("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ `6_ 6 ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' (((' (((-((('' (((( K R I S T E N' S C O L L E C T I O N _________________________________________ WARNING! This text file contains sexually explicit material. If you do not wish to read this type of literature, or you are under age, PLEASE DELETE THIS FILE NOW!!!! _________________________________________ Scroll down to view text Archive name: ld.txt (MF, rom) Authors name: Marcia Hooper (marciar26@aol.com) Story title : Long Distance -------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002. As the author, I claim all rights under international copyright laws. This work is not intended for sale, but please feel free to post this story to other archives or newsgroups, keeping the header and text intact. Any commercial use of this work is expressly forbidden without the written permission of the author. -------------------------------------------------------- Long Distance (MF, rom) by Marcia Hooper (marciar26@aol.com) *** Neil and Jill have lived apart for six months. She's in New York, Neil is in LA. Everyone's miserable. Returning from an extended business trip one night, Neil gets a call from Jill and fights to salvage their marriage. Is he successful? Read this very short story to find out. *** This is a work of fiction and is not meant to portray any person living or dead, nor any known situation. It is meant for adults only and is not to be read by people under the age of 18, or the legal age in the county/state/country in which the reader resides. If you would like a Microsoft Word or WordPerfect version of this story (a much easier read), please contact me at MarciaR26@aol.com Note to the Reader: This story doesn't have much in the way of sex, sorry. I felt like writing something short, sweet and romantic, and this is what came out. I'll do better next time, I promise. (The next story has a LOT of sex, LOL!) Long Distance By Marcia Hooper (MarciaR26@aol.com) * On the road for twenty-four hours straight, Neil arrived at the apartment, dropped his luggage in the hallway and for a time just stood there, exhausted. He looked at the pile of mail in his hand, then at the dying plants he'd have to replace. Away for two long weeks, six days longer than expected, he'd made no arrangements for their watering. The trip was a smashing success, however, which justified their replacement. Leaving the luggage where it sat, Neil walked into the living room, dropping the mail on the coffee table, thinking as he did so of Jill. Two thousand miles away, and just as lonely as he (probably more so), Neil knew he should call her. He looked into the middle distance of his mind, saw Jill's tall slender body, her freckled nose and cheeks, her small high breasts, and decided he would go to her on Friday. Two days. That should be safe. He thought of calling her right then, but decided he first needed a drink, a shower, and a change of clothes. After a month away, he could afford another half hour. The phone rang, and not thinking, Neil picked it up. "Hello," Jill said, from their apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. "You're home and you haven't called me?" Her voice was low and tired. "I just walked in the door," Neil answered, feeling irritation at himself for answering the phone, and with Jill for calling. "You're never there when I need you," Jill replied, softly. Neil remained silent. It was better to let Jill release her frustrations, uninterrupted. "I worked all night again," she said. "And I'm still on call. I haven't had a wink of sleep in three days. I am so tired I can't think remember from one minute to the next what I'm supposed to be doing." She paused. "Why can't you be here to take care of me?" Neil rubbed his forehead. Did she honestly think him any less tired or disoriented than she? They had agreed to marry only on the condition that career came first, which meant living apart for the first year, while he established his trade. At the very least, Neil had another six months here in LA, the toughest of all cities in the world. Then he could bring Jill out. "You know I had to make this trip," he said. "It was crucial. I made three new contacts, Jill. Wealthy contacts. I have to prove myself to these guys, or I've missed the train. I don't want that, and you don't want that either." "I don't know what I want, Neil," she complained. "If this were Jeopardy, I wouldn't even understand the categories." Neil continued rubbing his head. "Listen," he said. "I'll see you in a couple days. As soon as I'm out of the shower and get some coffee in me (or something a little stronger, he thought), I'll pick up the phone and make the reservations." "Come home tonight," Jill pleaded. "Catch the red-eye." "I can't," he replied, beginning to grow angry. "I'd walk in the door and pass out on the couch, leaving you to sit there staring at me." "At least I wouldn't be alone," Jill said. "And besides, we could curl up on the couch together, like we used to in college." Neil experienced a flash back, a three-by-five postcard of memory: Jill tucked against his stomach and chest on the old love seat, in their cramped efficiency on Sullivan Street. It was her second year at NYU, before choosing pediatrics over OB/GYN, before the brunt of her education began to wear them down. Jill at nineteen, asleep in his arms, hair a disheveled but fragrant mass on his cheek. He loved burying his nose in that hair, short in those days, and richly blonde. Jill worked at Filene's Basement that semester, and he Neil, as an intern with Smith-Barney-when the name Smith-Barney still meant something. Suddenly Jill was crying. "Two days," she sobbed. "Two weeks, two months, two years. It may as well be two centuries, Neil. I need you now, not two days from now!" "Jill--" "This is no marriage. This is a two thousand mile torture chamber. Why can't you move closer? Denver, maybe. Or Chicago. That would at least put us on the same side of Continental Divide. Remember what you said? When I'm lonely I could go to the top of the World Trade Center and look cross-country at you through one of their quarter binoculars? Well, the towers are gone, Neil and I can't see you anymore!" Neil knew then that Jill was drinking. Scotch whisky for sure, probably the bottle of Jim Beam. Jill seldom drank, and never alone. This made Neil afraid. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he said. Silence. "Are you there, Jill?" "Yes," she whispered. "I'm here. You are a rock, Neil. Nothing moves you. Not love, not sorrow, not promise of sex. I can't live like this anymore. I can't count on someone two thousand miles away who I can't see. I'm seeing an attorney in the morning." Neil jerked upright. "Listen, babe," he said hurriedly, "you've had a rough night. So have I. We're both tired and we're both lonely as hell. It's unavoidable, especially this time of year. The holidays are just around the corner. But I'll be there tomorrow, I promise, and the minute I walk in the door, we'll smooth things out, just like we always do." He paused, listening for Jill's reaction. Her breathing was loud and ragged, but she hadn't escalated into hysteria. Her answer to anything he said then, would be denial. "Remember that couch?" he asked. Jill hiccupped, loudly. "What?" "In the old apartment? At NYU." She hiccupped again. "Uh-huh." "Remember how you woke up that night? After you're all- nighter in the ER?" This was during Jill's fourth semester of pre-med. Every second year student was required to spend one overnight watch per week in the NYU/Belleview Hospital emergency room. There was a horrendous pile-up in the Holland Tunnel, and the normally chaotic ER became insane. Jill spent twenty-two hours straight on her feet. Coming home on the subway, she had left her purse behind on the seat and not noticed until standing before the door of their rundown building. God only knows how long she sat on the stoop weeping, before a neighbor banged on Neil's door. Picking her up-she shook like a building caught in a San Francisco earthquake-Neil carried his defeated girlfriend upstairs in his arms. He carried her like a child, barely registering the three flights of steps. He sat down with her on his lap on the love seat, and Jill had cried asleep. Twelve hours later they awoke together, to the sound of a driving November rainstorm. In their apartment on the upper west side, Jill took a wet, shallow breath. "I remember," she said. "Tell me how you woke up that night, Jill." There was a short pause. Her voice, when she spoke, was sad and wistful. "In your arms. Cold and naked." "Uh-huh. And how did you get that way?" Now she sounded embarrassed. "You said I did it myself. In my sleep." "Uh-huh. Remember what happened afterward? "We made love," she whispered. "Three times." "And what was going on outside?" "It was storming." "Right. And every time the lightening flashed, or the thunder boomed, you jumped in my arms like a frightened child. You remember that?" Very softly, she said: "I remember. I remember the rainwater flowing down the window and casting rain shadows on the wall--and on us. I remember every time the lights flickered, I pushed my face into your shoulder and wanted to cry." "Do you remember telling me you're dream from the night before?" "About the dogs?" "Yes. Them chasing you. Remember?" "I was running and screaming," she said, "and the only ones who paid any attention were the Puerto Rican kids hanging out on the corner." "Uh-huh. The dogs chased you into the Twenty-seventh Street station-" "And the Puerto Rican boys chased the dogs. Only it wasn't the dogs they were chasing, they were chasing me." "What happened then?" "You saved me," she said. "I saved you, that's right. I was on the platform, minding my own business, waiting for the uptown train, when suddenly there you were, flying down the platform with a pack of howling dogs at your heels. And every punk within ten blocks right behind them. And you were nude." "I was in my bathrobe," she corrected. "You always get that wrong." "I tell it the way I remember it, kiddo." She laughed. "But it was my dream. You can't remember anything." "I remember what you told me." "Well," she admitted. "Maybe I did change it a bit." Neil laughed. "No one would chase you in your bathrobe anyway, Jill. Not back then." "What do you mean?" "They'd think you were a boy. A gay-boy in drag." "Neil!" she exclaimed, laughing again. "How can you say that?" Then she giggled softly. "They wouldn't, would they?" "What bra size did you wear then, Jill?" Jill quickly responded: "I don't remember." "I do." "I was malnourished, Neil. I ate once a week-if I was lucky." "I remember having to stitch the back of your brassiere together to keep it from falling off, Jill. And when you stood up and waived, if you didn't hold up your pants, they fell off too." "If you're trying to make me feel better, Neil, this is not the way." Neil laughed. "I'd like your pants to fall off right now, as a matter of fact. And your brassiere too. And if you wait for me, I'll make sure that happens. Can you do that?" Two thousand miles away, Jill sighed. "I can do that, yes." "Will you?" "I will." Neil looked at his watch, at the bags sitting patiently by the door. "I'll be home when you wake up. In fact, I'll wake you myself." Jill, two thousand miles away, laughed. "You know what the Weather Channel is predicting for tomorrow night?" Neil grinned. "Rain?" "Rain. Lots of rain. Bring an umbrella." The End ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Please keep this story, and all erotic stories out of the hands of children. They should be outside playing in the sunshine, not thinking about adult situations. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kristen's collection - Directory 19