The Loneliest Time of the Year

It was when they'd opened presents he'd started to see Angela differently. She was pretty in her dress but that wasn't it. It was seeing how she and Erica got along so well. It was also the feeling that it was right that they should, and that led him to wonder if he and Angela could get along as well.

At Burger King, he realized that was happening. Angela had acted like Connie had always acted when they went out. She wasn't another Connie, but she was a woman he thought he could grow very attached to.

When he'd stopped her from falling at the park, she was the first woman he'd touched in three years, and the feel of her body had made him think of her as maybe a woman he'd like to come into his and Erica's life. When Angela hadn't pushed him away as soon as she was standing again, and from what he saw in her face, he thought she might feel something too.

He didn't say anything until Angela turned around and looked in the back seat.

"Erica's asleep. I guess we wore her out."

Brent took a deep breath then. He had to find out.

"It's because she's been so excited about everything. Would you help me get her to bed?"

Angela knew he wouldn't really need her help. He'd done that by himself the night before. It couldn't be that he just wanted to be with her, but maybe...

"Sure. I'd be happy to help you."

When Brent pulled into his drive, he gave Angela his house key.

"If you could open the door, I'll carry Erica inside. After we get her into bed, would you like a cup of coffee?"

Angela opened the door and then watched as Brent carried Erica to her bedroom, laid her on the bed and then covered her up. He tiptoed out of the room and then smiled.

"How about that cup of coffee now."

Brent was nervous when he carried their cups into the living room. He'd been thinking about what he was going to say, but everything he'd come up with sounded like a corny line out of some B movie. He couldn't just sit there, though. Angela was looking at him like she wanted him to say something.

"Angela, Erica really likes you."

"Yes, I know she does. She told me she does."

"Does that bother you? I mean, we're just neighbors and she only met you a few days ago."

Angela smiled. It sounded like Brent was trying to make conversation to avoid saying what he thought.

"No. It makes me feel good about myself. It's hard when your husband says he doesn't love you anymore and your daughters think it was all your fault. Erica's the first person who's said she likes me in a long time. I like her too. She's a smart little girl."

Brent sipped his coffee to think. He had to say it now, or he never would.

"Erica's not the only person who likes you. I like you too."

Angela felt a little shiver run down her spine. Could this really be happening to her?

"Well, Brent, I like you too. I'm happy to have you as a neighbor."

Brent stood up, moved closer to Angela, and then sat back down.

"What if I said I liked you more than just as a neighbor?"

The words just slipped from Angela's mouth without her realizing what she was saying.

"If you said that, I'd say you should show me what you mean."

She was looking at him with her eyes wide open and her lips parted. It was without much thought that Brent leaned down and kissed Angela. When he raised back up, her eyes were closed and her lips were still parted.

"Angela, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. It's just that it's been so long and it looked like you --"

Angela put her index finger across his lips.

"Don't be sorry. I'm not sorry."

Angela put her arms around his neck and smiled.

"I'd like you to do it again."

That kiss lasted longer, long enough Brent knew where it was going to end if he let himself go. He gently pulled away.

"Angela, I think you'd better leave. If you don't...I don't know if I can just stop with kissing you."

Angela smiled at the look on Brent's face. It was a look that told her he didn't want her to leave, but thought that was what would be best.

"Brent, what makes you think I'd want you to stop? I don't."

He kissed her again while they stood beside his bed, and then unzipped her dress. Angela chuckled and stopped him when he tried to pull it down over her hips.

"My butt's too big for it to come off that way. It has to come off over my head."

After Brent lifted the dress from her arms and laid it carefully over the chair against the wall, he stopped and looked at Angela. In her bra and panties and stockings, she was so erotic he couldn't do anything else for a while. Finally, he took her in his arms, then slipped his hands down to cup her hips.

"It's not too big, Angela. It's just the right size to make you really sexy."

He saw Angela blush when she spoke.

"You're just saying that."

Brent unhooked her bra then, and when he eased it from her shoulders.

"I suppose you'll think I'm just saying you have beautiful breasts too?"

Angela shivered when he stroked her left breast, and then caught her breath when his thumb stroked her nipple.

"Yes, that's what I think."

Brent chuckled.

"What would I have to do to convince you I really think both those things?"

Angela caught her breath again because he'd slipped his hand between them and he was stroking her mound through her panties.

"What you're doing is a good start."

When he'd undressed, Brent gently pushed Angela down on the bed and then stroked his fingertips up her thighs to her hips. When he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties, Angela lifted her hips so he could get them down to her thighs, and then raised her legs so he could take them off over her feet.

Angela's head was spinning by then. Random thoughts flew through her mind. Did he really think she was sexy? How would he make love to her -- fast until he spurted inside her or slow so she could feel the tension building in her core until her brain was screaming for the release? Her husband had seldom gotten her all the way to an orgasm. When he did, it was a crashing collision of sensations that shook her from head to toe. What usually happened was she had to do that part herself once he went to sleep, but when he did it right, it always left her breathless and wanting more.

After Brent lay down beside her and began kissing her while fondling her breasts and stroking her stiffening nipples, Angela didn't have to wonder. She was already feeling her tummy roll and she felt a little contraction inside her each time that happened.

It seemed to Angela as if there were a thousand thoughts in her head and competing with the sensations she was feeling. Did he really like her body or was he just going through the motions because he thought he had to? Would he change his mind after they'd made love? Why hadn't she just gone home instead of letting Brent get her hopes up? If he did change his mind, she'd know it was because she was too old and too fat.

His tongue touching hers when they kissed forced a moan from her throat. His fingertips gently rolling her nipples caused her to catch her breath and then moan as the sensation raced to her core and tightened it. Those sensations got more intense when he nibbled at her nipples and then sucked each one gently. When his fingertip parted the hair over her lips and then slipped between them, she couldn't stop her hips from rocking up or the low moan that slipped from her mouth.

Brent was everything she'd missed for so long, and now that she was feeling it again, she wanted it to never end. She felt herself becoming wet as his fingertip massaged her full inner lips, lips her husband had said were ugly. Brent didn't say anything like that. He just slipped his fingertip over the folds until Angela's mind was crying out to be penetrated, to have him inside her and stroking them both to the abyss.

He didn't do that. Instead, he slipped two fingers inside her, curled them up, and massaged the spot just inside her entrance. Angela gasped, then felt wet warmth flowing from her entrance and down between her cheeks. That had never happened to her before. It was almost like an orgasm, except she'd have wanted to stop for a while after an orgasm. His fingers made her want to feel that feeling again and again and again.

A little while later, after he'd kissed her again and then found and lightly stroked the little nub at the top of her lips, Angela wanted him inside her more than she'd ever wanted her husband.

She spread her thighs as wide as she could, then put her arm on Brent's back and pulled him on top of her. After he kissed her until her core tightened into a knot of passion, she murmured, "I want you so much. Do it now."

Brent entered her slowly. He wanted to feel the sensation of her soft lips around his cock head and the way her wet passage formed around his cock. He groaned quietly as that happened and then kept pushing until he felt the base of his cock flatten Angela's lips against her thighs. He groaned again when he started to pull back out. Angela's body was sucking at his cock and trying to keep it inside her.

He was stroking back in when Angela pulled his face to hers, opened her mouth, and then sucked at his bottom lip. When his tongue found Angela's, she moaned and he felt her passage contract around his shaft. Her hands stroked down his back until his cock bottomed out, and when it did, she pulled on his ass to keep him there.

Brent couldn't just stop. His body was nearly working by itself now, stroking his cock slowly in and out of Angela's wet, rippled passage and lips. He couldn't stop when he bent his head, sucked her right nipple between his lips and then sucked firmly. The little whimpering moan Angela made then and the way she lifted her body up only fired his need to feel her passage sucking at his cock when he pulled back out.

Brent tried to keep going slow to make it last longer, but the way Angela was responding was making that impossible. One second she was lying under him, stroking his back and breathing normally. The next, he felt her lifting her hips into every stroke and forcing her body over his cock. Her hands changed from just softly stroking his back to clenching her nails when his cock stopped inside her and then opening as he pulled back out.

It seemed too fast, or at least too fast for him before Angela murmured, "Oh Brent, don't stop."

He felt her nails dig into his ass cheeks then, and a second later, Angela gasped, then held her breath and began lifting them both up off the mattress. She didn't get far before she let out that breath with a low cry and fell back to the mattress. On his next stroke, she lifted her body to meet his cock halfway and held her breath until his belly was tight against her. She bucked against him with a little moan when he started to pull back out, then gasped and raised up a little higher.

When he stroked his cock back in, Angela lost control of everything. She cried out, tried to lift her body over his stroking cock, and when he was inside her all the way, her thighs began to shake. "Oh God", she murmured, and then became shaking hips and thighs, wobbling breasts, and panting gasps as the orgasm took her away, away from everything except the release of the tension that had built to an excruciating level. Brent made three quick strokes and splattered his seed inside her with each, then kept slowly stroking his cock in and out until Angela eased back down to the mattress and pulled him with her until his chest flattened her breasts.

When his cock refused to go back inside Angela on one stroke, Brent rolled to her side, then pulled her almost on top of him. He kissed her, then whispered, "Spend the night with me. I don't want to let you go, not after this."

Angela smiled.

"How would we explain it to Erica?"

Brent stroked Angela's hips and felt her shiver at his touch.

"Erica wouldn't understand what we've just done so we wouldn't have to."

Angela laughed quietly.

"Apparently one of the girls at school knows a lot about the birds and the bees. When Angela was showing me her dollhouse, I asked her why she had a boy doll and a girl doll on the bed together. She said Marsha told her that's how babies get made. I think she'd know."

Brent kissed Angela again, then stroked her face.

"Angela, what happens now then? Do you just go back home and be my neighbor? I don't think I can live that way."

Angela stroked his cheek.

"I'm a lot older than you. Doesn't that make a difference?"

Brent smiled.

"Does it make a difference to you?"

"I thought it would, but now, no."

"It doesn't make a difference to me either. I just needed to hear you say that."

}{

Over the next several months, they tried to hide their relationship from Erica, but like Angela had said, Erica was a very smart little girl. She didn't understand about sex, but she did understand that Angela was with them every weekend and that her father seemed to touch Angela a lot. They were at the zoo one spring day when Brent went to get them each a soft drink.

Erica turned to Angela and smiled.

"Are you going to be my new mommy?"

Angela didn't know what to say, so she just asked if Erica would like it if she was. Erica grinned.

"I'd like to have a mommy like the other girls at school. I think Daddy wants you to be my mommy. I'm not supposed to tell you, but we went to the mall last night and Daddy was looking at rings at the jewelry store."

Angela stroked Erica's hair.

"We'll see, Erica we'll see."

}{

Erica is seven now, seven and a half if you ask her, and she's all excited about Christmas. Last Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Brent put up the artificial tree and then watched TV while Angela and Erica put on the ornaments. They're already plotting about what to get Brent for Christmas.

Brent is happy to have Angela as his wife. Erica loves having a mommy and that makes Angela smile. Angela is happy to be in a family again.

Tomorrow, they'll hang a wreath on the front door and then decorate the rest of the house with pine garlands and bows. Angela wanted to make their house like it was when her own daughters were home. That's because her daughters and their husbands are flying in for Christmas. Angela didn't know exactly what had happened to change their minds about her, but she was happy they had. Even though she'd been angry with them for abandoning her, she still loved them and couldn't be mad at them for very long. Evidently, they decided they still loved her too.

When Erica found out Angela's daughters were coming for Christmas, she asked Angela if they were her big sisters now. Angela said, yes, they were. Since that day, Erica has been talking about what her big sisters and she are going to do. She's drawn the same picture for both of them. It's five people who look more like real people than blobs with stick arms and legs. Four have long hair and they're all smiling and holding hands. Since Erica can write now, under each figure is a name -- Daddy, Mommy, Me, Sharon, and Patty.

}{

They say that when you love someone, it's hard to let them go. They're talking about the people who stay behind with their memories, but it works the same for people who they say have "gone on". We remember too, though we can't show anybody who's still alive.

I didn't go on after that truck ran into me because I couldn't, not knowing the husband and daughter I loved so much were going to be alone in the world. I tried to help Brent find another wife and mother to Erica, but he couldn't hear me. That's because it's always very hard to get adults to listen to the voice in their head. They have too many things to think about and that one little voice gets lost in all the other thoughts.

When I found Angela in the grocery store, I looked into her mind and discovered her husband and daughters had abandoned her and she wasn't happy about anything. To her, Christmas was the loneliest time of the year because she didn't have anybody left. All she wanted was to be a wife and mother again, but she was so cynical about everything she couldn't hear me either. I thought Erica would hear me, and she did. In the process, she made Brent and Angela listen too, though they didn't know they were. It was just a little thought that Erica and I helped get big enough it overpowered the rest.

I suppose there are those spirits who stay where they were and cause mischief, but most of us are just looking out for the people we once loved. They can't see us and we can't really talk out loud. We can't do much besides give them suggestions through the little voice in their head, but if they listen, sometimes those suggestions work out. I'm happy it did with Brent, Erica, and Angela.

Maybe someday, I'll be able to do as people say and "go on", wherever "on" is, but for now, I'll keep watching over them. I want them to be as happy as they are now, and they might need my help again someday. They won't know I'm here or that I'm doing anything. Even Erica won't, not at first, but she's a smart little girl. Another little voice in her mind should fix things if they need fixing.