Coldwater Bay

By James Hudson

Meredith Marshall-Rhodes is miserable. Her husband, Daniel, is distant and cold, and her sex life is less than pathetic. She is nothing but a flesh-and-blood sex toy, something for Daniel to pump into until he gets off. Her marriage is dying and she doesn't know what to do -- and that's when she finds the divorce papers. Finally, after months of negotiations over marital assets, Meredith flees to her last refuge, the cabin on Coldwater Bay in northern Minnesota that was deeded to her in the divorce settlement. She wants to regroup, recover, and relearn how to be Just Meredith again.

Von Cassaday is famous. He's a best-selling romance novelist, and he's on tour promoting his latest book. There's just one problem: his wife, Stella, has left him and taken his ability to write with her. Von is touring the last book to death, squeezing every last bit of publicity he can get out of it for fear that when it's over he'll have nothing to do, nothing to distract him from his life. He's spent the tour boozing and whoring and trying to forget, until finally his agent tells him there are no more dates to book and cuts him loose. He flees to the only place he has left, the cabin he'd bought Stella, up on Coldwater Bay in northern Minnesota. There, he will either find his authorial voice again or drink his demons away and slowly fade out of the limelight.

Neither Meredith nor Von are looking to further complicate their lives with romance, but when Meredith realizes that her famous neighbor is in town and goes over to say hello, she sets off a chain of events that neither of them could have seen coming; a chain of events that drags them both through the emotional wringer and culminates in both Meredith and Von learning an important lesson:

Divorce is never the final act in any marriage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hudson
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311027047

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Copyright 2015 by James Hudson. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, in any form, including (but not limited to) recording, photocopying, or other methods without prior written consent of the publisher, except in certain noncommercial applications such as short quotes in reviews or uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are all a product of the author's imagination. Certain public places may be used for setting reference. Any resemblance to any entity, person, business, company, organization, or group is entirely coincidental.

For Sarah. As always.

Meredith Marshall-Rhodes was on her back, naked, gazing up at her husband. Daniel Rhodes was a rich and powerful man, but as Meredith knew well after five years of marriage, when it came to fun in the bedroom, the rich and powerful could be as inept as everybody else.

You like that, baby, he grunted. It wasn't a question. Meredith moaned, not particularly feeling anything one way or the other about her husband's erection slipping in and out of her. It wasn't that he was smaller than average, it was just that he didn't really care if she enjoyed herself. All he wanted from her was a warm twat and a little moaning, telling him how great he was.

Despite all that, Meredith tried to enjoy the sex. She fantasized about movie stars, old boyfriends, even the guy from the company who cleaned their pool. Paolo, his name was. She would never do anything with the pool boy, of course (although sometimes just the thought that she actually had a pool boy made her want to go prancing around, poolside, in a bikini), but he was nice to look at, and she thought he might be a better lover than her rich and powerful husband. He would almost have to be.

Mmm, she said, slipping her nails lightly down Daniel's chest. He wouldn't want to be marked, but he would want to feel like he was driving her wild. He rocked his hips into her, grunting and sweating and gasping. Meredith spread her legs wider, helping him go deeper.

Oh fuck, he grunted, and she prepared herself for the inevitable. Sometimes he wanted to come inside of her, but sometimes he wanted to jerk off onto her stomach or tits or even her face. She had to move quickly to get into position, otherwise he would sulk and pout and ignore her for two or three days, until he needed another lay.

That's it baby, she said, lightly scratching him again. He shivered and thrust forward, burying himself in her, and let himself go. She felt his come inside of her, but it did nothing for her. I love it when you come inside me, she said.

He grunted and rolled off. Meredith didn't move. Sometimes he wanted her to go down on him afterward, and it had taken her about two weeks after their honeymoon to realize that the less anxious she seemed to get away, the less likely he was to even remember she was there.

Finally he rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Meredith sighed in relief. She hated sucking the come out of his half-limp cock. There was a ten second window, post-orgasm, where come was still the product of sex and not just some goopy, salty, nasty-tasting stuff. Beyond that -- yuck.

Meredith waited on her husband to get in the shower. Daniel Rhodes was a habitual man, and one of his habits was to always take a shower after sex. When the water kicked on in the master bath, Meredith slipped out of bed and padded down the hallway to the guest bathroom. After three months of marriage, she'd realized that Daniel never used the guest bathroom, so it had become her secret little getaway, a place where she could take care of Meredith. She slipped into the room, stark naked, and went to the drawers beneath the sink.

A minute later she was sitting on the toilet, her legs spread, the head of a vibrator pressed snugly against her throbbing clitoris. The toy had been a gag wedding gift from her best friend, Stacy. Meredith had laughed when she opened it, never suspecting that it would become her lifeline to sexual sanity and satisfaction.

Oh, she whisper-moaned, trying to be quiet, as the vibrator purred against her sex. Daniel probably wouldn't hear her, and the second floor was off limits to the help after ten in the evening, but a good housewife was a prudent housewife, and Meredith was nothing if not prudent.

The little buzzer vibrated snugly against her pinkest flesh, sending near-silent shivers of pleasure racing up her spine. Her free hand drifted up to pinch a nipple, which sent another shiver of pleasure moving. It twined with the one coming from down below and spiraled through her like a crazy bottle rocket, fizzing sparks behind it as it careened from side to side, top to bottom, rolling around the heavens that were her body and never quite going out. Meredith gasped for breath, pressing the vibrator harder against her nubbin, rocking her hips. She thought of the pool boy, Paolo, and how his chest muscles rippled when he raked the net across the surface of the water. She thought of his arms, his muscular arms, as he carried the heavy pool chemicals from his van. She thought of him smiling at her, and she thought of herself smiling back. She imagined him coming to her and picking her up with his strong arms and she could feel the press of his hard, masculine body against her own soft, feminine one and somehow she was naked and he was naked and his massive appreciation of her beauty was pressed against her sweet wetness and then oh shit oh shit he was inside and he was stretching her and she rolled her hips forward against his every thrust and waves of feral lust broke over her and he gazed into her eyes from above as he claimed her and she threw her head back and lifted her hips off the warm cement by the pool where he had taken her and she came gloriously around him until her whole body thrummed, burned, detonated with sexual release --

Meredith gasped as the orgasm jerked the air from her body. She sat on the toilet seat, panting, trying to get control of her muscles again. When she had it, she flicked the switch on the little buzzer to OFF.

Wow, that was a good one.

Meredith stood quickly and took the vibrator to the sink. She didn't know what Daniel would do if he caught her, and she didn't want to find out. Better for him to think he satisfied her every sexual need. And besides, as much as the guest bathroom had become her sexual sanctuary, she was never really comfortable in it. She had a person-behind-the-shower-curtain feeling every time she entered, as though somebody was watching her. There were no windows in the bathroom, so she knew nobody was, but still. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Once Buzz (that was the vibrator's name) was clean and dry and back in his drawer, Meredith sat down on the edge of the tub and put her head in her hands. She didn't like deceiving her husband. She loved him very much. It was just that he wasn't the type of man to take direction. She couldn't tell him what she liked and didn't like, or what he could do to make her come like a freight train, because any words out of her mouth that didn't encourage him to keep doing what he was doing were absolutely forbidden. It had only taken one chastisement, the night of their honeymoon, for her to discover that.

Meredith's mother thought that any man who wouldn't listen was a man who needed divorcing, but Meredith could never do that to Daniel. He was the love of her life, and outside of the bedroom he was the perfect gentleman. He took her out, he bought her things, he made her feel special and loved. So what if he wasn't a porn star in the bedroom? Who wanted that, anyway? She was content to accept that part of him along with everything else --

-- until she found herself masturbating silently in the guest bathroom, alone and depressed.

Meredith fought back the tears. Some day, he would listen. He just had a lot on his plate right now. It wasn't easy being a partner at a successful law firm, especially in a day and age where everybody wanted to sue everybody for everything. They had a vacation coming up, though, and it was then that she planned to try her constructive critiques again. She would urge him to do something that felt good for her, and hopefully in the middle of sex he wouldn't notice, he'd just do it. If she could get him to do it once, if she could come beneath him without touching herself, she would have him. She knew it.

Meredith stood up and dried her tears (when had she started crying?) and went back to the master bedroom. There was no point in taking any longer than necessary; she didn't want him to suspect anything, and over the past five years she had become quite proficient at the two-minute orgasm.

He was still in the shower, so she went to the bedside table for a couple of aspirin. Crying always gave her a headache. She pushed aside a large manila envelope and found the bottle beneath it. It wasn't until she was putting the bottle back that she noticed the big manila envelope had her name on it.

Curious, she picked it up and opened it. A thick sheaf of papers was inside, and the words at the top of page one nearly made her heart stop.

PETITION FOR DIVORCE.

# # #

Von Cassaday leaned against the door to his hotel room and looked down at the middle-aged housewife kneeling before him, tonguing his testicles. She stroked his shaft with one hand while she licked. Von had a bird's eye view, down the front of her shirt, of her big, middle-aged breasts.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

He'd picked her up that evening at a book signing. It was the latest stop on the tour to promote his newest book, In His Arms. Von didn't know how many towns he'd been to or how many books he'd signed. Eventually they all ran together. Just like the women afterward.

Von's agent was pushing him for a new book, but as far as Von was concerned, as long as people still showed up to see you when you said you were going to be someplace, you were doing okay. Granted, this latest signing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota wasn't the biggest crowd he'd ever drawn, and he noticed that there were far fewer young women in attendance than there used to be, but sometimes you had to take what you could get.

That's it, he said as the housewife curled her tongue around his erection. Von closed his eyes and tried to remember her name. Lucy? Judy? The whiskey he'd had with and after dinner drowned out the memory, so he settled for lacing his fingers in her home-dyed hair and pushing into her mouth.

She gagged a little, but hung in there like a champ. Von settled into a slow rhythm, gently fucking her face. She cupped his balls with one hand and massaged them while she blew him. As far as he could remember, nobody had ever done that to him before.

That's nice, he said, letting go of her hair. How long had she been blowing him? Five minutes? Twenty? He didn't know, but she looked like she was losing interest, so it was time to take care of her. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

Von helped her stand. Take off those clothes, beautiful, he said. I want to see all of you.

The housewife made doe eyes at him while she unbuttoned her shirt. I can't believe it's you, she said.

He smiled. Relax, love. He went to her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a delicate motion.

She shrugged out of her shirt and reached up behind her back for her bra, but Von stopped her. He took her hands and slipped them around his waist, then leaned down and kissed her neck. His hands, meanwhile, reached up and freed the girls. They were only slightly saggy. He let his tongue dance over her skin, let his lips kiss their way up to her ear. She squeezed her fingers into his back when his tongue slipped into the cup of her ear, and by the time he pulled back to gaze into her eyes again, her nipples were rock hard.

Oh, she said, and her hands found the button on her jeans and popped it. You're so...gentle.

Von could've rolled his eyes. What kind of men had she been with, he wondered, if his drunken attentions struck her as gentle?

He watched as she pushed her Levi's down, watched as they pooled around her feet, watched as she stepped out of them. For a middle-aged housewife, she wasn't bad looking. A little chubby, but doable. Definitely doable.

The housewife stood there before him, wearing nothing but pink silk panties and a smile.

I feel like Rebecca, she said, smiling coquettishly. When she seduced Josh in the cupcake shop? Remember?

How could he forget, when Rebecca and Josh were the protagonists from the book he'd just signed for her (Kacy?) earlier that day?

You do yourself an unkindness, he said, stepping in and planting a kiss on the housewife's mouth. You are far, far more beautiful than I ever imagined Rebecca to be.

The housewife blushed right up to the roots of her hair and halfway down her chest, but Von only smiled. He was always surprised when women fell for his lines. They knew what he did for a living, after all.

Make love to me, she whispered, pushing her panties down and kicking them off. Just as Rebecca had in the book.

So she wanted the fantasy? Von smiled, and gave her Josh's answer. For the rest of my days.

The housewife dragged him down onto the bed. For all of her talk of lovemaking, there was no foreplay. She rolled him onto his back, the shy little kitten transforming before his eyes into the fierce tigress, and slipped down onto his bare erection.

Oh, she moaned. Von relaxed and closed his eyes. The whiskey burned in his veins, and for a moment that seemed to go on forever it wasn't the housewife on his lap but Stella, his beautiful Stella. He smiled, his hands rising to cup her breasts --

-- and falling back to the bed when he realized that it wasn't Stella, but just some bored housewife who only wanted to fuck him because his name was on the cover of a dozen romance novels.

I'm gonna come, the housewife hissed, her fingernails sinking into his chest. Von thrust up into her, half of him wanting to punish her for not being Stella, and she screamed as she found her release. He felt her spasms, felt her clenching his erection in the throes of her passion, and decided that he wanted no more of this, reputation be damned.

He took her by the hips and gave her four quick thrusts and gushed up into her.

She felt him come and looked down at him, disappointment etching itself onto her face. Von pulled out of her and rolled away.

That's it? she said, and she didn't sound like a coquettish little Rebecca then. She sounded like a shrew. "All the stuff I read online about Von Cassaday, the amazing lover, and that's it?"

She shrieked the last word, but Von barely heard her. He was pulling his pants back on and checking his pockets. Once he was dressed, he went to the table by the window, where he'd sat his suitcase, and zipped it.

He said nothing.

You're leaving? She sat on the bed now, the comforter pulled over her naked body.

Yeah, he said. Thanks for the great time.

Great time? she said. "Are you kidding me?"

Von didn't answer. He dragged his suitcase out the door and headed for his car. He threw the luggage in his trunk, dropped into the driver's seat, and called his agent.

Tim, he said. Where am I going next?

Next? Tim said. There is no next, Von. Sioux Falls was the last stop.

C'mon. You can't book me anywhere? I'm in the car, man. I need a place to go.

Silence.

Eventually, Tim sighed. You've been promoting this book for a year and a half, he said. It's done. Your publisher is happy to look at something new, but if you don't have anything for them, then you're in the wind.

Von leaned back and closed his eyes. How could he tell Tim that he didn't have anything new? He'd been lying for over a year now, promising a new title soon, when the truth was that the closest Von had come to writing his next novel was scrawling his name on the front page of the last novel a thousand times the day before? The truth was that he hadn't written a single word, hadn't even had an idea of what to write, since Stella had gone.

Oh, Stella, he thought.

I'm sorry, Von, Tim said. Call me when you have something new.

Dead air.

Von rubbed his eyes. For the first time in fifteen years, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to do.

Shit.

Still here? a shrill voice called, and Von snapped his eyes open to see the housewife walking toward his car. "Some lover you are, Mr. Romance! Puny-dicked motherfucker, I'm gonna post all over the Internet how the Great Von Cassaday couldn't even get