All sexual content is between adults of 18 years or older.
Please read the first story Dating Dad, this is a side story, meant to introduce new characters, and offer some insight to Dating Dad part 2.
Never fear there is more to Jessica's story.
For now, please enjoy this short story.
Thank you.
*****
Summer was always a magical time, my home life was difficult, and when summer came I was saved. Summer didn't just give me relief from school work, it gave me a break from my life in the city, and my parents.
Both of my parents worked, and had very little time for me. With the exception of our evening meals, we hardly saw one another. They were not bad parents, they just didn't want to be parents.
Mom was a very renowned french photographer, sometimes she would travel and be gone for weeks at a time. She was, and always will be absolutely stunning. She had an eye for beauty, whether in other women, or in nature, and she was able to capture it with a lense.
Father was one of those types that always had a Bluetooth in his ear. You could never tell if he was on a call or talking to you. Sometimes I would answer him, only to receive a motion of dismissal, as he put his other hand to his ear. He was in real estate, and it consumed his life.
When summer arrived, it was bliss. I got to put my school books down, and spend the summer at my aunts, at my Tante Belle's.
Mom and her sister Isabelle were born in northern France, both of them made a career of modeling, eventually coming to the States. They could have been twins, with their blonde hair, and fair complexions. Both of them shared dazzling green eyes that sometimes changed to blue. I shared these features myself, though I never grew as tall as either Mom or Tante Belle. In every other aspect the sisters were polar opposites.
Tante is French, like Aunt, pronounced like taant. It is almost like english stole the name and just removed the t in front of it. I guess english steals a lot of words from other languages. Tante, I suppose, is more like auntie, a nickname, she is my Auntie Belle.
Tante Belle, unlike Mom, despised city life. She chose to escape from the busy life, and purchased a large piece of land, some 70 acres in Oregon. There was a small cabin in a clearing, surrounded by dense trees. A creek ran behind the cabin, and across the creek the woods began. If you sat on the back porch on a clear summer day you could see Mt. Hood over the top of the conifer trees.
My aunt lived a very simple life, her spare bedroom was her art studio. She spent many hours in there painting and was very talented.
I remember the smell of her old jeep as clear as day. The memories of it rattling and jostling me about, on the way home from the airport, are fond memories. It was just over a couple hours from the Portland Airport to her place.
The greatest thing about visiting my Aunt was spending time with her. She was free spirited and had a very childlike energy and excitement for life. She would laugh and play, and giggle conspiratorially, as if the years difference in age didn't separate us at all. We spent hours, days and even nights, doing nothing more than spending time with one another.
We would play in the creek, or ruisseau, as my aunt called it. I would build dams, and she would roll big rocks into place. The dams would flood into giant sparkling pools that we would play in. Splashing around, we played all sorts of games. Sometimes a fish would get trapped and we would dive and splash as if in fear, and ultimately we tried catching it.
She would make us lunches and we would sit on the banks of the creek and eat together. My Aunt was the mother I never had. Her laughter was like music, mezzo-soprano notes that rang like bells, and echoed through the trees. It was contagious, her excitement for life. Everything we did was full of zest and passion. Even our lunches were full of her exclamations and loud groans of approval for the food she had prepared.
She had a northern French accent and the edge of her vowels lilted, sometimes with a throaty sound, and other times with emphasis, dragging them out. It was beautiful. Mom worked hard at overcoming her accent, but Tante Belle embraced hers.
Often, my Aunt would ask things like, "How you say...?" And make hand gestures or mime an action. She would scratch at the dirt and pretend to peck like a bird, and I would yell out, "Chicken!"
She would say "Oui! Yes! Chicken!" dragging out the e in chicken. She was beautiful, and my best friend. I adore her.
I could never outrun her, she had these long legs that simply propelled her across the meadow as she chased me. Always when she'd catch me, we would go down in a tangle of elbows and knees. We would wrestle around, and lay back and stare at the clouds, pointing out fantastical visions and shapes. Sometimes we would build tunnels through the high grass, making forts and trails that led to our favorite pools in the creek.
In the late evenings after dinner, we sometimes would make our trek through the cool dampness of the forest. It was a long hike from the cabin, almost 45 minutes. Long, especially in the dark, every noise compelled us to move faster.. Eventually we would make it to the small lake. Where we would make a mad dash in the dark to the safety of the water. We would plunge in to escape the heat and enjoy the swim in the moonlight.
I didn't know, until much later, my aunt had been in the French cinema, and had acquired a lot of money. She never let on that she was loaded, in fact she lived in a bare two bedroom cabin. Years later she "sold" her cabin to her American cousin John, he had lost his wife to cancer. Having subdivided the land, she built another home. This one buried deep in the woods near our favorite lake that the creek ran into.
It rarely rained for long in the summer, but when it did, we would hang out together in the cabin. Tante Belle would make us coffee with her "cafetiere a piston", a device known as a French press. She would walk me through the process, as it was very important to her.
"Premier" she said in French, then corrected herself. "First... you bring water to almost boil." Her eyes would lock onto mine. "Almost, presque, do not boil" her accent was intoxicating.
