Ann: A Love Story Ch. 79

We never got past the entrance hall of the room. Once we were inside, I closed the door and dropped to my knees, pushing her to lean against the wall. I dove into that magical slit, digging my tongue wildly as I sucked with my mouth. She trembled again, begging me to make her cum. Usually I loved to draw out her orgasms whenever I ate her, wanting to make them more explosive; that wasn't going to be a problem. She was so worked up she was almost cumming the moment my lips brushed against her labia.

Ann came all over my face, but before she finished, I got up quickly and turned her around, throwing her against the wall while I ripped my swimsuit down just enough to free my pounding dick. My left forearm was against her back, pushing her chest into the wallpaper as I pressed the tip of my cock against her gash. Shoving upward, I buried my cock in one violent thrust.

"God...YES! FUCK ME NEIL! FUCK ME HARD!" she screamed.

It was another brief encounter, but we made up for the lack of endurance with ten minutes of sex-crazed lust in its purest form. I fucked her just like the husband who eyed her in the lobby had wanted to. At the same time, she was getting exactly what she wanted when she decided to take that walk. She had paraded herself through the lobby like a tigress in heat, telling the world that she was ready for sex, hoping a huge tiger would leap out from the shadows of the jungle to take her.

So, I did.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Compared to our extended Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were like coming up one number short in the lottery; you win some money, but you miss out on the jackpot. Ann and I made the best of the time we had once I'd gotten off of work. We ran some errands, did a few things that needed to be done and we'd have a nice dinner. Of course, each night we'd have sex, amazing sex; but it wasn't quite as magical as what we'd done on Sunday.

Not that that was a problem. We weren't really comparing. As they say in sports, not every play in the game makes the highlight reel. We knew that every time we had sex wasn't going to be mind-blowing as other times had been, or would be. And that was the key, at least for me, since any kind of sex with Ann was better than almost all the sex I'd ever had before. I knew I was lucky...and in a way, I was privileged to have such an incredible, inventive lover to call mine forever. So on those occasions when we only managed to be great together in bed instead of incredible, I could feel good knowing that incredible was not only out there, it was attainable more often than not.

That was on my mind as I pulled into the hotel parking lot. I knew that incredible was going to happen again...if not later that night, then certainly the next. That was when my amazing fiancée was going to turn herself over to me and become my love slave once again. I hadn't given much thought as to what I'd do with that awesome responsibility, but it didn't worry me. That was the biggest difference between us. She planned things out beautifully, almost poetically with the way her mind could see details and options to make the things she set up so real. I tended to go with the flow, loving the rush that came from the spontaneity of the moment. They were different approaches, but both seemed to work for us.

Ann was waiting for me in the lobby when I drove up under the awning to pick her up. Hopping in quickly, she practically jumped over the console between us to give me a big, wet kiss. She was worked up again, but it wasn't from me being off of work; she was thrilled about what we were going to be doing with our evening.

"Are you ready, baby?" she asked excitedly.

"Sounds like you are," I smiled.

"I AM...we're going to find it tonight...I can feel it."

The 'IT' she was talking about was a house. More specifically, our house. Carol had hooked us up with a Real Estate agent she knew, telling Ann he was a family friend, and was also very good. Ann agreed with Carol's assessment, because she'd gone looking at houses with him both Monday and Tuesday.

Yet she had become frustrated, because the houses that fit our budget weren't very nice, and the ones that she liked were too expensive. There was the one that she actually liked, but the owners were looking to short sell, and their bank was going to work with them, but we weren't in a position to buy. We needed more time because of our circumstances. When I left for work, Ann was still in bed, groaning about having to go out and look at more houses, her aggravation with the process showing.

I told her to relax and enjoy her day. Instead of going out on her own, I offered to go with them when I got off work, which helped. She was convinced that looking together, we'd find our little 'love nest,' as she called it.

What we were really looking for was some kind of starter home. It had to be big enough so that when we decided it was time to have kids, which we both wanted eventually, we'd have the room at least to start. Yet every house she had seen that she liked was at least four bedrooms, and we didn't need that much space yet...and really, we couldn't afford it either.

In order to come up with the down payment on our future home, Ann was cashing in stocks from her previous job. Unfortunately, it was all a bit of a crapshoot, since we wouldn't know how much we had until they sold, and with the amount of paperwork which had to be done first, it was going to take months. Even that part of the waiting game was only for permission to sell; then we would get to play the stock market game.

All of which meant that the short sale home was out of our reach. Our cash flow issues meant that timing was going to be critical once we found the home we loved and wanted to make an offer.

The other factor going against us was that we'd have to pay a healthy penalty in taxes on the money. We talked about that, wondering if it was worth it to cash in the stock when we could be using that money for a retirement someday. In the end, it was agreed that we wanted a house instead of an apartment...and cashing in the stock was not only the best way to accomplish that, it was really the only way. The cost of living in California meant Ann hadn't been able to save a lot and I'd been wiped out by my divorce. There was no savings for either of us to draw on, even after we'd both busted our asses working the last seven or so years.

I'd been watching the stocks closely, checking the newspaper each day to get a read on how it was performing, watching for trends and I'd checked with a friend to determine the yearly highs and lows. Based on the information I'd been able to gather, I came up with a safe bottom level of what the stock would be worth once we'd be able to sell it. Taking out a healthy amount for taxes, what we'd have left over would be our down payment. We knew it would take a couple of months for the sale of a house to go through, so we figured if we made an offer, we'd have the money in time.

The only downside was that if we couldn't find a place to move into right away, we'd be looking at having to rent an apartment for three to six months. That was something we'd need to have set up, just in case we couldn't find anything we liked. So, the plan was to house shop one more day and if we didn't find anything, we'd look for an apartment on Friday and Saturday. Ann dreaded that thought so much, she refused to acknowledge the backup plan, holding out hope that we'd find something when we went looking together with Greg Martin, the Real Estate Agent.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I have to admit, Greg wasn't what I had been expecting. Ann had told me he was a sweet little old man, but I hadn't dreamed her description would be so literal. First, he was definitely sweet, his genuine southern charm coming across from the moment I shook his hand. And I suppose he could be described as old, with his striking white hair and weathered tan making him look a lot older than the mid-50s he really was. Still, when Ann had used the word 'little', I thought she was being endearing. I had no idea she meant he was...tiny.

Greg couldn't have been more than five feet tall and I doubted he weighed a hundred pounds, but he was in incredible shape. When he gripped my hand as we shook, I couldn't believe how strong it was. I found out later that he'd been a jockey at a nearby horse track for years, retiring in his early 40s. He said he still rode horses, doing some occasional training on the side now that he was doing real estate full time.

Leaving my car at his office, we hopped into Greg's huge Ford F-350 Crew Cab and he took us out to see the town. Well, he eventually took us to see the houses available in and around the town. First, he stopped so he could treat us to a quick dinner before we started.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Her frustration was growing by the minute. We'd been through eight houses and none of them came close to what she was hoping for. I could understand her feelings – I'd only been doing it for a couple of hours, while she had three days worth of looking and failing to find our dream house. I held her hand as we sat in the back of the truck, letting Greg drive us to yet another home. He was whistling as he drove, ignoring the tension that was building behind him. I was sure he'd been down that road before...both the one he was driving and the one that Ann was on.

As he drove up to the next house on his list, she saw the sign in the front yard and looked at the house.

"NO," she said as stared at the two-story house.

Greg never bothered to stop, or to ask why. He must have been used to having clients react that way, because he just drove by before glancing at his sales sheet, checking another address. We'd traveled another five minutes or so, when he whipped the big pickup into a convenience store parking lot and slammed it into park. Looking over his shoulder, he had a shit-eating grin on his face.

"What?" Ann wondered as she looked around, her patience growing thin. "You're showing us a 7-11? Or did we stop to get a Slurpee?" she asked sarcastically.

"I know this is hard, Ann," he said in a calming voice. "But I just had an idea. What are you two going to do if you don't find a home you like right now...where are you going to live?"

"I don't want to talk about that!" she snapped.

"An apartment," I said, looking at Ann, telling her with my eyes to calm down.

"But you're going to rent...right?"

"Yeah, but hopefully not for very long."

"Right...let me make a call. I'll be right back!"

Greg hopped out of the truck and walked over to a pay phone on the wall of the store. Dropping in a coin, he dialed and waited...and so did we. A couple of minutes later, he was walking back to the truck, giving us a thumbs-up.

When he got in, he said, "He'll do it!"

"Who'll do...what?" Ann asked.

"Stan Jennings. He's a friend of mine...a contractor," Greg said, backing up the truck. "I'm going to take you somewhere...it's a little out of town, in kind of an odd little area. But I think you're going to like this."

"Like what?" Ann asked again.

"Patience, Ann. I'll have you there in ten minutes and you can see it for yourself."

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Oh my God, Greg...is THAT the one you're talking about?" Ann asked as we drove into the driveway at the end of a dead-end road.

"Yep...what do you think?"

Driving along, we weren't sure where Greg was taking us. We'd left town going down a two-lane highway that I'd never been on before and then he'd exited, taking back roads through the winding, hilly terrain. It was hard to tell exactly where we were going, but my internal compass told me we'd headed east from town and when we'd gotten off the highway, we'd gone mostly south.

We ended up turning into a neighborhood of sorts and I knew right away why Greg had referred to it as odd. We entered on a private road heading up a steep hill, driving between a little apartment complex on the right and a row of six condos on the left, both of which faced the road we'd just turned off of. Continuing up the hill, there was a house on the right side and two on the left. But what caught my eye was at the very top of the hill.

It was a large, brown building with tan trim...and it was impossible to describe. It was like it was part apartment building, part condo, with a little bit of house...all rolled into one big package. The only thing for sure was that it had a lot of residences based on the large number of mailboxes mounted on the railing in front. The road turned to the left at the top of the hill, then we made another left in front of two other houses.

Greg drove back down the hill a short ways, towards a house that was facing the top of the hill...and us. It didn't have a 'For Sale' sign in front, but with us being in the driveway, there was little doubt what house we were supposed to look at next.

"I LOVE it," Ann cried, even before we'd seen the inside or knew anything about it.

It was one of those moments where first impressions hit you so hard, it has a profound impact. And not only did Ann have that feeling, the moment I saw the place, I had it too.

It was a light tan ranch with black shutters and a large porch that ran across the entire front, except for the one car garage that was to the left. It had a white spindled railing that ran along the porch, which made the front of the house look warm and inviting. The house itself was built on the side of the steep hill, the yard to the right sweeping down and around the house; the left side more level, but still sloping away from us. I could see the side yard to the right, which was decently sized and private, the border of the yard covered by trees and thick green vegetation.

We left the fresh blacktop of the driveway, walking down the sidewalk leading to the front porch. Greg retrieved a key from a lock box on the front door, just like those that had been on the other houses we'd visited. That surprised me a little because of the lack of a sign but seconds later Greg slipped the key into the door, opening it and motioning for us to walk in first.

"Oh my God," Ann gasped, looking inside for the first time. My mouth opened as well as we looked at the great room. It was a large living room, with a dining area and the big open kitchen to the back right. In the back of the room there was a large French door that opened to a deck off the back of the house. Ann walked across the floor to the French door, looking out the back toward the mountains.

"Come here and look at this, Neil," she said.

The back of the house faced the back of the townhouses, which were down the hill. We were standing in what would be the dining area looking out to the west, past the deck and over the roof of the townhouses toward the mountains in the distance. The timing was perfect as the sun was just about to set. The sky was filled with brilliant colors and Ann let out a little sigh. I knew at once what she was thinking; we could have that view off of our deck every night.

Greg went into sales mode, telling us all about the house. The first part, we already knew, just walking in the large, empty space we were standing in.

"Well, as you can probably tell, this is a brand new home...no previous owner. It's smaller than most of the ones you've looked at; just a little under 1,300 square feet. Stan made up for the lack of land he had to work with by packing a lot into the house. The first thing he did was simplify, so he went with a one car garage to give you more house. He also made this a great room, which gives the feeling the house is bigger."

"It does feel big," Ann said.

"Of course it does, babe. There's no furniture in it," I laughed.

"No...but I can picture where things would be. And I still think it's big," she said.

"Wait till you see the bedrooms," Greg said as he walked down the hall.

There were three of them, along with the two full bathrooms. Greg's insinuation about the bedrooms being big didn't fit the first one down the hall to the right, which was on the small side. Across the hall from that room was the entrance to the hall bathroom, with the washer and dryer closet next to it, which was at the end of the hallway to the left. But the end, to the right, was the door to another bedroom and as we walked in, Ann gasped again.

"It's so huge!" she smiled.

"Yes, it is...and it's not the master bedroom," he laughed.

It could have been. It was bigger than most bedrooms I'd ever been in, with a nice-sized closet. We looked out the bedroom window and saw the side of the neighboring house across from the front porch...and immediately noticed that it had no window on that side. And as if Greg was reading our thoughts, he commented on that very fact.

"Stan is big on privacy...building homes in the hills is tricky. But this one is nice, because no one can see into your windows, except in the living room."

He was right. When we walked through the door at the very end of the hallway into the master bedroom, Ann turned to look out the two windows of the room, catching the unobstructed view of the sun as it slipped beyond the mountain range.

The master bedroom was slightly bigger than the other room. Along the back wall, just to the left of one of the two windows was another hall...one that led to the master bathroom and a walk-in closet. It wasn't that big and in truth, all of the closets were on the small side; that seemed to be the one thing the place lacked. One that I thought that would be a deal-breaker, considering Ann had so many clothes.

And that seemed more likely when she mentioned it to Greg.

"Yes...I agree. Stan could have used some of the bedroom space and given more thought to the closet space. That's one of the reasons it's been on the market so long."

"On the market...there's no sign out front."

"I took it down. The neighbors got tired of seeing it. Since this is at the end of a dead-end road, no one was driving by to see the sign anyway, not in this neighborhood. Most people don't even know there are houses up here. They see the condos and apartments below and the big apartment building at the top of the hill, and well...they don't think houses."

"Why is that, and why are there so many different kinds of dwellings here?"

"West Virginia zoning at its finest, Neil. They zoned this residential, but that left some pretty big loopholes. It's getting better, though. Ten years ago you could have had a trailer park next to a million dollar mansion. They've changed that now, but what's done is done...if it's already built, there's not a lot you can do about it. Besides, in this case, the houses were built after the condos and the apartments...not the other way around, which is what gets people upset."

"We're not upset...are we Neil?" Ann mused.

"I'm not...but what about the lack of closet space? There's not even a coat closet in the front of the house?"

"So, we store some of our coats in the little bedroom...and we get a coat tree to hang them on by the door to the garage. I can put some of my clothes in the other bedroom closet for now. Is there a basement, Greg?"

"No...this is it. There is a crawlspace though. A pretty nice one...big enough to stand in on this end of the house. Come on, I'll show you."

We stepped out the French door, onto the huge deck that was about ten feet off the ground. Walking down the stairs, we went around the back yard to a small, four-foot high door in the cement wall. When Greg went to unlock it, Ann laughed.

"Is this Cousin Itt's room?" she asked.

"Careful, Ann. I'm the same size as Cousin Itt, I just don't have as much hair," Greg chuckled, opening the door and stepping over the one-foot wall at the bottom, not having to duck to get inside. We stepped in after him and Greg pulled out a flashlight to find the pull chain for the light. Once it was on, we saw just how open it was under the house.