Wake Up!

He was sleeping on his back when she came home. The first thing she did was take his sleeping semi-hard cock in her mouth and suck on it as lovingly as she used to. In his half-sleep, he couldn't open his eyes or look as she took his cum and swished it around in her mouth before swallowing.

"Oh, baby," he murmured in his dream, "oh, baby."

She crawled up and planted her tongue in his mouth in her own juicy way. This was the final straw, he'd gotten used to her habit of a deep soul-kiss after sucking him off, she always said that she wasn't giving up his cum, she was just letting him smell it on her lips. This awakened him and, as he tried to gathered her in his arms, she disappeared. He lay there for the rest of the night sobbing and missing her with all his soul. He figured that because he missed her so much he'd had a wet dream at her expense. He finally fell back to sleep, and thinking simply, "fuck it, I'll change sheets in the morning," thinking of the cum-stained sheets.

The next morning when he threw the covers back, he saw nothing visible and only the invisible smell of her perfume, an indefinably wonderful aroma, and a few smears of her facial cream on her pillow. It was her facial cream, his cum wouldn't have reminded him of her and cum would've pretty well dried out by now.

He laid out of work that day and stayed home to recuperate from the previous night and trimmed her rose bushes as he got bored with nothing to do. She loved her roses, but couldn't stand to have roses given to her as presents. So he trimmed the bushes and clipped a few of the biggest, showiest blossoms for the dining room table. She was gone after all, and, he thought, maybe it'd get her mad enough to come back tonight. She had always said that roses were a better choice for a dead person and that the bright yellow sunflowers were a better choice for someone recuperating or in the hospital. It suddenly dawned on him that with those thoughts in his head, he'd probably gone round the bend and gone nuts. Either way, she'd always said that sunflowers and not roses were the flowers of life. So she got sunflowers. Throughout each of her terms in the hospital and at home.

That night she did come back. He lay awake as long as he could, just waiting for her to show up but finally, fell asleep, with thoughts of how her warm body had snuggled against him when she was alive and well. She finally came in sometime in the tiny hours of the night. He drowsily felt her womanly body sinking into the mattress and rolling against his back. He was on his side and she snuggled up to him spoon fashion. She wrapped her arms around him and settled her face into the back of his neck, kissing gently; she'd just gotten off work and usually just wanted to sleep. With her arms around him, he finally got a good night's rest. She was with him and the world was really and truly right.

The next morning when he woke up, she was again gone, but he felt better than he had in months. He'd gotten a full night's rest and he was alert and wide awake as he left for work. His friends looked at him with surprise as he slipped his smock on and picked up the broom with not a single gripe. As a matter of fact he was whistling as he walked over and took the broom out of his colleague's hands, spinning her around in a quick waltz at the front of the Wal-Mart doors. The customers smiled broadly as they spotted the impromptu "Dancing With The Stars" in front of them.

"Mr. Poole!" Ms. Doris exclaimed giggling in spite of herself.

Art laughed with her and picked up the broom as he swung her to a stop on her rubber pad.

"Madam," he smiled, "thank you for the turn around the dance floor and I am happy to inform you that your relief is here and I'm sure you're relieved to be relieved."

"I sure am," she giggled again.

Mrs. Buttram (secretly known as Miss Butter-Butt) stood by, having arrived in time to catch some of the waltz, and shook her pudgy finger at them.

"Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk," and turned and walked back toward the back of the store. Evidently she didn't disapprove too much, otherwise she would have handed them a piece of her mind. She was not known for being the friendliest Wal-Mart employee.

The rest of the day went pretty much as usual, people coming and going and saying "nice to see ya back, Mr. Poole." And he'd say he'd been out only one day. And they'd act surprised, and say that it had sure seemed like weeks because they didn't recall seeing him here for some time. He'd nod agreeably then and say yes-yes as he tried to understand why they hadn't seen him. Then Cora Jenkins came in for a ream of typing paper, that the school couldn't seem to afford, and mentioned that she hadn't seen him yesterday and that she was glad that he had finally made peace with the death of his wife. She wasn't the sort to bite her tongue on any subject. His lower lip trembled a little as he nodded and said that he was getting there. She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek and quickly wiped her hand over it as if to wipe it off, and said that she was sure he would. He thanked her for her solicitousness and excused himself as he spotted a purchase falling off a lady's cart.

As he stepped out of the door, he spotted the loose toddler stumbling across the main drive and at the same time saw Manny Cruz's boy in his shiny silver, custom flamed, jacked up, four-wheel drive pick-up rolling unaware toward the child at something like four or five times the ten mile per hour speed limit. Mr. Poole saw that he had his face turned toward his conquest of the day, paying no attention to his driving. As the people jumped out of his way the toddler happened to glance up at his screaming parents. They'd let the little fledgling stray too far and now the raptor was bearing down with his sharp and angry talons outstretched for the kill.

Mr. Poole dropped the package and ran as fast as he could towards the child. His arthritic knees were operating smoother than they had in years as he ran that life or death hundred-yard dash. He'd been a sprinter in college, taking honors in the 50-yard and the 100-yard dashes but he'd never had occasion to sprint since then and up until arthritis slowed him down, he'd jogged a couple of miles a week more for pleasure than need. He'd enlisted and gone to Viet Nam immediately after college, begun a little business of his own on his return and had retired from it, giving it over to his now-dead son.

This, then, was the first time he'd sprinted in years, and this was the only time when it really mattered. He scooped up the child and stumbled onto his face as he did so. The boy was heavier than expected, and his knees were just too damn old to handle the over-balancing child. He managed to lay him past the wheel's of Beto Cruz's truck and they missed the toddler by almost two feet.

Two feet behind the boy, though, both the over-sized right tires ran over the old man's head, crushing the frail old skull like an egg and spraying his brains out like so much dog shit stepped on by an old pair of boots.

The old man lay there for a few minutes then his wife called to him, and he got up dusted himself off and took her hand and didn't look back. She looked just as beautiful as when he'd married her those many years gone by.

"I missed you, honey," she slipped into his arms with all her old vigor and vitality, "I so wanted to join you many times," he whispered.

"I know," she answered, "I hate that it happened this way, but I waited for you, and I would've waited until hell freezes over, as they tell me it one day will."

The old man laughed, his voice the loudly boisterous, booming baritone of his youth, unlike the weak, frail wheeze it had been lately.

He squeezed her tightly in his arms as the life force in his dying body slowly ebbed.

-- The End of Now --