A Candle in a Hurricane

By Wendell

What could have led to that first clandestine sexual tryst between his wife and the least imagined partner, was a mystery that emasculated Craig Lowe, leaving him as sexless as a gutted snowbird. Only able to contend through the numbing of hard liquor leading to an almost continuous thirst during his waking hours. With opportunities for sexual encounters, while the need was present, the physical response was not.

Change came through a series of first time circumstances when he met an attractive woman he had know in their childhood. With their fathers employed in a mobile occupation, they changed areas and schools several times, causing a clinging and closeness of a sibling relationship.

Shirley was no longer thought of as a gangling, knobby kneed sibling, but an appetizingly attractive woman. Through a relaxed familiarity of having lived and slept together, and skinny dipped in horse troughs as children, although knowing little about each other, they soon regained the closeness of their earlier years, but with the additional wants and need of the adult world.

They soon found that each was the missing link in the others life, but when each others past caught up with them, all did not end well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465311054

Wendell

Wendell is a retired electrical engineer and amateur archaeologist. This novel, his third, was inspired by a visit to the Philippines.

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Copyright © 2011 by Wendell.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011961494

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-1104-7

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-1103-0

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-1105-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Dedicated to Brooks

"The chances of some of us surviving in this sorry assed world are

about that of a Candle in a Hurricane."

Velda Karlstedt

Prologue

Craig Lowe woke with a start, his body drenched with sweat. He squinted into the pale dawn of morning trying to determine where he was. The dream had been so real, it took a while before he could reacquaint himself with the familiar furnishings of his own bedroom. Getting up, he opened a window, took a deep breath and looked out across the backyard with its split rail fence enclosure. A cool breeze of the mild fall morning flapped the drape and cooled his sweaty body like being splashed with a bucket of ice water… he shivered.

Such mornings had become routine, after a night of restless alcohol induced senseless dreams, capped off with an ever so real, ever so painful grand finale. His thoughts returned to his dream. It had been so real. Just like all the rest… different scenario, but the same theme… rejection, completely oblivious of his presence as though he didn’t exist.

In this morning’s episode, Nova was dancing naked around a bonfire. Skipping playfully, her eyes sparkling in fascination as she circled closer and closer to the flames that licked out at her. She teased the flames, weaving and darting in and out, stopping just short of contact, jumping back with a silent shriek followed by silent laughter. These dreams were always silent, but provided stimuli for all the other senses; smell, erotic orgasmic pleasure, and pain, oh god what pain. Her orgasmic moans were silent, but her body language and facial expressions said it all, leaving nothing to interpretation. On this occasion when he tried to call out to her, his voice carried no sound, and if he tried to run to her, it was like running knee-deep in mud. When she looked in his direction, she looked past him without any acknowledgment of his presence… he did not exist.

She teased, taunted, and challenged the flames, moving in and out, still ever closer, her legs spread, her body arched forward, then backwards, just short of contact with the licking flames. Then, with the foreplay over, her face glowed with a heightening excitement, until she reached a point of no return. She arched her body outward, yielding herself sexually to the flames. Her body writhed and gyrated in an ever increasing tempo as the flames licked at her crotch. Her movements increased with wild abandonment and frenzied straining for the elusive orgasm. Then sensing the moment, she threw her head and upper body back, pushing herself into the flames that completely engulfed her midsection. Her body shook, her face displayed pure ecstasy. Satisfied, the flames receded and died. She stood, her eyes closed, her body sagging in total exhaustion, her face relaxed in pure contentment. Her smoldering pubic hair gave off spirals of thin white smoke like incense, filled the air with the familiar smell of her perfume.

He shivered from the cold sweat. His mouth tasted of shit, his insides twisted up in painful knots… his body crying out for the soothing numbness of a drink. He was now in the real world, which was every bit as painful. He stared out over the yard, studying each shrub. The ones that grew and the many sunken grass covered circles where others had been planted but had not survived. By now, those circles should have been dug up, the grass removed and replaced by new shrubs that hopefully would survive. But, that would not happen this year, or ever again. Nova was not here, and planting time had come and gone.

He turned from the window. The pale morning light picked up familiar objects. Her pillow, with the same cover as when she last rested her head, still retained just a hint of her perfume.

It still hurt. After three months, oh god, how it hurt. After over twenty years of marriage, no after the over thirty years he had known her, he thought he knew her, and he would have bet his life on her. She was a clinging vine. In making the smallest decision, she had always consulted him.

Maybe that innocence is how she got sucked in. He really did not think so, but how did Ed Cassidy, the shallowest, sleaziest son of a bitch in the whole world pull it off?

Ed and Lorraine Cassidy were in their circle of friends, but only through Lorraine. She was a real lady who suffered greatly and was often the butt of Ed’s jokes. She was several inches taller than Ed, very slim, actually skinny, with no visible breasts. Ed would often point that out and say she still wore her training bra. She was the principal of the Thomas A. Gregory middle school, and dressed the part, plain, and reserved. Only on formal occasions, she would go to a hairdresser, put on make up, and change her appearance.

Ed was not really fat, but from the shoulders up, his thick neck, and double chin gave that impression. His puffy face, with its ruddiness from constant drinking, his bulging eyeballs magnified by thick horn rim glasses, gave him the look of a stepped on toad frog. Ed was crass, shallow and vulgar. Everything had sexual implications. He cracked up at his own jokes, just barely able to blurt out the punch line. In a not too subtle one way or another, he had propositioned about every wife in their circle of friends. It was difficult to imagine anyone taking him up on it, but it was rumored that Ed got his share of strange stuff just by letting it be known that he was always available.

Ed was a traveling salesman, selling sheet metal and plastics. He really didn’t work too hard at it, and made just enough to take care of his expenses. Lorraine provided for all of the family’s needs. According to Ed’s travel tales, he had stuff all over his sales district and never slept alone.

One of the great mysteries, was how did he end up with an intelligent woman like Lorraine? They had an eleven year old daughter, who was probably the only person that Ed loved more than himself. Although most women publicly found him revolting, still there were the rumors, but no female was ever attached. Craig remembered last Halloween, the last function they attended together, and Nova was telling of Ed’s not so subtle propositioning of her. She shuddered, He just makes me want to vomit.

So, how did he get to Nova? How did he con her and pull it off for the first time? There is always something significant about the first time for anything. Much is lost to memory regarding subsequent experiences, but the first time is always meaningful and unforgettable in every detail.

Craig recalled their first time. It was a couple of weeks after his sixteenth birthday… Nova was barely fifteen. He had just received his driver’s license, which for the first time gave them a measure of freedom. They could be alone. They drove out to Kinder’s pond. They had been there before, but always with another couple, and they wore swim suits, but on this night, they were going skinny dipping. They had been so-called boyfriend/girlfriend for three years. They went to the same church, and both families approving of the relationship, never imagining it would become sexual. They had involved in some arousing kissing on a couple of occasions when an opportunity had presented itself, but they had never gone all the way or even done anything so brazen as going skinny dipping. Now they were free and with it came grown up feelings, and desires.

It was a night of a full moon as they drove to Kinder’s pond. Nova snuggling close squeezing his body, with giddy little giggles. A mile before getting to the pond, he turned the head lights off, with the moon providing enough light to easily follow the country dirt road. He got out and opened the gate. Nova, who drove without a license, slid over and drove through. Closing the gate, he got in on the passenger side, and Nova drove, following the parallel paths of beaten down grass, the only road to the pond.

Turning off the engine, they sat in silence. Craig did not have the suave sophistication or the confident assertiveness that he so often had in his passion driven dreams of such encounters. He was shaking like a dried leaf in a fall wind. He had in the past, ran his hand up her dress and copped a feel, which was as far as he ever got. Nova, also taken up by the moment allowed his hand to go just so far, but when it touched the springy hair of her mound, she suddenly returned to reality, and would quickly pull his hand away. Still, he had felt her stiff curly pubic hair. He knew that her breasts were more than a hand full. They had experienced many firsts… their first kiss at the age of ten, which carried no more sensation than a handshake, but the first kiss in adolescence… that first real kiss when they wallow the face into an open mouth of lips and tongue, and bodies grinding into each other genital to genital. After that first real kiss, adolescent firsts carried feelings, emotion, sexual arousal, desire and need all coming in quick succession, like an avalanche… although more so for Craig than Nova, but she accepted it.

Now, they were about to add another first and all the freedom that goes with it; getting the first driver’s license, followed by the most grown up of all the firsts. It was scary. Nothing like the fantasy he often had about this moment. He was beginning to wish they had joined the crowd and gone to a movie, where there was safety and security in numbers.

Craig took a blanket from where he had placed it in the trunk and spread it on the pond dam. They stripped, each on their side of the blanket. Stark naked, Craig knee walked over to her side, trembling like a leaf fluttering in the breeze, picked her up, and carried her to the edge. Her arms around his neck they kissed. He leaned forward and they fell into the cool water of Kinder’s pond, splashing, laughing and gasping for breath. They embraced and slow danced in the water, with her breasts pressed against his chest, and his leg between hers, as he felt her curly hairiness, and the softness beneath.

Afterwards, they sat on the blanket spread on the grassy knoll that obstructed the ravine that created the pond. Having no towels, they tried drying on the rough but absorbent corners of the blanket.

Still wet they embraced, pressing body to body. Pulling back, their bodies parted like the sound of tearing paper. For the male adolescent this was the time of the easily provoked and instantaneous erection, and she could feel his hardness, and trembled. In the past, he had pulled away, at least a cock’s length, and she was seldom aware of his erections.

While this was not his first time, it was their first time, and her very first time. They had been taught that premarital sex was wrong. Save yourself for marriage! He cradled her head in the curve of his neck, rubbing the back of her neck. His body rocked back and forth, rubbing his stiff cock against the softness of her hip.

Will you marry me? He whispered in a jerky breath, knowing this would lessen the sin of premarital sex, and make it easier for her.

She hesitated for a few thoughtful seconds, then answered, Yes.

Knowing the full meaning of her answer, she drew back from him, slid down laying flat on the blanket.

Craig did not allow the urgency of the occasion to blind himself to his responsibility. Turning his back to Nova, he reached for his trousers taking out his wallet with the circle pressed into the leather by a condom that he had carried for over a year, and put on the old dry condom. It took a lot of spit and several attempts before he was able to penetrate the virgin Nova.

Except for one Ouch, she suffered the pain in silence. Her only pleasure was giving him pleasure. A few pumps and Craig let go, and it was all over. The old condom had disintegrated from the friction, filling her with sperm and fragments of latex.

That had not been Craig’s first time but it had been her first time, and with all the subsequent times, he knew in his heart, that his had been the only cock she had ever known… until Ed.

There had been a first time with them, but how did Ed pull it off? Getting her to spread her legs and let him stick his cock in her and fuck her? Yes, Ed had fucked her. How she hated that word. It was so vulgar and crude, but there was no other way to describe it. In taking Ed, she was rejecting Craig. Those thoughts emasculated him, as though his cock had been pulled out by the roots, leaving