Sleepy Insomniac

Taste the Rainbow

Chapter 7

The sun felt warm as Ashley stood there, naked by the sliding-glass door, soaking in the rays and the wonders her night held and her morning brought. She placed her palms on the glass and smoothly stroked it with her fingers, pleasantly staring down at nothing. She felt at peace, like her life finally froze in a moment worth holding onto. Time stood still as she meditated in the light while her naked body, now more womanly than ever, left a slender silhouette when seen from the other side of the room, the small of her back and the crest of her ass still faintly visible in a soft, orange glow. She didn't hear him leave bed, but she soon felt John's lips on her neck. A warm smile spread across her lips as she closed her eyes and lifted her chin in the air, basking in the touch of her first lover. "I want to try something," he whispered. He disappeared for a short while and, upon returning, Ashley caught a brief reflection of him massaging his love muscle with lotion while it rose to a peak.

He made love to her then, carefully inserting and eventually thrusting himself in and out of her ass. It was a slow, questionable process, but to them, they had eternity. He held her in the air, hands under her thighs with her butt, glistening with oil and lotion against the sun, sticking out and allowing him the freedom to enjoy the full pleasure that part of her body possessed. It was quite a lot, giving Ashley new chills she hadn't experienced, even after the previous night's sexual discoveries. Her small hands pressed up against the glass door, leaving imprints from her sweat. Her breath condensated the window with each thrust, the top of her head pushing against the glass, completing the balance. They both had prime positions to stick and move, pulling the most from their frictions.

The partially enveloped sun fully emerged from a final, lonely cloud, shining on rain droplets still clinging to the window from the night's storm. The droplets prismed, shining colors across Ashley's face and body while warming her chest in ways that complimented her pleasure beyond words. Her tongue panted out as they reached climax, John filling her with what remained of the night's encounter. Ashley, now overwhelmed with happiness, kissed the window and its little droplets, shining their sparkling, colorful life into her mouth, blessing her image despite the forbidden pleasure she was experiencing. Her heart, she knew, was pure, and she felt confident she could say the same for John. They chose this; it was not for others to decide.

And the choices continued. Later that morning, the decision to keep seeing each other was made without question, though Ashley thought the chances of them getting caught were likely. However, she gained hope after seeing her dad's reaction when John dropped her off later that day. Her dad gave a blank stare, rubbing his pasty forehead with one hand while scratching his nasty, stained t-shirt with the other, near the side of his respectable girth. If suspicions existed, they weren't apparent, but after Ashley explained that John was the father of her new best-friend-Megan, her dad gave the slightest hint of a smile and returned inside. Like that, John became Ashley's exclusive chauffeur, deliberately setting Ashley up to be friends with his daughter so they could continue their secret romance while evading suspicious eyes.

But Ashley never met Megan; other plans were already put in motion, plans John later admitted knowing nothing about. Linda had found a new man, a rich man, and they were in love. As it turned out, Linda didn't have Megan the weekend of John and Ashley's romance, but she did pick her up from school before John got there. She ran away, taking her daughter with her and giving neither Megan nor John a fair chance to simply say "Goodbye". Linda, having full custody, had the say in the matter, effectively removing John's ability to oppose. He didn't mind so much, though; after talking with Megan on the phone weeks later, she acted as if she was happier where they went. He knew she never liked her hometown and he felt happy for her, even if she forgot to mention she missed him, even the slightest. He caught wind of it, though, before she hung up, giving him a brief moment of held silence before her sudden "I...I guess we'll talk again, sometime," followed by John's own stutters, agreeing they'll keep in touch, visit each other, etcetera. But through the years, John only saw his daughter a handful of times, almost always at very special occasions, like her marriage when she turned 19, or at family funerals. Despite losing what remained of his immediate family, Ashley found John to be more or less unaffected by their departure. It simplified his life and gave him more time to spend with her.

The initial suspicions about John giving Ashley rides sans Megan were put to rest when Ashley told everyone her father was paying him to help with her transportation. John did, after all, not live far from her, and on occasion Ashley's father did, in fact, pay him gas money to continue convincing himself he was taking care of his daughter. For everyone else, being that John previously dropped off and picked up his own daughter, John picking up Ashley looked almost exactly the same.

Fear did nip the backs of their minds for a while; John would take Ashley to school, pick her up, all the while having incredible sex in the various avenues they found themselves in, now with proper sexual protection in place (They got lucky the first time). Initially, it was relegated to John's place, but once the fear of getting caught subsided, the Subaru became a likely contender when a sudden urge pounced into one of their laps. Being discreet was the key to not getting caught and they were both smart not to. They carefully parked the car out of sight, hid condoms in the trash, prevented themselves from being seen together in public outside of school and they never talked about each other around people. Each day, Ashley expected some police officers to appear in her classroom doorway, give her a stern, discerning eye and inform the teacher they needed to speak with her in the principle's office. She would lie about John, of course, but it would be only a matter of time before the truth came out and she would see him cuffed, stowed, and taken from her, possibly forever.

The fear lasted for days...months...and into years, until one beautiful morning when Ashley had a sleep-over at her "friend's" house. She awoke in the arms of her beloved, swinging calmly in a large hammock he bought specially for them. She glanced around, startled, afraid of being seen with him in the broad daylight, until her heart slowed a little and only the quiet of his breathing could be heard. She stared at his broad shoulders and his chest slowly rising and falling, the steady tempo of order, of control. All the fear, the fear of their exposure and the calamity that would follow, was lifted away like dandelion seeds blown into the air by a playful schoolgirl. She thought about those officers showing up at her classroom door, staring at her with those sad, discerning eyes, and her own, imagined self brazenly laughing at them. She knew there weren't going to be officers at the door; that day would never come.

As time passed, years, that dark cloud that initially shrouded their thoughts started to clear, giving them the freedom to explore their romance like real couples, or as close as they could emulate. They would invent dates, usually at John's place. He didn't have many friends locally, at least any that would randomly stop by, and his family lived further from him than Linda now did. Ashley and John would watch movies, cook, even read together. Still, even with this newfound freedom, Ashley wished for more ways to take their romance further. She wished a lot of things, but she knew wanting to fly after learning to breath underwater was a lot to ask for.

At 15, John taught Ashley how to drive the Subaru. At 17, he helped her prepare for college. And on the morning of Ashley's 18th birthday, great change happened, starting with John showing up at her house, ringing the doorbell and, when Ashley's father opened the door, punching him square in the jaw. He knocked out cold, so cold he had no recollection of his assailant hours later, but after waking, he realized his little girl had left him, something he was unsure as to how and react. Ashley's father, now broke from gambling and back on the paper plant line where he used to work, came to a grand realization where his greed as a widower and his ineptness as a father had taken him. He was alone.

Even though they now lived together, Ashley knew John was afraid. Not necessarily of their past forbidden relationship being discovered (at her current age, of course, society deemed it appropriate), but afraid that she may forget him, leave him for another boy closer to her age, and possibly even reveal their entire hidden affair. She put these doubts to rest one night, having a friend drop her off at his place after prom. When John opened the door, Ashley made certain she was more beautiful than when she left his home that morning. She wore the dress he gave her; since she spent the day at a different friend's house, this was the first time he had seen her wear it, a bareback black-jeweled wonder that cascaded down her fully developed chest and sultry body. Her face was tweaked to perfection with dangling ear rings and her hair was long, wavy, dark, and absolutely phenomenal. John looked down her body and pulled his eyes back into hers. He leaned forward and pretended to brush something off of her shoulder. Her smile shined. She adorned a corsage to his shirt, kissed him, and he took her into his arms and carried her upstairs. That night, they made more love than when they first met.

Life grew lonely for a while after this as Ashley left for college in a used red Grand Am John had bought for her as a graduation present. Despite the fact Ashley aced the acceptance exams and gotten a full ride, she felt empty. She was far away from John, somewhere he could not follow. He couldn't afford to; John had started to struggle with his finances as the insurance market started to shrink, leaving him with a fixed number of potential clients. He felt it was safer to keep the house and earn what he could, at least until she was finished, before moving elsewhere. In the meantime, he would wait.

Their time apart was sometimes months, sometimes entire years before they saw each other. It wasn't the best of times, for either of them, but they made due. All the while attending school, fending off imposing young men and blazing a path to becoming a phenomenal medical doctor, Ashley developed a grand plan. An image often flashed through her mind, an image of her bursting into John's house much like he kicked in the door himself, calling out his name, telling him things were finally in place. After graduation, she would attend medical school, all the while working in research and having the chance to support them both. It would be a day where she, for once, could take care of him. Not long after she turned 21, Ashley planned to do just that, being accepted into a medical school not far from her hometown. Ashley felt ecstatic; she was coming home.

The day she pulled into that massive driveway she remembered so well, her heart was racing. Life had come full circle; since the day John picked her up and took her away that wonderful afternoon, here she was, during an afternoon just like it, about to take him away to a place where they could finally be together in plain sight. She dreamed of this moment, she wanted this moment soon, and she needed this moment to be perfect.

As she pulled up to a stop, she saw something, something that made her grind the car across the gravel to a stop. Hesitating only for moment, she bolted out of the Pontiac and sprinted down that same sidewalk she did with John all those years ago. Her hair streamed behind her as she ran, her pace quickened by the simple jeans, white college t-shirt and sneakers she was wearing, feet pounding on the sidewalk now dry from the sun's merciless rays. She arrived at her destination, not far from the spot where she had fallen on that first day, and fell to her knees.

Grown grass rested in front of a push mower nearby and lying behind it, in the fresh cut grass, was John. He laid on his side with his back turned, like he fell forward, pushing the mower far in front of him during his fall. Normally, Ashley would examine a patient with great care and precision, identifying the symptoms and solving the riddle as to what the problem was and how best to fix it. Here though, her mind was too quick, much too quick for her liking, only having to grip the edge of his wrist for the proof of what she suspected. She knew for a while, even long before becoming a doctor, that John had a family history of heart disease. She always feared it, but never wished to acknowledge the possibility he would fall victim to it. But here, in plain sight, she could clearly see it was much too hot to be mowing and he was much too still to be breathing. That slow rise and fall of his chest, the image she knew all too well from lying there with him in their special hammock, wasn't there. In the same spot she had given her life to him, a heart attack had taken it. John was gone.

Ashley stared, blankly, at John's shoulder covered by his sweaty undershirt and thoughts ran through her head, not of the pain she was about to endure, but of the fears she knew John now faced. Their ultimate judgment came not from their family, society or even God, but from themselves. Ashley knew John questioned his actions every day, fearing not the faces of other men and women, but fearing where this may lead him in another life if he were to be called out on his actions. He wasn't sure what to say, how to respond, or even if he could justify to himself that his relationship with her was pure with intentions. But, unlike John, Ashley knew he cared. She knew he continued not entirely out of his own selfish needs. He would have stopped had she asked him, but she needed him, too. John gave up everything he had, his potential to find another woman, another life, and to start over, for Ashley. Every opportunity that came by, he ignored, because he knew changing jobs, changing houses, meant changing their lives and increasing their chances of being exposed. He would wait, no matter how long it took, he would wait. And he did. For her.

Ashley found from experience away from her hometown, outside of her old life and even from life with John, others needed to find peace doing something they were always told they shouldn't, things she often heard from the church kids at her old school, lecturing her about the evil ways and sins of actions condemned by their parents (thus the status quo for the region) and how hell would be waiting for those that partook in said actions. Ashley didn't care much for being told to, at least being told what her heart should feel and how wrong she was about everything. She knew what was wrong, and it wasn't the way John held her in his arms, whispering soft encouragements about how much she could accomplish in her life with her gift, something no one else bothered to mention. She knew the fear she sensed from those children and parents who preached the word of God out of worship, but feared being discovered that they were not much different than the hell-goers they so readily condemned. And she knew what she would say to them now, given a second chance.

Ashley ran her fingers through John's hair. It was soft still and his touch felt warm. The sun had been beating down on his body after he passed, but Ashley sensed from his touch that he hadn't been gone long. She felt her heart thickening, but she would cry later. She needed to give him the moment, the time he so truly deserved. He had given her so much, allowed her the chance to accomplish what she had, and prepared her for the things she was on the path to do. Saving lives, changing lives. That was her life now, a life John so selflessly helped to create. He was her good monster, and her angel. He would've been her husband and she, his wife. They were divided now, but she knew wherever he went, wherever his soul was deemed fit beyond this realm full of people so good and so dark, were he to end up in heaven, hell, or someplace unknown, she knew that eventually, when her time came, she would find him...and follow. She wasn't his anymore; he was hers.

Sunlight streamed and scattered through the leaves up above as a soft breeze took hold. The trees swayed and the light flickered across the side of John's face. Ashley sighed as the gust rippled through his clothes and his hair, making him appear to be moving, something that may have briefly convinced her he was alive if she allowed herself that cruel luxury of blind hope. There was nothing to do here now, nothing to hold on to. He was gone. Her superhero had fallen.

The wind gusted through her own hair. Coming back to Earth, she realized she had another long trek ahead of her and now another storm was coming. It was time to go.

Ashley slowly leaned across John, turned him onto his back and breathed in his scent. It was still there; everything about him was still perfect. The only thing missing was his heart, and she already missed it dearly. She gently cradled his face on one side and turned it toward her own. His eyes were shut, but his expression was peaceful. She knew she didn't have long before the moment was lost and her nerves gave way. Her heart was already sinking, but she forced her eyes to hold and her cries to steady. Wind gently blew through both of their hair, gradually building in intensity as she moved forward. Giving John every second she could, Ashley slowly leaned in, closed her eyes, and kissed him, one last time.

Taste the Rainbow

Fin

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