As soon as I entered my own room, I let out a full body shiver. It was cold. Really cold. I set my flashlight down on my dresser, lit the candle I has set there in a dinner plate, and then switched the flashlight off before heading to my closet.
The candle didn't provide the best light, but it was enough for me to see where the extra bedding and comforters were, and I quickly pulled them down, whipped them onto the bed, and then piled up the comforters. Tonight, I would use two. As I inspected my handiwork, I remembered the linens from this morning and that they were still in the washing machine. With a grumble, I grabbed my flashlight, blew out my candle, and went to the laundry room to check on it.
The linens looked good, nice, and clean; they didn't require a lot of agitation when you let them sit and soak in detergent all day long. I grabbed the crank, gave it a good whirl, and then reversed direction before grabbing the cast iron pot off the dryer and headed to the kitchen. I filled the pot quickly and then adjusted the tap to give as slow a drip as I possibly could. It was the only way to prevent the pipes from freezing, and even then, it wasn't guaranteed.
I headed back to the front room, noting the bathroom was now empty and Jennifer's door was closed. I hoped they were warmer in their room than I was in mine, but I expected that. Jennifer's room was in the dead center of the house, with no windows and only a single vent to keep the air from getting musty and stale. It was always ten degrees hotter in Jennifer's room than anywhere else in the house, and now, without electricity, I hoped it would be even warmer.
As soon as my pot of water was boiling, I took it back to the laundry room, toed the drain valve on the bottom of the washing machine, and started cranking. The water drained, and I spun the linens until they were almost dry before pulling them out, one by one, to dunk them in the boiling water. I slipped on my hot water gloves for doing dishes and wrung out each item before hanging them from the wires I'd put in the overhead a couple of summers back. Halfway through the load, I had to go dump my water and boil another pot, but by the end of it, all the linens were hot and fresh, hanging by the wires and filling the laundry room with a thick blanket of steam. It felt good. Good enough that I stripped down to my birthday suit, tossed my clothes in the washing machine, and then traipsed through the house, nude, back to my room.
Switching the flashlight off, I checked my watch and saw it was two a.m. in the morning. Time for bed. I shuffled forward, touched the edge of the bed, and crawled onto it. My hand touched something firm and living, and I immediately stopped moving. "Is there someone in my bed?" I asked.
"Uh-huh," a voice said from up by my pillows. I shook my head. "Who is it?" I whispered.
"You have to ask?" Jennifer replied.
"What's going on?" I said, crawling the rest of the way and then slipping under the comforters quickly.
"Nothing," Jennifer said, sliding over to press her back up against me. "It's...nothing."
"I don't mind if you sleep in here," I said quickly, not wanting her to feel offended.
"I thought you wanted me in here?" She said.
"I do," I replied, sliding my arm around her tummy and pulling her close. "I do. I'm just tired."
"I can tell," she said, snuggling back against me.
My hand moved across her tummy again, and whatever she was wearing shifted with the passing of my fingers. It felt much lighter than the last thing she had on, much less durable, thick, or silky.
"What are you wearing?" I asked.
"Something new," she said teasingly. "Don't worry. It was only five bucks at the thrift shop," she said, and I felt her press her buttocks up against my pelvis and my cock hanging there. Her cheeks were warm and firm, barely covered by the same material, and my manhood started its slow rise to prominence.
I pulled my hips back, not wanting to touch her with my privates, but she turned her head and spoke to me. "Why are you pulling away?"
"I...I just."
"It's fine," she said, one hand slipping behind her to touch my hip. Gently, she coaxed me back, and then, to my shock and surprise, she reached between us, took my cock in her hand, and pressed it between her butt cheeks. "It fits right there," she said, turning her head back straight. "I can't tell you the number of times I woke up and felt that jabbing into my side, or my leg, or whatever. Put it back in the holster, and let's go to sleep."
"The holster?" I asked, chucking at her use of the word.
"Yeah, the holster," Jennifer replied, wiggling her butt back and forth. "The holster."
I closed my eyes and gave Jennifer a kiss on the back of the head, and was out in no time flat. I didn't know exactly when I'd fallen asleep, but after a few hours, the cold began to creep in, consuming everything that had, or made heat. I woke then, my toes freezing and my left arm completely numb.
As gently as I could, I pulled my left arm free and then waited for the feeling to come back, along with blood flow and the biting, tingling feeling that accompanies such a thing. Once the pain had passed, I slowly slid to the edge of the bed and slipped out from beneath the covers. I thought the air smelled a little smoky, but that was normal when I was burning wood in the fireplace. Trying to make the least amount of noise possible, I went to the door, opened it, and grabbed the flashlight off the dresser in the process. As soon as I was outside my room, I clicked the flashlight on and noticed the house was filled with smoke.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I said, hurrying to the front room. I swiped the light across the fireplace and knew at once what had happened. We hadn't put enough wood on the fire, and it had burned down and then gone out. Without the fire to lift the air up and out the chimney, the wind outside had gotten the best of it, pushing a steady stream of incredibly cold air back down the chimney and into the house. The little bit of smoke coming off the coals ended up being pushed into the house rather than going up the chimney.
Coughing a little, I hurried to the fireplace, pulled the spark screen aside, and began sifting through the ash, pushing the coals into a neat little pile towards the back. I grabbed a handful of scrap paper and a small kindling pack I kept underneath a nearby table, tossed it on top of the coals, and then began loading small one-inch sticks on top. In moments, the fire was relighted, and I grabbed a small metal shield I kept nearby, in case I had to put the fire out, or couldn't trust it to do its job properly, and put it across the front of the fireplace, and then lifted it up, allowing it just an inch of space at the bottom.
Immediately, the air was drawn in through the bottom, and the heat, with nowhere else to go, forced the air up the chimney, causing an accumulating effect. Soon the bottom edge of the shield was whistling as the air was sucked into the fireplace and up the chimney. I pulled the shield away, grabbed a few more larger logs, and piled them on.
"Daddy," I heard a voice call out from behind me. "What's going on?"
"The fire went out," I said, putting another log on top.
"There's smoke in the house," Jennifer said, and I turned to see her waving a hand in front of her face as if she could get rid of the stuff.
"It'll go away as the fire burns," I said, and then I had to do a double take, seeing the sheer two-piece nightie she was wearing. Her breasts stood out from underneath the thing, providing absolutely no coverage whatsoever, leaving nothing to the imagination.
The thin, black, frilly edge of the material hugged just an inch off her nipples, not even covering the bottom half of her breasts, and her bottoms weren't much better. Her midsection was bare, and I could see the curve of her hips, the way her stomach contoured down to a gentle slope, a bit of a bulge over her lower abdomen and uterus, and then the plunge into her panties. Beyond the sheer panties, I could clearly see her clean-shaven mound, and I drank in the sight of her tiny upper crevasse and the little fold of inner lips peeking out from inside her slit. Lower still, the panties hugged her sex tight, disappearing between her thighs into darkness.
"Daddy," Jennifer said, waking me from my trance. "Put the net back."
"Oh, hold on," I said, turning back to the fire. I grabbed two short stubbly logs and put them on one side of the fire, and then put another two on the opposite side. I knew they wouldn't burn for a very long time since the fire was going to be in the middle, and then I piled the logs on top, orientating them front to back so as the fire burned, the logs would fall and slide toward the middle, feeding the fire, rather than letting it go out. "I think that will do it," I said, pulling the spark screen back into place.
"Put the shield up too," Jennifer said, pointing. She was right. I should have done that the first time, in fact. I grabbed the two smaller shields and placed them at the edges, and then the main shield out further. Now, even if a spark did get past the grate, it would bounce off a shield and land on the firebricks and not the rug. The shields, in turn, would heat from the radiant energy, and the heat would radiate through the house, but it was much safer this way.
When I got up, Jennifer was gone, and I assumed she'd gone back to bed, so I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a quick drink before coming back to bed. As I climbed in and reached out, I found Jennifer half-laying, half-sitting, in bed, facing me.
"You okay?" I asked, sliding in and putting my head on the pillow.
"Yeah. Are you?" She asked. Her voice sounded hurt and a bit angry.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, sliding my hand underneath the covers toward her. My hand met hers, and she held my fingers there, away from her, as if preventing me from touching her. "Alright," I said, slowly sliding up to my elbows and resting myself on my pillow. "What's going on?"
"I...Just forget it," she said, pulling her hand away.
"Noooo, come on," I said softly. "I'm not trying to get you mad. If I did something wrong, tell me," I said, pleading a little bit. "With everything that's happened in the last couple of days, now is not the time to start bottling things up," I said.
