Home alone_(9)

Home Alone.




The world, on the other side of the glass, was suffering; buffeted and sodden. Gales had been lashing for the better part of two days. High winds had whipped the pines into thrashing wands, stripping the remaining pine cones to fall to the ground with little thuds, barely audible above the cacophony of the storm. Black, scudding clouds shrouded the landscape, creating bizarre, moving shadows of dark over dark, blotting out the usual features of the pine forest.

The rain, driven almost horizontally by the fierce gusts, had been falling, well, not falling so much as, sideways pile driving, against the cottage’s gable wall, to collect and run in a dirty brown streamlet down the garden path like a snake.

The power was out, meaning that the television could not deliver its constant barrage of bad news and mind-numbing trivia. It was obvious that the weather would have caused trees to fall, floods to lie claim to low lying housing and perhaps, even, for people to lose their lives. It was blatantly obvious that this was severe storm force with damaging consequences, but was it really something that everyone needed to hear every few minutes in updates that really were nothing more than repetitions of the previous update.

Jan sighed and rose from the position she had been in for more than half an hour, kneeling on the seat of the sofa and resting her arms on the back so that she could watch through the patio doors, the havoc the weather was metering out to the surrounding grounds. Time had slipped by unnoticed, so lost in the ferocity of the wind, that the minutes flowed seamlessly into each other, her mind devoid of any real thoughts, at least, none that she would have been able to recall had she been asked.

The fire had consumed the last feeding of fuel so that only embers and the occasional flicker of flame from the residual leavings lit the room. Fortunately, Ray had laid in a supply of logs and coal in preparation, having listened to the reports of bad weather warnings over the last couple of days. The radio had sounded like the harbinger of terrible news, just as the sandwich board man in town, warns that the ‘end of the world is nigh’, the news bulletins had forewarned of the severity of the impending storm. Ray hadn’t figured on the power going down, but would probably not have been able to do much about it in any case before he left to be a hero for the volunteer rescue force. Jan fed a few logs to the fire, watching to see if they would catch and then, pleased as they did, left the sitting room to make some tea in the kitchen.

Jan filled the kettle from the tap and put it on the stove, lighting the gas with a match and then watching the blue conical flames as they spurted from the burner. It was as if she were acting on autopilot. She was thinking about absolutely nothing, mechanically, perfunctorily going through the motions of making a cup of tea.

A stray thought flittered waif like across her mind; she wondered if Ray was alright, knowing him to be in the thick of it, soaked through to the skin, rescuing people from flooded houses or stranded cars. The orange-hulled dirigible boat the rescue squad used, slapping over waves in an effort to offer comfort to the hapless people. The scenes flashed over her mind’s eye, of desperate arms, held aloft beseechingly, to saviours arriving in the total darkness, brilliant, searing searchlights flashing through the rain like laser beams cutting through steel.

Jan returned to the sitting room; the logs had caught properly now and were burning fiercely in the grate, throwing dancing shadows around the room and reflecting in the glass of Rays display cabinet. She sat on the rug in front of the fire, cupping her mug of tea close to her chest and folding her legs under her. Jan stared into the flames, conscious of the heat against her exposed throat where her bathrobe didn’t quite meet. The tea, cooling in the mug, was forgotten as she absently put the cup down on the slate hearth. Reflectively, she thought about her marriage to Ray, almost five years now, a time that had seen him work at fever pitch in an effort to get his construction company off the ground and out of the Bank’s dept. Jan felt neglected and selfishly so; he should be with her right at this moment, looking after her, not out, risking life and limb to save complete strangers. It was a selfish thought, she knew it, but you can’t help the way you feel, she told herself by way of absolution.

He did belong home. He did belong in their bed, where she wouldn’t mind being now, curled against him in the after glow of sex. He belonged here; with a baby in his arms, cradling a delicate head as he looked on in wonder at the life they had created.

The vision came to her unbidden and caught her by surprise. She tried to stifle a cry as the pain of her barrenness plucked at her heartstrings in a vicious reminder that they had failed to produce a child. This was really the whole reason for her melancholy, not the foul weather; her body clock was running and time was whizzing by. It wasn’t that they hadn’t tried, oh no, they had made love in every conceivable position, at any time and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s bodies. It just hadn’t happened, but neither of them had the courage to go to the Doctor to find out why, fearful of the answer, the discovery that one of them was unable.

The cinema of her mind played the erotica of their honeymoon beside a small stream that eventually ran into the Mediterranean Sea off of the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus. Their holiday apartment was close to a spectacular waterfall where the ice-cold water fell thirty feet in silver, shimmering curtains, to hit the basalt rocks of the riverbed below. The graphic imagery played of the way he had turned to her with a smile, kissed and then, with a thumb under the straps, stripped off her bikini beside the crashing water. Her mind added to the romance of the occasion as he entered her body, thrusting until they both cried out in climax while the spray off the waterfall soaked their heaving bodies. She remembered the scratches the rock face gave to her back, where she had used the wall to lean against as his cock rammed into her willing body, her legs wrapped around his hips, his hands supporting her buttocks, fingers kneading her skin. The scene was hot; it had been one of the first impromptu holiday fucks of many. As the two weeks passed, they found themselves screwing in the sea, on the beach, the shower and of course, bed; but by far, the best had been by the waterfall. It had been the first time they had been able enjoy each other without the distractions of family, work or other commitments; it was the forging of their bond in a union of bodies.

Her breathing rate increased as the erotic memories flashed across the lids of her closed eyes. Her increasing arousal caused her nipples to harden and scrape slightly, against the terry cloth of her bathrobe. Jan’s lips parted to allow her tongue to snake out between her teeth and moisten her lips.

Unconsciously, her hand crept downwards, parting the cloth of her robe to expose her neatly trimmed pubis. Her other hand slipped under the fabric of the robe, to find her nipple, hardened by the eroticism of her daydreaming. Forefinger and thumb trapped the hardened nub, squeezing and pulling it to even greater hardness.