It was Friday, the end of a long week and Josh was keen to finish this last job he had scheduled. He was driving his Ford Ranger through the drizzle that had been the main weather for most of the month. It wasn’t doing much to boost his mood. The small repair job was referred to him by a fellow contractor. He had been short on work for the past year and was taking every job that came his way. He had only himself to blame for the lack of work after his unreliable behavior of the previous year when his life had again spun out of control. He glanced at the motto he had stuck on the dashboard exactly 263 days ago.
“One day at a time,” it read.
Sometimes getting through one day without a drink sapped him of every ounce of willpower and it seemed like a miracle when he made it through. Today was one of those days when it felt like he couldn’t stay sober. All he could think about was sitting at the bar with a glass of Jack in his hand. He glanced at the sign again and focussed on the word, “One” which he had underlined in red.
Shortly after he knocked, the door opened. He took off his hat, a little gesture that he thought made him look more trustworthy when he went to a new client’s house.
The woman who answered the door smiled and brushed aside his offer to take off his boots. She stepped to one side and as he moved past her, she gently touched his shoulder in a way that made him feel unexpectantly vulnerable.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “My name is Samantha, but everyone calls me Sam. Let me show you the room that needs the new light fixture installed.”
He followed her up the stairs and noticed her slim figure and the way her body moved. He cast his gaze down to protect himself from feeling anything other than professional. He was fighting demons at many levels. He could almost hear the judge castigating him at his sentencing hearing.
“Here we are,” she said as she stepped into a large and tastefully decorated bedroom,
“The new fixture is on the chair. I will leave you to it. Let me know if you need anything.”
It would be an easy job and he went back to his truck to get a stepladder and his tool kit. When he walked back through the front door, he could see her standing at the glass doors at the back of the house and he noticed how beautiful she was framed by the light coming through the glass. She was older than him by maybe ten years; tall and slim with long, dark brown hair that framed her face and set off her white skin. She was dressed casually in tight-fitting jeans and a loose, white blouse unbuttoned to show a shadow where her breasts were pressed together. She was barefoot, which added to her allure. She was talking on the phone and laughing and the sound of her voice was sweet and joy-filled. He noticed she had multiple silver bracelets on her wrists that jangled as she talked. He felt a longing in his groin. It had been more than a year since he had been intimate with a woman and he felt the absence more acutely with each passing day.
He installed the fixture, boxed up the old one, and tried the switch and everything worked.
When he came downstairs, she looked at him so frankly that he felt his face flush and a little trickle of sweat ran down from his armpit. She stood still for a moment and held his gaze. After a moment he looked down and mumbled that he should be on his way.
“Come and sit down for a moment,” she proposed. “Don’t run off!”
After sitting down in the living room, in sofas facing one another, she said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Should I?’” he responded with some irritation in his voice.
“I was in an AA group with you,” she said, “Oh, four or five years ago. I remember you so well. You had been sober for about 6 months and I had just begun and I thought I would never make it that far. You told me at the time, ‘You will. Just do the steps and keep coming back.' You said it with such conviction and humility.”
She paused here, looked away for a second, and then, looking down at the floor, she said, “I did make it.”
She paused for what seemed to Josh to be an eternity and then said, “I have always wanted to thank you but you stopped coming soon after we met and I never got the chance, till now.”
So much chaos and pain had fucked up his life since then and his memory was shot and he really could not honestly say he remembered her, but he lied and said, “Yeah, yeah, I remember. So glad you made it.”
“My life is so different now compared to then,” she said, in a voice so quiet and vulnerable he could hardly hear her.
“Before I got sober, I was working as an escort and in a bar, part-time, to make enough for the rent. I thought it was all so sophisticated until I realized it was only a crazy way to run from my demons. I’m a lot happier now even though it is still a struggle to stay clean.”
“How about you?” she said looking straight at him with a look that demanded an honest answer.
“Yeah, I’m good…. Yeah, it’s not always easy but I’m good.”
“Ten years as an escort has taught me to sniff out a lie when I hear one.” She laughed. “And I hear a lie right now.”
She was staring straight into his eyes when she said this and he felt very uncomfortable, like when he was a kid and he had lied to his father to escape a beating.
He sat very still, looking down at his feet and squeezed his hands between his knees so she wouldn’t see that they were shaking. He knew he should either stand up and leave quickly or stay and tell her how he really felt. He didn’t have the courage to do either. His irritation with her wish to have this honest conversation had turned to anger.
Before he had made up his mind, she reached forward and very gently she put her hand on his knee.
“You are your own worst enemy,” she said quietly. “You never give yourself a break. I know from getting sober that if we don’t forgive ourselves and believe we can change we will always be trapped.”
He moved his knee, lifted her hand away, and stood up too abruptly.
“Before you go, I want you to know that I arranged with your contractor friend for you to come to my house and do this job,” she admitted. “I was looking for a way to connect with you. I’ve seen you around town and heard about what’s been happening in your life. I wanted to offer you something that I think you need. Maybe I am crossing a line but I want to repay a favour from four years ago. You probably don’t realize it but that simple comment you made to me in the group was a lifesaver for me.”
“Listen,” he responded with obvious irritation, “You don’t owe me anything.” He started towards the front door.
He had gone a few steps when she said, “Josh, stop fighting your demons and let someone be kind towards you!”
Something in the tone of her voice pierced him and he stopped. He felt tears welling up in his eyes that he tried to blink away. His brain was screaming, “Get out. You don’t need anyone’s kindness.”
He felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned. She looked so soft and open. She gracefully took his hand in hers. He had to force himself to look at her. Her gaze was so disarming.
She placed her hand against his cheek and said, “Don’t run away, Josh.” And she brushed his lips with her fingers.
At that moment something broke apart inside him and he took a step towards her. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He felt the heat of her body and took in her scent. He nuzzled his head into her hair and drank in her warmth. She whispered into his ear, “Come upstairs to my bedroom and let me lift this burden from you. I want to give you pleasure. I want you to feel loved.”
She took his hand and led him to the stairs. She went ahead and he followed. At the top of the stairs, she stopped and turned to him.
“Last chance to run,” she said smiling.
He shook his head and, in a voice, so quiet she had to ask him to repeat himself he said, “I don’t feel worthy of your kindness but I do want to stop running away from myself and everyone else.”
She invited him to sit on the bed and standing in front of him she unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor. Her breasts were held in a white, lacy bra and she turned and asked him to unfasten it. When she turned back to him, he caught his breath. She was so beautiful. Her breasts were round, full and her nipples were erect and surrounded by dark areoles. She stood looking at him with a smile as she unfastened her jeans and pushed them down.
“Can you help me,” she asked and he knelt down and took her jeans off, one leg at a time. As he made to stand up, she took his head in her hands and guided him to her silk-covered pussy and gently pressed his face against her. He breathed in her scent and felt dizzy. He wanted to ravish her it had been so long and his arousal was coming on so strong but she, sensing his urgency, said,
“Let’s be especially gentle with one another for our first time. Yes? First times are sacred.”
Then she stood back and said, “Your turn, babe.”
He stood up and she unbuttoned his shirt, slid it off his shoulders, and pulled his t-shirt over his head. She saw his muscular chest and his hard abs and caressed him feeling his strength.
“Wow,” she said. “You keep yourself in good shape.”
She undid his belt and the snap on his jeans and unzipped him. She felt his bulge as she slipped his jeans down. She knelt and he let her pull them off. As she came back up, she grazed his cock through his briefs ever so lightly with her face. It made his cock twitch. She stood tall and wrapping both arms around his neck she pulled him in for a deep kiss.
This was the moment when he melted. He felt so vulnerable in her arms and because of the uninhibited way she had seduced him. He felt the armor he had built up over a lifetime drop away and he was exposed. He froze for a second and she felt the change in him. She pulled her face back from his and looked searchingly into his eyes.
“You have a right to be happy, Josh” she whispered.
She reached one hand down and squeezed his cock with her fingers and kissed him again sucking his tongue into her mouth. He turned her around and lowered her onto the bed. He lay beside her and stroked her hair, her face and kissed her neck. She lay back and let him have his way. His natural desire to be rough and disregard the feelings of women was there but stronger was the desire to be gentle, to take his cues from her and he felt himself slow down and be in the moment, not rushing to orgasm like he so often did.
She took his hand to her breasts and cupped his hand under hers and guided him to caress her. She told him to roll her nipples in his fingers, to lick and suck her and held his head in her hands as he did. He felt her quicken and her breath began coming in short gasps.
“Yes,” she said. “Oh yes that feels so right. Don’t stop.”
He continued licking, sucking, pinching her erect nipples and he cupped and squeezed her soft breasts. He let his hand wander down her flat stomach and slip inside her satin panties. He slipped one finger in between her legs and felt the warmth and wetness of her.
“So gentle and loving” she said. “I like that.”.
Encouraged, he began searching for the opening of her pussy and slid his finger up and down her slit as she pushed herself against his hand. His finger easily slipped in her opening and he felt her open up to him. One finger and then another he pushed inside her and she was now pulling on his hair as she was beginning to lose control. Very quickly she arched her back and he felt her cunt grip his fingers as she came, her whole body trembling. She pulled him to her tightly as she shuddered, one wave after another passing through her until she fell quiet, panting as the last of her orgasm subsided.
He pulled her to him and held her, kissing her neck and chin and lips. She responded with kisses of her own and then relaxed and lay quiet.
“It has been a long, long while since I have been with a man,” she said. “That was so sweet. Thank you.”
She paused and then said, “When you sell your body for money you lose any real desire to make love. I found that desire again, today, with you.”
Her honesty and the realization of what she was saying about him felt overwhelming. Sex with women had always been for him about self-gratification and often in a state of inebriation. Now he was hearing that she felt respected by him and a long-lost desire had been rekindled in her. He hardly knew what to think.
She raised herself up on her elbow and looked at him.
“I took a risk,” she said. “I wanted to give you the chance to believe something about yourself that you’ve lost.”
“What’s that,” he asked.
“That you are a good man and can be a loving man and that letting yourself be vulnerable can be a good thing. Look where being open, rather than running, led you today.”
He kissed her with a tenderness he had never felt before and she pulled him close to her and wrapped a leg over him. He felt her wetness against his thigh and she began to rub herself against him, warming her pussy with the friction.
“Lie back,” she said. “Don’t say a word. Just feel. Let go and let me take you over the edge. I want to pleasure you, every inch of you.”
She moved down the bed and pulled down his briefs releasing his hard cock. She knelt between his legs and several times pulled his cock towards herself and let it spring back.
“You are so hard Josh,” she exclaimed. “Has it been a long time for you as well?”
She straddled his hips and slowly lowered herself down so her pussy rested on the length of his cock. Then she slid back and forth slowly letting the head of his cock graze her clit. Her juices flowed from her all over his cock. She rose up slightly, pushed his cock back with her fingers and guided him to her opening and then slowly pushed herself down on him, taking him inch by inch. He filled her up and she felt the walls of her pussy open up to receive him. She pressed herself down and felt her clit press against his pubic bone. She fell forward and lay on his chest covering his face with her hair and snuggling into his neck, licking him and tasting his salty sweetness.
“I want you to cum inside me, Josh. I want you to fill me with all the cum you have held back for so long. I want all of it”
Then she placed her hands on his chest, pushed herself up and began to ride him. He placed his hands on her hips and each time she raised herself up, he pulled her down to take him deep inside of her. Really quickly he felt himself ready to let go and just as he was about to say, "I’m cumming,” he spurted his cum into her. She rocked back and forth and he bucked into her unloading every drop of his seed.
She collapsed onto him and squeezed her pussy to hold his softening cock inside her. He lay beneath her, completely spent, panting and feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from him. He held her tight and quietly sobbed into her neck releasing the last of all the emotions he had kept pent up inside for so long. She gently stoked his hair and whispered his name in his ear over and over.
After a few minutes, he whispered her name and she lifted her head and looked at him.
“Do you know Bob Dylan’s song ‘Shelter from the Storm?’
“I think so. Maybe?”
“I loved this song from the time I first heard it. It was one of those songs that you know are telling you something you need to know.”
He looked at her with gratitude and said, “In the middle verse Dylan sings about a woman, with silver bracelets on her wrists, who takes her lover's crown of thorns and then she tells him that she will give him shelter from the storm.”
He kissed her very gently and said, “You did that for me today.”
She smiled and lay her head on his chest and when they woke up it was dark and they made love again exploring each other with their hands and tongues and bringing each other to several more orgasms before they were both completely spent.
