The Widow’s Gift

"I miss him so much," she said finally, after a long silence. She looked on the verge of tears, so I covered my best friend's hand with mine; it seemed the only thing I could do at that tender moment.

She glanced down at our joined hands and continued, "I can't bring myself to clear out his closet. It smells too much of him. Everyone says I need closure, but I guess it's just too soon."

Six long and lonely months had passed since Marieta's husband of nine years had whispered, "I love you, Mari," as he breathed his last. In her own way, she had stopped breathing since that moment, perhaps seeking as strong a bond with him in death as they had shared in life.

Theirs was a bond that had laughed at the differences that might have prevented the union of a less formidable pair. Everything about them was the opposite of the other, except their love. Hugh was tall and muscular, white haired with long fingers, the very definition of debonair. Unmarried until the age of seventy, he had never taken full advantage of his natural attractiveness to women, the way that lesser men tend to do. He frequently had companions, but always left them wanting. In fact, he was quite reserved, though not for having a low opinion of himself, but rather because he had no need to be in anyone's spotlight. He was, quite simply, supremely comfortable in his own skin, and that, combined with a smooth baritone voice, was all it took for Marieta to decide that even though she might only enjoy him for a few years, the thrill of those years could last her a lifetime.

Marieta, for her part, was diminutive, pixyish even, though with long, dark hair that reached toward the middle of her back. She was often urged to cut it to achieve the more coquettish look it would have given her, but she liked the feel of it on her shoulders. The daughter of a Mexican military man and his exquisitely elegant wife, it was hard to tell which glowed brighter, her lightly bronzed skin or her magnificent smile. She enjoyed breaking the hearts of the many lovers that tried to capture her own, and felt no remorse, because she had never found a heart as honorable at that which beat inside her father, whose love for her mother enthralled and inspired her. She would take them willingly into her bed, but rarely more than once, for she was a quick and accurate judge of character. For the twenty-seven years of her life before she met Hugh, she believed that God had broken the mold in which her father had been cast. But when she saw his easy gait approach her on that windswept day, she knew the forty-three year difference in their ages meant nothing.

Perhaps it was the honor of Hugh's insistence that they refrain from lovemaking until their wedding day that put her mind at ease that even though there would be fewer months of pleasure with him than with a more eager man, each of those days would offer greater delight. Though she ached to embrace him with every part of her lithe body, she honored his request gracefully, though it didn't hurt that their courtship was a short one. But from the moment of their first sexual union, she rarely let a day go by without some sort of erotic encounter, knowing it could be over almost as quickly as it began. His stamina was never a match for hers, but she marveled at how long his energy did hold out, even on those occasions when the passion of her dreams opened the curtain between sleeping and waking, and she would gently bring him to firmness and ride him silently in the dark until he made her dreams came true.

"You know what they never tell you?" she sniffed. "They don't tell widows how to cope without sex. I've had so much advice, but no one even mentions that part. I just can't imagine dating again."

Not knowing just how to respond to such frankness, I let the matter pass. What solace could I offer for that kind of ache?

****

Later that evening, as I lay in my own husband Robert's arms, I shared with him my conversation with Marieta. As I conveyed her sadness about the silence about a widow's sex life, he gently caressed my head. "I can't really imagine it," he remarked.

"I wish I could help her in some way," I spoke vaguely into the air.

"Why don't we invite her into our bed?" Robert asked almost as vaguely.

It took a moment for his words to find my ears, but upon entering into my consciousness, they began to burn a hole through both my heart and my crotch.

Robert and I know each other well, and trust each other even more. Though we'd never actually involved a third person in our lovemaking, we'd used the image of such an encounter to heighten our excitement. And it was never for fear of a potential threat to our marriage that we'd never sought to make the fantasy come true, but rather that we'd never come across anyone who could do our fantasies one better.

Until now. Marieta made perfect sense. A beautiful and experienced lover in need of some loving without having to open herself to the dating scene.

Of course, I had seen Marieta's nude form before – in the shower at the gym, when shopping as we tried on outfits together – but Robert had not. I knew he would like the way she looked naked, especially mounted on top of him, grinding her hips, impaled by his cock. He has always said that it is his favorite position to appreciate a woman's truest beauty.

We are not entirely unlike, Mari and I, in our bodies. I am fuller than she is, in breast and hip, but we both wear our hair long and loose, and keep our pubes shaved. She was actually the one who got me started shaving, and later waxing. One day in the locker room at the gym, when we were the only ones there, I finally got up the nerve to inquire about her hairless look that I had admired from a distance since we began working out together.

"Does it itch like they say? When it grows back in?" I asked timidly.

"I wouldn't know," she said with a rich laugh. "I've never let it get that far!" And then surprisingly, she added, "You look curious. Want to take a closer look?"

With my heart pounding, for I had never been that close to another woman's genitals, though always with some desire to do so, I leaned in for a look, and fell instantly in love with both her shaven look, and with the shape and contours of her pussy. I'd always been somewhat ambivalent about my own puss; I'd put a little mirror down there one afternoon after junior high health class to make sure I could correlate the drawing in the book with the reality between my legs, but I can't say I gave it much of a thought again until that day at the gym, when I decided instantly to remove it all and never go back to hiding behind hair.

Instinctively, I ran my hand over the taut, smooth skin between her navel and her clitoris. Marieta flinched ever so slightly, but I never knew if it was from a pleasurable physical contact between us or from the discomfort of a boundary transgressed. In a way that simply reinforced that ambiguity, she stepped back and drew her towel around her, and we never spoke of it again.

The memory of her shaven pussy and that ever so brief touch came flooding back as Robert's suggestion continued to explode in my mind and body. I found myself longing to feel that taut smoothness again, and again instinctively, I found myself caressing that same part of my own body. As my middle finger descended to find my clit and started rubbing it, I said to Robert, "I think that is just what Mari needs."

****

Robert had responded well to my reply; we coupled deeply imagining a naked Marieta between us. What remained was bringing the fantasy to life. I did feel a little presumptuous later. Who was I to think that Marieta needed any "help" to overcome that kind of loss. But the more I imagined it, the more I convinced myself that indeed, that is just what Marieta needed. And so I decided to throw my caution to the same wind which had carried it away in the locker room.

We met for lunch in a modern café. The décor suggested the kind of venture I planned to suggest, the tables so close together as to require either a close proximity for a conversation that no one could hear, or a boldness that would allow anyone to hear. I chose to lean in close, a posture which both recalled our locker room encounter, and instilled in me the boldness I needed.

After the requisite small talk, I offered, "I've been thinking a lot about what you said the last time we met, about that silence about a widow's sex life," and then I waited.

"Nothing much has changed," she said finally. "I still have an ache, but I can't imagine who could ever take it away. That whole scene seems so pathetic."

With my heart pounding through my chest, I leaned in closer and said, "Maybe Robert and I could help."

Her eyes brightened somewhat. "That's sweet, but please don't offer to set me up with some friend of yours who just lost his wife."

"That's not exactly what we had in mind," I said. "We were thinking it might be easier with someone you already knew."

"My exes are already lining up," she said laughingly, making it clear that I would have to be a little more forthright with my proposition.

"I meant us, sweetie. Robert and me. We've got space for you in our hearts and in our bed. At least until you are ready to take another look around, out there."

She stared blankly. "Are you hitting on me?" she said incredulously. My heart sank. I was losing my best friend for a lame fantasy.

"Um," I stammered. "I...we...it was Robert's idea. He thought maybe we could..." and I trailed off, looking down at the remains of my salad.

This time it was her hand that graciously covered mine on the table. Feeling her touch, I looked up to see her mischievous face. "Well," she said, "If it was Robert's idea..." and she smiled broadly. "Look. I'm not getting any younger," she continued, "there's only so much erotica you can get off on alone, and there are a lot of sleazebags out there. What did you have in mind?"

After I finished sharing Robert's and my threesome fantasy through the years, and how she really turned us both on, she raised her glass, and offered her toast, "Here's to Hugh. May you do for me what he did for me. And may I do for you what I did for him."

****

What the very possibility of this scenario did for Robert and me was almost enough on its own. We began finding it difficult to keep the house in order, such was the sexual tension growing between us. It was all we talked about. What would it do to our marriage? Who should take the initiative? What were the limits, if any? What if the reality never ascended to the heights of our fantasy?

And in our own lovemaking, it was almost as if she were already present. I began to wonder how I would look to her, how she would respond to Robert's touch, how he might handle two horny women at once, and my passion deepened noticeably. I was hotter and wetter earlier and earlier in the day, and couldn't stop texting Robert with little teasing messages, as if he weren't already turned on past his ability to focus sufficiently on his work. Finally, he sent me a message that simply said, "Enough. Set it up." And so I did, even with most of the issues unresolved.

We arranged for a Saturday evening, so that we'd be neither too tired to begin, nor too pressured to end. She would come to our home, to our bed. We had invited her, she said, and had always felt comfortable at our place. "Make sure there is plenty of wine," she said. "I've made love to a lot of people, but never quite like this."

When she arrived, we embraced as we always did. She was my best friend, after all, and we trusted one another that this adventure would not change that bond between us. With Robert, however, she seemed a little warmer than usual, a little more eager to wrap her arms around him. I blushed at this, but she was too wrapped up in him to notice. "I already had a couple of glasses of wine," she confessed sheepishly.

Despite the anticipation that pervaded the house, we enjoyed a light-hearted dinner, and two bottles of wine. The conversation centered mostly on Hugh, as his birthday was approaching. But far from that topic making Marieta sad, it seemed to keep her present in a way that boded well for what we had all made plans to undertake. We moved to the kitchen to clean up. Marieta and I leaned over the counter, enjoying our wine, our hips nearly touching, as Robert tackled the dishes.

After what was becoming a long silence, Robert seemed to sense the moment might be ripening and asked quietly, "Did you ever have a threesome with Hugh and someone else?"

"Never," she replied. "He was always enough. But now that he is gone, I am sure it will take two of you to fill his shoes, and my appetite. Think you can handle it?" At that she stood up and began to wriggle out of her short skirt.

There was now no mistaking the direction the evening would take and we wasted no time in helping Marieta strip down to her thong and peeptoe heels. She reveled in our attention to her body as we caressed her. At first, she posed for us, a confident statue seeking an appreciative audience, but then melted into our arms, her need for genuine tenderness taking the place of the strong widow's stance.

We carried her to our bedroom, which we had already prepared luxuriously with candles of all shapes and sizes, and music to fuck by. As we laid her on the bed, she closed her eyes, and we began to cover her glowing skin with our kisses and our caresses, Robert taking the upper half, and I the lower half. As I kneaded her slender calves and thighs, I could see Robert doing the same to her arms, neck, and shoulders, her chest gently rising at the touch of his hands, and I wondered how he was encountering her skin, the first skin besides mine he had caressed in a great many years. I knew what his strong hands could do for me even in my less erogenous zones, and I could see he was trying to do that for her too.

What we were doing must have been working as she suddenly took hold of Robert's hands and guided them to her breasts. Taking the hint, Robert took hold of both of her tits and began to work them luxuriously with his wonderful hands. He played with them in all their ripeness, in great circles and with feather-light brushes, ever so occasionally bringing her nipples to life between his thumb and forefinger. Her chest went from rising to heaving as she responded to his pleasure and I noticed my own pulse quickening.

It was now my turn to sense a moment of transition and so I moved directly between her legs. Robert was behind her head as she lay on the bed, and from where I was now, I could look directly into his eyes, and see his "yes" within them. Quaking inside, I reached forward and laid my hand on that special, and still sexy spot between her navel and her pubes. She flinched just as she had before, but there was no longer any ambiguity, and knowing now what that flinch meant, I pulled my hand downward until the heel of my hand reached her mound. And then I began to gently grind.

A murmur escaped her throat, and as it did, her hips began to rise to meet the motion of my hand pressing down, kneading her quim through her now soaking panties. Her body fell into a perfectly rolling rhythm between Robert on one end and I on the other, a wave that increased in intensity until she finally groaned deeply and arched her back, her orgasm suspending her between us like a bridge. I looked at Robert and smiled.

When her body finally unclenched, she collapsed to the bed as if lifeless. She lay there for a long while, her eyes still closed as they had been through the entirety of our encounter, her body barely moving as we continued to gently caress her. And then, suddenly, like a near drowning woman bursting through the surface of water, she breathed in deeply and fully, and began to weep. We gathered her in our arms and held her until her sobs subsided. Finally, she looked up at us, smiled weakly, and said simply, "Thank you. I didn't know if I'd ever breath again. And I didn't know much I needed that release."

As she said these words, I looked at Robert and could see that he too was satisfied that we had genuinely helped our friend, and that we both figured the night would soon be coming to an end. I was already planning in my mind how I would bring he and I to our own releases once we had said goodnight.

But Marieta had other ideas. "You have both done so much for me, not just tonight, but through all of it. Now I want to do something for you." She slipped sexily from the bed and wriggled out of her panties.

Both Robert and I were still dressed, but she began to take care of that quickly, first going to Robert and unbuttoning his shirt. She kissed his chest beneath each opened buttonhole. As she reached across his chest to push his shirt across his shoulders her lips met his and they began kissing deeply. After a minute of this, she unbuckled his belt and opened his slacks and reached her hand in to begin to bring his cock to life. If they hadn't been so utterly beautiful together, their tongues eagerly making acquaintance for the first time, her hand finding his hardness for the first time, I might have felt jealous, but I did not. Rather, it made me wetter than ever.

As turned on as I was by watching their kiss, when she broke her embrace with Robert and turned to me with a delicious gleam in her eye, I felt instantly and overwhelmingly nervous. Suddenly our fantasy was actually becoming reality. When Robert and I had touched Marieta's body, it had seemed almost like a mere massage taken beyond the usual boundaries, but not yet quite like the threesome we had always envisioned. I hadn't actually felt the warm folds of the vagina I had been so close to so many years before. I had experienced her wetness only through the medium of her panties. But now Marieta was truly naked before us, and had come alive, and seemed to be taking us to the next level, into an erogenous danger zone from which there was no turning back. I would share my husband with her, and he would share me with another women and it all seemed too surreal. Even though we had suggested the whole thing to her, I was the one freaking out, and now it was my breathing that was affected and I began to feel as if I might hyperventilate.

Marieta must have sensed my anxiety, for she slid one hand up under my blouse, and let it rest there over my heart. She did not touch my breasts, but simply let her hand feel the pounding of my heart and the rapidity of my breathing. And as her one hand lingered there, her other hand gently caressed my head, and I slowly came down from a state of near panic to one of trust and arousal. It helped to see that Robert's gentle face revealed none of the doubts he must surely have seen in mine. We had imagined that we were comforting her, but here she was making us feel comfortable.

At last she brought her other hand under my blouse and placed them on my breasts, caressing them before slipping her fingers under my bra, seeking out my nipples. When she brushed lips against mine, the rest of my hesitation fell away, and I began to respond as Robert and I had always fantasized I would. If Robert had kissed her in an exploratory way, I now wanted to devour her. I took her face in my hands and kissed her in profound gratitude for this moment she was bringing to life.

The rest of our clothes soon fell away and we settled onto the bed. She took Robert's stiffening cock and stroked his length with one hand while fondling his balls with the other. I watched them with interest as she aroused him, enjoying a different perspective on his rising passion. When he was quite hard, she took him in her mouth and began to suck in earnest. I could see how well she was using her tongue to bring him closer to orgasm, all the while continuing to stroke his shaft. Robert began to involuntarily move his hips, always a sure sign he is about to climax. His moans quickened in time with her up and down movement until finally he was ready and with a final reaching thrust let loose his load. Marieta knew just what to do to prolong his orgasm, her lips and tongue maintaining a light seal on his cock as he continued to move until his pleasure subsided.