The Girl in the Rain

"Ok, so once you are done, there is coffee and snacks inside."

Joe tilted his head to invite me with him and we trooped inside. If nothing else, Steffi knew how to make coffee...

We spent a pleasant afternoon with Joe and Jacqueline and I heard how he had gone from a diesel mechanic to the owner of a huge earthmoving and transport company. He met Jacqueline when he needed a lawyer to represent him in a lawsuit stemming from an accident on a dam building site. Jacqueline fumbled the case and they lost grandly but fell in love and together started climbing the ladder of success.

As they left for another engagement Jacqueline hugged me goodbye and whispered in my ear; "Welcome to the family Derek, and thanks for getting rid of Donald Duhh."

I grinned at her. "It was a pleasure," whereupon she giggled and winked at me.

"Painful as well I hear but it appears the damage was not permanent," she teased and was still laughing at my crimson face as I closed the door for her.

Steffi came up from behind and put her arms around me in a hug as we watched them drive off. "They like you," she cooed and I nodded.

"Thanks. They're great and your mother is next level stunning."

Steffi pulled into me. "I wish I had her face," she said forlornly and I spun around, holding her face in my hands.

"I'm glad you don't."

She seemed surprised. "Why?"

"Because this is the face I want to look at for the rest of my life. Not hers."

I saw a question fly across her face but then she smiled happily and squeezed me so hard I grunted while making a note to myself never to anger this woman to physical violence. Those well formed arms were surprisingly powerful.

As we walked into the house again I gently tugged at her hair to make her stop. "I want to have dinner with you."

She giggled as she turned around. "You can't be hungry again?"

I feigned innocence. "Me hungry again? Whatcha mean? I cannot remember the last meal I had."

"Carry on like this and you will turn into a fat blob."

"I work too hard and anyway, sex makes me hungry."

She laughed outright and walked to her kitchen, opened all her cupboards and refrigerator and with a flourish she indicated the contents and smilingly leaned against a wall. "I keep a well stocked larder young man. I hope you have the energy."

Me and my big mouth. I was to remember those words.

We got stuck into the domestic things needed around a house and it was rather late by the time we got to the food preparation thing. By then I was really hungry and worn to a frazzle. It is surprising how many things you can find that need doing if you look around. Half a bottle of an exceptional Chenin Blanc had us in a happy and daring mood so Steffi made small batches of different vegetables while I made a fried potato dish alongside some lamb cutlets, treated to an exotic sauce we laughingly concocted by adding whatever came to mind.

Once again we ate too much and the bottle of wine also had grown a hole and run dry.

"Mind if I sleep here?" I asked carefully after we had done the dishes. "Driving with so much blood in my wine stream can lead to unpleasantries on the road."

I got a look from Steffi that convinced me that I had the IQ of a brick. "Your car is at your house mister, so you cannot go anywhere without me taking you and I have no intention of taking you anywhere."

"Yes dear," I grinned. My fate was happily sealed it seemed.

We both needed a shower after the physical work we had done during the day so while Steffi cleansed herself of the day's grime I whiled away the time checking up on her bookshelves. She obviously was an avid reader of top class novels and also a collector of authoritive volumes on natural history. My kind of girl in more ways than one. I pulled out a book that I had been trying to source for years and excitedly started paging through it. It was almost dog-eared from use and I smiled at a mental picture of the two of us fighting each other for the privilege of reading it sometime in the future.

I started reading an article and was soon engrossed to the point that I never noticed her entering the room. A soft tickle below my ear made my insides do a full turn and she laughed merrily as I sat there gasping for breath.

"A little jittery?" she giggled and pulled at my hair.

I shuddered. "You read a graphic rendition about the Sepoy Mutiny in India where they killed a whole crowd of people by dumping them into a dungeon and somebody tickles your ear. Bram Stoker would have jumped!"

She giggled. "I left you some hot water, I hope. I'll be waiting for you."

The picture of her clad in a white bathrobe with the top part very relaxed was enough to make me want to forsake the shower but I gritted my teeth and set up a record for fast showering. A large bath towel had been placed next to the shower and I wrapped that around me. Entering the bedroom I found Steffi in bed, lying on her side, her face propped up by her arm and wearing an inviting smile. An open shoulder was clear indication that Steffi sans clothing was in that bed and as she opened the covers to make space for me an astonishing breast briefly showed itself.

She giggled as I stood there looking at her with the little guy doing his best to make a fool of me and she pointed at him. "Maybe you should set him free Mr Smythe?"

I dropped the towel and scurried into bed with her. Little scraps of view were scorched into my memory as the sheets alternatively revealed and hid bits of her. We grabbed at one another and fought for the privilege of feeling and caressing but at some stage I had her on her back and I pulled the sheet down far enough to reveal her entire chest. My breath caught and I simply stared. For a blonde she had unusually dark nipples and with the excitement of our caressing they were standing proud. I heard a soft chuckle and pulled myself out of the stupor.

"You like?" she giggled softly and as I nodded she sighed. "A gift from my mother. Not her face but her breasts."

I reared up and called out the window. "Thanks Mom. You can keep your face," upon which Steffi laughed and grabbed at me with a grunt and forced my mouth to hers. She was a little careful in her actions at first but as our kiss turned into a primal dance of sexually charged touching and groping she released a predator that had me breathless.

To me sex had always been animal desire mixed with fun but the moment I parted her she put her legs around me and basically rammed me into her. She winced and I held still but she simply drove at me from the bottom up. As our bodies joined our souls became one. It was a surreal feeling where only us existed and the eventual climax was simply a physical achievement of total spiritual connection.

As our breathing started going back to normal, Steffi pushed at my shoulders and I lifted up to look at her. She was flushed and had a searching look in her eyes. Her eyes screwed down slightly as if in a question and then she brightened up as she pulled me down again for a quick kiss.

"I love you Derek," she mumbled through our joined lips and I nodded in agreement. I knew. Without her next to me my future will be bleak and even empty.

It was quite some time later when I remembered something and I pulled her to me. "Is your house still without it's soul?"

I felt her chuckle as she squeezed me to her. "Trust you to remember that."

"And?"

She sighed. "No. It wasn't the house that had lost it's soul. It was me realising that my life was empty."

I scowled. "Seriously?"

She cuddled closer and touched her lips to that spot just below my ear. "Donald and I had been together for almost three years now. He often touched on the subject of marriage but I always held back without really knowing why. It may have been because my parents didn't really like him. The day I met you, I saw or maybe realised that you were something else and Donald moved to the shade. It may have been anything, maybe just the fact that you had stopped next to the road. Donald would not have done that, ever. Maybe because you brought me to your house. Possibly because I felt safe with you even before knowing you. I don't know and it doesn't matter. That day I got the Uber to swing past my house was the moment it hit me. I was living empty. Donald was decent conversation and pleasant company most of the time. I liked him although somewhere I convinced myself that I loved him but it was a lie."

"So I upset your comfortable life?"

She shook her head against my neck. "That's the whole point. I wasn't comfortable. I constantly had this desire to break free but I never knew what from until that fateful weekend. That was when I realised that I had weaved a cocoon around me and that I had something in there with me that should not have been there."

"Donald?"

"Partly," she sighed. "He was physical. The others were more the intangibles we drag along with us simply because they are there. Much like a talisman of bad Karma."

She sat upright, crossed her legs and tapped a beat on my chest while my eyes floated between those beautiful breasts, her curvaceous body and that little spot that will forever hold man captive. "I cannot tell you how glad I am that your previous girlfriends could not handle your way of being. One of them may have been lucky to tie you down and I would have lost out without ever knowing it. You are special Derek. What you had done before you stumbled into my life I have no idea yet but within two weeks of knowing you, you did two things that wrenched my soul. The day Caroline told me about you paying for Peter and Maggie's groceries, you grew a halo. Before that I was a little infatuated with the guy who saved me from freezing to death and famine for a weekend but when you pushed me away the hurt hit me like a blow from a bludgeon. I never thought I could hurt so much."

"Both happenings caused guilt. Peter and Maggie should never have gone destitute. Both my parents and I forgot our debt to them. It will never happen again. Your pushing me away led me to believe that I had done something wrong." She chuckled. "I actually thought that kissing you was the reason you turned from me."

I took a deep breath and pulled her down to me. "That was the most astonishing kiss I ever had in my life. My whole being went topsy turvy. What you said as you left is what made things a little muddy."

"I said I'm sliding off my seat," she giggled and a beautiful blush crept into her face.

I jerked upright. "What?"

"When I left," she giggled and rolled on top of me again. With a naughty smile she started pulling at my moustache as I tried to bring things together.

"Ahh, I see," I yelled rather loudly and tickled her. "That why you fled?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "If we had touched I would have been like a stag in rut."

"I would not have been a docile doe waiting to be inseminated," she giggled. "I fled before I proved that a woman can rape a man."

It lead to quite a few jokes about life with a spouse but at one stage I yawned without warning and Steffi laughed as she followed that most contagious of all afflictions.

"Sleepy?" she giggled and I had to nod.

"I think so. On the one hand I want to stay awake with you but on the other we need to sleep at some stage. Tomorrow may be a little busy."

She pouted for a kiss and I gladly pulled her to me. Even a good night kiss was enough to make my head spin a bit but I was ok with that. With a giggle she turned her back to me and pulled me in for a spoon just to prove that even there, we fitted.

During the night the movements of sleep separated us but always we were touching somewhere and I was aware of our hands being intertwined even as I slumbered between sessions of sleep.

I woke up as the skies started to turn grey and sensed her breathing change from sleep to wakefulness. I reached over and pulled her to me. For a while we just lay there and watched as the day broke into sunshine.

"Coffee?" she asked and I chuckled.

"You making?"

She tickled me and swung off the bed. "This once I will do it."

After coffee we lay in bed chatting, had a shower, found each other simply too desirable and messed up the bed once again.

After a fantastic breakfast we got stuck into cleaning her house and it was close to mid day before she decided that it was clean enough.

"Yours next," she commanded and we took on the arduous journey to my place through Saturday traffic. It sucked but the sight of an overnight bag on the rear seat made me forget the traffic.

I went for the lawnmower and she busied herself inside. For the first time in forever someone came to me with a glass of fruit juice while I was working outside. It may have been a simple thing to do but to me it meant a lot and I put that into the mindshelf where I kept special moments of life.

With the lawn cut and trimmed, the pathways blown clear and everything put away, I sauntered into the house only to be brought up short as I stepped into the door.

"If you so much as drop a single blade of grass or any other such form of matter that should be outside, I will personally slaughter you Mr Smythe."

I looked down at myself and chuckled. Normally I would enter through the garage door, strip out of my clothes and have a quick shower in the guest bathroom after which I simply swept up the offending blades of grass that had made it inside. It seemed that it was not going to be that way today and I laughingly stepped back into the garage, dropped every thread of clothes I had on, hung it over a nail and walked through the house with a taunting grin on my face. That blasted woman had the audacity to stand there with a scowl and her hands on her hips like some kindergarten teacher of old.

We cooked outside that night and sat out there chatting about ourselves. We both realised that we needed to get to know each other properly. Infatuation can go a long way but there comes the day a little glitch slides in and lays the foundation for a whole stack of problems that can wreck the deepest love in an impossibly short time. It was a pleasant feeling to share my life fears, hopes and expectations with her. She was an open book about herself and more than once we sat there laughing about something that was funny simply because of the situation.

It was late when we crawled into bed. A session of gentle lovemaking set the scene for a night of cuddling in our sleep and we woke to a sunny Sunday morning. I rolled to her and nuzzled her neck.

"I'll make the coffee and then you can make yourself useful by making us some breakfast," I said smiling and got an immediate reaction from her.

She gave me a raised eye. "We do things together or we don't do it at all mister."

"Yes dear," I laughed and got out of bed to have my leak and early morning wash. I pulled on an old set of sweats and strolled down to the kitchen to get things going. The coffee was just done when she came down the steps wrapped in a sheet. She looked edible.

I chuckled and started taking the eggs and bacon from the fridge. "Pans and such like are in the island under the hob Madam. To the left of you is an air fryer that does magic with bacon. I will be on table setting and toast detail."

Somehow we got that meal done without too much damage. The bacon was fine, the toast perfect thanks to an automatic toaster but the eggs went from sunny side up to a lumpy scramble because I meddled where I shouldn't have. It tasted great though. I also found that trying to eat with Steffi sitting across from me clad only in a sheet wrapped around her was very distracting and led to me dropping my food twice. All my wishes for the damn thing to come undone and drop from her came to naught though. All I did get was a naughty smile.

My phone rang and I lazily answered the call from my mom. I winked at Steffi and mouthed 'parents' to her and she excitedly mouthed, 'I want to meet'. I chuckled and without warning gave the phone to a very surprised and confused Steffi. It was really funny to see the consternation on her face as she haltingly said hello to my equally confused mother but within a minute they had crossed the line of perplexity and soon I heard a typical female conversation start. I got up and walked outside.

Steffi was flushed by the time she ended the call and came looking for me. Her eyes glittered happily. "Your mom wanted to know if I can cook well enough to change your addiction to fast food and I challenged her to come and sample it."

I stood there with my jaw slack enough to hit my chest. "Did she really say that?"

Her laughter was beautiful to hear. "No Silly. She wanted us to meet and I invited them to dinner."

"Oh."

"We need to go shopping Mister."

"You need to get dressed."

She pouted. "I thought you liked me in a sheet."

"I do. Do you want to rush the shopping? I can think of ten things to do with you to make us late but none of them will carry the nod of approval from the morality corps." I chuckled. "Being in a sheet makes the need for a lot of energy wasting disrobement..."

My words dried up as she pulled at a knot on her shoulder and the sheet dropped to the floor. She stood there in her loveliness and a smile of pure mischief on her face while I tried to get my breath back.

"You're stunning," I croaked and advanced on her. She held me at arm's length and slowly leaned forward to kiss me.

"Thanks Derek," she whispered and pulled me close. "When you look at me I feel beautiful. Showing myself to you feels as natural as breathing."

I chuckled and squeezed her butt. "No complaints from this side."

We ended up having to rush the shopping trip anyway but I had absolutely no reason to complain.

We had barely stopped back at the house when my folks pulled in and as expected my mother had her arms full with foodstuffs. Never will she arrive empty handed. After the required hugs as greeting I took my dad outside, leaving the girls inside to do their thing and we sat down in the shade on my deck. The old man chuckled and looked at his toes.

"Good thing you stopped there that day Son."

"You like her?"

"A bunch."

I chuckled. "I kinda do too."

Generalities took over and some time later the ladies joined us, each armed with a glass of wine. By way of their chirpiness I guessed that it was not the first. I went for a few beers with my dad and as the sun began to set we trooped inside for dinner. It was an exceptional spread. I threw a glance at my mom and she smilingly nodded to Steffi. I felt warmth all over. Life sharing material and apparently she loved me.

As we waved the elders goodbye later that evening I hugged Steffi to me. "You're a hit."

I felt her nod and then she turned in my arms. "I have to go home."

The bottom dropped out of my happiness. "Whatever for?"

"We need to go to work tomorrow."

I sighed long and hard. "I'm not going to like this."

"Me neither," she grinned and pulled at my moustache. "At least now I will miss you and be sad but happy instead of heartbroken."

"Not sure I know how you'll do that but anyway, I guess life is a reality."

She left a while later and I sat on my deck nursing an ache. I missed her terribly and I knew that the week ahead was going to be a long one. My phone pinged and I grabbed at it.

Home safe.

I sat there re-reading that little message a few times and with a smile I started typing. Glad. Got space?

What for?

Me.

A couple of heart emoji's followed.

I crawled into bed a while later, sent a goodnight kiss and spent most of the night thinking of the girl who had turned my life on its side.

******************

Our life together slipped into gear from there. We went out a lot and did many things together. We discovered that we were polar opposites when it came to movies but just about everywhere else we gelled pretty well. We both loved going for leisurely walks and even the odd hike into the countryside, sometimes for an entire weekend. We both liked road trips and camping in parks on some trips made us invest expensively in the typical collection of expensive equipment needed to live like the homeless for a few days. Life was good.