Whittled Away

Page 9

“I’M SO SORRY I couldn’t give you the little girl that you wanted,” he sighed. He sat on the porch smoothing the chunk of wood with the edge of his knife. Thin peels of wood curled away from the blade. Every few cuts he stopped to caress the groove he’d shaped in the wood.

Don’t you dare put your tongue on that.

“I know the difference between poplar and pussy.”

But do you know the difference between parsley and pussy?

He chuckled deep in his throat letting his finger continue to touch the groove.

“Yes. No one eats parsley.”

It’s getting too cold to sit out here on the porch at night.

“Are you cold, sweetheart? Let’s go in and sit by the fire.”

He stood and moved to the door. Pausing he turned to pick up the wood again and carry it inside with him.

Can’t stop touching me, can you?

“Never could. And anything that can be done outdoors can be done indoors.”

As you showed me when we finally moved in.

“Isn’t he lovely?” she said as they stood in the doorway watching their son sleep. He’d been so excited about moving into his own new bedroom in the home that David built that he could hardly settle to sleep. But now he was out like a light.

“Our precious son looks so much like his mother he couldn’t help but be lovely,” he said. He put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He cupped her breasts and began kissing her neck.

“Mmm. David, we’re standing in the doorway to our son’s room. Don’t do that.” She made no effort to remove his hand from her breast, nor to stop him from lifting her skirt with his other hand.

“I think we might not have found the right place yet to conceive our little girl.” He continued to nibble on her neck while he worked her panties down. Well, the front of her skirt would hide anything if their son woke up. She felt him prodding at her with his cock and thrust her butt back toward him to make his entry easier. David slid into her waiting vagina.

“We… we shouldn’t… be doing this in the hallway,” she panted as she pushed back to get him further inside. “We should do this in bed.” He unfastened the buttons on her dress and slipped inside to cup her bare breast.

“Believe me, I think that is a wonderful idea,” he gasped in her ear. “We’ll do that as soon as we finish here.”

“How will we know which location we conceived in?”

“We’ll probably have to repeat all the places again when we’re ready for the next one.”

“Next one? David, do you want more than two children?”

“My love, as many as you want.”

They groaned as she clamped down on his spurting cock, no longer aware of their sleeping son. They didn’t make it all the way to the bedroom for the second time, finding a new position in the shower. Finally, they tried two more positions in bed, crying out their passion with each climax.

It just never happened.

“Not for lack of trying.”

It’s just that after…

“I know. We waited too long.”

I regret every moment of those years after he died. We still had each other. Why didn’t we still try?

“It felt like we were trying to replace him. I just couldn’t.”

Nor could I. David, I hurt you terribly. I’m so sorry.

It had been six months. No, seven. Their precious son, eight years old, rode his bicycle to Papaw and Memaw’s house after school. He was so excited to be in third grade. He carried a shoebox under his arm—the diorama of Thanksgiving he’d made in school—wobbling awkwardly as he steered his bike one-handed. The man who hit him said the bike had suddenly swerved out into the middle of the road. No charges were filed.

But their son was still dead.

Parents should not have to outlive their children.

Seven months later, spring was in the air. They’d mourned all winter. David felt the need to be close to his wife like they had been. They’d shared everything. They weren’t yet thirty and had so much to look forward to. He reached for her in bed and pulled her close to him. He kissed her gently. She responded, seeming to want the closeness as much as he did. Their kiss deepened and he caressed her breasts through the thin nightgown. He went slowly, giving her as much time to warm up as he could before moving his hand down to the hem of her gown and sliding it up her leg. Her breathing speeded up, became shallower. He touched the soft curls of her pussy but before he could part her lips, her breathing broke into a sob. Her legs clamped tightly together and she rolled away from him.

“Ella…”

“I’m sorry, David. I know you try hard but I’m just not interested. I’m sorry. I love you.”

He was stunned. Crushed. Hurt beyond anything he could imagine. First his son. Now… He turned on his side, facing away from her. Silent tears fell from his eyes. Not interested? In him?

How did you ever survive? I was so broken. I was driving you away.

“You saved it. It took me a while to realize it, but you saved it.”

How?

The wind whistled outside the cabin door and snow had already drifted against the house. Fifty-one years and seventeen days since his son was killed. How had they survived? Why had he kept trying? He put another log on the fire and wondered for the hundredth time if he’d put in enough wood for the winter.

“Your last words. You showed that it wasn’t me you weren’t interested in. You said you loved me. Without those last three words, we wouldn’t have made it.”

Just because I said ‘I love you?’

“It let me know that there was hope that I could interest you again. You weren’t rejecting me. And eventually we thawed the ice between your legs.”

More than a year later. Why did I have to wait so long?

“Perhaps because you knew I would wait.”

But you wouldn’t.

The curve of the wood shaped by his knife was like the flip of her hair on that summer night. She hadn’t consciously been growing it out, but she hadn’t had it cut since their child died. He always loved her hair. If he closed his eyes he could feel each strand of it as he petted her head. Each hair whittled into the diminishing block of wood.

They’d been convinced to join the young marrieds group at the church and tonight was their summer barbecue and bonfire. Ella was self-conscious, thinking they weren’t that young anymore. They needed a thirty-somethings group. It was just another thing in her life that she felt disconnected from. They went to the same church they had attended as children. But the familiar faces that they’d always known felt somehow like strangers. Even her husband felt distant, but of course, that was her fault. She couldn’t imagine why he stayed with her. She knew for a fact that Dotty Felton had been making eyes at him. She wouldn’t be surprised if she lost David to the younger, aggressive woman. Why did she feel so dead? Buried with her son.

They’d eaten, sung some songs, and were getting ready to listen to some storyteller who was the official entertainment for the evening. Darkness had fallen and she slipped back away from the fire into the shadows of the surrounding trees near the stream. She’d heard this storyteller sometimes asked for volunteers and she didn’t want to be in his line of sight. She looked across the fire and tried to see David. It was a force of habit. No matter how far away she tried to push him, her eyes were still drawn to him—seeking him out as if he were an anchor. If ever she lost that thin connection she would be adrift and would be lost at sea.

Where was he? She felt a bit anxious as she looked at the crowd. Was that…? No. How could she mistake Bill Crawford for David? No. Was anyone else missing? Had he slipped away with another man’s wife because his was too cold and unwelcoming? It had become a habit to push him away. It wasn’t even true that she wasn’t interested anymore. But whenever he tried to engage her, she pushed him away. Where was he? Her lip began to quiver as she looked at the gathered couples, most sitting close together now as the storyteller got wound up. Her heart rose in her throat as she neared panic. Perhaps he had left—left her to her own cold devices.

Her scream was cut off by the hand clamped across her mouth. Where had he come from?

“You don’t want to draw attention to the fact that we are hiding in the shadows,” he said.

“David…”

“Quiet. Someone will look and see us. You know you aren’t really hidden. They just happen to be looking the other way,” he said. “If you make noise, they’ll turn and see us.”

“See us what?” she whispered. She would never live down the teasing or the reputation if they saw her sneaking away with her husband during a gathering. Even if nothing was happening.

But something was happening. She’d worn jeans and a t-shirt tonight like most of the other women. It was a hot, midsummer night. David’s hand was crawling up her belly under the shirt. She felt his hand on her breasts, mauling them.

“David…”

“Hush.”

“But…” He spun her around to face him and planted his lips on hers, pushing, forcing her lips to part with his tongue, pinning her against the rugged oak behind her as he worked on her pants zipper. She pushed at his hands but they caught in her waistband and he dragged her jeans and underwear down until he could hook them with his knee and keep pushing while he cupped her ass in his palms. “Don’t… We’ll…”

“It’s been long enough, Ella. Our marriage is on the line now.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Everyone will turn and look at you with your pants around your ankles and your husband’s hand on your ass. They’ll think you had an orgasm. I’m sure the Millers will have something to say about that. At church Sunday.”

“But David…”

“Feel this?” he asked. He pressed his bare cock against her belly as she felt her bra unfasten, releasing her breasts. “Every time I look at you, I’m ready. Whenever I can’t see you, I’m ready. Whenever I catch your scent in the air, I’m ready. And you are, too, Ella.”

She couldn’t deny what his fingers had found as he pried her legs apart and cupped her wet cunt. What was happening? He wasn’t asking. He wasn’t seducing. He wasn’t begging.

He was insisting.

And something inside her gave way. She crushed her mouth against his, grasping his cock in her hand—perhaps less carefully than she might have. He dipped and she moved it to her entrance. He thrust. Hard. He was buried in her and there was no going back. Her husband had claimed her as his own and she opened her knees wider to give him better access. His hands now both cupped her breasts, pinching her nipples as her butt bounced against the rough bark of the tree. His tongue explored deeply in her mouth, cutting off the scream of her first orgasm and muffling the second. Still he pounded at her pussy, pinching and manhandling her breasts, making her come again before she felt him filling her with his seed. He jammed himself into her as far as he could and held himself there as his cock throbbed inside her.

And she wept.

She held him and hugged him and he stroked the long hair that hung past her shoulders as he whispered “I love you.”

She pushed at him. Supposing that she was still rejecting him, he slowly pulled away, his cock slipping from her vagina. He looked into her eyes.

“Lie down,” she said softly. “I’m going to scrape up your butt now.”

He lay down on a bed of old leaves, twigs, and acorns beneath the tree and she mounted him, stroking him upright until she could lodge him again in her pussy. And then it was her turn to insist. She slammed down on him again and again as her tears continued to rain down on his face. She ignored the pain of the acorns under her knees and lifted herself to slam down on him again, reveling in the feel of his cock once again stretching her and filling her. She grabbed at his nipples, pinching and twisting them as violently as he had hers and when she saw him throw his head back and thrust up into her to hold as he came again, she plastered herself against him and sucked his tongue and his moan into her mouth.

This time it was Ella whispering in his ear as they caught their breath. “I love you. I love you, my husband.” She fell asleep on top of him, his cock still in her pussy as he petted her hair.

Their love-life had improved. Not instantly, but steadily. He rocked in his old chair in front of the fire and his knife lovingly shaped the indentation where her spine dipped into her butt. There was not much left of the stick of wood he’d brought into the house last year. Each night he sat and rocked and whittled and remembered.

You don’t have to relive this, David.

“I relive it every day. I can’t help it.”

He pressed his thumb into the small of her back, almost feeling the wood give beneath his pressure.

“Does that help?” he asked as he kissed her shoulders.

“Yes. At least that is one place that doesn’t hurt. Thank you.”

He smoothed his hands lightly up and down her bent back. Arthritis and osteoporosis had bent her back into a painful arch, but it was the cancer that made her suffer. His old hands pushed and rubbed her back, but there was little relief. Hospice was a bitch. If she took enough of the drugs to ease all the pain, she wasn’t there at all. She asked for an hour each night to be as clear as possible before she was drugged again.

“I love you, my darling El.”

“I love you, D. It won’t be long now and I won’t have this pain. Don’t cry too long. You are still young and strong.”

“I’m not young, El. I’m two years older than you.”

“But you are strong and you feel young to me. When I’m gone, you could still go out and get a new wife. You don’t need to wait. Go out and look up Dotty Felton. She always had the hots for you.”

“Dotty died five, six years ago. You know that,” he sighed.

“She just wasn’t in it for the long haul. Couldn’t wait.”

“She was happily married and had six kids and a passle of grandkids. That flirtation was just her trying out her wings.”

“Did you… Did you ever succumb to her wiles, David?”

“There’s never been anyone but you, Ella.”

“Even in the dark times after…?”

“No one but you, my love.”

“Well, me and that old pair of sweat socks. It took me forever to figure out why those socks always got so crusty.” The old couple laughed softly until Ella gasped for breath.

“Do you need your pill now, my love?”

“In a minute. David, I’ve loved you for seventy-five years.”

“You are only seventy-four years old, dear.”

“I loved you before I was born. I will love you long after I’m dead. I… I can’t take the pain anymore, David. Give me my pill. Please.” He held her as she swallowed the pill and drank her water. He held her as she went off to sleep whispering, “I love you.” He held her as she slipped away late that night.

And since that night, he’d held her in his thoughts. Always.

It’s cold, David. Put more wood on the fire.

He absently tossed another log into the firebox. The long thin twig he still whittled was little more than a finger. He held it in his hand, just has he’d held her fingers in his hand throughout the years. Tears fell freely, now.

Look. It’s midnight. Merry Christmas, David.

“Ella, I can’t go on. I thought it would get better with time, but it hasn’t.”

Are you ready, David? Are you truly ready?

“Every time I think of you, I’m ready. Whenever I don’t think of you, I’m ready. Whenever I breathe, I catch your scent in the air, and I’m ready.”

And I am, too. Toss that stick you’re holding in the fire, David. Take my hand instead.

“Will you take me with you, Ella?”

Why do you think I’ve been hanging around all this time? Come to me, beloved. It’s time to go.

David closed his eyes, feeling the smooth texture of the whittled wood in his hand. He smiled and tossed it toward the fire, not knowing and not caring whether it made it to the flames. His old Buck knife fell to the floor.

His hand, instead, took his beloved wife’s and he followed her.

The End

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