Out of the Storm

Christmas and New Year's that year fell on a Wednesday. I had no real family to be with for the holidays and no plans but was looking forward to some relaxation time alone at home. I had a stack of books and movies I hadn't had time to use.

I owned a small engineering firm in an east coast town. It was my father's company and I had been working there for five years after I graduated college, when my parents passed away in the same year and I ended up owning the company. That was two years before this story begins. I was single and the business, although I really enjoyed it, did not leave much time for a social life.

The company had done amazingly well that year in spite of a bad economy so in addition to a bonus I gave the employees the two weeks off as a paid holiday.

The weather forecast that Christmas Eve was lousy. Although our area rarely got much snow the weather wizards were all excited about what they called a "major weather event" for the area starting that evening with a snow accumulation of up to thirty inches. It was already starting with light freezing rain, wind and a rapidly falling temperature.

I was in the grocery store parking lot grouching to myself about its being dark at five o'clock in the evening, loading my truck with last minute groceries and wishing that I was anywhere warm, when I heard a woman's quiet voice behind me.

"Excuse me, mister. Can you help me?" I turned and saw a woman about my age, but wearing only a light jacket and jeans. She was wet and shivering, and had her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to stay warm.

"I'm cold and hungry and have no place to go. I'll blow you or have sex with you or do anything you want me to if you can give me something to eat."

She didn't sound like the type for a scam operation and was too old to be a runaway teenager. As I looked a little closer at her I realized that I knew her.

Karen and I had grown up here together and dated in high school but broke up because of her language -- she kept saying "No!" Shortly after that I had heard that she lost her parents in an automobile accident. We hadn't had any contact since high school but I did immediately recognize her.

"Karen, I'm Doug. Remember? From high school?" "Oh, no!" she cried and turned to run away. She slipped on a patch of ice and fell. I went over to help her. She was crying and said, "Please, no. I'm so ashamed."

I lifted her to her feet and helped her onto the front seat of the truck. I got it started and turned the heater on full. Luckily I had not been in the store long and the engine was still warm enough to put out hot air immediately. I had a blanket on the back seat that I wrapped around her. She had turned her face away from me and was still shaking and crying. I dug a box of tissues out of my grocery bag, put it beside her and waited. I turned on a radio station with soft music and watched the rain on the windshield change to snow.

After a bit she got her crying under control. "I'm sorry", she said. "I lost my job six months ago when the company I worked for went out of business and haven't been able to find anything else. My unemployment barely paid enough for food, and it ran out last week. I don't have a place to stay and I don't have any money. I've been living in my car but someone broke the window and took the clothes I had there. The only thing I had left to trade was myself. It took me all day standing in that parking lot to work up enough nerve to approach someone, and it turned out to be someone who knew me. I've never been so ashamed."

"Karen, there is nothing for you to be ashamed about. I'm just glad you chose me instead of someone who might hurt you. Look, I live just a couple of miles outside of town in the house my parents left me. There's plenty of food and you'll be warm and safe."

"But what will your wife say?"

"No wife, no dog. Just me."

There was a shy, tentative smile. "Thank you. I'd appreciate that. I'll pay you back somehow."

"Don't even think about paying back. You're a friend who needs some help and I'm glad to be the one to help."

We started out into what was rapidly becoming blizzard conditions. Between slippery roads and holdups from several accidents it took almost an hour to drive the five miles to my house.

She stood nervously in my living room, still wet and looking like a drowned kitten. "First thing" I said, "I'll get some bath stuff together and you can take a hot shower or bath, or both. While you're doing that I'll get a fire started and you can sit in front of it and have some dinner."

I rounded up towels, bath soap, razor, hair dryer, etc., etc. and directed her to the bathroom. "I'm afraid I don't have any clothes that will fit you, but if you'll hand out your wet clothes I'll wash and dry them."

One of the many advantages of the house was a great fireplace. I got a good fire started, put on some soft music for the evening and began dinner.

My thoughts, obviously, were on Karen. We had had some pretty hot makeout sessions in high school but nothing even close to a sexual relationship. I remembered many nights of cold showers and self gratification after our dates. Now I had the mental picture of Karen in the shower and wondered what was going to happen. She had obviously had it rough this year and would be vulnerable. I wanted to help her, but I also remembered her as a good looking girl and wanted her. At the same time I didn't want her to feel that she owed me anything. If anything physical developed I needed her to be the one initiating it through a sense of desire, not obligation.

About an hour later I heard the bathroom door open and Karen came out, wearing my terrycloth robe.

We had a candlelit dinner in front of the fire with brandy after. As I was cleaning up in the kitchen, Karen came up to me, put her arms around my neck and kissed me. "Thank you" she said. "I think you saved my life."

The moment was broken by the dryer buzzer. I got her clothes, trying not to concentrate on the fact that there was blouse, panties and slacks but no bra. She thanked me and excused herself to dress. When she came out I couldn't help but notice that she really looked good, in spite of the way life had been treating her. Karen was tall and slim with light brown hair and brown eyes. She had always had a good body, which had been the source of our problems in high school. I was sitting on the couch in front of the fire and she came over to me. "Is there anything in the dryer?" "No" I replied. "Why?"

"Maybe I won't be interrupted this time", she said as she leaned toward me. I did notice that several buttons were missing at the top of her blouse and as she leaned over to kiss me again I was treated to the sight of the two beautiful breasts that I would have died to have seen in high school. As we kissed I felt her tongue tentatively brush my lips. I responded by taking her tongue into my mouth and toying it with mine. She shivered and broke the kiss. "If we keep doing this I won't be able to stand up," she said softly.

I pulled her down on my lap and she curled around me like a kitten. "This isn't payback for what you are doing for me now," she said. "I've often wished we had done this a long time ago. You know my parents were very strict and I was scared of sex then."

"And now is different?"

"Now is different and I'm different. May I get us some more brandy?"

She got two brandies and came back to sit on my lap with an arm around my neck. We sipped the brandy and kissed, with the sips getting shorter and the kisses longer. I was sure she could feel that I had an erection, and when she reached to put her glass on the end table the fabric of her blouse stretched across her breasts and I could see that her nipples were erect. I took a chance and unbuttoned the rest of her blouse, dipped my finger in my brandy and traced around her nipple. Just as I applied my lips to her skin I heard a sharp intake of breath and a soft "Oh please, yes!"

After a few minutes, and serious attention paid to both breasts, she was panting. I slid her off my lap until she was lying on the couch. She raised her hips as I pulled her slacks off. The firelight and candlelight made her skin glow as I gently massaged her body. I had my hands on her breasts rubbing her nipples as I kissed the inside of her thighs and dipped my tongue into her dampening pussy. She twisted and moaned as I took her clit between my lips and circled it with my tongue. At the same time I slipped first one, then two fingers into her pussy and began to rotate them and move in and out.

"It's going to happen! I'm going to cum! I'm CUMMING!" she cried as a flood of sweet pussy juice washed over my tongue.

"Could we lie on the floor in front of the fire?" she asked. "I'll do more for you later, but I want to feel your cock inside me and feel you cum."

Sex was slow and sweet. She was very wet as I entered her and began a slow, deep stroking. I would withdraw until just the tip of my cock was between her pussy lips then slide fully into her, feeling her hips rise on my downstroke until my pubic bone pressed against her clit. We would hold a moment, then begin the long stroke again. Soon she was moaning and I felt the rising pressure of a climax. We reached a climax together as she cried out and I felt my cock throbbing and spurting deep inside her. We lay spent for the moment in each other's arms. "That was wonderful," she whispered. "If I can stay tonight I'll be out of your hair in the morning. I don't want to be in your way for the holidays."

"I think you need to stand up. I want to show you something," I said. I led her to the picture window that looked out the back over ten acres of field and woods. I flipped on the outside lights and we were greeted by a solid wall of falling and drifting snow, already at least a foot deep. With the snow on the branches of the evergreen trees it looked like a scene from a holiday card. "I don't think we can get out tomorrow and maybe not for several days. I want you to stay with me as long as you need to or want to," I said. She turned and put her arms around my neck, pressing her body to mine. "I was afraid that this was a dream," she said "and that I would wake up in my car, cold and hungry. Now the only thing I'm hungry for is you. I want to be in a warm bed with you, and have you in my mouth and in my body."

As I took her hand to lead her to the bedroom I couldn't help but think of our being snowed in for several days, which could make this the best holiday ever.

And tonight, a snowy Christmas Eve forty years later, I'm sitting in front of the fire finishing this story on my laptop. Karen is coming from the kitchen with two ponies of brandy. In a continuing tradition she will sit on my lap and we will share the brandy and the fire, enjoying our quiet evening before the mayhem of children and grandchildren arriving in the morning. I realize now that the greatest present I have ever received did not come with tinsel and bows, but arrived cold and shivering on that long-ago winter night.