum-strewn chest.

She blushed. "Just don't lose the card."

Naked and sticky, on top of a mountain, surrounded by hundreds of miles of open ocean, Joy ate a cheese sandwich, and it was the best cheese sandwich ever. When it was time to go he asked her to leave her shirt off. He would too, he said. And he'd carry everything. False equivalency, she said, but in that moment she loved him even more than the cheese sandwich. She used his shirt and a little water to wipe the spots and stripes off her chest. She put her shorts back on, rolling the already short hems higher and, leaving the zipper open, carefully folded the waistband as far down below her navel as she could get it. A few hairs peeked out.

"How do you like this, Danny?" She presented herself, spreading her arms wide.

"That is incredibly erotic," he said. "Especially with the trail boots. Smile!"

She faced him squarely with a hand down her shorts and a pouty smile. He clicked, then she posed with hands on her hips and wind blowing on her back and her skin felt as wide as the ocean and clouds stretched out infinitely over her shoulders. He turned her sideways and the touch of the wind stiffened her nipples and she lifted her arms and made sure the camera could see it.

"Beautiful, my lover," he said. "Beautiful."

"Maybe I don't need the shorts."

Huh, she thought. I just asked him that?

He said there could be people down lower on the trail so shorts were a good idea and even sexier, in a way, and he was so appreciative and humbled that she would give herself like that, and she felt super desirable and loved that she had a good man who liked her naked. The sun and cooling breeze on her skin were absolutely delicious. An hour passed before the sound of voices floating up the trail make her take her top back from Danny. Leaving the shorts as they were, poky hairs and all, she wore the top so it barely covered her nipples. When the three college boys passed their eyes were glued to the broad expanse of bare skin stretching from the bottom of her breasts all the way down, far below her navel. Joy didn't mind their eyes at all.

Danny got real excited. "Did you see the way they were looking at you?"

"They see girls wearing less on the beach every day."

"Not much less. And this isn't the beach. It's a turn-on to see you that way, here."

"I've been bare for the last hour. Then I put my top on and you get excited?"

"I've been excited," he said. "See?" He skipped ahead and twirled in his own dust.

Huh. Is this getting weird?

She finished getting dressed when she heard the next group coming, which was good, because there was a whole passel of kids. Danny made no comment. At the trailhead, they found their car. Joy dozed as Danny drove without speaking back to the hotel. When they got there he seemed a little distant.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah." He paused. "I was wondering how you felt about those boys seeing you."

"It's okay," she said, "men have been staring at me since I was fourteen years old. I'm used to it. You seemed to really like it."

"I did. Do I need to be sorry?"

"I don't think so, but I'm not sure what that says about you. C'mon anyway."

She took him into the shower. The super slippery handjob she gave him while they were soaping up made him quite hard; then she took him to the bed and rode him without a break until she was finished. After, she got as close to him as she could get, and told him that he was going to like the upcoming week on the Big Island a lot. But he had fallen asleep. 

Chapter 3

Danny had been right about the clothes. She brought way too many. She wanted to be naked. She was naked now, laying on the balcony, hands clasped behind her head, legs carelessly open. The sun moved toward zenith, pushing the awning's shadow across her body. Six stories down to her right she could look through the glass railing at the pool deck of the luxury resort layered with white people turning red in the Big Island's afternoon sun. They can see me, she thought, if I can see them.

It didn't matter. She heard Danny in the room. He was why she was naked; she could feel him above her, his weight, his dripping sweat, chest hair sliding against her nipples, wrapping her legs high around him as he panted and pushed, hot and deep inside her; the animal moan he made when he came. Everything in her melted toward the center of the earth. He can have me again, now, right here in the sunshine, in front of everyone. But Danny came out wearing his Speedo and a muscle shirt. His chest was wide and had hair on it. His bicep curved smoothly into his shoulder. He took her photo.