The King of Middlesex Pt. 01

This is a work of fiction. None of the characters described here ever existed but all are in some way composites of people, places and experiences that I've had through the years. Also worthy to note is that my depictions of what takes place doesn't necessarily constitute an endorsement or condemnation of them. Life is above all else, messy and imperfect.

-1-

Mark and Janice made a bit of a splash when they moved back from California. He'd left New York in his early 20s as the family member most likely to fall on his face. Drove across country with his 18 year old girlfriend and landed in LA to go on to a career in the movie business. He was always behind the camera, doing technical things that got little credit but made him boatloads of money anyway. In the course of a lifetime, he'd married his girlfriend, made enough money to be more than well off, lost his wife to breast cancer, a son to a DUI and remarried again in his 50s to Janice, a lovely woman 20 years his junior.

By that stage of his life, he'd had a few health scares of his own. The stress of always working under a deadline took its toll. Diabetes, hypertension, a mild heart attack. Enough to make him take stock of his life, retire early and move back to the other coast where he'd grown up. Now as an unqualified financial success, he and his new wife purchased a fixer upper in a neighborhood where most of his family had settled in. A great old house that had seen better times.

As the kid down the block I was a natural to do all the heavy lifting that was needed to help get the place back in shape. My name is Mike. I was 18 that summer and recently emerged from a pudgy adolescence to being one of the competitive guys on the swim team. I spent so much time doing laps that my body changed into something lean and muscular without my brain ever taking note.

Mark's friends and family threw them a block party to celebrate his return which was where I got to meet them. I was off for the summer and looking for any kind of work I could get. It didn't hurt that Janice was easy on the eyes. At 35 she was almost two decades older than me but she looked amazing especially with the few extra pounds that helped round out her curves.

My first day on the job had me cleaning out the yard, not particularly hard or strenuous but in July, hot and humid. By 10:30, I'd already soaked right through my t-shirt. Jan brought me an iced tea and thanked me for working so hard. By noon the temp was pushing 100, she invited me into the air conditioned kitchen to cool off.

This was my first chance to really look her over. She'd been dressed in mom clothes at the block party, modest, pretty, a string of pearls, maybe like someone from a layout in a Sears catalog. Now, dressed for the weather, she was down to cut off jeans and a tank top. If you were one of the bitchy women in the neighborhood, you might have complained that she was too old to be dressing like that. Luckily none of them were around and to my hormone saturated brain, she was just stunning.

Mark joined us for lunch. He asked if I was cool with him lighting up a joint.

"I don't know how much work I'll get done after, but if you're OK with that, sure".

He flash a wry smile. "Yeah, there's always time for work. Don't worry about it."

So over a mix of potato salad and marijuana, we started to get to know each other. I slowly decided I liked Mark. Not a stuck up asshole like most of the other stock brokers and accountants who lived in the neighborhood. He was funny, down to earth and utterly unpretentious.

They were happy to share the details of their lives. How both of them were in really dark places when they met and how time together and the strength of their relationship made all that disappear.

"When I met her I thought she was out of my league... she was gorgeous. Couldn't imagine how someone that hot would want anything to do with a schmuck like me."

Jan said, "He made me laugh. I'd been through every casting couch director and wanna be actor/waiter in Hollywood and none of them made ever me feel as safe or as appreciated as he did."

We started to lose track of time. Black Magic Woman riffing through the static on the radio, Santana's melody lines mixing with the blue clouds of marijuana smoke curling around the table. At 3, it was the hottest part of the day. Jan had beads of sweat glistening on her skin. From all the way across the table, the sweet smells of her skin and perspiration were flooding my senses, making me more delirious than the weed.

"Horses sweat. Men perspire. Women glow." I thought that was my own inner dialog but it was Mark saying that out loud. "Not sure where I heard that but it does seem to be the case, no?"

He must have noticed me staring at his pretty wife; maybe more than was appropriate and said, "Why don't you call it a day, there's plenty of stuff to pick up next week" and tossed me two 20s for my time.

Walking out the door was like passing through an airlock as the heat and humidity hit me square in the face. When I looked back, Mark had both arms wrapped around Jan as they waved goodby. I didn't think it was much of a mystery as to why he gave me the rest of the day off.

When I got home I was horny, hot and stoned. The house was empty and after a shower, I ducked into my room and cranked up the AC. My cock was chafing against the towel I'd wrapped around myself. I kept thinking of Jan, that tank top she was wearing didn't leave much to the imagination. What was she... 36, 38 DD? I thought about the beads of sweat on her chest and how they ran together, merged and poured as droplets across her breasts. Those shorts! Cut so high that her ass was well exposed. In New Jersey, women never wore anything of the sort once they got north of 18. She had to know how men looked at her and the effect she had on them. That was probably a reality she'd lived with for so long it wasn't anything she ever thought about. I went out on the worlds smallest limb and guessed that most men were very, very nice to her.

Did she have any idea of the effect she was having on me? My cock, cast iron stiff as I thought about her and jerked myself off. She'd been really nice to me... just politeness or was that her way of building a connection? The weed had me relaxed and thinking really filthy thoughts. I thought of her sitting next to me and imagined it was her hand rubbing my cock instead of mine. Her eyes locking with my own as she slowly stroked my cock up and down. It didn't take much... a few strokes and I shot streams of cum clear across the room.

The next time I went over was every bit as scorching as the first time. I worked my ass off in the morning while it was still cool. Retreated to their kitchen when it got too hot. Jan had pretty much the same outfit on but now that she felt she knew me better, she seemed friendlier and more in my face than she had been the first time.

She asked me a few questions, random at first, then some personal.

What were my plans for school? College for engineering I thought but still working on it. Did I have a girlfriend? A few but nothing serious. "Was I hungry?" Yes, thanks for asking.

She surprised me with "Do you think I dress too slutty?

"God no, you look amazing." I realized how fawning that sounded even as I said it.

"I mean, am I too old for this look? Mark likes me to dress like this but sometimes I think it's too much for New Jersey "

She never had told me her age. I would have thought mid to late 20s. When I said that her face softened in all sorts of ways I hadn't expected. I guess women depend on their looks as a sort of currency they can depend on. Aging slowly strips all that away. Superficial as my answer was is, she must have gotten at least a bit of a thrill at the idea that she was still desirable.

Mark came in, tethered to the house phone with a long extension cord, a joint already lit and dangling from his lip.

He was still talking as he took a drag and handed it over to me. The stuff from last week was pretty mild. It made me silly, hungry and horny.

This smelled sledgehammer strong.

"Careful with this shit, it's killer" Mark offered as he hung up the phone.

He wasn't kidding. One toke and my head was spinning.

By rights, I should have called them Mr. & Mrs. Anderson but Mark and Jan seemed so much more natural. As a teenager, most adults I knew were pains in the ass. Either sanctimonious hypocrites or the occasional well meaning person who had no idea what I was going through. These guys were still hot for each other. I caught Mark rubbing the inside of her thigh when he thought I wasn't looking. That was nothing I'd ever noticed with a couple their age. She didn't seem to mind too much as she angled her leg apart to give him better access. At first, they might cover up right away if they caught me looking. I think the weed must have kicked in after a while. Over time he seemed happy to have an audience for this. He was feeling her up and I think, intentionally putting on a show for my benefit.

I knew he was pushing the envelope when he started rubbing her tits under her top. He noticed me looking and upped the stakes, lifted up her shirt so her breasts came tumbling out.

They both started to giggle as he asked me if I wanted a closer look. I thought Jan would have been freaked out but she was rolling with it as he massaged and squeezed and pinched her breasts.

I don't blush easily but my face flushed red as signals from my brain ordered my cock to get hard.

"You sure this is OK?" as I got closer.

Jan crooked her arm around my head and guided me to her right breast. Her nipples were hard and erect, standing out from the biggest areolas I'd ever seen.

I wanted to sample the other one as she made out with Mark. It seemed like for the moment at least, her breasts were mine to play with. A week earlier I'd jerked off to the idea of burying my face in them. Now here I was and if anything the reality was so much better than the fantasy.

Mark reached down and started to rub her pussy through her jeans. I pulled away and decided maybe they could use some privacy. She was just tugging at the zipper of his jeans as I was going out the door.

"I'll give you your cash next time, I'm good for it..." Mark shouted as I slid the patio door shut.

There was a quick bounce back to my place through the July heat, the empty house, the shower, straight onto my bed. My cock throbbing up and down in time to my heartbeat. I thought I might cum without even touching myself.

What was hotter, the way he showed her off? The look of pride and lust on her face as he did? The feeling of burying my face in her chest and the vaguely salty taste of her nipples as I sucked each one? Or maybe that last parting shot of him putting her on display, rubbing her pussy and her apparently happy to do whatever he wanted to please him?

I had nothing to compare this to. Of course, I'd watched my share of porn by then. You had to sneak out to the bad part of town and sit in sticky floored theaters to watch films along with all the other neighborhood pervs. God awful soundtracks. Unshaved pussies. The men looked like felons. Women, with their big hair and nails like second string beauty queens. It didn't teach me much other than that women went orgasmic with the simple insertion of a penis.

On the other hand, the Catholic high school girls I got to fuck were nothing like that at all. For one thing, being "easy" was a character flaw for women back then. The unspoken understanding was that the guy would do everything in his power to seduce them and if he successful, she might possibly lift her ass off the bed just long enough to slide her panties off. That was enough to serve as evidence that she wasn't a slut. In the early 70s, it's also what constituted proof of consent. After all, I couldn't have gotten her panties off if she hadn't cooperated at least enough to raise her ass. The shyest of them would have you fuck with the lights out so you had to feel your way around, blind and ignorant . The best gave you just barely enough pussy to get you off buts still kept you howling for more.

Most of them had never masturbated and didn't have the vaguest notion of what an orgasm was. And yet, based on some inborn genetic wisdom and everything I'd gleaned in the hours of watching porn at the Olympia theater, it was my sacred mission to make it happen.

But then here was Jan, totally out of any category I'd known. Shamelessly putting on a show for me as Mark rubbed her soaking wet pussy. Even with most of her clothes still on, it was the hottest thing I'd ever seen.

I spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing myself raw, one orgasm after another until I finally passed out and slept like a dead man.

The next day Jan called and asked if we could talk. She seemed circumspect, maybe a bit apologetic. We met at a diner and she opened with giving me the money she owed me. It was way more cash than I had any right to expect but before I could say anything she opened with an apology.

"I just want you to know that the two of us are really fond of you... we both like you very much and that we're sorry we got so carried away a bit last time. I know it was rude."

"Not at all, that was awesome" was all I could counter with.

"It's been a lot to move to a place where I don't know anyone. Everyone's been great but still, it takes a long time before you can call someplace home."

She started to look a bit wistful. "Mark has some medical conditions. He had a heart attack right after we met. Taking care of him and helping to get him back on his feet was one of the things that bonded us early on. The problem is that he still has some physical issues... it's not a simple thing for him to get hard".

I let that sink in. At 18 my default assumption was you'd be able to get instant hard ons and cum 6-7 times a day. Forever. Mark was built like a tank. His heart attack had taught him some hard lessons and he'd run, biked and swam his way to a body that guys 20 years younger might envy. He had a few extra pounds but you'd never imagine that much raw power falling short anywhere.

"Something about you being there seems to make a difference. We haven't been able to make love in years and for the last two weekends..."

I was starting to feel like I'd just won the lottery.

"So before this comes up again, I just wanted to hear from you. Are you OK with this?"

For some stupid reason, I guess I was being coy but on the other hand, I wanted to know exactly what I was getting into. "Am I ok with... what exactly?"

She'd been completely fluent until now. Suddenly it was her that was having trouble forming sentences. "Would you be ok with being... being intimate with us?"

My brain and vocal cords were going to war with each other trying to come up with an answer. I was just getting to the point that I could give her a rational reply when she stopped me.

"There's more. Both of us have been around the block a few times. Sex for us, especially with the physical problems Mark has tends to be a bit different. Every time. What started out as a problem turned into a chance to explore and try new things... which I guess is one of the reasons I'm here now."

My throat was getting really dry. I took a sip of my iced tea.

"And Mark is my soul mate. We're together for more reasons I than I can begin to explain. The sex is a bond but it's just one of a lot of things that keep us together. Honestly, I'm not sure I even have a name to describe what you'd be to us."

I could think of a few. Surrogate. Sex toy. JO buddy. Friend with benefits. I could go on I guess. She was offering varsity level, kinky sex to a hormone saturated kid that had to beg and be grateful for every half assed fuck he'd ever had until that point.

"Where do I sign up?".

-2-

We didn't wait for the weekend to roll around. I went over the next morning and found the two of them hanging out by their pool. Modest bikini for Jan. Standard swim trunks for Mark. For a moment I thought I might have hallucinated the whole encounter from the day before. Jan seemed happy to see me and dashed into the house for some drinks. Mark looked a bit uneasy. The two of us sat there without saying anything for a while. This was odd. We'd hit it off, and even with the age difference it seemed we had a lot in common and things to talk about. He started to say, "I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. If you're having second thoughts..." when Jan walked back with a couple of beers.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she said shyly.

"I was just telling Mark how I can't wait to get back to work". That was funny for some reason.

Jan plopped face down into a lounge chair next to Mark and unsnapped the back of her top to avoid getting a tan line. Her bikini bottom neatly tucked into her ass so that it looked like more of a thong. Mark looked at me looking at her and gave me a thumbs up. He seemed to be completely happy and at ease... maybe proud might be a better word to show her off.

"You're going to get a tan line where those shorts are visible... let me fix that for you."

Jan lay there with the barest hint of a smile as he pulled her bikini bottom down around her thighs.

"Won't she get a tan line there?" was my naively stupid question.

"Yeah, but who cares. I like this view way better." He was right. All that skin, glistening in the sun... did I mention she had a great ass? Not a barbie doll by any means, she had some serious curves with a well defined crease to set the arch of her butt apart from her upper thighs. Just a few hints of pubic hair filtering though her crotch.

I looked nervously around the privacy fence to make sure we were on our own. I was vaguely aware of the sun getting hotter. Mark took off his shorts and started to slowly jerk off... I think he was taken with the idea that I was there to watch. He motioned to me to join him. Really? Is this a thing? The two of us jerking off on his wife?

I wasn't sure this was even sex...

Jan looked up at Mark... "Wow, look at you!", pleased to see him hard, mostly on his own.

"Something about Mike being here seems to agree with you."

After this went on for a while, I had to ask "Not to be rude but do you guys ever actually fuck?"

"We don't. We can't. At least I can't. I can get just hard enough to get in the door but I get soft way too soon. It's happened so many times and got so frustrating that we just stopped trying a long time ago."

Jan raised her head and took off her sunglasses, "But it means that we were forced to get creative. We've learned to try just about everything else. Sometime we miss the mark and it's OK, we can forgive each other. Other times we stumble into things that most people would never give themselves permission to try and realize it's just amazing. Not being able to actually fuck turned out to be a small price to pay."

Still, slowly rubbing his cock, Mark looked at me. "Like this. For most people they're either having sex or not. At my age I'm good to go once or on a good day, maybe twice. The idea that the two or three of us can be together and have a slow burn that goes on for hours would probably confuse the shit out of most people but come on, now that you have had a sample, tell me it's not good".

He had a point. I'd been rock hard for the better part of an hour and a half by now, loads of precum flooding the head of my cock. This was filthy fun.

"So you don't fuck? At all?"

"Well we haven't for a long time. We've had some friends that Jan's been with. Some worked out great; others not so much."

"Hey, do you mind watching?" Mark said. "At least for now".

I love watching people fuck on film. Live and up close was just orders of magnitude greater.

"Sure... I'd love to watch, just tell me what you want me to do".