“Is that you Caroline?”   Susan’s voice cut through the cold air like the Grim Reaper’s scythe.   “Caroline!   I repeat, is that you?”

Susan is Jerry’s mother, woman from Hell, who has a complete mental block which prevents her from using the correct name of Carolyn, or even Caro (as the rest of the world called her).

She clenched her teeth.   “Susan!   I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

“Clearly!   Whatever are you wearing?”

Caro had very carefully chosen this halter-neck summer frock, even though it was the end of November, because it was the frock she had worn the day Jerry had left.   Despite the weather, she had decided to wear the same things from that special day;   the same frock, the same sling-backs – and absolutely nothing else, just like she had done.   It still gave her a very pleasant frisson to remember how they had gone for a picnic in the country, and how he had lifted her dress back to find she was totally naked beneath.   That day their love-making had been urgent and fervent, and now she wanted him to recall that day once again on his return.

Susan’s surprise was not without merit.   It was bloody cold dressed in this light summer fashion.   Her nipples hurt with standing up in the cold.   But the end result would be worth it.

Jerry had now been away since August.   War Correspondent sounded glamorous until you realised just how dangerous a job it could be.   This assignment had grown ugly.   Jerry had been caught up in an investigation into sexual slavery following severe ethnic cleansing.   He needed a break, and Caro needed him to be with her, safe and secure once again.   Her thoughts were broken once more by Susan’s voice.

“There he is!   Jeremy!   Over here!   Jeremy!   Jeremy!”

Caro’s eyes met Jerry’s as he heard his mother’s strident calls.   Caro shrugged helplessly, knowing Jerry knew exactly what a pain his mother could be.

“Jeremy, just look how gaunt you are.   You’ve not been looking after yourself at all, have you?”   It was, of course, a rhetorical question.   Jeremy had no intention of gracing it with an answer.   His arm now encircled Caro’s waist, his fingers gliding across her bum and immediately recognising that she wore nothing beneath her flimsy dress.   A brief look of complicit understanding stole across his face as he looked in to her eyes and remembered their picnic the day he had left.

Did Caro also see a fleeting worried look in Jerry’s eyes as he touched her?   It seemed so.   The look passed as quickly as it had appeared.   Jerry was brought back to the moment by his mother’s voice in his ear.

“Jeremy, are you listening?   I must dash now that I’ve seen you home safely.   It costs such a lot to park here.   Go home and change.   Be sure to put on some nice clothes and come round for dinner.   The Aitchisons are so keen to meet you.   You won’t be coming too, will you, Caroline?   Eight-o-clock sharp, Jeremy, do you hear?”   With that she was gone.

“I’m so, so sorry Caro.   Whatever made you bring her along?”

“Like I’d rather have a frontal lobotomy without anaesthetic than bring her along with me, especially dressed like this!”

“I know what you mean,” said Jerry with feeling.   “You look gorgeous, just as I remembered you.   Please, let’s go home.”

“I’m so glad, my sweet, you still remember me like this.   That was a very special day.   In one of your e-mails you said I made the calendar shrink for you.   I want the days we’ve been apart to disappear.

Caro drove them back to their townhouse in fashionable Chelsea.   She was glad she had moved in with him, and was very much aware of the material benefits of Jerry’s job.   But they came at such a price.   Once inside the car, he had lapsed into silence.   His eyes constantly scanned the road from side to side as if looking for imminent danger.   He tightly gripped the arm rest, the other hand clutching his seat belt.    The knuckles of both hands showed white as his fingers clenched.   “You poor, poor man,” she thought to herself.   “Let me take you in my arms and hold myself against your body.   Let me rebuild you.”

At the house, Jerry took himself to the bathroom and ran a warm and very-much-looked-forward-to shower.   Caro gave him ten minutes on his own, then went into the bathroom.   She slipped off her frock and drew back the glass door into the shower.   Their eyes met as she stepped into the stream of water.   Her arms reached up and folded themselves around his neck.   She pressed her body against him, sighing at the touch of his strong limbs.   They said nothing, simply standing in a close embrace, each lost in their own thoughts.

She started as she felt his body convulse once, twice, three times.   She held her head back to look at his face and saw he was crying.   She moved closer, drawing him nearer and holding him tightly.   His body shook as he sobbed uncontrollably.   Her mind went back to the letter he had written where he had told her he “wept in the dark” from loneliness.   These weren’t the tears of loneliness.   These were the tears of a man who had seen and heard too much.

She pressed herself ever more tightly against him, her pussy pressing against his thigh, gently rubbing herself against him.   She sensed the parting of her lips as she pressed against him, her shaven pussy thrilling to his touch.   It cut her deeply when he pulled away saying “No, don’t, you’ve no idea!”

She caught his hands between her fingers.   “Shhh,” she soothed.   “It’s all right.   I understand.”

“How can you?” he exploded.   “You weren’t there.   You’ve no idea at all!”   The violence behind his words brought tears to her eyes and she recoiled at his anger and rejection.   As she stepped back the floodgates broke and she wept openly.   She turned to flee but Jerry caught her by the wrist.

“I’m so, so sorry.   I shouldn’t have said that.   Please, stay, please Caro?”

She allowed him to draw her towards him, but held herself back from the former close contact between their bodies.   “What was all that about, Jerry?   Why?”

“The feel of your body next to me just reminded me of some of the things I’d seen.   I don’t know what came over me, I just lost it.   I’m sorry.”

Caro knew he had been through the mill with the sexual slavery assignment.   But she couldn’t understand why the feel of her, yes, her body against him should awaken the demons deep in his mind.   “Why’s that?” she asked gently.

Jerry remained silent, anguish on his face as he struggled to find the words she needed to hear.   By the hand Caro drew him out of the shower and then threw a bath towel around him.   She started to dry herself.   Then she dried Jerry as he stood there looking at her, lost for words.   She took him into their bedroom.   “I really need a cuddle.   Please Jerry?”

She lay on the bed and pulled him towards her.   They always slept facing each other, her on her left side.   This was how they now lay, her face pressed against his chest, her right hand resting on his belly, and her right leg sandwiched between his knees.

He looked down into her eyes.   “Caro?   Are we good?”

“Of course we’re good.   I love you.   I love you so much that nothing, I mean absolutely nothing could stop us being good.”

They lay there without speaking.   It felt so right laid there together.   Their bodies fitted so comfortably together like two pieces in a jigsaw.   Although Jerry lay motionless, she basked in the touch of his bare skin against her.   Her breasts were full as they pressed against his stomach, her nipples standing proud, now not through cold but through arousal.   She allowed the fingers of her right hand to stroke his side.

She sensed Jerry was ready to talk.   “You know, they say a trouble shared is a trouble halved.   Please talk to me and help me to understand?”

Jerry sighed.   He had no wish to burden her with his dark thoughts.   At the same time, however, he knew she deserved some explanation.   “I will.   Please, just let me come to terms with it all myself.”   He was playing for time, just as he had done ever since this whole wretched business had started.   He had written her an e-mailed letter whenever he could.   He had spoken of “empty days” implying they were empty without her.   So often he had desperately wished those days to have been empty of nightmares.

“I hope you’re not angry because I wore that frock?” she ventured.   “I wanted to remind you of the last time we were together.   Do you remember?”

He remembered.   They had gone for a walk and a picnic in some woods in the country.   They had spread a blanket on the grass and she had lain back with her hands clasped behind her head.   He recalled in detail how he had slipped her shoes off, shoes that were so unsuited to the countryside, but shoes that were so typical of Caro.     He remembered how he had then run his hand up her shin, over her thighs.   The fabric of her summer frock had been taken up with his hand, exposing her creamy thighs.   His hand had continued to slide up her thighs and her dress had been pushed back to reveal her breasts.   His gaze had been held by the magic of discovering her beautiful body, naked beneath the frock.

They had been occasional lovers for some time before this, and very recently she had moved in with him.   On this occasion, however, she had taken his breath away.   As he had lifted her summer dress right back he was taken with the beauty of her pussy, completely shaved for the very first time.   Her lips were full, pouting towards him, and he had found it impossible to hold himself back.   He had opened her legs to accommodate his face and pressed his mouth against her, tasting her readiness.   The sweet smell and taste of her pussy was irresistible.   He had lifted her thighs with his arms, and then slid his cock between those inviting lips to its full extremity in a single fluid movement.   Their love-making beneath the leafy canopy had been abandoned and reckless.   His climax into her had made her cry out with its heat and its intensity.   Not for one second had they paused to consider whether they might be discovered.   That was how their love was – committed, consensual, and fulfilling.

She remembered too.   She often imagined she could still feel him removing her shoes and stroking her legs, his fingers walking their way up towards her pussy.   Her legs were very sensitive and she had squirmed as his fingers tinkled her shins.   “Lie still,” he had told her.   How she loved the authoritative way he spoke.   She had found a certain inexplicable pleasure there beneath the tress trying to do as he had asked and lie still.

His hand had lifted her frock right back until it hung loose around her neck.   Her body in its entirety was exposed to the daylight and to anybody who might be passing by.   With satisfaction she had noted the in-take of breath as he caught sight of her handiwork.   She had shaved herself that morning, knowing they would be laid together on the picnic blanket.   What she had not expected was for things to unfold quite like this.   Awareness that they might be seen had increased the value in the gift of herself to him.

Each replayed these moments through their memories as they lay there until Jerry felt he simply had to explain.   With her leg held between his legs, her thighs were slightly parted.   He could feel her smooth and tender sex against his thigh.   He just had to explain.

“Those camps, we discovered,” he began, and then stopped.

“Those camps......” she echoed quietly.

“Can you imagine what we found in them?”

Silence.

“There were young women whose husbands had been butchered in front of their eyes.”   He felt her tense against him, but she said nothing.   “There were also young girls, as young as eight years old.   Can you imagine that?”

Caro lay silently, trying and failing to picture this.   “But how did I....how did the feel of me against you remind you of all this?”

“I felt the softness and the smoothness of your pussy.   It was exactly the same softness and smoothness I felt in the woods with you on that last day.   I made you lie how I wanted you to lie.   I forced your thighs apart and sank myself deep inside you.....” His voice trailed off.   She drew a breath as if to speak but he put his finger on her lips to silence her.   “Don’t you see?   Those little girls, those children in the camps, they would have been smooth and soft like that.   And they would have been forced to lie exactly how men wanted them to lie.   Their thighs would have been held open.   Those men would have.....”

It was now her turn to silence him with a finger on his lips.   “No, it wasn’t the same.   Not the same at all.   I did that out of love, not from compulsion.   My pussy was soft and smooth because I’m a grown woman who had chosen to reveal it to you in this fashion.   My thighs opened because I wanted them to open to you and welcome you inside me.   It’s not the same thing at all.”

As she spoke he knew what she said was indeed the way it had been.   Why, then, had he felt this guilt within himself?   Why had he, Jeremy Carter, suddenly felt that he should not be in such intimate closeness to the woman he loved?

He was not permitted the time to explore this thought further.   The ringing of the phone beside the bed broke the stillness within the bedroom.   Caro’s hand reached up to stay his arm and prevent him from lifting the receiver.   The answering machine cut in – I can’t get to the phone right now.   Please leave a message.

“Jeremy, are you there?”   It was his mother.   Jeremy and Caro swore in unison.   There was a pause.   “I hope you’ve set off Jeremy.   The Aitchisons are coming early.”   There was a click as she terminated the call.

With absolute clarity Caro realised why Jerry had reacted in the way he had done.   “There’s your reason, if you’re looking for one.   It’s your bloody mother.   She’s the reason you feel guilty being close to me.   She hates my guts.   She’s also so bloody ‘establishment’ that you feel you have to react the way she dictates you react.   And you know what?   I’m glad she hates me.   It just confirms I’m the exact opposite of her.”

Caro’s outburst took him by surprise.   Nobody could accuse Caro of being the brightest button in the box, but every now and then she had an insight which cut straight to the heart of the matter.   It was true, he reacted to his mother like a marionette whose strings were being pulled.   “I love you, Caro.   I love every bone in your body.   I love every hair on your head, and every hair you’ve shaven from your pussy.”

Caro snuggled closer to him.   “Shut up,” she giggled, “I’ve not finished.”   She withdrew her leg and placed it over his legs.   She knelt up, astride him, lent forward and placed her hands on his shoulders.   “I’ve waited   all these weeks for you.   And now that I’ve got you I’m not going to let you go.   The bloody Aitchisons can go to hell.   You’re mother too!”

She slid herself backwards, still astride him, and bent down so that her breasts brushed down his chest, over his belly and came to rest either side of his cock.   She was rewarded with the feel of him stirring between her boobs.   She slid back a little further and let her tongue alight on the tip of his manhood, tantalisingly licking him with a tongue that was both rigid and soft.   His response was immediate.   Now she drew him in, taking care to keep her teeth away from him, holding him between her moistened lips.   She let them travel up and down his shaft, mouthing a voiceless “ooh ay ooh ay” like an actor doing mouth and voice warm-ups.

She held his cock in her hand firmly at its base.   This action stimulated him further.   The combined work of her lips, her tongue which was now circling his tip, and her clasping hand eased back the skin to expose its head.   Her tongue played on that sensitive area where the foreskin is joined to the shaft.   Jerry wanted to explode, but at the same time he wanted this to continue.   Caro knew exactly what she was doing, and took him to the point where she could still control him with the hand clasping him.   She then removed her lips and, without releasing her grip, she stroked his cock against her swollen pussy.

Jerry could see the purple of his straining head against the deep pink of her opening sex.   He could see the sheen of her wetness, and also detected the beads of love juices escaping from his tip.   Still she stroked him up and down, pleasuring herself with his tip against her clitoris.   Her head was forward, her hair hung down over her face, and she pushed the fingers of her free hand through her hair allowing her to look him in the eye.   As their eyes met the phone rang again.

  I can’t get to the phone right now.   Please leave a message.

“Jeremy, where are you?   Are you there?   I hope you’re not wasting your time laid in bed with that awful Caroline!   We need you here, now!   Do you hear me?”

Caro recollected some words from an e-mail Jerry had sent about his dreams of her and how he longed to never wake up, these dreams always interrupted by the ringing of his alarm.   She knew then what she had to do.   Caro reached over and picked up the receiver.   “Susan, he’s not coming.   Got that?   Or rather he’s not coming to you.   Instead he’s coming to me, for me, and into me.   Now get the fuck off the phone and go and play at being the perfect hostess with the bloody Aitchisons!”   Meaningfully she replaced the receiver.

“That was brilliant.   I would never have dared say something like that, even though I’ve wanted to.”

Caro rolled off Jerry to lie beside him, this time on her back.   “If I’m so brilliant, don’t turn me into a liar.   I meant what I said, both earlier and a moment ago.   So, please come to me, for me, and into me.”

Jerry’s fingers parted the lips of her pussy.   She was wet with anticipation.   He loved the lapping sound as he ran his fingers up and down her.   He loved the way her clitoris was now exposed to his touch, and knew that the feel of his hair against it would drive her into a frenzy of desire when he entered into her.

His cock was swollen and an insistent tattoo beat within his loins, summoning his strength to return home for the night.   The tip of his cock instinctively knew where that home lay.   It sought entry into her, plunging into her warmth to seek sanctuary deep within her.   It withdrew a little to plunge again, further inside her.   This time her legs were being lifted right up so that her knees were beside her ears.   His hand pulled the pillows down and beneath her, raising her bum up onto them so that he could penetrate her yet further.   Her clitoris met his hair and she squirmed, moaning with delight beneath and around him.

Caro felt as though she had just fought an epic battle.   There was neither victory nor defeat.   Instead she had given herself to him, whole-heartedly.   She had opened herself to him.   Now, like an invading, yet benevolent, general he possessed her, seeking her deepest regions and asserting his presence.   His intentions were clear.   He was to be accommodated.   He was to be welcomed.   He was to be accepted.   And his actions were law.

Caro gave everything of herself to him.   She felt his orgasm force its way up his shaft and burst out into her in a scalding torrent.   She felt the spasms of his cock as it emptied itself into her.   And afterwards she loved him for the strength that she felt receding from his body as he relaxed following his climax.

She lay beneath him, small and secure under the weight of his relaxed body.   Her pussy glowed, and although numbed to a degree by the intensity of the passion they had enjoyed, she was by no means without feeling there.   Quite distinctly she felt his cock diminish.   She had enough strength and enough feeling in her lips not to allow him to slip completely from her.   Now she tensed her pelvic floor rhythmically and was rewarded by a response from his loins that told her he was winning the battle against his demons.   Almost imperceptibly his strength started to return, firstly to his cock, then to his loins, and lastly to his legs.

This time it was not the might of an army, more the faith of a prophet.   He was assured in what he was doing, and having embarked on his mission he knew he would find the strength to complete it.   With long and steady thrusts he reached into her and withdrew to enter her again.   With each thrust he pronounced his message, a clear statement of love and trust and respect.   With each withdrawal he tested the acceptance of that message and was rewarded with her following him to avoid losing him.   Now that the message was understood and accepted, his thrusts became ever more fervent.   They urged her to join him in his zeal.   They strengthened her to give beyond what she thought she was capable of giving.   And they bathed her in the glory of his love as, once again, his hot sperm flowed into her.

Jerry lay with his cock deep within her.   This orgasm had emptied him and the force had gone from him.   He released her legs and she lay with them closed beneath him, his cock firmly clasped within her.   He welcomed her grip on him, hardening as if willing his power not to depart.   Now her squeezing on his shaft felt not like an encouragement for more action but rather a pleading not to leave her.   She was begging him to stay within her, to comfort her and to be there for her.   To his joy, for a third time he found a response.

Oh so very gently, held tightly between her legs, his shaft started to slide in and out of her in the smallest and most tender of movements.   He felt himself brushing against her clitoris, and thrilled to the ripples of pleasure beneath him as she experienced one, two, three clitoral orgasms.   The sound of those orgasms re-kindled the fires within his loins, and again he found himself opening her legs and discovering her innermost depths.   This time, however, their lovemaking was gentle, but nonetheless intense.   They climaxed together as a wave of joy swept over them both.   Still inside her he rolled her onto her side, and without drawing away from her they both sank into a deep and contented sleep.

Caro had no idea how long they had slept.   She awoke with a damp sticky patch on the sheet beneath her.   To her horror she realised she had been dribbling on his chest as they slept.   Her movement disturbed Jerry.   He opened his eyes, and taking stock of the situation, smiled at the fact she had been slavering on his chest in her sleep.   “We are good, aren’t we?”

“We are.   Welcome back, Jerry!”