Cabin Cousins: Part 1

Cousins reunion: a childhood friendship becomes love.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

Chapter One.

It was one of those glorious mid-October days in Minnesota, where morning frost gives way to clear blue skies and temperatures warm enough for wearing tee shirts.

My name is Charles, by the way, nice to meet you. Please don't call me Charlie, or Chuck or Chucky, I hate that. I work at a big box home improvement store near my home on the west side of the Twin Cities. I'm eighteen, and have spent most of the summer since graduating, being overworked and underpaid. I took Saturday, Sunday, and half of Friday off so that I could drive up and spend the weekend 'up north' at the family cabin, near Pelican Lake.

Built by my great grandfather, Olaf Larson, in the early 1900's, the cabin was a place that anyone in my (quite large) extended family was free to use. The cabin itself is rather small, just a single room, adorned with a century's worth of hunting trophies and antique nick knacks. There were spaces in the woods around the cabin yard where people would park their RV's, and some nice grassy clearings for setting up tents. There was someone there on most weekends between spring and fall, and sometimes it was a pretty full house, with ten or twenty people showing up for a relaxing weekend of doing nothing. This, likely the last weekend of decent weather for the next six months or so, was going to be a busy one.

I was halfway through the three hour drive, when my mom called me on my cell phone to make sure I was on my way, and if I had remembered my tent. Yes, I had remembered my tent, and yes, I remembered my sleeping bag and an extra blanket because it was going to get cold at night. Thanks, mom. Then she listed off who was there, and who else was on their way. Aunts and uncles, older brothers and sisters, relatives of every age and variety.

My heart skipped a beat though, when she added as an afterthought that my cousin Melissa Olson, was there. Actually, she was my second cousin, but more importantly, she was my friend. Growing up, my weekends were occupied by exploring the woods around the cabin, fishing and swimming in the lake, or just hanging out around the fire pit chatting and telling stories. Many of those weekends, Melissa was right there at my side. I had more in common with her than with any of the male relatives close to my age, in terms of interests and personality, so often it was just the two of us.

About three years back, there was some kind of family drama that I really didn't pay attention to, but as a result, the whole branch of the family that Melissa belonged to stopped showing up to family gatherings. I was fifteen at the time, and though I was really sad that I didn't get to see Melissa anymore, I was, you know, fifteen. At that age, there is so much going on in your life that, as sad as a change may be, something else always fills the gap.

Once off the phone with my mom, all I could think about was Melissa. Memories of our adventures effervesced in my mind. I thought of the last time I saw her, how she smiled and said "See you next time!" with a quick hug. Through the years growing up, I never really put much thought into her appearance, but remembering that last goodbye, it dawned on me that she had always been quite pretty. At fifteen, she was only a little shorter than my own average height, and had a slim athletic build. She was always big into track and field sports at her school. What I remember most about her was her smile, carefree and easily expressed, and her eyes. She had the most beautiful icy blue eyes I had ever seen, eyes that truly were windows to her soul. Maybe it's just that I knew her so well, but with just one glance at her eyes, I could tell instantly what she was feeling, and have a pretty good idea of what she was thinking about. I wondered if it would be the same way after not seeing her for three years.

She was almost exactly the same age as me, having been born in February of 1980, to my January of the same year, which means that she must have graduated high school this year too. I began imagining what she looked like now, and was only a few miles away from the cabin when I realized I had a raging erection. This, was no good. Regardless of how I was getting aroused.  The thought was of a childhood friend who was also a relative. I'll say I wasn't too proud of it, at that moment. I couldn't show up to a family gathering like this. I turned off onto a forestry road that I knew well, and piloted my pickup down one of the narrow overgrown logging trails that deer hunters use, to get to their stands. I've been down all of these trails, and know a hundred places that are perfect for when someone needs a little "alone time".

I parked my truck and listened for a minute, just to be sure there wasn't anyone else driving around nearby. Still in the driver’s seat, I unbuttoned my fly, and pulled my pants down to my ankles. I wrapped a hand around my cock and sighed with the pleasure of immanent release. Normally I would spunk to fantasies involving girls from high school, or one of the models from the couple of nudie mags I had hidden under my mattress at home. But right then, all I could imagine was Melissa, and my mental image of what she looked like now. I stroked furiously, and felt myself quickly building to orgasm. I hastily rummaged in the door pocket for a napkin with my left hand, found one, and barely had enough time to get it into place before I erupted. I groaned as I came, sending spurt after spurt of cum into the napkin, which wasn't up to the task of containing such a massive load. I sat there for a while, breathing hard, and feeling the cum that had soaked through the napkin ooze onto the palm of my left hand. It had been a while since I had cum that hard or that quickly. As the glow of orgasm faded, I started thinking that it wasn't right to get off like this to Melissa, but I knew I would have been a liar; if I said I wouldn't do it again.

I cleaned up as best as I could with a few more napkins, got my pants back up, and checked myself in the vanity mirror just in case there was some glaring evidence that I had just jerked off. Satisfied that I looked normal, I arranged myself in my underwear so that if and when I got another boner, it would at least be pointing down, and not straight out for all of the family to see.

I arrived at the cabin a few minutes later. People were spread out, around the yard; reading books, getting fishing equipment ready, or tending the fire in the stone fire pit. I was greeted with waves and hellos; nothing very enthusiastic. I mean, I do see most of these people pretty regularly. And honestly, I wasn't overly excited to see them either. I was however, very excited to see Melissa again, but looking around the yard, I didn't spot her anywhere.

Then I heard the sharp crack sound that the cabin's screen door makes when someone lets it's spring slams itself shut. I looked over, and saw Melissa walking around the corner of the cabin. I hope no one saw my jaw drop, because she was gorgeous. She was barefoot, her long athletic legs disappearing beneath a knee-length flower pattern sun dress that flowed around her as she strode. Her hair was longer that she used to have it, and it trailed gracefully behind her, it's sandy blonde color glowing in the sunlight. When she noticed me, her face lit up. The warmth of her smile could have melted a glacier.

"Charles!" She squealed.

She ran across the yard and practically threw herself into my arms, hugging me tight. I hugged her back, just as tight.

"Oh my God, it's so good to see you!" She said, laughing with joy.

I don't think anyone had ever been so excited to see me in my entire life, and it felt a bit awkward, but I felt the same about her, so I just went with it.

"It's great to see you too." I said.

We broke off our hug, but she kept an arm around my back. She started moving towards the cabin, and I went with, putting an arm across her shoulders.

"It's been over three years," She said excitedly. "We have so much to catch up on!"

I craned my neck up to try and look down on her. "I see you're still a little bit shorter than me?"

She poked me in the belly and said with mock sternness. "You're wearing boots. Take them off and we're the same height."

Be both laughed, and I was struck again at how beautiful she was. Even her laugh was like music. As we walked, my eyes strayed to her chest, where the slightest bit of a lacy white bra could be seen under the edge of her dress. Her tits were, for lack of a better word, perfect. They weren't large, a B cup I imagined, as if I knew anything about the particulars of tit size. What they were though, were proportionate. They were just the right size and shape for her. I was starting to imagine what they would look like free from any clothes, and must have spent just a few too many seconds looking. Something made me look up at her face, and I saw her watching me with a funny little smile. Our eyes locked, and I was surprised to not only see a lack of offence there, but for all I could tell, she was pleased that I was ogling her.

She looked away with a satisfied smile, and gave me a little squeeze with the arm that was still around my back.

"Your mom is almost done with dinner. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

Chapter Two.

My mom fried up walleye that my older brothers had caught earlier that day, and we all ate more than we should have, but man, nothing is better than pan-fried walleye that was in the lake just a few hours prior.

After dinner, when everyone was just lounging around and catching up on gossip, I got my tent out of the bed of my pickup, and started walking towards the farthest away clearing to set it up in.

Melissa called out to me. "Can you set mine up too?"

"Sure." I called back. "Where do you want it?"

"Next to yours is fine. I promise I don't snore too loud." She replied, which got some laughs.

I set up the tents, and went back, claiming a spot on one of the benches near the fire. Melissa had changed out of her dress into some loose-fitting jeans and a blue tee shirt. She was in the process of explaining what she had been up to recently. She had moved out of her parent's house in Duluth back in February, on her eighteenth birthday. She didn't have a place to stay yet, so she spent a few weeks living in her car, a beat up old Toyota Camry, before one of her friend's parents took pity on her, and let her stay with them until she got her own place.

Now, if you know anything about being in Duluth, Minnesota in February, you can imagine how much that sucked. My heart ached in empathy for her, and I actually teared up a little. Thankfully the wind was shifting around, so I could pass it off as just getting smoke in my eyes.

Melissa continued her story, about how the people who had taken her in offered her a part time job to work as a cashier in their store. She worked evenings and weekends until she graduated high school; at which point she got a small apartment south of town. She still worked at their shop, but now pretty much ran the place, which the owners were ecstatic about, because it finally gave them the opportunity to do some traveling.

As I listened, I became more and more in awe of Melissa. Let's use me as an example to compare and contrast. I'm of average height for a guy, with an average build. Melissa is slightly above average height for a girl, with a fit and toned body. My face isn't particularly handsome. Again, very average. She has the heart-shaped face of an angel. I live at home with my parents. I don't pay rent. I have an okay job, but what money I make, I tend to spend frivolously. She has her own apartment, a good job, and is saving her own money to go to college next year.

I couldn't do anything but watch her as she talked. I noticed tiny details that I never even thought to look for on anyone else; How her neck moved when she talked, how she flipped her head to get her hair out of her face, how every time our eyes met, her smile would get just a little bit wider. I felt utterly unworthy to be in the presence of such a glorious creature.

As the night went on, people went off to their beds in their campers and tents, or one of the four beds in the cabin and its three season porch. Eventually it was just me and Melissa. She came over and sat in the old metal glider bench seat, right next to me, resting her head on my shoulder and gazing into the glowing remnants of the fire.

"I've missed coming here." She said quietly. "It's so peaceful."

"I missed you." I replied.

She looked up at me and smiled. "I've missed you too."

For a long time we sat there in silence just staring at the red and orange coals. Eventually they were dying away, and we began to see our breath in the increasingly chilly air. Melissa yawned. Even the way she did that, was beautiful to me.

"I think it's time for bed." I whispered to her.

She nodded in agreement, and I walked with her to where our tents were. She gave me a tired hug, said goodnight, and went into her tent. I entered my own tent, stripped down to my underwear, (I always sleep in just my boxer briefs,) and crawled into my sleeping bag. It was one of those big flannel old-school ones, not one of those small mummy bags. It had enough room inside for me to really sprawl out, and was plenty warm enough for camping in just about any kind of weather. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I awoke to a rustling in the leaves outside my tent. It was too heavy to be from raccoons. My first thought was that it was a black bear, as it wasn't unusual for a black bear to wonder through the cabin yard. But when I heard the zipper to the tent flap, I was reassured. I was confused though, as to who would be coming into my tent in the middle of the night. The flap opened, and I saw a silhouette, blond hair glowing silver in the moonlight.

My heart instantly started racing. Was I dreaming? Melissa was sneaking into my tent!

With the moonlight coming through the open tent flap, she could see that I was awake.

"I'm c-cold." She whispered.

Without thinking, I opened up my sleeping bag. "Come on." I whispered.

She crawled into the tent, zipping up the flap behind her, then scrambled into my sleeping bag with me, still fully dressed. She was freezing. I pulled her in tight to me, spooning her from behind, and wrapping one arm under her neck, the other one over her, and wrapping around her waist. I even had one leg over her thigh. I explained it was to transfer body heat as quickly as I could. Her shivering eventually subsided.

As she drifted off to sleep, she said in a barely audible whisper. "I hate the cold." While her breathing reduced to long, slow, deep breaths; I laid there thinking about just how much I loved this moment with Melissa.

I've had a few girlfriends, but none of them were very serious. Even though I thought I loved them, I now knew that I had no idea of what love was. Until this moment. As I watched Melissa sleep, I realized that I loved her, truly and deeply. I nestled my face against the back of her neck, breathing in the herbal smell of her. I fell back asleep with joy in my heart.

When I awoke again, it was just getting to be light out, and the first birds were beginning to sing. I looked at Melissa, still wrapped in my arms, and sleeping with an expression of serene contentment. It was at this time that my body caught on to the fact that it was pressed up against a very beautiful female, and I started to get worried that the rock hard penis pressing into Melissa's lower back would wake her up.

I don't know if it was because of that, but she did wake up before too long. She shifted and stretched, before slightly rotating her back so she was nestling back against me.

"What happened last night?" I asked with my arm on my hip. "Don't you have a sleeping bag?"

"I do, I got it at Goodwill, so it was cheap, but it's not very good."

"Well, I have a blanket you can use, and I'm pretty sure there's extra bedding in the cabin."

She sighed contentedly and pulled my arm back around her waist. "Or; I could sleep here again tonight?"

"Or you could sleep here tonight." I replied.

After a little while she said. "You're warm."

And hard, I thought. There was no way she didn't know. I yearned to kiss her. I yearned to grab her hips and grind my cock against her. I wanted to explore her whole body with my hands. I wanted her to put her hands on me. But I was terrified of doing anything, even suggesting anything that she didn't want. I was torn, because I was pretty sure that she did want something. The looks she gave me the previous day, the little smiles, and now snuggling up against me and my hard cock, all screamed in my head to do something, anything!

I was just about to slide my hand down to her hip when she announced. "I have to pee."

As she was leaving my tent, she turned back and gave me a small kiss on the cheek, a quick smile, then was gone. It took a while for my hard-on to subside, but once it did, I got dressed and went outside.

Chapter Three.

With a slight detour through the trees, (being a guy has some advantages, the whole forest is my urinal.) I joined the family in the cabin yard. One of my uncles was making eggs and bacon on a grill top griddle, and everyone else was in a different state of waking up.

My mom asked Melissa and me, if we were warm enough in our tents last night, and informed us that there were extra blankets. I said that I was fine. Melissa cheerily replied that she was toasty warm, and I had to look away to avoid being seen smiling like an idiot. Even though nothing happened, it still wouldn't look good for the whole family to know that I was spooning my cousin all night.

After breakfast, it seemed like everyone but Melissa and I, had plans to do things during the day. Some were going fishing, some were going into Pine River, Breezy Point, and Nisswa, to shop the antique stores and other shops.

Melissa looked at me with that smile that somehow was more than just an innocent smile.

"So, what do you want to do today?" She asked me.

"We could go for a hike. Find some of the trails we used to know?"

Her face lit up. "Yes! Let’s go find Pine Grove Cathedral! We could bring lunch and make a picnic out of it, too!"

"So, what do you want to eat for lunch?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat for lunch?" She said mockingly, then laughed. "Oh, no, I don't play that game. I know what I like to eat, so I'll get the lunch together."

She hopped up from the camp chair she was sitting in, and skipped to the cabin. Like, actually skipped. It was adorable. Though, how her ass moved in her jeans as she went, was an even better sight.

I stuffed an old quilt into a backpack, then after a moment's thought, crammed in two hoodies. It might get cold earlier tonight, I was not going to let Melissa be cold if there was anything I could do about it.

Soon we were walking side by side along the dirt road that lead past the cabin. From there we cut along an ATV trail to one of the State forestry roads, heading deep into the woods where there weren't any other cabins.

We chatted as we walked, about music and school, and a host of other mundane things. It really didn't matter to me what we talked about. At some point we started holding hands, and it seemed like the most wonderful, natural thing ever.

I began to notice that, unlike literally every other conversation I had ever had, with anyone my age, Melissa was being absolutely honest and forthright. Like an open book, she wasn't hiding anything, so I made a conscious decision to do the same for her.

When the conversation came to the topic of previous relationships, I told her about some embarrassing things that happened to me when I was with my first girlfriend. Things that I had sworn to myself to never speak of again. She laughed, but with me, not at me, and countered with an even more embarrassing story from her past.

It was surreal. We shared what our thoughts and feelings were, when we had been in particularly awkward situations. We told each other our fears and insecurities. It felt so good to lay my most personal self out before her, and be accepted as who I am. And to have her do the same, well, it was by far the most amazing experience of my life, so far.

We had wondered down miles of ever smaller dirt roads, until the two dirt tracks on a grassy path ended in a clearing, marking the farthest someone could go in a car. There were a couple of footpaths that led away from here, and I had to search a bit through the overgrown brush to find the one I wanted. At one time the path was a logging road, but all traces of that were long gone. Back in the twenties, or even before, this whole area had been clear cut. Most of the existing forest had grown up naturally from that, but there were some places that had been replanted, then forgotten about.

The path led us up a hillside, thick with huge Oaks, and Elms, and Maples, leaves ablaze in oranges, reds, and yellows, in dazzling and vivid variety. When we neared the top of the hill, we looked at each other and smiled. The place up ahead was our favorite place in all of the this forest. We weren't ever officially allowed to go this far on our own, which had made it all the more special.

Cresting the hill, the forest changed. Gone were the leafy hardwoods, in their place were endless evenly spaced rows of towering Red Pines. For as far as we could see in every direction, arrow-straight trunks rose to the sky. Far above, their branches intertwined, lush needles blocking any but the barest glimpse of the sky. Even though we were grown up, this place still had that awe-inspiring sense of hugeness. Our talking stopped as we were struck with a sense of reverence for this magical place. In silence, we walked down the row for a while, then cut across the rows towards a patch of sunlight in the distance.

It was a clear space where a storm, long before our time, had blown down some trees, which had then been scavenged for firewood. I was pleased to see that it wasn't overgrown with trees, but had remained a perfect little grassy meadow, nestled inside a living cathedral. We walked out into the middle, and looked around.

Melissa spoke softly. "Nothing from my childhood is ever as good as I remember it, but this.." She trailed off.

"Is better." I added, watching her closely.

"So much better." She agreed, turning in a circle to take it all in. She stopped, facing me.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

She gave me that funny little smile, and when her blue eyes met my green ones, it finally clicked. The whole time since our reunion, every time she looked at me, the same emotion, the same desire, was there to see in her eyes, clear as day. When she responded with "I'm starving," I knew she didn't just mean that she was hungry for the sandwiches she had in her backpack.

But, then again, we had just walked almost ten miles through the woods. So, when she started digging out the aforementioned sandwiches, I wasn't completely disappointed.

Chapter Four.

I spread out the old quilt I had packed, and we sat cross legged facing each other, close enough for our knees to be touching. We talked as we ate, and laughed at the occasional burp, or dribble of jelly from our p b and j sandwiches, that were gone in short order.

We had talked about some pretty personal things today, but what she asked next, kinda caught me off guard.

"How often do guys jerk off?"

Without trepidation I replied. "I jerk off at least once a day, usually before bed. I think I'm pretty normal as guys go, so... yeah."

"So, do you just, Could you do it more if you wanted to?" She asked, looking genuinely curious.

"Yeah, I guess. There's usually tons of times during the day that I could do it if I had the time and the privacy."

"Could you do it any time you want, like, do you need to get in the mood?"

I laughed. "Guys don't need much to get in the mood. Like really, it doesn't take much at all to get me hard, and then I'm ready to go, if I wanted to. It's actually pretty annoying. What about you, girls I mean?"

"Oh, I'm horny All the time. For the longest time, I thought I was some kind of sexual pervert, until one of my girlfriends said she was the same way."

Subconsciously conjuring a few mental images, and out of my own curiosity, I asked. "How often do you?"

"Every morning. Every night. Usually once during the day." She stated matter-of-factually.

"Wow." I said, then after a slightly awkward pause. "Are you right now?"

"All. The. Time." She said, staring into my eyes. "Especially right now."

"Me too" I said softly.

She glanced quickly down to the bulge in my pants, then returned her eyes to mine. "I noticed." Her voice was almost a whisper. She leaned in a little closer to me. "Have you, since you got here yesterday?"

"I did on the way up, to avoid any, you know, embarrassment that might pop up, but not since. You?"

She shook her head in the negative, and moved closer. Her face was right in front of mine. I studied the intricate detail of her irises, and by the way they moved, I could tell she was studying mine. Our lips were so close to touching, I could feel the heat of her quick and shallow breath on my face.

I summoned the courage to make the actual first move. She made a tiny inaudible gasp as my hand brushed the underside of her jawline, and slid along her neck under her ear. I let my fingers sift their way into her silky hair, and gently cupped the back of her head.

As I pulled her towards me, her lips parted to meet mine. My tongue found hers, and we both made a humming moan of pleasure, as we began kissing. Slowly at first, tentative and gentle, but soon becoming more urgent and intense.

We were like two starving people, set before a lavish buffet. After the first few bites, the body remembers what it needs most, and ravenous hunger takes control.

After what seemed like forever, and no time at all, we parted, breathing heavy and licking saliva off of slightly numb lips. The look in her eyes, was subtly different now. The need was still there, without a doubt, but now I could see so much more. A tiny change in the way she was looking at me, or perhaps just a change of how I was seeing her, and it was as if her eyes were screaming "I love you!" I hoped she could see my love for her, in my eyes.

She moved back in quickly, and our kissing resumed. This time it remained slow and passionate, and was all the sweeter for it. Our hands began roving over each other's body, from neck to back, to hips, to chest, and every curve and line between. I cupped her firm tits and gave them slight squeeze, making her moan into my mouth.

She caressed my cheeks with her palms, then slowly trailed her hands down, down, down, until she found my belt. She fumbled around a little, trying to get it unbuckled, so I reached down and helped. That done, she wasted no time in undoing the top button of my button fly jeans. With the first one free, she pulled to the sides, and the rest popped open in a string.

We had stopped kissing, as what was going on required a little bit more concentration than we would have been able to give. I shifted a little to make it easier for her to tug on my underwear, and send a hand down inside. I gasped as she closed her hand around my Very erect cock, and pulled it up into the open.

Realizing I was behind in the undoing-of-pants race, I went for her waist, only to find her jeans already open. Sneaky girl. She must have done her own before mine.

I laid beside her, the two of us on our sides, facing each other. I slid a hand inside her pale blue panties, and was surprised to find that she had shaved her pubic hair. Not that it's anything strange or unusual, I just wasn't expecting it. I liked it. I went farther down, and when my fingers slid down along her labia, she shuddered.

Breathing hard now, she pressed her cheek against mine, then started sliding her hand up and down my shaft. She was doing it very differently than I do it, naturally; and I had been a little anxious that she wouldn't know how to do it right. Well, she didn't. But that didn't matter, because it still felt amazing.

I slid my middle finger into the wet hotness between her pussy lips, moving it slowly through and back. I varied the motion a little bit, here and there, being mindful of how her body responded. When I would do something, and she would gasp in pleasure, I did more of that.

Remembering something I read in a magazine, yes I read the articles too, I moved my hand a little farther down and found the opening to her hole with my middle finger. I slowly pushed it inside of her. She moaned loudly, and rested her head on my shoulder. I moved my free hand to the back of her head, holding her against me. She had stopped stroking me, but I didn't care. She laid flat on her back and surrendered to my overture. I wanted to make her cum. I needed, to make her cum.

I began moving my finger in and out of her, massaging the inside of her, with a "come here" motion, just like the article said to do. She was moaning with every breath now, and she started rocking her hips in time with my finger. Her moans got louder and louder, every breath quicker than the last. I moved my finger a little quicker, with a little more pressure. Finally, she took one last deep breath and held it in. Her whole body was quivering, and I could feel her pussy spasm tightly around my finger.

She let out her breath as a long sigh. She raised her head and rolled to look at me with complete satisfaction. Cupping my face with her hand, she kissed me. Remembering that she had neglected my needs, she pulled back a little and started to say; "I'm sorry", but I stopped her with a finger to her lips. I kissed her, and as I did, I felt both of her hands wrap around my cock.

She must have read an article or two, herself, because what she did, felt wonderful. She sat up and rolled me onto my back. She moved her hands in unison, up and down, gripping firmly, but not too hard. She added a slight twist to the hand that went over the head of my cock, and it was my turn to start moaning. She laid down by me, her head on my shoulder as I took her into my embrace.

She looked down to watch what she was doing to me, and I kissed her forehead, before beginning to pant into her hair

She kept stroking me, and I could feel my own orgasm build. This wasn't a quick jerk and spurt, like I'm usually satisfied with. No, this was different. This orgasm was building like an avalanche, powerful and unstoppable.

I was distinctly aware that I was ever closer to climax, I could tell that she was excited to have this opportunity. Release was immanent, and I managed to gasp "I'm going to cum".

The avalanche roared through me, and I shuddered as I felt spurt after spurt of cum shoot through my cock. My geyser shot up and slightly off to my side, where in landed somewhere in the patchwork quilt. Melissa sat up and witnessed the 3 following ‘aftershocks’.

 My hand was back in her panties, finger again inside her, so I went back to work. I felt her body respond to my renewed attentions, quickly re-attaining that urgent build to climax.

She moved back down to my embrace, and I used my free hand to keep fingering her engorged twat. She was shaking soon, and pressed her palm over my hand, to keep it pressed deep and hard inside her cunt; having cum again from my ministrations.

Neither of us moved a muscle for at least a minute, until we had both caught our breath. She looked up at me, and we stared into each other's eyes. No words were necessary. The bond between us was undeniable, unbreakable. Hearts, minds and souls, as one.

As perfect as the moment was, I'll admit lying like I was for so long, on a lumpy patch of the meadow, was getting uncomfortable. She made a tiny disappointed sound when I removed my hand from her pants. We both looked down. She had caught much my jizz in her hand, and my hand was soaking wet with her juices. We both started laughing. Then, like it was the most ordinary thing to do, she raised her hand to her mouth and slurped up the cum, licking her palm clean. I, in turn, licked my own hand clean.

"I like how you taste." She said softly.

"You taste wonderful." I replied. And she did. It wasn't like anything I'd ever tasted before, almost; sweet. Most of all, it was the taste of her, which by that fact alone, made it great.

We got out of our current positions, and I laid down on my back, in a better, softer spot on the blanket. She gently laid her body down on mine. Her chest was on my belly and her thighs straddled my legs. I intertwined the fingers of one hand with one of hers, and rested my other on her hip.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, the sunbeams were gone from our magical little clearing. I checked my watch and discovered that I had been asleep for at least an hour and a half. It was nearly three in the afternoon.

Melissa was awake, and watching my every move. She gave me a brief kiss. "You're adorable when you're sleeping."

"You didn't sleep?"

She shook her head. "Watching you was way better than sleep."

Even after all we had shared, I found myself blushing.

She giggled. "You're adorable when you're awake too."

Her giggle was contagious, I couldn't help but join her. I kissed her, and said. "We should really get going."

She nodded in agreement, and her smile faded ever so slightly, which nearly broke my heart.

Chapter Five.

On the hike back to the cabin, there was significantly less talking. For the most part, we were both perfectly content to hold hands and enjoy the colorful autumn scenery.

Every once in a while, one of us would ask something like "Favorite color?", and we would both give our answer. Her favorite color is blue, mine is red. While there were some differences in the things we liked, we found that we had much more in common, just like how we were years ago. For example, we both loved cheesy science-fiction movies, and thought that the soundtrack to "Conan The Barbarian" was just about the best soundtrack to a movie; ever. Our favorite food was pepperoni pizza, and our favorite fast food was Taco Bell. I could go on and on, but suffice to say, I had more in common with Melissa than I did with any of my guy friends.

It was nearly dark, and we were about a half mile from the cabin, and just passing by a long abandoned old shack, when I had an idea. I stopped walking. A few steps up the road she stopped and faced me, confused. I stepped forward, grabbed her hand, and led her around to the back of the shack. Once safely out of sight from the road, I pulled her close and kissed her passionately. She melted into my arms.

When we broke the kiss to catch our breath, I whispered. "Turn around, and lean back into me." Which she did without question.

I brushed her hair aside, and started kissing her neck, soliciting a sigh of pleasure. While I did that, I cupped her tits, squeezing them gently. I could feel her nipples through her clothes, and I gave them the gentlest of pinches, which she seemed to really like. My hands moved down her flat belly, and I managed to get her pants undone very quickly. I trailed my fingertips along the lines between her hips and her groin, and I could feel her push her hips forward, desperate for my hand to reach its destination. My fingers teased her between her bald pussy lips in the ways that had got the best reaction earlier, and I was not disappointed.

With great concentration, I used two of my fingers to spread her lips apart slightly, then slowly sank my middle finger into her, as deeply as I could. I started doing the thing that had made her cum twice already, today. She groaned in ecstasy. As her pleasure build towards release, I pushed a second finger inside of her cunt. Her knees went weak, and I found that between the arm around her chest holding her to me, and the hand with two fingers deep inside her, I was holding up most of her weight.

In her labored breathing, she quietly gasped the word "yes."

I moved my fingers in the same "come here" motion I did with just the one, being ultra-attentive to her reactions. Tiny variations in my movements yielded big results, and she came quickly, body tensing and quivering all over. As she fought to get her ragged breathing under control, she managed to whisper. "Oh my god you are good at this!"

I whispered back. "I'm glad."

I was glad, and damn if I wasn't proud of myself. I was not only able to make her cum, but apparently I'm able to make her do it in spectacular fashion. I made a quiet vow to myself, that I would study even the tiniest of ways her body reacted, so every time we were together like this, it would be better for her.

When she could stand on her own, she turned and wrapped her arms around me in a hug, resting her head on my shoulder. She held me tightly, and didn't move. I could tell that something was different, something was; wrong?

Instantly worried that I had done something to upset her, I asked as gently as I could. "What is it?"

She pulled her face up and looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. He voice was sorrowful. "I don't deserve you."

I wanted to say something like "Of course you do." but she cut me off before I could respond.

"No, I don't deserve you. You're just so kind, and wonderful, and amazing, and the way you look at me makes my heart melt." Tears rolled down her perfect cheeks, and her voice became anguished. "And I Can't have you. No one would ever accept this."

She did have a point. A point I had swept into a corner of my mind, and hidden under a rug. We were second cousins. Technically, it's perfectly legal for us to be together, and as societal taboos went, it was actually pretty low on the list. But our friends and family would absolutely, one hundred percent, not be okay with it. I didn't know what to say, so I stayed quiet.

"I ran away from my family. Some of them are just shitty people, and I couldn't care less what they thought about me." She was almost sobbing now. "But I love your family. You mom is just the best, and your brothers and sisters, everybody... I couldn't live with what they would think of me, and I couldn't live with what they would think about you."

The look of pleading in her eyes made my heart break, and I began to cry. I didn't have an answer. We had found something so special, so perfect. We got just a taste of what we could be together. To face the fact that this wonderful thing had to end, that it couldn't blossom into what we both dreamed it could be, was devastating.

I rubbed her back as she cried into my shoulder. "Growing up, every time my parents would bring me up here, I would ask, is Melissa going to be there? When they'd say no, I was always so disappointed. Seeing you up here; was something that I always looked forward to."

Her crying began to slow as she listened to me talk.

"All of my best memories were made here, with you. When it was time to go home, I was always sad, but I had to go home. I had school and friends, a whole different life. When I'd ask my parents if you were going to be here, and they said yes, that was always the happiest I'd been since we last said goodbye."

She looked at me, the crying having nearly stopped. "So, we live two lives? I don't know if we can do that."

"If it's the choice between that, and nothing at all..."

She nodded her head slowly. "People will find out, eventually."

"We'll just have to be careful." I cupped her face in my hands. "Living without you now, is not an option."

It really wasn't an option. Not after the last, what, thirty hours? Did I really fall so madly in love with this person in only a day and a half? No, of course not. This was a love that had taken a lifetime to build. We reunited after three years apart, and were now mature enough to realize what could be, and we reached for it. Now that we had both grasped it, neither of us could ever let go.

We stayed behind the shack for a while, to regain our composure. It was almost fully dark out now, and starting to get chilly, so I gave Melissa one of the hoodies I had packed. She put it on gratefully, and it warmed my heart to see her smile back on her face.

As we turned down the cabin's driveway, she leaned over to me and said. "Our situation is very Shakespearean. Star crossed lovers and all that."

I chuckled. "Just hopefully without, you know, the poison and the dagger."

To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 2

A Quest for family acceptance.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

Chapter Six.

Walking up into the cabin yard, we could see that we had missed dinner. My mom and older sisters were busy bringing the leftovers and supplies back into the cabin.

"You two were gone all day, where did you go?" My mom asked.

"We went all the way out to the pine grove." I said sheepishly, forgetting for a moment that I was an adult now, and not a little kid that adults needed to look after.

"That's a long ways! We were getting worried."

"We had a picnic in the clearing, and we lost track of time. Sorry." Said Melissa.

Which I guess was an accurate, if vague and incomplete, account of what happened.

"Well, if you're hungry; there's hot dogs and brats, potato salad, and baked beans in the crock pot."

Giving Melissa a quick glance, I said. "I'm starving." Managing to do so with a straight face.

We roasted hot dogs over the fire, and both of us had several servings of beans. The 'baked beans' were really a meal in themselves. My mom would make this stuff for just about every family gathering, and it never got old. There was no less than four different types of beans, chunks of bacon, and ground beef. Between Chili and stew, there was this, and it was one of my favorite foods. Melissa was enjoying it as much as I was; apparently, because neither of us said a word until we had thrown our empty paper plates into the fire, and were carrying the uneaten food back into the cabin.

"That was so good. My mom never cooked anything like that. The limit of her skills was frozen pizza and hamburger helper."

"I'm sure mom would be happy to give you the recipe." I said.

"There's no way I could make anything taste this good." Melissa said with a snort of self-derisive laughter.

"You can do anything you put your mind to. I have faith in you."

She was quiet for a few seconds, and when she looked at me to respond, her eyes were positively glowing with love.

"Thank you. That really means a lot."

"Anytime." I said softly, before lurching forward to open the screen door for her.

Dinner put away, we went back to the benches around the fire pit, where most everyone was gathered. In an unspoken agreement, Melissa and I did not sit next to each other, both of us having independently come to the conclusion that it would be far too easy to betray our ruse of mere friendship, by being just a bit too touchy-feely. As a compromise, we sat on opposite sides of the fire, so we could look at each other with impunity under the guise of watching the flames.

We occasionally joined in on discussing whatever gossip or topic was going around, but neither of us were as involved as we otherwise might have been. Will the Vikings beat the Packers? Even if the Monday night game was in Lambeau field? Will Denis Green make good on his threat that the Vikings will leave the state if the govt. doesn’t build another stadium? Uncle Bert warned us that if the Vikings leave, all our kids will grow up as Packer fans, since they were the closest franchise to Minnesota. The relatives all groaned at that notion, and they concurred that a stadium must get built.

Melissa and I just smiled and winked to each other as everyone else was in rapt attention to Bert’s ominous prophesy.

I was entranced by the firelight reflected in her eyes, eyes that very rarely looked away from me. The light danced and sparkled in her eyes, and made her honey-blond hair glow red and orange. Her cheeks were flushed by the heat, that same adorable rosy color I had seen on her face for a very different reason, earlier today.

My body reacted to these thoughts, and I had to shift my seating position slightly to conceal my 'excitement'. Across the fire, Melissa gave me that smile, the one she kept just for me, and in her eyes, I saw the need, burning hot.

Again, at the end of the night, we were the last two people at the fire. She stood and walked around to join me on my metal glider bench. I scooted over a little bit, so when she sat, it wouldn't be on a cold piece of bench. I wondered if she realized what I did, and why. Not that it mattered to me if I got recognition for that tiny act of kindness. I would do a thousand such acts, never once needing anything more than the satisfaction that I made her just the tiniest bit more comfortable.

She leaned against me and sighed. I could tell that she was genuinely tired. I was too.

"I think I will remember this day for the rest of my life." She said quietly, while staring into the fire.

"Agreed." I said, in like fashion; then looked at her. "But the day's not over yet."

She looked at me with a huge smile. "I'd tell you to behave, but I don't want you to."

After that, we sat for a long time in comfortable silence, watching the fire slowly die down. The last few lights inside of the cabin and each RV had gone out, and the world was silent, save for an occasional pop or crackle from the dying fire.

Far enough away that it was barely audible, a wolf howled from deep within the forest to the west. Another wolf answered from across the lake water, to the east, it's mournful howl echoing up and down the lake, and sending shivers up my spine.

I loved hearing the wolves howl; and looking at Melissa, so did she. In the busier times of the year, the wolves stayed farther away from the more populated areas, preferring to keep their distance from the noisy tourists and weekend warriors that invaded their territory. But here in the fall, as less and less people came up to their cabins, they would return, and let their presence be known to anyone lucky enough to hear.

I stood, and after taking a good look around, made sure no one was watching us. I led Melissa by the hand to my tent.

Chapter Seven.

She entered first, and when I turned after zipping the tent closed after myself, Melissa had already pulled off the hoodie and tee shirt she had been wearing, and was working on taking her pants off. “ I remember that I wore jeans to bed last night. In Girl Scouts they told us to always take off sweaty clothes before trying to sleep. The moisture cools and can cause your body to lose a lot of heat.”

I quickly pulled my hoody off over my head, then paused a moment to stare. Melissa, clad only in a white bra and pale blue panties, was scrambling to get inside my big flannel-lined sleeping bag. My God, was she gorgeous. Feeling my cock instantly become hard as iron, I started fumbling with the laces to my boots.

She had pulled the sleeping bag up over her head, and as I got my first boot off, I saw her reach a hand out and toss her bra onto her pile of clothes. I attacked the other boot with renewed urgency. I got it undone, and was undoing my belt when she poked her head out and smiled as she watched me. My attention wavered again, when she grinned at me and tossed her panties on top of her bra.

I hooked my thumbs inside my pants, and pulled them off, taking my underwear with them. In situations like these, when time is critical, efficiency is key.

Melissa eyed me up and down, her need for me clear on her face. She opened the sleeping bag slightly, and I quickly crawled inside. She was laying on her side, and I slid into her awaiting arms.

As our mouths met, our limbs intertwined. She wrapped a leg around me, and used it to pull me close. I moved a knee up, and could feel the wetness of her pussy as I pressed my thigh against her. She moaned as we kissed, tongues exploring each other's mouths. I put a hand on her firm ass, and pulled her hips even closer to mine. My cock was now pressed tightly against her belly.

She ran a hand down my back to my ass, giving it a squeeze. We kissed for a long time, exploring each other's naked flesh with our hands.

She adjusted slightly, and kissed my neck, then whispered into my ear. "I need you inside of me."

“My fingers are pleased to accept your invitation, my dear Melissa.”

“You know what I mean, mister. I need cock! Hard cock. Thick cock, your cock!” she sternly whispered in my ear.

It was already getting pretty hot and stuffy inside the sleeping bag, so I pulled the edge down, exposing our heads. Outside, the moon had risen above the trees, and was shining bright in the clear autumn sky. Enough light made it through the tent that I could see her somewhat clearly. She had an anxious expression on her angelic face.

"Charles; This is my first time." She whispered.

"Oh yeah? Mine too." I replied.

"Well, okay; I'm not physically a virgin anymore." She said tentatively. "I've got this toy at home" She said, obviously expecting me to be upset or disappointed.

I cut her off with a kiss, then said. "That doesn't matter. Does a tampon make you not a virgin? Does a pelvic exam cost you your virginity?" It didn't. In fact, it was a huge relief. I had always been so worried that if and when I took a girl's virginity, that it would hurt her. Well, problem solved.

"You're not disappointed?" She asked.

I kissed her again, and smiled. "I never want to hurt you, even the slightest bit. Now I don't have to worry about first-time painful issues."

Her own relief was evident in the passion with which she kissed me. We untangled our legs, and she gently pushed me flat on my back. She climbed on top of me; her knees straddling my chest. She reached a hand between her legs, and found my cock, positioning it beneath her. Our eyes locked as she slowly lowered herself onto me. In unison, we let out gasps of pleasure as I slid deep within her silky wetness.

Her pussy felt tight around my, happy turgid cock. The sensation of being inside of her was unlike anything I had imagined, and being an eighteen-year-old guy, I had imagined a lot. I grabbed her ass with both hands and pulled her farther down, while pushing my hips up, desperate to get just a little bit deeper.

Melissa leaned in and I began sucking one tit while fondling the other. Then she rested her chest on mine, putting her weight on me. She buried her face against my neck, and made a low moan of satisfaction. “I just want to hold you forever, like this!” she added.

We stayed still, both of us content to savor this first act of ultimate intimacy. I was glad for it, because I was already perilously close to cumming, and I didn't want it to be over this quickly. I wanted to last as long as it took, to completely satisfy her.

She raised her chest up just enough so that we could look in each other's eyes. I saw her need for me, burning hotter than any camp fire, matching my own need for her.

Maintaining eye contact, she raised her hips slowly, drawing me almost fully out of herself. When just the head of my cock remained inside her, she reversed direction, and eased me back inside. Again, with hands on her ass, I pushed upwards to get that extra bit more. Her hips also flexed in a slow twerk motion, to swallow all of my happy cock.

We repeated this several more times, and I could feel that I was sliding in and out more freely. I surmised that it was because her body had relaxed and become accustomed to me, and that I had become well lubricated by her juices.

I started to pull down on her ass with more force, and pulling back with my hips when she rose hers up, increasing the speed that I was being thrust inside of her. Faster and faster we went, the need for each other finally, and completely set loose.

I could feel her body begin to tense, and her knees squeezed hard against the sides of my chest. She started to let out a moan with every breath. Watching the heat escalate in her eyes, and feeling her body build to orgasm, from inside of her, was ecstasy, and I was quickly past the point of no return. I grunted as I pushed myself deep inside her one last time, holding her down on me tightly. My cock pulsed over and over, seemingly emptying my balls inside of her.

As she explained to me later, feeling my cum spurt inside of her is what tipped her over the edge, and as my cock was still spasming, I felt her pussy clamp tightly around me as she came. She tensed and shivered, and her eyes rolled back slightly. She let out her held breath with a long shaky sigh, and her mouth fell to mine.

We kissed slowly and deeply, reveling in the glow of our mutual orgasm.

I had dreamed of my first time, and fantasized about it more times than I could remember, but nothing in my teenage hormone-fueled imagination compared to this. All of my fantasies had completely missed the point. As I kissed Melissa, with my cock still deep inside her, I marveled at the discovery that the greatest thing about sex wasn't the physical pleasure of the act. Don't get me wrong, it felt amazing, but the connection to another person was exceedingly more profound.

I struggled to find appropriate words to describe the sensation of merging your entire essence with another person; To need, and be needed. To accept, and be accepted. To love, and be loved. The mind, body, and soul of two people, fusing together to become something far greater than the sum of their individuality.

We were both sweaty, and still panting. Melissa rested her weight fully on my chest, and nuzzled my neck. I began massaging her back, and she groaned, her body relaxing further.

After a little while, I felt my cock going soft. Melissa made the cutest sound of disappointment when it inevitably slipped out of her. I felt the same way. I wanted to be inside her forever, to feel that connection, forever.

Melissa rolled off of me, and we lay face to face. As we looked in each other's eyes once more, I was reassured. The connection we made couldn't end just because my cock wasn't inside of her anymore. It was eternal. We both felt it, both knew it as a fundamental truth of our existence.

"I love you." I whispered.

"I love you." She whispered back.

We both smiled, and kissed softly, caressing each other’s cheeks.

"I saw it in your eyes." I said.

"When did you first see it?"

"I figured it out when we got to the clearing. But I'm pretty sure I saw it before that."

She looked at me with mock pity, and patted my cheek with her hand. "Silly boy. Didn't you know?"

"Know what?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I've loved you my entire life. You never knew?"

I didn't know what to say.

She giggled. "I used to tell my friends that I had a boyfriend. I'd lie and say that he was the neighbor boy who lived in the cabin next door to the one my family took me to."

I snorted a laugh.

"It was a big deal for a teenage girl, to have this mysterious boyfriend that no one had ever met. I'd tell them stories about our adventures exploring the woods, all true. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Well yeah, I had to embellish a few details about our relationship."

I laughed, and kissed her. "I'm sorry I never realized, but you were, like, my best friend. It never even occurred to me to think about you like that."

"It's okay, really. I wouldn't change our times together." She got a far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the past. "It was never sexual, you know, just naive little girl dreams of the storybook happily ever after, without any concept of what that actually entails." She giggled again. "Most of the time I thought the idea of kissing a boy was gross."

I laughed with her, and kissed her.

She made a face and said. "Uh, boy germs."

In response, I kissed her deeply.

When we broke off the kiss she said. "Yum, boy germs."

Exhausted, we drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.

Chapter Eight.

I awoke again sometime before dawn. The moon had set, and it was so dark that I couldn't see anything at all. Melissa was still cuddled up in my arms, and I could feel her shallow breath on my face. I imagined the look of her face, as I had seen it the previous morning, serene, content, stunningly beautiful.

I very gently ran my hand along her perfect skin, over her back, across her deliciously firm ass, and down the thigh that was still wrapped around me, holding us tightly together. My hand roved slowly, studying every inch of her that I could reach. She had two shallow dimples at the base of her back, that in my mind’s eye, were absolutely adorable.

I ran my fingertips down, along the curve of her ass crack, to the tender skin where her ass met the back of her thigh. Her breath changed, and she seemed to sigh with pleasure. I stopped what I was doing, not wanting to wake her.

"Don't stop. I like that." I heard her whisper, barely louder than her light breathing.

My hand continued its explorations, running down the inside curve of the back of her thigh to the back of her knee, then back up to where her legs met, and up through her ass crack. From there, I did the same with the other leg, moving my fingertips gently, caressing, down and back up.

I explored the complex curves where her legs came together, and she sighed with pleasure once again when I ran my fingertips along that most sensitive area alongside her pussy. I trailed my fingers along one side, back to alongside her asshole, then did the same on the other side. Her breath would hitch slightly when I brushed against her labia.

I decided to tease her with the prospect of that particular contact, letting my fingers caress ever closer, without actually touching her lips. Her breathing had increased, and I felt the wetness seeping out of her.

I pushed gently on the leg she had around me, prompting her to lay flat on her back with her arms at her sides. She seemed perfectly content to lay still and let me continue. I sat up next to her, and used both hands to explore her body. I began at her face, caressing her cheeks, and moving across her temples, around her ears, and under her jawline. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. Though it was still pitch black darkness, I could feel her smile, and could see it clearly in my mind.

My hands moved down her neck, and briefly massaged her shoulders, before easing towards her chest. I found her tits, and brushed my palms across her erect nipples before cupping them with a gentle squeeze. As I noted before, her tits weren't overly large, and certainly not comically large like most of the women in the porno mags and videos I've seen. I thought they were perfect.

My caressing fingers roamed up to her shoulders, then slowly down the inside of her arms. I brushed her wrists as delicately as possible, soliciting a sigh. I ran my fingers across her palms, and down each of her fingers, which she seemed to like a lot.

I added to her enjoyment of having her fingers caressed, to a growing mental list of ways she particularly liked being touched. Correctly guessing on the location of her belly button in the dark, I leaned over and planted a kiss on her belly, just below her waistline. She made another non-distinct sound of pleasure under her breath. I made a trail of kisses up to her belly button, adding soft licks with the tip of my tongue.

I licked in a circle around her belly button, and noted the lack of a positive, or negative, response from Melissa. I trailed my tongue and lips slowly up her chest, to between her tits. I cupped her tits, and licked a nipple, which got a very positive result. I licked little circles around her very erect nipple, then closed my mouth over it, sucking gently. Her chest rose with a deep intake of breath. I moved over to the other nipple, and did the same.

Melissa was starting to get really worked up, and I again felt great joy that I was able to give her so much pleasure.

I moved up to her face, and kissed her softly on the lips. She wrapped her arms around me, kissing me with passionate enthusiasm.

Finally the broke off the kiss, and as she caught her breath, she whispered into my ear. "That was wonderful. I get to explore you now."

She gently pushed me onto my back. She leaned over me and kissed me once on the lips, then moved to my neck, kissing softly, and teasing my skin with the tip of her tongue. I closed my eyes and sighed, relaxing fully.

She massaged my shoulders and upper arms, then trailed her fingertips down to my hands like I had done to her. Instead of caressing my hand with her fingers, she picked it up, and brought it to her mouth. I felt her tongue slowly lick the length of each finger. She repeated this a couple times, then took a finger into her mouth, sucking gently.

I found this to be particularly pleasurable, and let her know with a quiet moan. She did this to each of my fingers in turn, and it was really getting me turned on. Not only did it feel great, but it was very suggestive of something else I found I desperately wanted her to do with her mouth.

She took her time, performing the same thing with the other hand, and I loved every second of it.

She ran her hands up my arms, and onto my chest, massaging my pecs, and finding my nipples, which she pinched lightly. I had never thought that guys would like their nipples played with too, and maybe I'm just strange, but I really liked it. She bent down, and licked a nipple, before closing her mouth on it and sucking.

I moaned with pleasure, and she sucked a little harder, flicking it with the tip of her tongue. I gasped as she stopped and moved to the other one, immediately sucking hard on it. She gave each nipple one last lick before moving on. He hands slid down my chest, and she followed them with a trail of kisses.

My cock was extremely erect, and pointing up over my lower belly. Her hands brushed it on either side, as they slid down to my thighs. If she didn't already know how badly I wanted her to touch it, the sharp intake of breath I made at the slightest contact was a huge give away.

She spread my legs apart, and knelt between my knees. Her hands roved down my legs, all the way to my toes, and back up. She lifted my knees up, and spread my legs farther, running her fingers from my calves, up the backs of my thighs. Her fingers traced a line up the edge of my ass cheeks, and onto my taint, then around my balls.

I was breathing very heavily now. Feeling her hands on me like this was heavenly, but I needed more. I silently willed her to-

She cupped my balls in her hands, gently rolling my testicles around, feeling the shape of them, and no doubt paying close attention to my reaction. My moan turned into a needy whimper as her hands moved from my balls, to my shaft. She caressed it slowly, taking the time to study every bit of me. She ran a finger around the edge of my head, and through the slit of my urethra, finding a drop of pre-cum there.

That hand left my cock, and I realized she had brought the finger to her mouth to taste what she had just found.

She moved close, and I gasped loudly as she licked my perineum with her whole tongue. In one long lick, she slid her tongue up between my balls, and up my shaft, giving my glans a little flick with the tip of her tongue at the last, causing my whole body to shudder.

She wrapped a hand around my shaft, and cupped my balls with the other. I felt her lips wrap around the head of my cock as she took me into her mouth. I let out a low moan as she began bobbing her head up and down, swirling her tongue along the underside of my glans every time she took me in. Her hand wrapped around my shaft moved up and down in time. She wasn't taking me very deep into her mouth, not like in the porno videos, but my God did it feel amazing.

I was squirming in ecstasy, and very quickly, far far too quickly, she had me on the verge of climax. I managed to whisper to her that I was going to cum, and instead of slowing down, or stopping, she redoubled her efforts. She started massaging my balls, and gripped a little tighter with the hand that was pumping up and down my shaft.

Only when my hips bucked, and I filled her mouth with cum, did she stop. She gave my, now ultra-sensitive head one last little suck before taking her mouth off me. She must have been figuring out what to do with her mouthful of my hot cum, because she stayed still for a moment.

Melissa moved up and lay next to me, I faced towards her, and we kissed. I was very surprised to find that her mouth was still full of cum. After the sensual experience she had given me, my desire to kiss her overruled any initial shock or disgust I might have had. Her tongue seemed to push a lot of it into my mouth, so I used my own tongue to push it back.

I had tasted my own cum before, any guy who says he hasn't even once, is probably lying. I didn't really care for the taste of it, and before this moment, the thought of having a mouthful of my own cum would have been a turn off. But, what was happening now with Melissa, this was hot. We kissed with passion, sharing my cum back and forth. Little by little, as we each swallowed saliva, the cum was swallowed too.

This act seemed almost dirty, and maybe it was because of that, and because I enjoyed it so much, that I found that it was a real turn on.

I broke off the kiss and caught my breath. I caressed her cheeks and gave her a short kiss on the lips.

"That was amazing." I whispered.

I could feel her smile under my hands. "I'm glad." She seemed to frown a little bit. "I was afraid you wouldn't like that last part."

I kissed her softly again. "Melissa, you can do anything you want to me, and I'll love it because it's you doing it."

"I'll remember that." She said mischievously.

"I love you."

"I love you." She whispered back.

I was musing that my statement about 'anything she wants' might come back and bite me in the ass one day, when I felt her hand wrap around my cock again. I was still very hard, and the high sensitivity that comes right after an orgasm has passed. I sighed, as she gave my cock a little squeeze.

She leaned in close and whispered into my ear. "I need you inside of me."

She did not have to ask twice.

I rolled her onto her back, and climbed between her legs. I slid my hands down her chest and belly, straight down to her very wet pussy. She squirmed as I ran my fingers along either side her slit. I grabbed my cock, and guided myself in. I had just the tip inside, when her legs came up around me and pulled hard. In one swift movement, my cock was buried to the base. We both let out a grunt of pleasure.

I laid my chest down onto hers, and we kissed.

After just a few seconds, she broke off the kiss and whispered into my ear. "Fuck me."

I started slowly, pulling out until just my head was inside her, then sliding myself back in. Every couple of strokes, I did it a little faster. Every time I reached full penetration, the lower part of my abdomen, just above my cock, would press against her, and she would give out a little moan.

"Faster." She whispered, wrapping her arms around my back, and burying her face against my neck.

I obliged, and soon was slamming my cock into her, as deep and hard and fast as I could. With each thrust, our bodies met with a wet slapping sound.

I was almost afraid that I was hurting her until she whispered. "Yes! Don't stop!"

Having cum so recently, I was nowhere near cumming again so soon. I could feel it building though.

Melissa, however, was very close. As I continued to pound deep into her, her breathing became more ragged, and her arms gripped me tighter. I felt it when she came, her vagina pulsed tightly around my cock, and her whole body shuddered as the waves of her orgasm washed through her.

I had slowed my thrusting when she came, but I hadn't stopped. We kissed, and she moaned into my mouth as I continued to slide slowly in and out of her.

She ran her fingers through my shaggy hair, and down my back. Every time I pulled my hips back, she would inhale, then I would slide deep inside, and she would exhale with a moan. As I relentlessly continued at a slow pace, her moans slowly became louder.

The feeling of making her cum had brought me closer to my own orgasm, and now as she was building up to another one, I could feel myself getting very close.

I tried to hold out as long as I could, to keep her in this state of bliss for a little while longer, but it was no use. With one last deep thrust, I came, filling her with my seed once again. Gasping, Melissa came, the sensation of my cum spurting inside her having pushed her over the edge once again.

We kissed deeply, then both of us had to stop as we tried to catch our breath. We were so joyous in our mutual ecstasy, that we were giggling. We caressed each other's faces, and showered each other in kisses.

I realized that it wasn't pitch black darkness anymore, the first faint hint of morning sunlight was enough that I could see the outline of her face. "So much for getting much sleep tonight."

"Sleep is over rated." Melissa kissed me softly, and ran a finger along my jaw. "Besides, I needed as much of you as I could get before..."

I completed her sentence. "Before we have to say goodbye."

She nodded slowly, then asked a moment later. "Can we really make this work?"

"I said earlier, that life without you is not an option. I meant that."

She was quiet for another moment, then whispered. "I'm scared."

"Of getting caught?" I asked.

"Of losing you. If other girls find out how amazing you are, I won't stand a chance."

I gently held her face between my hands, and with the aid of the growing predawn light I looked her in the eyes. "You're smart, you're gorgeous, you're funny, and I have more in common with you than with anyone else I've ever met. You make my heart flutter with a glance. You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever."

Tears welled up in her eyes, but they were tears of joy.

"I love you." She said, and kissed me softly before hugging me tight.

"I love you." I replied, then added. "And you make me cum really hard."

We both laughed as quietly as we could.

Chapter Nine.

We had stayed in each other's arms for as long as we thought we could get away with, but decided that we should make sure that we were up and about before anyone would have the chance to see both of us leave my tent.

We each attended to our morning needs, and were soon at the fire pit, where I skillfully started a small fire. The morning air was very cold, and frost covered the ground. Melissa smiled at me as I sat on the bench next to her. Her smile warmed me inside more than the fire ever could.

"You have a cell phone, don't you?" She asked.

"Yeah." I replied. I had left it in my truck all weekend. Any really important calls would have come from people who were here with me, so I didn't see the point of carrying it around.

"Go get it."

I did, and when I returned to the bench, I set it into her outstretched hand. She entered in a new contact, and handed it back. "That's my home phone number. I don't have a cell phone yet."

I looked at the contact, labeled simply 'Melissa' with a 218 area code phone number. Despite it being in my phone, I committed myself to memorizing the number.

"I should probably get one." She added. "I never had the money before. Then I did have the money, it didn't seem all that important."

"I hardly ever use mine. Mostly, it's just for emergencies, like my mom checking up on me to see why I'm late for dinner."

As we laughed, I saw my Mark, one of my older brothers, coming up the trail that led from the cabin down to Pelican lake. He had his arms full of tackle boxes and fishing rods, which he brought to his pickup. He lit up a smoke as he walked over to us.

"Morning, kids." He said, tossing a spent match into the fire.

Mark was older than me, but not that much older.

"Good morning." Melissa replied sweetly.

"I need your help today, Chuck." He said, using a version of my name that he knew I didn't like, as he almost always did. "I gotta pull Lilly and John's camper home for them, so you have to take the boat."

Lilly and John were my sister and her husband. They owned a big fancy tow-behind camper, but didn't own anything that could tow it, instead relying on one of us to drag it up here in the spring, and back down in the fall, so it was no surprise that I was expected to use my truck to tow something back home.

"Alright. When do you want to bring the boat to the landing?" I asked.

"I wanna get home early today, so like, now." He turned and started back towards the path to the lake.

"Can't I at least have breakfast first?" I called after him.

"Don't make me wait." He called back.

I looked at Melissa with a grimace. "Well, shit. Guess I better get moving."

"I'll be here when you get back." She said with a smile.

I was about to lean over and give her a kiss, but thought better of it. Getting up, I hitched the boat trailer to my truck, and started the drive into Breezy Point, where the boat launch was.

When I pulled into the boat landing, I could see Mark in the fishing boat, slowing down as he piloted it closer to shore. I hurried and got the trailer backed into the water, just in time for Mark to send the boat coasting up into place. I got out and attached the winch line to the bow of the boat, giving the crank a few turns to draw it snug to the front. Mark grabbed a few last loose items from the boat and hopped out. We got into my truck at the same time, slamming the doors in unison.

"Smooth." He said, offering me a fist bump, which I returned with a grin. He lit a smoke, and said. "Let's roll."

I pulled out of the boat launch, and headed back towards the cabin. After about a minute of driving, I noticed that Mark was looking at me kinda strange. "What?" I asked.

Mark actually looked a little uncomfortable. "So I, uh, know about you and Melissa."

My heart sank. I didn't look at him, just kept driving.

"I was up super early, and I heard you two going at it."

People were going to find out eventually, Melissa had said as much, but so soon? I felt like bursting into tears. "Mark, please don't tell mom and dad!"

"Hey!" He said defensively. "I ain't a snitch."

"What do you want then?" I pleaded.

"I just" He stopped what he was about to say and looked at me intently. "This thing between you two, it's more than just sex isn't it?"

I nodded my head. "Much more."

He took a drag off his smoke and looked out the window. "I don't want anything. You're my brother, I'll keep my mouth shut. Just. Be more careful, man. If dad knew, he would freak the fuck out, and if mom found out, she'd cry for a week, and then I'd have to kick your ass."

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. Mark had always been kind of a bully to me, as older brothers always were. He could be mean at times, but he was never sadistic, and I knew that deep down, he loved me.

Mark smacked my shoulder with the back of his hand. "Hey, I'm actually pretty happy for you. She's a wonderful girl." Another drag off the cigarette. "So is it like, serious serious?"

This conversation was going way better than I feared it would, and my relief almost made me dizzy. "Yeah. We have a connection that neither of us thought was possible. We really do love each other."

"That's cool, man. Good for you. Should've seen it coming though, you two were always joined at the hip." He cackled at his joke, and I couldn't help but join him.

"So, you aren't grossed out that she's my cousin?"

"She's your second cousin. That's barely related." He tossed his cigarette butt out the window, then grinned at me. "My little bro is a man now. Gonna have to start calling you Charles."

Chapter Ten.

It was getting to be mid-afternoon, and slowly the cabin yard was emptying out, with everyone packing up their things and saying their goodbyes. Melissa and I had spent the day just relaxing, lounging on camp chairs, and chatting about nothing in particular with whoever was around. The only things that might have given away our secret, were the occasional unwarranted smile, and the fact that we never strayed very far apart from each other. Which, I guess, actually was pretty normal behavior for the two of us.

"I think we should take down our tents." I said.

"Yeah." Melissa reluctantly agreed.

We had both been putting this task off, because it meant that 'the goodbye' was soon to follow.

We collapsed our tents. Then we were both working on rolling them up and stuffing them into their bags. I looked around to see if anyone was nearby. The only people I could see were my parents, both engrossed in books by the fire pit. I moved over and sat on the ground near Melissa. We hadn't had a chance to talk privately all day until now.

"I had an interesting chat with my brother this morning."

Melissa looked at me curiously, sensing that this wasn't going to be a conversation with a 'light' topic.

"He knows about us."

Her hands covered her mouth, and her eyes got wide and fearful.

I put a calming hand on her arm. "Hey, hey, don't worry. He approves."

She took her hands away from her face, but she still looked fearful. "Really?"

"Yeah." I said reassuringly. "He's actually happy for us."

"He doesn't have a problem with, you know," She gestured back and forth between us. "Cousins?"

I shook my head. "It didn't seem to matter at all to him."

"We need to be more careful." She said, somewhat relieved, but still worried.

"He told me that too."

"Wait, how did he find out?" Melissa asked.

I scratched the back of my neck, and grimaced. "He said that he... heard us... this morning."

"Heard us what... Oh. Oh my god." She said, her face instantly flushing red as she made the realization.

"Yeah, so maybe no more sex when there's anyone close enough to overhear."

She laughed, but still looked slightly horrified. "Yeah, that's a good idea." She glanced over to my parents, who were now packing things into their car, much too far away to be listening in. She looked back at me, with a familiar gleam in her eye. "Despite how much I want you to fuck my brains out right now."

I gazed at her lovingly. I wanted to strip off her clothes and take her right here on the grass and dried leaves. But of course, the situation demanded that I remain content to merely be in her presence.

Seemingly on-cue, My dad approached.

"We're all packed and the cabin is locked. Did you have a good weekend, Melissa?"

She smiled up at him. "It was wonderful. I really missed being here, thanks for having me."

"You're always welcome." Then my dad turned to me, and dashed any hopes of staying behind for a while with Melissa after my parents left. "Nobody's used that boat trailer since spring, I'll follow you home just in case there's any trouble."

"Okay." I said, trying my best not to sound disappointed.

"As soon as your mother is ready, we'll go." As he turned to go, he paused and said. "We really do enjoy your company, Melissa. It's a shame what happened. If there's ever anything you need, all you have to do is ask."

Melissa gave him a very sweet heartfelt smile. "Thanks."

He nodded, and headed toward his car.

"Well, it was really great seeing you again." I said to Melissa, knowing that my dad was probably still within earshot.

Catching on immediately to the little show we needed to put on, she responded. "I'll have to try and come back next summer, I really love this place."

I stood, and picked up my tent and backpack, holding them in front of my body to conceal an inconvenient bulge. "I'll probably be here."

I looked in her eyes, and saw what she couldn't say, that she loved me, and it hurt to have to say goodbye, and there was no way in hell she was going to wait until next summer to see me again.

"Cool." She said, picking up her own things.

We carried our stuff to our vehicles, and I did a last walk around inspection of the boat and trailer. My mom and dad were in their car, waiting.

Melissa walked up as I was getting ready to get in my truck. She gave me a quick, cousin-appropriate, hug. Before she let go, she whispered. "Call me when you get home."

She flashed me a smile as she got into her car, and was the first of us to leave the cabin yard. I followed her, and my parents followed me. Melissa turned right at the end of the driveway, towards the road that would lead her home to Duluth.

I looked in the rear view mirror, over the roof of my dad's car. The cabin looked lonely, as I always thought it did when everyone left. It would wait, nestled there among the towering pines and oaks, and elms, for people to return and give its existence meaning again. It would wait, patiently yearning, for joy and love to once again make itself whole.

To be continued in part 3. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 3

The love between Charles and Melissa grows.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

Chapter Eleven

I pressed the green 'send' button and put my phone to my ear as it began to ring. It rang only once before the clear voice of an angel excitedly asked, "Hello?".

"Hi, Melissa! I made it home safe," I replied with an equal amount of excitement.

"I miss you already," Melissa said with a sigh.

"I miss you too."

Hearing her voice and remembering the events of the last couple of days, made me hard. As we talked, about nothing in particular, I absently rubbed my erection through my jeans. We talked for about an hour, before we were both running out of things to say.

"When can we see each other again?" She asked the question I know she had been dying to ask since she first said hello."

"I'm already on the schedule to work open to close all of next weekend, and I don't think I could get away with taking two weekends off in a row."

"Yeah, I have to work too." She said. "My bosses are going out of town, so there's no way I could get out of it."

"What about the weekend after that? I could probably get it off." I asked hopefully.

"Me too." Then, excitedly. "That Saturday is Halloween! We could go to a party?"

"That sounds like fun. Up there, or down here?" I asked, meaning where she lived in Duluth, or where I did in the Twin Cities.

"Up here. There won't be any brothers sneaking around to overhear us."

We both laughed, still slightly embarrassed that my older brother Mark had heard us making love in my tent before dawn that very morning.

"I'll figure out what party we'll go to. You need to make up a convincing excuse for your parents on why you're going to be in Duluth all weekend." She said, reminding us both of the importance of keeping our relationship a secret.

"I can do that." I didn't want to stop talking with Melissa ever, but I knew I had to. Sighing, I said. "I have to work early tomorrow. I should go get something to eat and get to bed."

"Yeah, me too," Her reluctance to end the call was evident. "I'll call you at about eight tomorrow night?"

"I'll be here," I said, already excited at the prospect of talking with her again.

"I love you, Charles."

Those simple words made my heart flutter.

"I love you, Melissa," I replied, and in an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't say goodbye, we both ended the call.

I sat there for a while, my heart still fluttering. In less than two weeks, I'll see her again. This time, I'll be going to her place in Duluth. The idea of spending a weekend with her, without having to worry about being found out, made me almost giddy with excitement. That night, when I jerked off before falling asleep, it was with the thought of what Melissa and I would do alone in her apartment.

When she called me the next day, it was with her new cell phone. She said she had to get one because now she had important calls that she couldn't miss. It wasn't a big thing, but it felt good that she would do it just to make sure she could talk to me.

We talked every night for the next week and a half and made our plans for the upcoming weekend. I would go up after work Friday night, and then on Saturday, we would go to a party that one of Melissa's friends, Ashley, was already planning on going to. Melissa excitedly explained that we were going to double date with her friend and her friend's boyfriend, James and that they already had a plan for a costume theme. As curious as I was, Melissa playfully refused to tell me what the theme was, saying that she would take care of getting our costumes together.

I had gotten in touch with a high school friend of mine who had started classes at the state university. Rob was a year older than me and had been living in a dorm on campus. I asked him straight up if I could use visiting him as an excuse for being in Duluth with a girl I didn't want my parents to know about. (I specifically did not mention who this girl was.)

"You'll owe me one." He had said, laughing. "But I got you, bro."

The days went by slowly, the growing ache in my heart tempered only by our nightly phone calls. Knowing that I would hear her voice in the evening, was something I looked forward to from the moment the previous call ended. I loved our talks, even when neither of us had anything particularly interesting to say. But I needed more. I needed to hold her, smell her, and taste her on my lips.

The most anticipated Friday had finally come. Since I was taking the rest of the weekend off, my boss had convinced me to work a long shift. A twelve-hour shift that started at eight in the morning sucked, but the money was nice. Besides, Melissa had to work until eight to close up the store she worked at anyway.

My work was busy most of the day, the store being filled with people buying last-minute Halloween decorations, or supplies to get one more project done while the weather was still decent. In the evening, business trailed off, and by six-thirty, the store was nearly empty.

I tracked down the outdoor lumberyard supervisor, Gary, who was my immediate boss. I asked him if since it was so dead in the store, I could leave early. He laughed and asked if I had a hot date. I grinned and said that yeah, I actually did. He made shooing gestures at me with his hands and laughed again, telling me to hurry up and get out of there.

On my way out of the store, I went through a checkout line to buy a pack of breath mints. I saw disposable cameras hanging on a hook next to all the other assorted impulse-buy items they had on display there. I realized that I didn't have a single picture of Melissa, so I bought one of those too. Sales strategy: successful.

I had packed my bag the night before, so I left work and drove directly onto the freeway to head north. It was a little more than a two-hour drive to Duluth, but it seemed to take twice that long. I couldn't wait to hold Melissa again. My mouth watered at the thought of kissing her, and my pants got tight when I thought of the moans she would make as I made her cum. I had done some "research" in the time we had last seen each other, and I had a few new things I wanted to try.

So lost was I in my imagination, that I almost missed my exit. I pulled off the freeway, and onto Grand Ave. I was less than a mile away now, and the closer I got to her apartment, the more my anticipation grew. As I pulled into the parking lot, and stopped my truck next to Melissa's Toyota, my heart was pounding with excitement. I got out of my truck and was about to knock on her door, the one marked (appropriately, I thought) with the number ten.

Before I could knock, the door swung inwards, and there she was. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a pale pink tank top, she stood there for a moment, grinning at me like a little kid who had just opened a Christmas present to find the thing she had wanted most in the whole world.

Suddenly, she leaped forward and nearly knocked me over as she wrapped her arms around me. She buried her face against my neck, inhaling deeply.

"You're real." She said softly. She pulled back a bit and giggled when she saw the slightly confused expression on my face.

She kissed me, deeply and passionately. It was sweeter than I had dreamed about, more delicious than, well, words fail to describe it. All I can say is that after nearly two weeks apart, kissing her was pure bliss.

She made a soft moan into my mouth when I grabbed her ass and pulled her in tight to me. I could feel through her sweatpants that she wasn't wearing panties, and my cock twitched at the thought. Neither of us wanted to stop the kiss, but I felt her shiver in the crisp night air.

She broke off the kiss and took a half step towards the door. "It's cold out here, come inside."

"I gotta grab my backpack," I said pointing back to my truck.

"Close the door tight when you come in, it kinda sticks." She said, dashing inside and closing the door just enough so it didn't latch.

I grabbed my bag, and hurried in, bumping my back hard against the door until the latch clicked. I got my first look at her apartment. In a word, it was small. It was pretty much a converted motel room. There was a small living room in the front, nearly filled with just a couch, a small desk and chair, and a TV stand. Behind the couch was a countertop island, and just enough kitchen space to fit a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink. To the side of that, was a narrow hallway that I assumed led to the bathroom and bedroom.

The furnishings were second-hand, but the place was clean, and had a somewhat cozy feel to it. I had taken all this in in a few seconds, but then my eyes noticed something. On the floor in the living room was a pale pink tank top, the one Melissa had been wearing just a moment before.

I dropped my backpack next to the door and started towards the hallway. Though the front room was brightly lit, the hall and what lay beyond was dark. I found her sweatpants, then a little farther, a bra. My eyes were slowly becoming adjusted to the dark, and I could see the outline of a bed in the middle of a small room. As I approached, I began to undress, carelessly tossing my work clothes on the floor.

Now completely naked, I put my hands down on the edge of the bed and found her perfect bare feet. I caressed her soles for a moment, then slowly ran my hands up her legs. As I climbed onto the bed, my hands slid further up, and I followed them with a trail of light kisses.

When my face reached her groin, I could feel her squirm, eager for my touch. I could smell the wonderful scent of her arousal and could feel the heat of her radiating onto my face. Gently, I pushed her knees aside and slid my palms up her inner thighs. I lowered my face, and as softly as I could, I ran the tip of my tongue up the length of her labia.

She inhaled sharply and shuddered. I moved my tongue back down, with the gentlest of contact, and she rocked her hips towards me, desperate for me to do more. Slowly, I pushed my tongue against her hole, and licked her fully, her lips spreading as my tongue moved up. When it brushed across her clit, she twitched and groaned in pleasure.

I closed my mouth over her, and lapped gently, running my tongue between her lips and across her clit over and over. She put her hands on my head, holding my face to her as her moans grew louder. Every so often, I changed the motion of my tongue, how fast it went, and how hard or softly I licked her, paying close attention to how her body reacted, and making changes accordingly.

We fell into a rhythm, where she started rocking her hips in time with my tongue, and with every motion she expelled her rapid breath quick sharp groan. Suddenly, her hands grasped my hair tightly, and she held her breath as her whole body convulsed. She let out a long satisfied moan, her body continuing to twitch periodically.

I licked slowly alongside, and below her pussy, lapping up her delicious juices. She continued to moan, becoming quieter as she came down from her explosive orgasm.

I felt so much joy that I was able to do this to her. Her pleasure was my pleasure.

Finally, when she was able to speak, she gasped out. "Oh my God that was intense!" She pulled on the back of my head urgently. "Come here."

As I moved up, I quickly swiped a hand over my soaking wet face and smeared it on my cock.

The hands on the back of my head led my lips to hers, and when our mouths met, I guided my cock into her, burying myself as deeply as I could. We both exhaled a grunt of pleasure. Her legs wrapped tightly around me as we kissed furiously, losing ourselves to unbridled desire. I began to pump my cock in and out of her with deep, hard thrusts.

We had to stop kissing to breathe, so we just stared into each other's eyes. The connection we had made two weeks ago was somehow made stronger with our separation. As we gave ourselves completely to each other, we became something so much greater than ourselves. We were a single being, as beautiful as it was indestructible, burning brighter than the sun.

With every stroke, her legs pulled me into her, and she started gasping out the occasional word in her sharp exhalations, words like 'yes' and 'harder' and 'faster'. As I felt my orgasm building with unstoppable urgency, I could feel Melissa's build. In a positive feedback loop, her pleasure fueled my own, which in turn fueled hers. Again, as if we were a singular creature, we climaxed together. We never once broke eye contact as I filled her with my seed, and she spasmed tightly around my cock. We both exclaimed in exultant joy at the release.

I held her face with my hands, and she held mine. We kissed quickly, as we both struggled to catch our breath. I was in a state of utter awe. Before Melissa, I could never have imagined that it was possible to reach such a state of physical and emotional euphoria. Melissa's eyes were like mirrors to my soul. I saw reflected there, all the love I felt for her, all of my wonder, and my sense of ultimate unity.

Saying the words 'I love you' and hearing her respond in kind, would be so inadequate a way to express how we felt about each other, but I said them anyway.

"I love you, Melissa," I whispered.

"I love you, Charles." She whispered back.

We nuzzled each other's necks, both still buzzing in the come-down from our glorious lovemaking. Eventually, though, my cock went soft, and she made that adorable disappointed noise when it slipped out of her. I felt a bit of disappointment of my own, as the weariness of my long day began to set in, and I knew that I didn't have it in me to have a second go with Melissa. She reluctantly released me from the vise-like grip of her legs, and I moved onto my side next to her. She turned and lay on her side, facing away from me. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, and she wiggled her ass until my sex-slick cock rested between her cheeks. She sighed with contentment.

"Melissa?"

"Hmm?" She responded.

"When I got here, what did you mean when you said that I was real?"

"It was because of a dream I had last night." She said, somewhat sheepishly.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's kind of silly now, but it was one of those dreams that seem so real. I dreamed that I was here waiting for you. I waited and waited, and you never showed up. So I called you, and your number was disconnected. I looked in my diary, I don't even have a diary, but for some reason, I did in the dream, and it was all just boring stuff. Not a single mention of you at all, not even from when we were just kids. In the dream, I came to the realization that I had imagined everything, that I had become so lonely that I made up my perfect guy, my perfect best friend, and you didn't actually exist."

"I'm here," I said. "All of this really happened."

"I know." She moved my hand that was around her chest up to her lips, kissing it. "It's just that it seemed so real, it just stuck with me all day, you know?"

"Have you been that lonely?" I asked, feeling a pang of sympathy.

She nodded slowly. "For as long as I can remember. I've got friends, but I've never been super close to any of them. I've never had anyone who I felt comfortable enough with to just be myself. No one except you."

I gave her a little squeeze, and she held my arm tightly to her chest.

She continued speaking. "I lived for those weekends at the cabin with you. It was the only thing I looked forward to, the only time growing up that I can remember being truly happy."

"What about your parents?" I asked cautiously, still not knowing the story about what happened, and whether or not it was an uncomfortable subject.

"I don't want to think about them right now."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling horrified that I might have upset her.

She kissed my hand again. "It's okay, really. We can talk about them tomorrow if you want, just..." She yawned and pulled my arms tight around her. "Not right now."

I felt such empathy towards her. Hearing of her loneliness, and imagining what was behind it, hurt my heart, as if I had felt it firsthand. I made another silent vow to myself, that I would never let her feel alone. In making that vow, I knew, as surely as I knew that gravity pulls down, or that fire was hot, that I would be there for her forever. I would happily devote my entire life to her, with zero regrets. It was simply the way it was. I kissed her bare shoulder and nuzzled my face into her hair.

We were both silent after that, and very soon, I could tell that she had drifted off to sleep. I closed my eyes and listened to her slow steady breath until it lulled me to sleep.

Chapter Twelve.

I awoke alone in Melissa's bed. I checked my watch, it was just after nine in the morning. I had arrived at about nine last night, and we were both asleep not all that long after that. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept for that long. It felt good. As I stretched, I discovered a note on the pillow next to me.

It read:

"I wanted to ravish you this morning, but you were sleeping so soundly, I couldn't bring myself to wake you up. I went for a run, be back soon. Love, Melissa."

I was sure that, given the choice, I would always happily sacrifice some sleep to be ravished by Melissa. I smiled to myself. We'll just have to make up for it later.

I found my underwear in a corner, pulled them on, and headed to the bathroom to take a leak. I retrieved my bag from where I had dropped it last night, carefully tucked Melissa's note away, and dug out my toiletries pouch. I had brushed my teeth and was rinsing with some mouthwash when I heard a key turn the lock on the front door.

Melissa pushed the door closed, and smiled when she saw me walking out of the hallway. She kept it very warm in her apartment, so I had been fine to stay in just my boxer briefs. She eyed me up and down as I approached.

She moved quickly into my open arms, and we kissed briefly.

"Good morning, sleepy head."

"Good morning, beautiful," I replied, giving her another quick kiss.

Despite the below-freezing temperature outside, she was hot and sweaty from her exercise. She took off her windbreaker and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. She was wearing a black sports bra, that I thought looked very sexy on her athletic figure.

"I need a shower." She said.

Her exposed skin glistened with sweat. On impulse, I leaned in and licked her, from the middle of her chest, all the way up the side of her neck.

She giggled and squirmed a bit and halfheartedly said. "Uh, gross."

With my face still against her neck, I breathed in deep through my nose. "I love the way you smell." I licked the sweaty skin of her neck again. "I love the way you taste."

She pulled back slightly so she could see me, and the look on her face told me that I had just taken a huge stride in squashing one of her insecurities.

"Come shower with me," She said softly.

I followed as she led me by the hand to the bathroom. The tiny space felt cramped with two people in it, but I loved the enforced closeness with Melissa. As sensually as she could in the space, she stripped off the rest of her clothes, then tugged down on the waistband of my underwear, sending them to my ankles.

She kept her hands on my waist, and I put a hand to her face, kissing her sweetly.

She bit the corner of her lower lip, in a pensive expression. "Will you..." She asked slowly. "Let me shave you?"

I brushed a hand across my face. What facial hair I was able to grow was fine, blonde, and didn't grow very fast. My face still felt smooth from when I had shaved the previous morning.

With a nervous smile, Melissa pointedly glanced down, and I caught her meaning. I had never shaved down there before, and honestly, the thought had never occurred to me. Seeing the slightly hopeful expression on her face, I was open to the idea.

"Okay," I replied.

Her face lit up. "Really?"

I nodded with a reassuring smile. "Yeah."

She gave me a quick kiss and started rummaging in a box under the sink. She found what she was looking for, holding up a professional-looking electric trimmer.

"First step." She said, getting down on her knees in front of me. She plugged it in and adjusted the little lever that set the trim length. "Ready?"

I nodded, finding myself slightly amazed that I felt no fear or hesitation in what she was about to do.

She turned on the clippers, and it made a snapping noise, before buzzing loudly. With care, she began to trim above my cock, and big clumps of my curly blonde hair began falling to the tile floor. She patted the closed toilet lid, and I put a foot there, my legs spreading enough so she could get at the rest of me.

Carefully, she trimmed one side, then the other, gently holding my erect cock aside as she worked. Then she moved to my balls, holding them as she trimmed up from my perineum. I shivered involuntarily from the vibrations of the trimmer on my most sensitive and private areas. She looked up at me with a smile. I could tell that she was enjoying herself immensely.

"That feels good," I said, smiling down at her.

She finished with my balls, taking great care in pulling the skin smooth as she trimmed. Before shutting the trimmer off, she held the side of it flat against my perineum and balls. I made a low moan as the powerful vibrations made my whole groin tingle. I was disappointed when the trimmer clicked off. I could see by her satisfied smile that she had made a mental note of how I had responded to that. My cock twitched at the thought of what she would do with that information.

She blew hard and brushed her hands over me to get the loose bits of hair off. It felt significantly more drafty down there, and her hands felt cool on my nearly bare skin. The sensation of her hands on the short remnants of my pubic hair was very different, but not in a bad way. She stood and kissed me, then reached in and turned on the shower.

She held her hand under the water until it was hot, then stepped in, pulling me in behind her. She had the temperature set much higher than I usually like it, but I got used to it very quickly. I held her in my arms and we kissed passionately as the water cascaded over us. She reluctantly ended the kiss and handed me a bottle of shower gel. "Wash me." She demanded, with desire in her eyes.

I squirted gel into my hands, and knelt, deciding to start with her legs, knowing they must be sore from her run. I scrubbed with my hands, massaging her muscles from her feet to her thighs, first one leg, then the other. I loved the feel of her strong muscles and the firm contours they made. Her sighs of relief, when I devoted extra time to deeply massaging her calves and thighs, told me that I was right to start here.

Melissa tended to wear loose-fitting clothes, like baggy jeans or sweatpants. I understood why. Her legs weren't what would be called 'classically feminine', and so she felt insecure about how they looked. I thought they were glorious, particularly in the fact that her thighs didn't touch, leaving a one-inch gap that left nothing unseen. I added this to the list of her insecurities that I intended to squash.

I stood and kissed her briefly. Using more of the flowery scented gel, I washed her upper body, starting from her shoulders, and working my way down both arms. Again, I took my time, massaging her toned muscles, and getting more satisfied sighs for my efforts. I scrubbed her chest, getting a moan from her as I briefly swirled my soapy hands around her erect nipples. My hands moved across her flat belly, and though I couldn't see her six-pack, I could feel the definition of her muscles under her smooth skin.

In the days after our first weekend as lovers, I had thought about the disparity in physical form between us. I wasn't fat, or even chubby. However, I didn't regularly work out or exercise, apart from what I got while at work, so I wasn't in nearly as good of shape as Melissa was. I had been afraid that I would become intimidated by her. Massaging her muscles like this, and feeling her strength, I freely admit that she was stronger than myself. Instead of being intimidating, I found it to be incredibly sexy, and motivating. She was a goddess, and I worshiped her with all of my being. I felt a drive within me to better myself so that she could feel the same way about me.

I moved my hands to her groin, scrubbing her in a way that, while not overtly sexual, was incredibly sensuous. I slid a hand between her legs, cupping her ass from below, then ran my soapy finger through her crack. Feeling bold, and curious as to how she would react, I paid extra attention to her asshole, rubbing it briefly with the tip of my middle finger. I looked up at her when I did this. Her eyes were closed, and her smile got a little wider as she made a small indistinct sound of pleasure at the backdoor contact.

I rinsed my hands and got more gel. I moved in close, and she draped her arms around my shoulders as my cock nestled between her legs. I scrubbed her back, massaging as I moved slowly down from her shoulders to her ass. She grabbed a bottle of shampoo and squirted some into my palm.

"Don't wash all of my hair, just close to my scalp." She said, turning her back to me, and raising her chin.

I did my best and managed to keep the suds from dripping into her eyes. I massaged her scalp with my fingertips, which she seemed to particularly enjoy. After rinsing her hair, I used her conditioner, and under her direction, on only the hair below her shoulders.

I've got two older sisters, and plenty of female cousins, aunts, and nieces, so I knew that women have very specific routines that they follow with their hair. What instructions Melissa gave, I followed to the best of my ability. If I did it wrong, she didn't seem to care. When she turned to face me, her face had the same serene contentment that it had when she was asleep in my arms.

She kissed me and said. "That was amazing. I want to be washed like that every single day for the rest of my life."

"I want that too," I said.

A ghost of a plan began to form in my mind, and as she began to return the act, washing me with as much care as I had washed her, it grew. It was an inspiration that seemed so perfect, I knew that it had to be right. As she washed me, a portion of my mind thought about what I needed to do later that day.

Feeling her soapy hands on my body was heavenly, and surprising in its feeling of intimacy. I found myself sighing and groaning in pleasure as her hands relaxed all tension from my body.

As she scrubbed my hair with her shampoo, she giggled.

"What?" I asked, finding her giggling infectious.

"I just realized, you're going to smell just like me for the rest of the day."

"So I'm going to smell awesome? Sweet." I replied, leaning my head under the water as she rinsed my hair.

That done, she reached out beyond the shower curtain and came back with a small bottle of shave gel and a bright pink razor.

"You sure you're okay with this?" She asked.

"Yes," I said with a reassuring smile. I had told her in my tent two weeks ago, that she could do anything that she wanted to do me and that I would love it because it was her doing it. While that was still true, I did want to know what it was like to be hairless.

She had me sit on the little built-in bench in the shower, and spread my legs wide. She sat on the floor, close to me, and applied the shaving gel. My cock, having gone soft during the relaxing experience of having my body washed, returned to rock-hard status at her gentle touch.

She giggled. "That will make things easier." She picked up the razor and prepared herself to begin.

She took a deep breath, and I could tell that she was nervous.

"Hey," I said gently, and she looked up, meeting my eyes. "I trust you."

That seemed to be exactly what she needed to hear, and she began. She took her time, methodically shaving every bit of me. I will admit to feeling a small twinge of anxiety at feeling the blades of her pink razor moving across my most sensitive skin, but I really did trust her. I watched her steady hands as she worked, and felt a whole new kind of intimacy with Melissa. Feeling the trust I had for her, to overcome any fears I might have had and let her do this, was wonderful.

She finished, and we stood. She used her hands to assist in rinsing me off, and I was amazed at how smooth her touch felt on me. I explored my freshly shaved skin, feeling the smoothness for myself.

"What do you think?" She asked, a bit nervously.

"I like it," I answered truthfully. "It's so smooth."

She smiled, her relief plain to see.

"It looks bigger," I said.

It was her turn to attack one of my insecurities. I wasn't small, and by American standards, I was a little longer than average. But every single man on Earth is insecure to some degree about the size, shape, and appearance of his cock. Just, some more than others.

"It's the perfect size for me. I don't need it to be bigger."

She put her hands on me again, one around my cock, and the other cupping my balls, this time in a way that was decidedly more sexual. I put my arms around her and kissed her deeply as she continued to fondle me. I trailed a hand down her body and between her legs, teasing her with my fingers.

Breaking off our kiss, I said. "I need to be inside of you." Her eyes told me that the need was mutual.

She turned around, leaning against the shower wall. She arched her back, sticking her gorgeous ass out towards me, and giving it a little wiggle.

I guided my cock into her pussy, sliding in slowly. She let out a satisfied sigh, and pushed back into me, her desire for me to be fully inside her, as great as my own.

I had been hard for nearly the whole time since she had returned from her run, and the anticipation had built enough that I knew that I wouldn't last very long. So when I began to fuck her, I did it very slowly. Sometimes I would move as slowly as I could, taking thirty seconds or more to pull my cock out of her until I was almost fully out, before reversing direction and taking another thirty seconds to bottom out again. I loved watching the way her vagina stretched around me.

Though it was not as intense of an experience as when I pounded into her as fast and as hard as I could, like we did last night, she seemed to be enjoying it immensely. She seemed to like it the most when I entered her as slowly as possible, and when I did that again, I could tell that she was getting close to cumming. As I ever so slowly slid into her, she moaned with her impending climax, and I had to use my hands on her hips to keep her from slamming back into me. If she liked this technique enough to cum, I wanted to make her cum with just the one type of motion.

As my cock crept ever deeper, her breathing got heavier. When finally I bottomed out and pulled her tightly back onto me, she came. I smiled as her pussy gripped me tightly, and she shuddered uncontrollably. Still twitching from her orgasm, she pulled herself off of me, and spun around, kissing me intensely.

I pushed myself against her, and we bumped back into the shower wall. Melissa lifted a leg and wrapped it around my waist, holding me in close. I reached down and guided my cock into her again, and she moaned loudly. Freely losing myself to our shared passion, I began to thrust into her.

She had her arms over my shoulders, holding on tightly. Suddenly, she put her full weight down onto my shoulders, then took her other foot off the floor, wrapping it around me. I reached down and grabbed her ass, lifting her so she could get a better hold around my waist with her legs. With her legs around me, my hands under her ass, and her back against the wall, she was able to take her weight off my shoulders. She cradled my face in her hands and we stared into each other's eyes as I began to pound into her.

I didn't know if it was the angle of my entry or the novelty of the position, but she was almost immediately on the verge of cumming again. As it was last night, the feedback loop of our ecstasy was built with unstoppable quickness, and we both cried out as we came. She squeezed me tightly, almost painfully tightly, with her legs, as her pulsating pussy milked the cum out of me.

My legs were burning with the effort of holding her up, so I let her down onto her own slightly wobbly legs. She held on to me to keep herself steady and gazed into my eyes.

"How is it possible that we are so good at that?" She asked.

I smiled lovingly, feeling the same wonder.

"Seriously, every time is better than the last! If you make me cum any harder, I think I'm going to pass out!"

We laughed and kissed joyously. The water in the shower had gone lukewarm at some point during our lovemaking, but neither of us had noticed. We both gasped though, when it suddenly turned cold. I was ready to jump out of the shower, but Melissa had me stay, so we could clean off the remains of our sex. She reached between her legs, and I could tell that she was flexing her pelvic floor muscles as she pushed my seed out of her. She brought her cum covered hand up to her mouth, licking it clean.

I surprised her by kissing her, and tasting my cum inside her mouth, and felt her smile as we kissed. She had surprised me with that two weeks ago, and though I still found the idea of tasting my seed on my own slightly repulsive, tasting it inside Melissa's mouth was a completely different story. We kissed until it was gone, and she watched me with a smile as I knelt and washed her quickly with the cold water. Once she was clean, I ushered her out of the cold shower and rinsed myself off. When I stepped out of the shower, she greeted me by wrapping a towel around me. I grabbed a second towel off the rack and began drying her off.

The whole time, we smiled at each other, both almost giddy in our shared experience. It was by far the longest, and most enjoyable, shower of my life. From the washing to the shaving to the amazing sex, it almost seemed like a dream. Looking into Melissa's eyes, I could see that she felt what I felt at that moment. That, just as our sex gets better every time, with every experience we share, in every single moment we are together, our bond grows stronger.

When we were both dry, and Melissa had a towel wrapped around her hair, I hugged her.

"I love you more than I thought was possible," I whispered.

She didn't reply. She didn't need to reply. Her eyes said more than words ever could.

Chapter Thirteen.

We went to her bedroom, and I pulled a clean pair of underwear out of my backpack. I had them halfway on when I had to stop and watch Melissa. She was putting on her underwear, a very skimpy-looking thong. Its red fabric had a sheen to it, like silk or satin.

She saw me watching her, and took up a sexy pose, smiling at me demurely. "Like what you see?"

"Oh, yes," I said, walking over to her, and putting a hand on the front of the thong. Satin. I ran my fingers along the smooth string that went around from the front and gave her bare ass cheeks a firm squeeze with both hands. "I could take you again right now."

She giggled and rested her hands on my chest. "I could let you."

I was about to kiss her and was seriously intending to follow through on my statement when my stomach rumbled loudly.

"Oh, you poor boy, you're starving!" Melissa said.

"Yeah, I'm hungry too."

She turned, picking up a fuzzy bathrobe and putting it on. I made a disappointed sound when she closed it, tying the chord.

She grabbed my hand and led me out of the bedroom. "I meant to make you breakfast after my run, but we got... distracted."

I chuckled. "Darn."

She looked back at me and grinned. Entering the kitchen, as much as the tiny space could be called that, I noticed that she had indeed been intending to cook me breakfast. There was a carton of eggs and a frying pan set out next to the gas stove.

"I hope you like your eggs scrambled, because that's the only way how to cook them."

"I prefer them scrambled," I said honestly.

I smiled as I watched her turn on the stove, and put a pad of butter in the pan.

She looked over at me. "Go get dressed. Put on the black pants I asked you to bring. You brought black pants, right?"

I nodded, still smiling at her.

"What?" She asked with a little self-conscious chuckle.

I stepped in and gave her a sweet closed-lip kiss. "You're amazing," I said, then turned to go get dressed. I glanced back as she was opening the egg carton, with a huge smile on her face.

Returning to the kitchen fully dressed in a white tee shirt and black pants that honestly were a little tight on me, I saw that the eggs were almost ready. She dished out the contents of the pan onto two plates, handing me the one with the slightly larger share of eggs.

To be continued in part 4. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 4

Costumes and characters.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

We sat on the couch, as she didn't have a table we could both sit at and ate hungrily. We had both worked up quite an appetite. When we had finished eating, Melissa leaned over the back of the couch, and set our empty plates on the island counter, then cuddled up against me.

"That hit the spot." She said with a sigh.

"There's been a lot of that recently."

Melissa giggled. "Yeah, there has, hasn't there?"

We sat in silence for quite a while, just enjoying being near each other.

Finally, Melissa sat up and said. "Come on, I'll show you our costumes."

I followed her back to her bedroom, and she started pulling things out of a big paper bag next to her dresser.

"This is yours." She said, handing me a blue police shirt and hat. "And the final touches, handcuffs, and a mustache." She handed me a pair of fuzzy pink novelty handcuffs and a fake mustache that looked like it was straight out of a seventies porn video.

I laughed. "That's awesome. So I'm the cop, are you my prisoner?"

"As much fun as that could be, no."

Then she took her costume out of the bag. It consisted of a small light brown halter top with all kinds of colorful beads sewn onto it, a matching skirt that looked very short, and a feathered headdress.

"We're the Village People?" I asked.

Melissa nodded with a slightly uncertain smile. "Do you like it?"

"I love it. What are Ashley and James going as?"

"Ashley is the cowboy, and James is the soldier." She held up the halter top for me to see. "Ashley made this."

The beadwork was pretty amazing. As I looked it over, I couldn't help but notice that Melissa still had an uncertain look on her face.

"Do you... not like it?" I asked.

"It's beautiful! It's just, Well, I should put it on and show you." She put a hand over my eyes. "Close your eyes, and when I tell you to open them, pretend that you aren't my lover, and I just showed up to the party. Okay?"

I nodded and closed my eyes. Naturally, thoughts of what Melissa was going to look like in the outfit began to bubble in my imagination. Then the truth of it dawned on me. When I arrived at the cabin two weeks ago; and she greeted me in a dress, which I was now certain that she had worn for the sole purpose of enticing me and me alone. I have never seen her wear anything in public that wasn't baggy or loose-fitting, and not anything nearly as revealing as I imagined this costume was going to be. I knew that I had to be very careful in how I reacted.

"Remember, you don't know me." Melissa reminded me. Her voice sounded like she was at the other end of the room. "Okay. Open your eyes."

I did and said the first thing that came to my mind. "Wow." I looked her up and down. The halter top was cut fairly low, giving a glimpse of the inner curves of her tits. It covered her chest down to just above her navel, leaving a lot of skin on her belly, sides, and back, bare. The skirt was very short, barely covering more of her legs than my boxer briefs covered mine. The waistline sat low, leaving more skin exposed. Her long muscular legs and her toned arms were also completely bare. As much as I was struck by how stunningly sexy she looked, I could see how anxious she was about the prospect of revealing so much skin.

While keeping my eyes on her, I turned my head like I was talking to someone next to me. "Who is that?" Turning my head to the other side I answered my question. "That's Melissa." Back to the other side. "Wow, she is gorgeous."

My antics made Melissa giggle.

"Who is she here with?" "I don't know him. Must be from out of town." "Lucky bastard."

Melissa laughed, and I stepped across the small room to her, happy to have at least temporarily eased her tension.

When she spoke, her smile was still strained. "It's not too much, I mean, not enough, is it?" She asked, tugging down slightly on the hem of the skirt.

"It's more than a bikini."

"I don't own a bikini." She said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "It's not; I mean; I;" She was struggling to get the right words out for what she wanted to say.

I sat on the bed next to her.

"It's not too... slutty, is it?" She asked, staring at the floor.

Gently, I put a hand on her cheek and turned her head towards me. "No. The costume isn't what makes some girls seem slutty, it's how they act while wearing the costume, and that's just not who you are."

"I don't know how other girls can do it. They all seem so comfortable in their skin. I've never been, except with you."

"Melissa, you are beautiful. There's no shame in letting people see that." I said, keeping my hand on her cheek, and maintaining eye contact.

She stretched her legs out in front of her, her flexed muscles clearly defined. "I look like I could have been Brigitte Nielsen's stunt double in Red Sonja."

I laughed. "You say that like it's a bad thing. She was a goddess."

This got a smile from her. "I think you're biased."

"Yes, I am. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong." She still didn't seem convinced. "You should be proud of your body. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Do you like wearing it?"

"Yes." She said softly, then added. "It feels really good."

"You look amazing."

"Everybody is going to be staring at me all night. I don't know if I can take that."

She was probably right about everybody staring at her. Every guy there is going to want her and be jealous of me. Every girl is going to know that she is more beautiful than they are and be jealous of her.

"It's Halloween, so pretend to be someone else. Be a girl who doesn't give a fuck about what other people think about her because she's confident in who she is. Be a girl that loves the attention, because she knows that every look is a compliment about her stunning beauty."

I wasn't sure if I was saying the right things or not. She still didn't look very confident, but I could tell that she understood my intent.

"I'll try." She gave me a quick kiss.

"Maybe you'll find out that you like the attention, and won't have to pretend anymore."

"Maybe." She smiled shyly. "I think I have to wear different panties though. I wanted to wear the red one for you but..."

She stood and faced away from me, and I looked with admiration at the backs of her long, sexy legs. Then she bent over at the waist, and the short length of the skirt was pulled up, leaving nearly her entire bare ass exposed. I could see the thin satin strap of her thong running between her ass cheeks. I stood and put my hands on her ass, squeezing it. She stood upright, but I kept her from turning around. I pressed myself against her, arms around her waist, pulling her ass against the bulge in my pants.

"Keep the red one on," I whispered into her ear.

"It's not too much? I feel like I'm going to be showing my bare ass to everybody."

"Maybe... just don't bend over like that when anyone other than me can see it."

Melissa giggled cautiously. "Okay. But if I'm wearing this, then you can't stand behind me to hide that bulge the whole time. If people are going to see me, they're going to see you too."

I laughed. "Deal. I can guarantee that I'm going to be hard as a rock all night." Then having an idea, I pulled away, undid my pants, and reached down inside. Melissa watched me with an amused smile. I rearranged myself so that, instead of being tucked down under between my legs, my very erect cock sat pointing down along my left leg. I fastened my pants, and with how tight they fit, the outline of my cock was clearly visible.

"That's fair." Then she said mischievously. "Maybe next year you can be the cowboy, and I'll have you wear ass-less chaps. That's it, just ass-less chaps."

We both laughed, and I pulled her into my arms, hugging her warmly. "I love you."

"I love you." She replied.

"If it gets too uncomfortable, we'll leave," I said softly. "It doesn't matter what we do, as long as we are together."

I felt her nod in agreement. After a pause, she said. "Speaking of what to do, the party doesn't start for, like, six hours."

"How about renting a movie, and just relaxing?"

"Okay." She said, chuckling. "But I am not wearing this to the video store."

We wondered the isles of the Blockbuster down the street from Melissa's apartment, indecisive on what we wanted to watch. We had both changed into comfortable jeans, but Melissa still wore the beaded halter top, albeit underneath a long padded wool coat. None of the new releases had sparked much interest, and we eventually found our way to the 'sci-fi and fantasy' section.

After a few minutes, a title caught my eye. I grabbed the box off the shelf and handed it to Melissa.

"Nice." She said, grinning.

Ten minutes later, the opening credits began, and as Arnold Schwarzenegger rode across a mountain valley to an Ennio Morricone score, we cuddled together on Melissa's couch to watch Red Sonja.

We barely spoke during the movie, both content with being close to each other and enjoying the show. At one point, as I watched her rapt attention to a sword fight, I felt a familiar feeling of awe. Melissa was my perfect woman. There wasn't a single thing about her that I would change. Well, her insecurities and self-confidence aside, but I'm working on those.

The final scene played out, and the end credits rolled to more of Morricone's beautiful score. Melissa turned in my arms, facing me.

"I love that movie." She gave me a sweet kiss on the lips. "And you're right, Brigitte Nielsen is a goddess."

"So, what do you want to do now?" I asked suggestively.

Melissa's eyes blazed with fiery passion. "What do you think I want to do?"

Recalling the dialog from the final scene of the movie, I said in my best Arnold voice. "I make it a rule, never to take a woman unless she can beat me in a fair fight."

Melissa grinned and continued with Brigitte Nielsen's line. "That's a challenge I might think about someday."

"What about right now?"

"Why not?"

When Melissa said the last line of the movie, I grabbed her by the shoulders and wrestled her onto her back. In response, she twisted around and, surprising me with her strength, flipped our positions. She straddled me, pinning me face up on the couch. I have to say, after watching that particular movie, this roughhousing was hot. I could tell that Melissa thought so too.

She leaned down and we kissed deeply.

I looked into her blazing blue eyes. "My warrior queen will have what she demands."

"Get naked. Now." She said gently, but in a tone that made it sound like a command.

She inched forward, straddling higher up my chest, and giving me room to get my pants off. As I struggled to accomplish that as quickly as I could, I watched as she seductively removed her halter top. Pants and underwear off, I reached up and grasped her tits, rubbing her nipples with my thumbs. She closed her eyes and moaned quietly.

Melissa slid back to straddling my hips, and tugged at my shirt, helping me get it off without having to fully sit up. Then she leaned way back between my legs, lifting her legs into the air and towards her chest as she laid her back on the couch. I got a marvelous view as she pulled her pants off, taking the red thong with them.

She came back forward to straddle me again, and I began to sit up to meet her, but she put her hands on my chest, gently pushing me back down. She leaned over me, kissing me briefly on the lips, then sensually made a trail of kisses down my neck, chest, and belly. She knelt between my legs, spreading them apart.

I sighed as she moved her hands up my inner thighs and caressed the freshly shaved skin around my balls. She brought her face close to my cock, and looked up at me, meeting my eyes. She pursed her lips, blew softly on my bare genitals, and smiled as I shivered. Maintaining eye contact, she grasped my cock, and lowered her mouth upon it.

I gasped in pleasure as she took me in. I could see in her eyes that my reaction fueled her desire to pleasure me. I couldn't have looked away if I wanted to. There was a fierceness in her eyes that I found to be absolutely captivating. She sucked hungrily and worked her tongue on me, seemingly intent on making me cum as fast as she could.

My body complied, and I was very near to cumming much quicker than I wanted. Melissa redoubled her efforts, massaging my balls as she sucked harder. Her eyes seemed to scream "Cum for me! Cum for your warrior queen!" My hips bucked as I came suddenly, and I felt her hum in satisfaction as I filled her mouth with my seed.

Melissa milked my cock for the last few drops of my cum, still holding my eyes with hers. She took me out of her mouth, and I saw her swallow. She leaned down over me with a satisfied smile.

"That one was all mine." She purred, before kissing me.

I was still amazed at how quickly she had made me cum, and held her tight as we kissed.

She still had this new fierceness in her eyes when she pulled away slightly. "Now it's my turn."

She moved up, straddling my face. As she lowered herself onto my awaiting mouth, she rested her chest over the couch's armrest.

Melissa moaned loudly as I closed my mouth over her and my tongue began to explore. I loved the taste of her and loved how her body responded to my attention. She pressed herself down onto me, and I had to push up against her with my hands to keep her from smothering me. My hands pushed against her where the backs of her thighs met her ass, just on either side of her pussy. Her moans got louder when I pushed my hands to the sides, spreading her pussy open. My tongue attacked her with renewed vigor, and her body complied with my urgent desire to make her cum as quickly as she had made me. Her juices gushed into my mouth, and I swallowed greedily.

"Yes!" She exclaimed as she tensed, right on the edge of climax.

I pressed my tongue broadly over her clit, and with quick circular motions, pushed her over the edge. As she tensed and spasmed uncontrollably, I left her overly sensitive clit alone and eased down the intensity with which I ate her.

She pulled herself off of me, and moved back down into my arms, straddling my waist once again. Our mouths met, and we kissed deeply, with Melissa still twitching occasionally.

We stopped to catch our breath and Melissa said. "Tasting myself on you is hot."

I nodded in agreement and licked a bit of saliva off of her lips. She smiled and licked my chin, which was still soaking wet from eating her.

"Did I satisfy my warrior queen to her liking?" I asked, deciding to continue our Red Sonja-inspired role play.

"Oh yes," She replied with a feral grin. "You did very well. But you should know by now, that I always need more."

Our eyes locked, and she reached down, finding my cock. She raised her hips slightly and lowered herself down onto me. I groaned in pleasure as I felt her silky warmth envelop me. She kissed me briefly, then sat up. She smiled down at me and wiggled her hips. When I tried to sit up, she gently, but firmly pushed me back down flat.

Sensing that she wanted to be in total control, I put my hands behind my head. She gyrated her hips slowly, and I stared up at her, marveling at how unbelievably sexy she looked. She arched her back towards me, drawing me out of her, then sank onto me again as she transitioned to arching her back away from me. Like the rhythmic crashing of waves, her body undulated in a fluid motion that started with her shoulders and ended with her hips. Each sensual motion pulled me out of her, then brought me deeply back inside.

I watched in awe, as she writhed on top of me. "You are a goddess!" I managed to say between gasped breaths.

When she arched her back towards me, her flawless skin pulled tight, and I could see her abdominal muscles and the outline of her ribs. Her pale pink nipples were erect on her perfect tits. She brought her hands to her tits and squeezed them sensually as she continued to fuck me. I could see by the gleam in her eyes that she was enjoying giving me this show, maybe as much as I was enjoying watching her.

Even though I had cum, really just a few minutes before, I could feel that I wasn't going to last much longer. Melissa stopped her forward and back motion and leaned way back, supporting herself with her hands on the couch next to my knees. She began thrusting her hips forward and back, burying me deep inside her every time. She quickly increased her pace, bouncing her firm ass against my hips. Seeing my cock slide in and out of her, and watching the muscles of her thighs and belly flex as she drove herself onto me was too much to withstand, and I was seconds away from cumming.

Without the close full-body contact that we usually had, I wasn't sure how close to cumming she was, so I broke the unspoken rule of the session and brought my hands to her. I pressed my hands against her inner thighs, alongside her pussy. I rubbed her clit between my fingertips.

She must have been close because, with an exclamation of primal ecstasy, she came almost immediately from my touch. Her vagina clamped tightly around my cock, and I grunted loudly as I emptied my balls into her.

We both held still for a moment, breathing hard. She grabbed my hand, and I pulled her forward, sitting up to meet her. We wrapped our arms around each other and kissed hungrily. Melissa made needy moans as she ground her mouth against mine. We kissed for a long time, our need for each other seemingly inexhaustible.

Finally, we broke apart, gasping for breath. We caressed each other's faces as we stared into each other's eyes. The fierceness she had shown in our passion was still there, but it was tempered now after our mutual release. Watching that particular movie had awakened something inside her, something that I found unbelievably attractive. Once again, I found myself in a state of utter awe of this woman.

"You are amazing," I said, knowing that the words were inadequate to express my feelings.

Melissa smiled, then looked a little self-conscious. "I didn't go too far with being in control did I?"

I kissed her. "Not at all. I thought it was really hot."

She looked relieved and kissed me back. "It felt really good."

I could tell that it had felt really good for her to be in control. It must be liberating for her to have the desire to be in control, and be called amazing when she acted it out. Traditionally, men were in control, particularly in the bedroom. Society traditionally expected women to just follow the lead of their partner. It was one of those things that just was. Well, fuck tradition, we would do whatever felt right. This isn't the nineteen-fifties. Besides, we were already breaking one societal norm, being second cousins madly in love, what's one more? It felt good for her to take control, and honestly, she could have taken it much farther, and I would have still loved it.

"It did." I agreed. "I like this side of you."

"What side?" She asked, turning one direction, then the other playfully.

She asked the question playfully, yes, but I could see that she was anxious about what I was going to say. There was a part of her that was exceedingly fragile to criticism right now, having opened up and let go of an inhibition.

"The warrior queen," I responded in a gentle, but serious tone. "She's fierce and confident, and isn't afraid to take what she wants." Melissa didn't say anything, so I continued. "The world needs to see more of this part of you." Then hastily added. "Not in a sexual way, of course."

Melissa giggled and then kissed me. "You are all that I want." She flexed her pelvic floor muscles, and I felt her pussy squeeze my cock tightly.

I flexed my own, causing my cock to twitch inside of her. We smiled at each other.

"I am yours," I said, kissing her.

I laid back down, pulling her down on top of me. She sighed in contentment and rested her weight on my chest, nuzzling my neck. We stayed like that for a while, and I could tell that she was beginning to fall asleep. I shifted and urged her to sit up. I stood, and she took my offered hand, following me to her bedroom.

We cuddled up under the covers, and both quickly fell asleep.

Chapter Fourteen.

We woke refreshed from our nap and got dressed in our costumes. Soon we were in my pickup heading to the house where the party was being held. I glanced at Melissa as I drove, and she seemed to be unaware that I wasn't taking the most direct route. We were only a few minutes away from Melissa's apartment, when I turned into the parking lot of the Duluth location of the big box home improvement store I worked for. Butterflies filled my stomach as I prepared myself to set into motion the plan I had devised in the shower earlier that day.

"I've got to go in here for a few minutes," I said, parking my truck, but leaving it running.

"Ok, I'll be here," Melissa replied with a smile.

I smiled back at her, leaned over to give her a quick kiss, and got out of the truck. I walked into the store with purpose.

I got back twenty minutes later. Sitting behind the wheel, I looked over at Melissa with a huge grin on my face.

She gave me a slightly confused look. "What did you need to get here?"

"I have a surprise for you," I said, still unable to stop from smiling.

"What is it?" Melissa asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What I had just done, marked a turning point, one of those moments in your life where your life will never be the same again.

"I just spoke with the yard manager, then with the store manager, and... as of two weeks from right now, I'll be working out of this store."

It took a moment for Melissa to process what I said, her mouth fell open and her eyes began to glisten with the promise of tears. I nodded in silent confirmation, and she threw herself across the bench seat into my arms.

We hugged tightly and kissed. I felt her joyful tears against my face.

"Of course, this all depends on if you're okay with having a roommate..."

Melissa laughed, her happiness nearly overwhelming her. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!"

We kissed again, then rested our foreheads together as we gazed into each other's eyes. Nothing on earth could have taken the smiles off our faces.

We glanced over as an old grey-haired couple walked past my truck. They watched us as they passed, smiling at our display of joy and affection. The man put his arm around the woman, pulling her close as they walked and they smiled lovingly at each other.

Melissa and I returned our gazes to each other, and we knew that we were both thinking the same thing. That was going to be us someday. A lifetime of love and experiences awaited us, and neither of us could imagine any other way we would want to spend our lives than with each other.

On the drive to the party, Melissa sat in the middle of my truck's bench seat, and in between gear shifts, I rested my hand on her inner thigh. I would glance in her direction now and then as I drove, but Melissa never took her eyes off of me. The way she was looking at me made my heart glow. I loved her so much, and knowing that my love was returned, every bit of it and more, was almost enough to make a guy weep with joy.

I parked on the street up the block from the party. I shut the truck off and turned to face Melissa. She wrapped her arms around me and we kissed deeply.

"I love you." She whispered.

"I love you," I whispered back. I put a hand to her face and she leaned into my palm as I caressed her cheek. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. "As much as I need to be making love to you in our bed right now, I want to do this."

Our bed, she had said. I liked that. Melissa smiled at me, knowing that I had picked up on her deliberate word usage. I helped her out of the truck, making sure nobody saw more of her than was appropriate, even though she was still wearing her long coat that covered her down past her knees.

We walked up to the house and rang the bell. As we waited, side by side, hand in hand, I said. "I'll be right here next to you the whole time, my warrior queen."

She smiled lovingly at me, and I saw any faint trace of self-doubt leave her. She took a deep breath and stood a little straighter, chin raised.

The door opened and we were greeted by Ashley's older sister, Debbie, who was hosting the party.

"Melissa! I'm glad you could make it. I haven't seen you in forever."

Debbie was five years older than Ashley and had moved out of their parent's house four years ago. Her husband's name was Chris, and apparently, he was some kind of Dot Com hotshot. I believed it, as their house was huge, and they both had expensive German sports cars parked in their driveway.

Debbie took our coats, and we began to mingle, soon finding Ashley and James.

Ashley rushed over and gave Melissa a quick hug. "Wow, you look Amazing!"

I resisted the urge to laugh when I saw James give Melissa a good head-to-toe look, and then notice me watching him. Now, I can see how guys might get pissed off by other guys checking out their girlfriends, but I saw it differently. I took it as a compliment to Melissa's stunning beauty, an opinion I wholeheartedly agreed with.

Melissa made formal introductions, and I shook hands with Ashley and James in turn. When I shook James' hand, he met my eyes in what seemed like an apology for his wandering eyes. I did my best to subtly show that there was no harm done.

We mingled and ate from the lavish catered buffet that Debbie and Chris had provided. I was introduced to more people than I could ever remember. Everywhere we went, eyes followed. There were lustful eyes, admiring eyes, jealous eyes, and yes, when people noticed the obvious outline of my perpetually hard cock barely restrained by my pants, laughing eyes. I didn't care at all about any of our observers, or what they thought about us. My eyes, and my thoughts, were for Melissa alone.

I kept true to my word, never left her side all evening, and maintained nearly constant physical contact, be it an arm around her waist, a held hand, or a covert squeeze of an ass cheek. For her part, she seemed to particularly enjoy rubbing her ass against my groin right before we talked to somebody new, or were going to walk anywhere, and when my arm was around her, she had a hand in my back pocket.

Again, I didn't care that everyone there saw my arousal. I honestly believed that it would be more out of place to have such a gorgeous woman at my arm all night, and not be constantly turned on.

Through it all, Melissa was amazing. She never showed the least bit of self-consciousness or anxiety. I knew she saw how everyone watched her, and as the night went on, I began to believe that she was genuinely enjoying the attention.

Our costumes were a hit, not just Melissa's, but the four of us as a group. Everyone cheered as Melissa and I, and Ashley and James, got up and danced when YMCA was played.

We each had a glass of the strongly spiked punch, but neither of us had the desire to get drunk. We seemed to be the exception though. As the party began to wind down, intoxicated couples could be found making out on couches and comfy chairs, with one pair doing a little more than make out under the billiards table.

Ashley was one of those who had way too much to drink, and we said our goodbyes as James helped her up the stairs to a guest room that Debbie and Chris had reserved for them.

Melissa's eyes met mine, and I saw her fierce need for me shining bright. As much as we both wanted to strip down and fuck like rabbits right then and there, we both agreed silently that we had reached the extent of our exhibitionism.

We said goodbye, thanked Debbie and Chris, who were quite intoxicated themselves, and left.

The night air was heavy in a way that hinted at impending snowfall, and the wind blew cold and humid off of Lake Superior. Melissa held her coat tightly around herself as we rushed to my truck. Once in the truck and moving, I revved the engine more than I usually did to get the engine up to temp a little faster. The air from the vents soon turned warm, and Melissa opened her coat.

She was sitting next to me again, with one leg on either side of the shifter. She had let her skirt ride up, and between gear shifts, I rested my hand between her legs, gently rubbing her with my fingertips through her satin thong. She had a hand on my crotch, and slowly stroked me through my pants.

The trip back was fairly short, only about ten miles. Halfway there I asked her. "Why does it seem like it's taking forever to get back to your apartment?"

"Our apartment." Melissa reminded me with a smile.

I glanced at her with a grin. I did like the sound of that.

"It's because neither of us can wait until this beautiful cock of yours is inside me." She gave my cock a squeeze to accentuate her words.

When we neared her, our apartment, she said in a casual tone that was betrayed by the lustful intensity with which she was looking at me. "When that door closes, you'll have about ten seconds to get naked before I start tearing these clothes off of you."

Turns out, she didn't even give me that long. As I bumped my back against the door to push it all the way closed, Melissa attacked my belt, getting it unbuckled with amazing quickness. Before I knew it, my pants were around my ankles and Melissa was on her knees taking me into her mouth.

I could do nothing but moan and lean against the door as she implemented every trick she had learned so far. My legs felt wobbly as she expertly brought all of the evening's pent-up sexual energy to the fore. I looked down and met the fierce eyes of my warrior queen.

In mere moments, she had brought me to the verge of orgasm. I was just seconds away from cumming, when she stopped, taking me out of her mouth. The sudden absence of sensation took my breath away.

Melissa looked up at me with a wicked grin. "Not yet." She said, giving the underside of my glans the slightest of licks.

I shivered at the contact. I was so close. She watched me intently, giving me another tiny lick now and then, keeping me right at the brink. I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. Almost involuntarily, I grasped the back of her head, pulling her mouth over me. She didn't resist and sucked with renewed vigor. Her eyes seemed to suggest that she had been waiting for me to make her continue, that she had wanted me to take what I wanted.

Melissa massaged my balls as I came. My legs nearly gave out, as I filled her mouth with my seed. Four, five, six strong spurts. It felt like the entire content of my balls was shooting into her.

Her eyes showed her joy at what she was able to do to me. She took me out of her mouth and ran her hands up my chest as she stood slowly. I reached out and grabbed her, quickly pulled her up the last bit, and locked my mouth with hers. She hadn't swallowed this time, and I could tell that I had indeed cum much more than usual.

We moaned softly as we kissed, sharing my hot cum back and forth. When finally it was gone, we broke to catch our breath.

Melissa looked at me with a sly smile. "If I am your warrior queen, then you are my king. A king is fierce and confident, and isn't afraid to take what he wants."

"I want you. All of you." I squeezed her ass, pulling her hips tightly against me.

She sighed with pleasure as my still-hard cock pressed against the satin of her thong.

I whispered into her ear. "I'm going to make you cum with my tongue. Then I'm going to make you cum on my fingers. I'm going to make you cum again, and again, and again, until you're a sweaty, sticky, twitching mess."

As I spoke, her breathing became heavier. She was practically panting in anticipation.

"After that, I'm going to bury my cock deep inside you, and make love to you, and not stop until I physically can't do it anymore. That is what I desire."

When our eyes met again, the look of love and passion I saw was so raw, so pure and powerful, that it burned itself into my memory. From that moment, whenever I thought about the way Melissa looked at me, I remembered that one look first and foremost.

"My king will have what he demands." She whispered.

I led her to our bed and carried through on my promise. How many times did I make her cum while eating her? Honestly, I lost track after the first few. One orgasm rolled into the next, and into the next, until she was indeed a sweaty, sticky, quivering mess. When I finally entered her, I paced myself, pumping hard into her at times, and slowing or even stopping inside her at others. I wanted to make it last as long as I could while making her cum as many times as possible.

We switched positions many times. When I would start to get tired, she would roll me onto my back and ride me until she came again, then we would switch positions, all without my cock ever leaving her hot and silky wetness. I ended up cumming inside her twice, and though we had continued to make love, I was not able to cum a third time.

We lay together on sweat-damp sheets, facing each other, limbs intertwined, and both utterly exhausted.

My lips were numb from kissing, and it seemed like every muscle in my entire body was sore from exertion.

Melissa giggled tiredly.

"What?" I asked, finding her adorable giggle as infectious as always.

"So that's what it takes to completely satisfy my sexual desire."

We both laughed, and she kissed me sweetly on the lips.

"I need to work on my cardio."

Melissa giggled again. "It'll get easier, you just need to keep at it."

Giggling with her, I quipped. "Keep at it? I thought you were completely satisfied."

"For today, yes," Melissa responded, and we both laughed again.

We hugged each other tightly.

Melissa sighed and caressed my cheek. "Thank you." She said softly.

"For?" I asked.

"For giving me courage tonight. I really did enjoy wearing that costume. Not just for you, but for me. I don't think I could have done it without you."

I gave her a sweet kiss. "Even though you're more brave and amazing than you give yourself credit for, I will always be right here. Whatever we face, we'll face it together."

Her eyes glowed with her love. "I'll be here for you too. Forever."

"Forever," I repeated, and we kissed sweetly.

We both knew without a doubt that ours was a love that would last until the end of time. When we said "forever", we meant it. Neither of us had ever known anything so surely as we knew this. As thoughts of spending the rest of my life with this glorious woman passed through my mind, I drifted off to sleep in her loving arms.

Chapter Fifteen.

We awoke in our bed, still in each other's arms. We stretched and embraced tightly.

"Good morning, my love," Melissa whispered.

"Good morning, wonderful," I responded with a kiss.

I knew that I wasn't alone in thinking that I could easily spend the whole day in bed, even if we did nothing but hold each other and rest, but nature was calling. We got out of bed, not bothering to put any clothes on, and headed to the bathroom. As she sat to pee, I turned on the shower, making sure it was set to Melissa's preferred temperature of just below scalding.

She stood, and it was my turn to relieve myself. It occurred to me that it was likely neither of us had ever seen anyone of the opposite sex use the toilet before. We watched each other, but it wasn't weird, gross, or embarrassing. I mean, after all of our intimate contact thus far, this was nothing. But it did remind me of how thoroughly and completely we were bonded to each other. There were no secrets between us, no need for shyness or reservations. In every aspect, we were one entity.

When I finished, Melissa pulled me into the shower. We washed each other, toweled off, and returned to our bedroom. Melissa went towards her dresser, obviously thinking that it was time to get dressed. I had other plans. I held her hand and stopped her near the bed.

"Lay face down," I said pointing to the bed.

She gave me her little smile, the one she kept just for me, and complied. I knelt over her feet and began massaging them. I massaged her legs thoroughly, enjoying her relaxed sighs. When I massaged her firm ass, I could see the moisture of her arousal seeping out of her. I bent over and kissed one of her perfect ass cheeks.

Melissa giggled. "Kiss my ass."

I chuckled and kissed the other cheek. I ran my fingers along the tops of her thighs, and she gasped quietly when I made contact with her wetness. While one hand rubbed her back at the base of her spine, I eased the thumb of the other into her. I slowly worked it in and out, brushing her clit with my index finger with every stroke.

Before she came, I eased off and stopped. I wiped my wet fingers on my cock, and shifted forward. She arched her back in eager anticipation. I entered her slowly until I was buried as deep as I could go. Melissa moaned with satisfaction.

I leaned down and planted a kiss between her shoulder blades. Whispering, I said. "I hope you don't mind if I just stay right there for a while. I'm not done with my massage yet."

She made only a happy moan in response.

As I began to slowly slide my cock in and out, I gripped her shoulders and began to knead her muscles. She made continuous sighs of relaxation as I worked my way down her back, all the while, keeping a steady, slow rhythm with my cock. When I reached the bottom of her spine, I pulled her waist towards me, getting that extra bit deeper with one slow thrust. Melissa moaned softly, her face buried in the pillow.

My massaging hands worked their way back up to her shoulders, and I grasped them firmly, pulling myself deep into her once again. Melissa responded with another moan, slightly louder than the previous one.

Again and again, my hands moved up and down her back, with each particularly deep thrust garnering an ever louder moan. I loved how much Melissa was enjoying what I was doing, her pleasure and relaxation having reached a zen-like state, but eventually, I had to face the sad reality that my arms were getting tired!

I slid my hands around her waist, and down to the top of her hips, pulling myself deep inside her again, but this time I kept my hands there. I increased the speed of my thrusts, and with each one, I pulled her hips towards me. Faster and faster I pumped into her, and my balls were soon slapping wetly on the backs of her thighs. Melissa's moans became one continuous guttural exhalation, punctuated with every impact.

I came hard, and breathing heavily, collapsed onto her back. I nuzzled into the back of her neck, feeling her silky hair on my face and breathing in her scent. Melissa's scent, and make no mistake, everyone has a unique scent, was something that I knew I could never find the words to describe. It was delicate, sweet without being sickly, earthy without being dirty. It was her, it was her essence, that intangible quality that makes something what it is, and I loved it. I breathed her in and sighed, planting a soft kiss on the base of her neck.

To be continued in part 5. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 5

The Gales of November.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

"Hmm" Melissa said, her face still buried in the pillow.

She shifted and turned her head, and I moved to her side with one arm and a leg still draped over so we could look into each other's eyes.

"Wow. That was..." She sighed. "...Wonderful."

I smiled and kissed her cheek. "I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did."

She squinted at me. "Are you sure I'm not dreaming, and you're just a figment of my imagination?" She said playfully, though I could tell there was something serious behind the question.

"I'm real, and I'm right here, in your bed, and I love you."

She searched my eyes for a moment, rolled onto her side, and pulled me in close, kissing me deeply.

When we stopped kissing to catch our breath, she whispered. "It's our bed, and I love you too."

We held each other in silence for a long while. I knew that she had something else to say, but I didn't push her. Eventually, she broke the silence.

"Do you want pancakes? I want pancakes."

Not exactly the soul-baring statement I was expecting, but now that she had said it, by damn I wanted pancakes.

"I'll help." I had made pancakes exactly once before, and it wasn't a complete disaster, so I felt that my inclusion in the process wouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

She got a distant look in her eye, then rolled onto her back, and covered her face with her hands with a groan. "I don't have any pancake mix."

She peeked at me through her fingers and we both started laughing. I'm not sure why but we both found it hilarious but we roared with laughter.

I playfully pushed her towards the side of the bed. "Well, get dressed. I'll take you out for breakfast."

Still laughing, she got up and opened a dresser drawer. Stepping into a pair of light blue panties, she asked. "Are you getting dressed too, or are you going to go like that?"

"I'm thinking about it." I quipped, eyes following her every movement.

I loved watching her move. She had a litheness and grace to her. Cat-like? No, that's not quite right. Amazonian? Maybe, but that implies a stature and bulk that Melissa didn't have. She was fit, not body builder muscular, and she wasn't particularly tall, just shy of my own five foot ten. She was perfect, and my eyes couldn't get enough of her. Let's leave it at that.

"You'll give the old ladies at Perkins quite a shock." She shot back, still laughing.

With an exaggerated sigh, I rolled off the bed. "For the sake of the old ladies, fine, I'll get dressed."

Chapter Sixteen.

The plate clinked as Melissa set down her fork. "Ugh. I ate too much, but that really hit the spot."

She had attacked her "tremendous twelve" meal with murderous intent. All that remained was a scrap of crust from a piece of toast, and some maple syrup residue on an otherwise clean plate. She had even swiped a strip of bacon off of my plate, an act that left fork marks on my brother's hands on several occasions.

I looked at my plate, with its pile of hash browns and a third of a stack of pancakes remaining, and set down my fork. "I guess I didn't work up as much of an appetite as you, cause I'm stuffed too."

Melissa looked at me with her special smile and mischievous eyes. "Well, you'll have to try harder next time."

"I need to work out more."

"I can help with that." She replied, and we both giggled, knowing the truth of it.

"Let's start with a walk."

We left the Perkins restaurant, and with Melissa navigating, we drove north out of Duluth on Hwy 61. We pulled off and parked where a little river crossed under the road and spilled through a steep set of rocky rapids to Lake Superior below. We hiked down a little trail, and she led me out onto one of the big rocks. The scenery was spectacular, and the water rushing past the rocks had a hypnotic quality. It hadn't snowed last night, but the wind was blowing hard off the lake, and the constant mist from the rapids gave the crisp early November air some real bite.

We sat for a while without speaking. Just two people holding hands, taking in the scenery and the roar of the water. There was a Gordon Lightfoot song that had something about the gales of November, how did it go?

"When I left home," Melissa began, just loud enough to hear.

I turned and watched her, careful to hear what she was saying over the noise of the rapids. I had been hoping for, and dreading this moment, when she decided to get the details of her past out in the open. I resolved to not interrupt and to let her tell it at her own pace.

"This was the first place I went." She continued. "I didn't know where to go. I didn't have anywhere to go."

She sniffed. We were alone but had someone been watching, her running nose and the tears on her cheek might have been assumed to have been caused by the cold, but I knew differently. I could see the deep down hurt that was welling up, and my heart ached. I squeezed her hand, and let her talk.

"Every night for two weeks, I'd leave school, then go up the hill to the mall and sit in the food court to do my homework. When the mall closed, I came here, and parked for the night right over there." She pointed up to the little parking lot where my truck was. "I'd wake up, scrape the snow and frost off the windows, and go to school. I didn't tell anyone because then I'd have to explain why I was sleeping in a car in February. I had friends, but not close friends, you know? Like, not the kind of friends that I could talk to about..." She trailed off and wiped her nose on her jacket sleeve.

"I had been lucky, it hadn't been as cold as it should have been, but then one night it got very cold. When I left the mall, I knew if I spent the night here again, I could be in serious danger. So I went to the laundromat. There was never anyone in there in the middle of the night, so I sat at one of the tables and fell asleep. The owner woke me up a couple of hours later, yelling at me that I couldn't sleep there, so I got in my car and came back here."

She had been looking at the water as she spoke, but now turned and looked at me. I saw the fear and shame these memories invoked. I wanted to say something, anything to comfort her, but I knew that I should let her say what she needed to say, so I let her continue.

"When I went to sleep on the back seat, I didn't think I was going to ever wake up, and I was okay with that. I didn't care that I was going to die. Nobody cared, nobody would miss me. The world would be better off without one more stupid girl. Why bother going on?" She looked away from me, east towards the vast lake, and her face twisted up in anger. "You know, the worst thing, the worst part of all of it, is they made me feel like it was all my fault. They had me so twisted up, that I believed that I was the cause of everything that happened."

She turned back to me, the anger fading, leaving just a profound sadness. I wiped the tears from her cheek, and she leaned her shoulder against me.

"Did your parents tell you what happened?"

My throat was dry, and I swallowed hard before replying. "They were vague."

She gave a little smile that was like a sunbeam on a stormy day. "I asked your mom and dad not to tell anyone. You're so lucky to have them."

She looked back to the lake and spoke quietly enough that if her face had not been right next to mine, I wouldn't have been able to hear her. "When I was fifteen, when I started looking more like a woman, and less like a little girl, my dad started abusing me. Mom, she was drunk more than she was sober. She knew, she had to know, and she didn't do anything."

As the River roared in its ceaseless path to Lake Superior, and the cold wind whistled and rattled through the leafless trees, Melissa spoke of abuse and divorce, lost jobs and social status, the failing of the system to help a girl who was too scared to ask for help and the blame that was assigned for all of it.

"So that night, I remember when the state trooper knocked on my window." She gave a brief mirthless huff. "I thought he was an angel, with the way his flashlight lit up the frost on the inside of the window. I thought I was dead, that it was all over. I felt relieved." She shook her head. "The next thing I remember was being in a hospital bed, wrapped in electric blankets, and seeing the sunrise through the window. That trooper was there. He had stayed with me, way past the end of his shift, just to make sure I was alright. Turns out, when they went to my parent's house to see what was going on, my dad was out of town, and my mom ended up getting arrested for assaulting an officer and having a bunch of heroin. That's why she went back to him. Not for me, but for the money to buy her drugs. The trooper persuaded me to reach out to my friends. He said that people can be capable of unexpected acts of kindness, and I decided to believe him. So I called Ashley. We had always gotten along pretty well, and her parents were always super nice to me. They let me stay with them, which was really awkward at first. I just couldn't believe that a family could be so, so perfect. It was like stepping into an old sitcom. Maybe there was a little trouble now and then, but everyone loved each other, and it all worked out in the end. It was surreal, but eventually, I started believing that it was how families should be. That it was right and good, and normal."

She looked me in the eyes then, and I saw her love burning through the hurt.

"I didn't think that I would ever have that. I thought that there was no way I could ever open up and let someone love me, to be me, to be normal. Who could want me? Then your parents invited me back to the cabin, and I grasped onto a foolish hope that maybe you could. Ever since it's just been, It just doesn't seem real. Charles, I know you love me, but I'm still so afraid."

I silenced her with a quick kiss on the lips. I held her cold, rosy cheeks in my hands and looked her in the eyes. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!"

Fresh tears streamed down her face, not tears of remembered pain, but tears of joyful love. She threw her arms around me and we held each other tight. Overhead, a hawk called, adding its little part to the scene of wind, water, and young lovers.

Chapter Seventeen.

Getting in my truck and leaving Duluth that evening was the hardest thing I had ever done. The only thing that gave me the strength to leave was the knowledge that it was only temporary. Soon, very soon, I would never have to leave her again.

When I got home, Mom was at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. She greeted me with a smile. I had to be very careful with how I was going to handle this conversation. I didn't want to lie to my mom, but I also didn't want to tell her the whole truth.

"How was your weekend? I didn't get a call from the cops, so it couldn't have been too exciting."

"I was the cop! We went to a Halloween party dressed as the Village People."

"Fun!" Mom exclaimed, giving me a beaming smile.

"Yeah, and something else happened. Do you know how I can get my employee discount at any store? Well, we stopped at one of the stores in Duluth, and I ended up talking with the yard manager. They've been having trouble finding someone competent to drive a forklift, and if I transferred up there, they'd give me a raise and make me an assistant manager. He said I could start working up there in two weeks." All of these individual facts were technically true, but it still felt like lying.

"Good for you! It's great to have in-demand skills. That's a long way to drive though."

"Yeah, it would be like, five hours of driving every day."

"Did you look into getting an apartment up there?" Mom folded up the newspaper and gave me her undivided attention.

"After the school year starts, there's literally nothing cheap available."

"Where would you stay then?" She asked, looking concerned.

"Well, on the way home, I was thinking about who I know that lives up there. Rob lives in a dorm, so I couldn't get away with staying there long-term. But then I remembered that Melissa lives in Duluth, I could maybe call her and see if she wants a roommate." Okay, this last bit was a lie. I didn't feel good about it, but it had to be done.

"Our Melissa? Have you called her yet?"

"Not yet. I'm pretty sure I have her number in my phone."

"You should figure this out sooner rather than later." She looked at the clock. "It's not too late, give her a call now."

I made a show of finding Melissa's number as if I hadn't memorized it weeks ago. Melissa and I had rehearsed this moment. I had the volume on my phone turned way up, so my mom was sure to hear Melissa's side of the conversation too.

"Hello?" Melissa's angelic voice asked after three rings.

"Hi Melissa, it's Charles."

"Charles! It's good to hear from you! What's up?"

"Well, I'm going to be transferring up there for work, and I was wondering if you would mind having me as a roommate until I found a place of my own." Another necessary lie.

"Yeah, I guess that would be okay. You're not going to find anywhere else to stay until the end of the school year. Even then, I was lucky to get this place, this spring."

"So, you're okay with me staying with you?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun. Like staying at the cabin, but I don't think my landlord would approve of campfires."

"I'll pay half the rent, and utilities, and everything."

"Naturally," Melissa said. "I was going to ask one of my friends if they wanted to move in. Only paying half the rent will make saving for school a lot easier."

"Cool. So, I guess I'll give you a call tomorrow, and we can figure out the details?"

"Yeah, okay."

"I'm talking with my mom right now, so I should probably let you go."

"Hi Mom!" Melissa yelled.

"Hi, Melissa," Mom replied, loud enough to be sure that the phone picked it up.

"Talk to you tomorrow, bye!" Melissa said, much quieter this time.

"Bye." I had to be very careful not to reflexively say I love you.

I put my phone away and noticed that my mom was studying me with a funny little smile on her face. Then in the most casual tone, she asked. "So, does she love you as much as you love her?"

My heart nearly stopped. I couldn't respond.

"That was a lovely charade. Unnecessary, but lovely."

I couldn't speak. My brain frantically searched for words but found only shocked silence.

"Oh, honey." She began, in a soothing motherly voice. "You're my baby. Did you think I wouldn't know? It was plain to see at the cabin that you two are in love. You spent the weekend with her?"

I forced myself to reply. "Yes," I said, fearing that it was all over. I felt like crying.

"Good," Mom said simply.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Mom knew about me and Melissa, and she was... Happy for me? "So, you're not mad about us?"

"Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go."

My tears came then, flowing hard as I released all my pent-up fears and anxiety. Mom held me as I cried on her shoulder. She gently rubbed my back like she used to do when I was a kid.

When my crying subsided, she held my shoulders at arm's length. "Now, tell me about her."

I did. In the conversation that followed, I was more honest and open about my feelings than I could remember being to anyone other than Melissa. I explained how we knew what each other was thinking or feeling, just by looking into each other's eyes. I told her how I wanted to improve myself, to be a better person for Melissa. And, looking back on it with a touch of horror, I did my best to explain the connection I felt with Melissa when we made love. Throughout it all, my mother was nothing but caring and understanding. After all the fear of this moment, it was surreal. It felt so good, so liberating to tell her how I felt about Melissa.

When I was done, I asked Mom. "Does Dad know?"

"Oh, I doubt he picked up on it."

"Are you going to tell him?"

Of all the people in the family, I was sure that Dad would be the least likely to accept. He had always been very traditional. Kind and gentle, but with a very strict moral compass.

"Of course. He's my husband. The way you feel about Melissa, I feel about him." She hugged me again. "Don't be ashamed. Love her with all your heart, and everything else will work itself out."

She kissed me on the cheek and told me that she loved me. I told her that I loved her too, and said goodnight.

I went to my bedroom, shut the door, and called Melissa.

"What's up?" She answered. "I didn't think I'd hear from you until tomorrow."

Deciding to just be direct about it, I said. "My mother has officially given us her blessing."

The line was silent as Melissa processed this. When she spoke, I could tell that she was crying.

"How did she find out?" She asked.

I recounted the whole conversation.

"See? I told you your mom was the best."

"She really is."

"So, what now?" She asked, with a bit of anxiety.

"She said that she had to tell everyone because it's better to have it out in the open than have to keep lying to the family. I agreed."

After a short pause, Melissa said. "Me too."

As it turns out, my family's reaction was both better than I had feared and worse than I had hoped. My parents had called a family meeting and all of my immediate family, and their spouses, showed up. There were those like my mom, and my brother Mark, who were supportive and genuinely happy for me. On the other end of things, there were people like my second older brother, Stephen, and his wife, who were disgusted and called me a pervert.

Most were somewhere in the middle, either not understanding and being polite about it, or just ambivalent to the whole issue.

Then there was my dad. He just sat there the whole time, with a frown on his face, and never spoke a word. I couldn't tell if he was ashamed, or angry, or what, and it tore me up inside. He had never in his life been shy about voicing his opinion. After my mom, he was who I needed acceptance from the most. I desperately wanted him to say something, anything, but he never did. His silence cut deeper than any insult or accusation ever could.

At the beginning, and with prompting from my mom, I had stood before everyone, confessing Melissa's and my love for each other, and that I was moving out to live with her in Duluth. After the initial shock and spectrum of reactions, I sat down and answered questions.

Now, not being able to bear my father's silence any longer, I stood again, interrupting several side conversations. I addressed the whole group, but my words were meant for my father more than anyone.

"Melissa and I truly love each other. Nothing you do or say can change it. Accept it, accept us, or don't. I don't care."

Dad didn't react, didn't even look me in the eyes.

I rushed to my room and locked the door. I curled up on my bed and cried, harder than I could remember ever crying before. The stress of the family meeting and my dad's non-reaction had utterly destroyed me. I held a pillow over my head to muffle the sounds of my uncontrollable sobs, and to hide my face from the world.

"What if they're right about you?" A part of my mind asked. "What if you're just a sicko. That's what they all think."

"No! I really do love her!" Another part of my mind answered.

"What kind of weirdo falls in love with his cousin? What kind of deviant fucks someone in his own family?"

"No! Our love is pure and perfect!"

"Yeah, perfect. The perfect fantasy of a clinically twisted pervert! You're just taking advantage of a poor broken girl."

"No..." I moaned aloud, holding my head in my hands.

Sometime after, someone knocked lightly on my bedroom door. I ignored it, lost as I was in terrible contradictory thoughts.

The knock came again, and I heard my mom's voice. "Charles, honey. Can I come in?"

I didn't respond, knowing that right then I couldn't bear to face anyone, even my mother.

"Oh, my baby." She said through the door. "All I want is for you to be happy. Follow your heart, everything will work out. I love you."

Her words quieted the thoughts whirling through my mind, and though my sobs faded, the tears continued to flow. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.

I closed my eyes and imagined Melissa lying next to me. I thought about how if she were here, she would comfort me, and wipe the tears from my face. I could see her so clearly in my mind, see how her icy blue eyes would pour her inexhaustible love into me.

Soon, my tears stopped flowing, and I regained a sense of peace. I felt awful for doubting myself, for doubting Melissa, if even for a moment. Our love is right. It is pure and perfect. She made me complete, as I made her complete.

I drifted off to sleep, with a smile on my face, thinking about Melissa, and dreaming about the future.

Chapter Eighteen. Charles copes with changes, but the biggest is yet to happen.

The armrests of the padded chair where I was seated were a little too high to be comfortable, so I kept my hands folded in my lap. I gazed at the paintings of calm rural scenes hung on the walls of the spacious office. I wondered absently if they were real places or just the artist's impression of idyllic country life. I glanced at the woman in the matching chair positioned across from me. She was patiently waiting for me to continue my story, with an encouraging expression on her face.

"I moved my things into Melissa's apartment a few days later and spent the night with her a couple of times when I had the day off. After the two weeks were up, I started work at the Duluth store and lived with her from then on. I think the only word to describe the years that followed is heavenly. I wouldn't have changed a single thing."

"Tell me more about how your family reacted," said the woman, Dr. Clarke. "Did your father and brother ever come around?"

"Dad? Yeah, he just needed a little time to process it. After that, he was as good with it as Mom was. The thing with him was, years before, before anyone knew what had been going on with Melissa's dad, he'd known that something was wrong. I'm not sure how, but he knew. After Melissa left home, he would call and check in on her. He paid to have her car fixed and even paid the deposit on her apartment. He always went out of his way to make her feel like she had people that cared. I think he loved her as if she were his own daughter, so the whole thing with the two of us was kind of a shock. When Melissa and I went to my parent's place for Thanksgiving, later that month; and he saw firsthand how happy she was, it wasn't an issue."

"And your brother, Stephen?" Dr. Clarke prompted.

"That same Thanksgiving, I ended up knocking him down with a punch to the face. He said that Melissa's family were all degenerates and that Melissa was just bringing that degeneracy to our family now. That was the last time I ever saw him." I forced my clenched fists to relax and laid my palms flat on my thighs.

"Have you ever thought about reaching out to him? People can change a lot in twenty-four years."

"No," I said firmly. "It was his choice to ostracize himself from our family, and I want nothing to do with someone capable of being so deliberately malicious. He knew that she was just beginning to heal the trauma that had been done to her; and had said what he did, specifically to hurt her. Someone capable of doing that will always be capable of doing it."

"You might be surprised by how much people can change," She said, as she scribbled a few lines in her notepad.

"Maybe," I said, brows furrowing. Those words had made their way into Melissa's nightmares. My fists clenched again, as I remembered all the times I was awoken in the middle of the night by her sobs. I remembered how helpless I felt, being able to do nothing but console her; and hold her until she fell back asleep.

My knuckles were white, and my fists trembled slightly. I saw Dr. Clarke glance down at my hands, but she did not indicate what she was thinking. Therapists must make superb poker players.

"Some things just can't be forgiven," I said quietly, forcing my hands to relax.

"Again, you might be surprised. We can talk more about that next week." She set aside her notepad and glanced up at the clock on the wall behind me. "Now close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing. Take a slow deep breath, imagining all your negative emotions as a tangible thing. Now breathe out slowly as all those emotions evaporate and exit your body like smoke. Again, deep inhale, and out. Good. Feel your mind become still as your breath carries away the pain. Once more, in, and out. Good."

For some reason, this technique worked for me. If left alone, my thoughts naturally gravitated to the bad memories, and each one brought two more with it until I became overwhelmed. I would become mentally gridlocked to the point of not being able to function in everyday life.

"When I say the word joy, what is the first thing that pops into your mind?"

My eyes were still closed, and I smiled. "Melissa's face when she first saw me that October weekend reunion, at the cabin."

"Good. Keep up your breathing exercise. All the pain is gone, only the joy remains. Describe the scene for me. What else do you see? What do you smell and hear?"

A single tear rolled down my cheek. I'm not sure why I started to cry, whether it was joy in the image of her, so happy and full of promise for the future, or sorrow because that future is gone. I would never again see her smile.

"Sunbeams cut down through the trees, lighting up smoke drifting from the fire pit. She passes through one, and her hair glows like golden fire. I smell the white pines, strong in the soft breeze, and the smell of burning oak. A loon call echoes up from the lake, and all around the cabin yard, there is the quiet burble of conversations and laughter." I wiped the tears from my face with a flannel shirt sleeve and looked away from Dr. Clarke. I still felt embarrassed to cry in front of another person.

"That sounds lovely. Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." She glanced at the clock again and stood.

I stood as well, taking a tissue from the box on the coffee table to dry my eyes.

She walked me to her office door. "Thank you for sharing today, Charles. I think you are doing very well." As she opened the door, she asked. "Have you gone to the aromatherapy shop we talked about last week?"

"No," I said dejectedly. "I was going to, but..."

I had meant to go, but sometimes certain things were just impossible to make myself do. Going into an unfamiliar place and talking to a stranger was one of those things. Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't. This hadn't been a particularly good week, and the thought of talking to someone new, someone who would ask questions about why I was there, questions that would bring up painful memories, was simply unthinkable. Yesterday, I had made it all the way to my car and had the key in the ignition, but then I just sat there, unable to make myself go through with it.

"That's ok." Said Dr. Clarke.

I knew she knew why I didn't go, and I had gotten to the point where I felt safe sharing my feelings with her, but I couldn't help but feel a sense of shame.

"Addy is very good at what she does, and she has helped many of my clients. She's a friend."

I nodded and started moving through the doorway. Ending conversations always seemed so awkward. I never knew what to say.

"Thank you for being so open today, Charles. See you again next week."

She was looking at my eyes, and I met her gaze briefly before looking away. In recent years, I had become very uncomfortable making anything more than the briefest of eye contact with people, especially women, so I was usually at a huge disadvantage when it came to reading people's motivations and emotions. In that brief glimpse though, I caught the impression of empathy and a real desire to help. It felt really good to know that someone cared. I gave her a genuine smile and left.

I left her office with the intention of going directly to the shop she had recommended, but by the time I was in my car, I just... couldn't. This is what my life had become. I could go from being on the verge of drowning in a sea of sorrow to feeling positive and optimistic in an instant, then back just as fast. But mostly, it was what I called 'the gray'. I am self-aware enough to understand how it began. Instead of dealing with certain traumatic events, my brain decided that it was easier and far less painful, just to push them aside. The problem is, that those things don't just go away. No matter how hard you push them down, they keep bubbling back up, and you end up pushing everything away in the effort. Then one day you realize that living in the gray was the only way to survive because every little bit of emotion, good or bad, could open the gates and let all the pain come rushing in. I had pushed everything and everyone aside for the sake of self-preservation, and it was killing me. I knew I needed help. I knew that the person I was, wasn't really me. The problem was, I had been in the gray so long, that I couldn't remember how it was before, not really. I knew that I had been happy once, that I had hopes and dreams. But that was all gone, lost in the gray.

Chapter Nineteen.

The next day turned out to be one of the good ones. I was able to get myself out of bed, dressed, and in the car. I decided that I would finally make it to this aromatherapy shop Dr. Clarke wanted me to go to.

I turned the key in the ignition, and my geriatric Honda Civic purred to life. I quickly released the emergency brake and shifted into reverse. I backed out of my parking spot with a sigh. There, I did it. The hard part was over, and now that I had started the task, it would be easier to go through with it. Don't ask me why that makes sense, I wouldn't know how to even start explaining.

I enjoyed my drive across town. It was a beautiful day in Duluth. Down near Lake Superior, it was a little breezy and a comfortable 65 degrees, perfect for driving with the windows down. Climbing the hill on 194, the farther I got away from the lake, the hotter it got. By the time I got to the shop, it was nearly 80 degrees, and I had begun to sweat. A typical July day in the Twin Ports. I've always said, that this was one of the things I loved most about living in Duluth. It could be hot as hell up on top of the hill, but if the wind was right, it was always cool near the lake.

I shut the car off and set the E brake. I wiped a bit of sweat off my brow, and it occurred to me that I was wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday and that I hadn't showered. Hit with a sudden wave of shame and embarrassment about meeting someone new in this state, I almost just left to go back home. With an effort of willpower, I opened the car door and stepped out. Task begun.

I walked in and was greeted by a smiling older lady that I assumed was Addy.

"Hi, um, Dr. Clarke sent me."

Addy's smile widened. "Oh, come in, come in. I'm Addy."

"I'm Charles," I replied, meeting her eyes for the briefest moment.

"Pleased to meet you, Charles. How is Rose doing these days?"

Dr. Clarke's first name was Virginia. She had grown up in Virginia, Minnesota, and I think she was still annoyed by her unimaginative parents, because she liked to use her middle name, Rose. I almost exclusively used 'Dr. Clarke' when speaking with or about her.

"I've been seeing her for a couple of months now. She's nice." I never seemed to know how to answer questions like that. I grimaced inwardly at my awkwardness.

"She's a sweetheart, and good at her job. I saw her for years." She led me over to a glass counter filled with hundreds of small labeled bottles. "So, are we looking for something to help you relax?"

"Something to help me remember." I paused briefly, trying to find the right words. "Well, remembering isn't the issue." I felt a rush of awkwardness and a little bit of embarrassment in talking about something so personal with a stranger. My cheeks flushed, and I looked at the bottles in the case to ensure I didn't accidentally make eye contact. "I want to be able to focus on just the one thing."

"Tell me about it."

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. "There's smoke from the campfire, mostly oak. Maybe a tiny bit of something acrid, like someone had thrown a plastic plate in the fire."

As I spoke, I could hear Addy selecting a few bottles from a rack within the display case.

"Pine trees. Even with the smoke, the pines smell strong."

"Spruce?" Addy asked politely.

"No, White Pine. The needles and sap are everywhere."

"Anything else?"

I took another deep breath but didn't reply.

"Sometimes there's things around us that have a scent, but we're either too used to it, or its faint enough that we don't remember without smelling it. What else was there? Is this a campground?" Addy asked in what I recognized as being in a deliberately unobtrusive way.

"It's a cabin," I replied, searching the mental image for things that may have a scent. "It's an old log cabin, surrounded by white pines. There's a log pile. My brother had been using the chainsaw earlier. My truck is parked in the driveway, it smells like gas because the tank leaks a little bit. Someone had mowed the little patch of grass in front of the cabin."

"Is there anyone there, wearing perfume or aftershave?"

I nodded my head in the affirmative.

Addy gave me time to answer.

"She..." I struggled to find words to describe Melissa's scent. How do you describe such a thing to someone? How do you describe a sunset to a blind person, or describe to a deaf person the emotions evoked by the Moonlight Sonata? She smelled like love, and I still smell her on the clothes I keep in her dresser.

"You know how strawberry plants don't smell like strawberry? Not like the fake strawberry candy scent?" Of course, she did, but I went on. "A strawberry blossom. Delicate, faint, with just the promise of sweetness."

"She was someone special," Addy said, in more of a statement than a question.

"I ended up marrying her. She;" A tear rolled down my cheek. "Nine years ago;" I just couldn't force the words out of my mouth. I could tell Addy the exact date and time. I could tell her that we had just gone to see The Martian in the movie theater and that the night was clear and cool after the late August thunderstorm earlier that afternoon. I could tell her what song was playing on the radio. I could tell her the look on Melissa's face when the headlights crossed through the median in front of us. What I couldn't say, was physically unable to, was that nine years ago, Melissa died.

"It's okay, dear," Addy said. She had a grandmotherly voice, full of kindness and understanding. For the briefest of moments, the power of that gentle voice made me believe that yes, everything would be okay. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll have something for you to try."

I nodded and wandered away from the counter, absently browsing the candles and incense as I tried to compose myself. As I looked through the shop it occurred to me how posh the place seemed. High-dollar products are meant to be sold to people who have the luxury of ignoring price tags. I did not have that luxury. I felt anxiety and a general shame of the complete fuck up I had become. If this costs more than about forty dollars, I wouldn't be able to afford groceries this week.

"Charles, it's ready," Addy called from the other side of the store.

I walked over and closed my eyes as she extended a small glass bottle filled with clear liquid. I breathed deeply and conjured the scene in my mind. The scent of Addy's mixture hit me like a lightning bolt. It was like reading a book in the dark, and then someone turned on the lights. Everything came into sharp focus like I was there. The smoke, the pines, and, My breath caught in my throat. Buried deep within the mix there was something light, something so tenuous you hardly knew it was there. It was Melissa. In my mind, she threw herself into my arms, and I could smell her. I could smell her.

"How?" I asked, looking her in the eyes for the first time since my initial glance.

Addy smiled warmly, and I could see genuine care in her face, not just the politeness of a shop owner to a customer. "If she had been wearing perfume, it would have been harder. We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front."

Dr. Clarke was right, Addy was good.

"Your idea about the strawberry flowers was good. They're very faint and don't smell like much at all, definitely not strawberries. But when you know that you have strawberry flowers, and you smell them, your brain brings up the memory of strawberries. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory."

Addy put a rubber stopper in the bottle and carefully placed the bottle in a velvet pouch with her shop's logo on it. She held it out for me to take. A tear dripped off my jaw, and I quickly wiped my face on a sleeve.

"How much?" I started to ask, again acutely aware of my wrinkled clothes, my general lack of personal hygiene, and the depressingly small balance of my bank account.

Addy cut me off with a raised hand. "Rose is a friend of mine, and any friend of hers is also a friend of mine." She pushed the velvet bag into my hands.

"No, I can't;"

Addy stopped me again. "Most of my clients just want something that smells nice in their bathroom, or to cover the smell of weed. I'm perfectly happy to take their money." She placed her hands on mine, still clutching the velvet bag. "It's very rare that I get to help someone. Take it as a gift, with my thanks."

I was speechless, and fresh tears rolled down my face. I couldn't remember the last time someone was so altruistically kind to me. "Thank you." Was all I could say.

To be continued in part 6. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 6

Saying Goodbye; for now.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections.

Chapter Twenty.

On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone.

One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work.

He answered after a few rings.

"Hi, it's Charles, from work."

"Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?"

He sounded happy to hear from me.

"Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back.

"They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is."

"Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months.

"So, what's up?" Carl asked.

I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background.

"Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go.

"Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go."

"Mind if I come with?" I asked.

"Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six."

"Cool, I'll see you there."

"Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again."

And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye."

"Bye."

I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered.

I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out.

I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower.

I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember.

My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair?

I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person?

In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered.

I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube.

Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late.

I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here.

I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far.

I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place.

I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger.

I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously.

After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes.

I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up.

"Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here."

I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift.

"Hey," I said. "What's up?"

"One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?"

"No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends.

"Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter."

"Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut.

"Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me."

"Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered.

"Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna"

As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair.

"You get stood up too?"

I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender.

"Huh? Yeah."

"Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?"

In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe.

"Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals.

"Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered."

"Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her.

Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline.

Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked.

Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..."

My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..."

She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person.

"Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear.

"Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening.

This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar.

"What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening."

She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands.

She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me.

"What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?"

"You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee.

"When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years.

"Well, I know you, Charles Larson."

"How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier.

"If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now.

"How?"

"Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real."

My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood.

"If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost.

"I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa.

Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?"

I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question.

"Your second cousin, the one you married."

Shocked, I replied. "Melissa."

She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up."

"How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe.

"Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams."

"I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are."

She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life."

Chapter Twenty-one.

"You're older than I thought you would be."

Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby.

"How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning.

"When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago."

A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?"

I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it.

Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,”

"Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly.

"I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears.

We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts.

Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?"

She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen."

My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone.

Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car.

Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone."

Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob.

I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay."

I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa.

I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar.

"I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was.

Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them.

"None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!"

Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago.

The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's.

I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway.

Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me.

"It looks exactly how I remember."

I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..."

I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt.

"Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind.

A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass.

Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her.

Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch.

Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar.

"You do look like her," I said softly.

"Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me."

I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart.

"This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it."

Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine.

"Through the years, I began to love being her."

My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent!

"I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you."

My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be.

"I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob.

"You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved."

I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them.

"Do I?" I asked.

"Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially."

I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew."

She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long.

"I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it."

The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be.

Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power?

"Are you my Melissa?"

A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?"

She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face.

"Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism."

She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa.

"The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night."

She stopped fidgeting and looked at me.

"When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out."

She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding.

"What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you."

Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster.

"I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her."

I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt.

Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory.

My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her.

I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar.

"Maybe we shouldn't,”

She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered.

Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality.

Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed.

Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts.

Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her.

I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it.

But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem.

There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth.

I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer.

The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading.

I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag.

I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever."

Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance.

"Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge."

Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam.

"You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment.

We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed.

"Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember"

Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!"

A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid.

"We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory."

My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world.

"None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you."

The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled.

"I love you. I love you. I love you..."

A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars.

"Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..."

The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility.

"...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!"

I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark.

My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go."

Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you."

Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..."

I floated alone.

The self, the other, and the one were all gone.

Joy and sadness were words without meaning.

Light and dark had no definition.

Space had no direction.

Time held no sway.

Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.