Jen's Legacy.

“I think I first became conscious of something… some disturbing feeling, as though I knew you, when I looked down into your face as you lay on that sand, helpless, half drowned, coughing up water, and you were cold; so cold. I wanted to pull you into me and get you warm, to strip you even then, get you into my sleeping bag, get you warm and to make love to you, but I knew that I shouldn’t… make love to you then. But I did undress you and that was almost the end of me when I saw you… like that… how disturbingly mature you were, and how stunningly beautiful, and a vision I could never have believed existed in the world I had inherited.

“I struggled to put a name to you. I felt sure we had met somewhere, but nothing clicked. All I saw was Jen’s face swimming in and out of focus, and your face, doing the same. One and then the other. It was as though you both were occupying that same body lying in front of me, and I was confused, not sure if I was really where I was, or if I was just dreaming, or truly going mad.

“It scared me at first, that feeling that I was out of my mind again and maybe going mad, but I’d been going mad for months, talking to myself, standing on the edge of the canyon rim, or sitting there, rocking back and forth, asking for guidance from Jen; waiting for her to tell me what I must do; to give me permission to jump, or not to jump, but never getting any sign. I needed a sign.

“I was never far from being totally mad at any time until just a couple of days ago when I met you. I think you saved me at that moment and not the other way around. You were placed in my life for a reason. I think I can believe anything now, no matter how much it would strain credulity or logical explanation.”

He struggled to find the words, not sure how he had got here so quickly, was actually making love to Claire, as they were doing, or even where he might go from here, knowing only that he never wanted to be parted from this woman who loved him, and had given him his life back.

“What I sensed, was that Jen would not want me to end like that; not yet… so I just kept on walking, waiting for that sign.”

Maybe it would make more sense when he’d had time to think more clearly, and was not caught up in the emotions that were washing endlessly over him, stopping him thinking about anything other than this woman he loved; this soft, warm body beneath him and how much he would always want to make love to her.

“Perhaps you were that sign. I wondered if Jen’s answer to me, really was you coming into my life to stop me doing anything stupid, and now I am convinced of it. I would like to think that Jen did not die, though I know she did. I prefer to believe she is living on, in you, and that somehow she recognized that you would be the one who would keep me on this side of sanity.”

Jen, was living on in her body. She could suggest something about that without seeming too… irrational.

“I believe that Jen was looking out for you, for us both, and that she did recognize that about us, Royce. I would like to think that she recognized me as the one you needed, and that you were the one I needed. Don’t ask me to explain it any better than that because I can’t. I have those same feelings you do. I feel that she is living within me. I know she is. I feel as though I really did become pregnant just a few minutes ago and that Jen played a role in that, though how can I know that?”

He didn’t laugh. There were some things that would always defy any explanation, and this was one of them.

“I will choose to believe that I am pregnant even now, and that I will bear twin girls, and will wait for time to prove me wrong or right.

“Jen is, of course, the name we shall give to one of them; the first born, and Claire shall be the name given to the other one.”

She did some fast, mental arithmetic. “They will be a June babies, probably born under the sign of Gemini (the twins) or Cancer; the Crab. Gemini; definitely Gemini.”

He laughed at the way her mind was working. It all sounded so believable and intriguing, though completely defying all logical explanation.

“Only time will tell, my love.” He kissed her again and relaxed upon her, feeling that they did not need to rush off from here. They could make love again. They had all the time in the world.

He was feeling bold and mischievous. “But, on the off-chance that you are wrong about being pregnant...? We should keep trying.”

She smiled and stroked beside his face at his eager transparency.

“I agree. You only want to make love to me again, you naughty boy.”

“Ah. You’ve found out about me. I plead guilty. I cannot imagine a time when I will not want to make love to you. But what of you, Claire? When did you know you were in love with me?”

She did not hesitate. “On the climb away from the river, that first morning. Until then I was not sure about anything, or about you. You overwhelmed me, confused me, intimidated me as you logically and ruthlessly laid out the various options open, or closed to me, to us, persuading me, and which I didn’t want to hear.”

Yes, he had done that.

“You surprised me when you told me that if I made the decision to stay, that would be okay with you, but if that was my decision, then you would stay too. I could not understand why you needed to stay with me, but now I do.”

There were two reasons, of course. He was in love with her, and he had become responsible for her whether she liked it or not.

“Having met you, and knowing what I felt for you, I could not have left you. It was never a possibility, even though I seemed to scare you.”

“Not for long, you didn’t. If we hadn’t left, I wonder how long it would have taken us to know that we were in love and to have made love like this.” He couldn’t answer that any more than she could.

He encouraged her to tell what she did know. “What was there about that climb? I tried to be gentle and to do everything I could to make you feel safe, even though I knew it might be embarrassing and was personal for us both, the way I was lifting you up that rope and trying to keep my mind off your disturbing body and what I was doing.”

“And you did make me feel safe, despite that. I was always conscious of your interest in me and my body, all of the time, even from those first moments on the beach, but by the time we began on that climb, I was no longer afraid.”

She leaned up and kissed him, re-adjusting her position, feeling where he was, and feeling him becoming attentive and focused again, as she concentrated on what was taking place down there again, in her body.

She was never able to get rid of wondering what her parents and gran would think of this; of what she was doing with this man; letting him do to her, to be intimate with her after knowing him for only a couple of days.She had never thought her virginity would be so readily, easily, or eagerly dispensed with, and at the earliest opportunity as she had done.

“I had never been so close to anyone as I held onto you.” She felt him moving again, and stopped talking, knowing what was happening again, feeling him come soon after with a deep sigh; almost gently this time, relative to earlier, as he pushed into her.

He was getting tired.

She smiled and stroked his face as they kissed, and as he rested upon her breasts. She would happily stay exactly where she was for the next few hours and they could continue this without him ever leaving her body. How many more times could he do this? She wished she’d paid more attention to those other girls at school now, when they’d discussed such intimate things between them and their boyfriends; if they could be believed.

“You mentioned astrology symbols, Gemini, and birth dates. Do you believe in that?”

She thought about it, as she tried to take her mind of what he was still doing to her, awakening her body to such wonderful new sensations and feelings, needing to feel him in her body, bringing them much closer together than she’d ever considered possible before.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, and yet some aspects of it do. When is your birthday, Royce?”

“January 22nd.”

He felt her become suddenly very tight upon him, making him push deeper into her in response, taken by surprise.

“That’s my birthday too. Aquarius.”

He was not sure what to say. There were a lot of things to try and grasp at one time.

“It was also Jen’s birthday. Three of us on the same day? Maybe there could even have been four. Claire, our baby, would have been a late January baby had she gone to term. What are the odds of that?

That clinched it in Claire’s mind. So many coincidences.

“Then I really am pregnant even now.” She sounded very sure of that. But how did the one, follow from the other? He did not understand her logic, but of course, logic played no part in any of this. It was all just coincidence. Inexplicable coincidence.

Put enough people together in one place and there would be those in the group who shared the same likes, dislikes; birthdays even. Two, same-day birthdays in a class of thirty children was not uncommon; three, was more of a long shot; Four was very unlikely, but still not impossible.

“There are too many coincidences, Royce, even if neither of us believes in any of it. or can explain it.”

“They are still just co-incidences.” He looked down into her face.

“Would you like to hear another co-incidence?”

She nodded.

“As we left that beach, you mentioned a painting of a scene that captured that flat rock slab, the flowers, the general colors, and the initials JH.”

“Yes.”

“With the artist’s name being Josh.”

“Yes.”

“That was also, Jen. She took that photograph five years ago, while we were on our honeymoon, and painted that scene from it. She signed all of her paintings with the initials of her maiden name; Jen O’Reilly Shelby; JOSH.

“It is the only painting of hers that I was not able to recover. Then I learned that you have it. I have the others at the home we both shared. How’s that for another coincidence.”

She felt his growing agitation as he looked down on her with his expression beginning to change again. She knew about that change now, even if she had not felt him moving upon her again.

After being denied this release for so long, he was now making up for lost time.

“And now the ultimate co-incidence, Claire, my love. I am coming again, and am about to present you with many more gifts to look after for me within your body.”

“Oh, Goody.”

She laughed at that thought and hugged him close to her, raising her legs on him to let him get deeper into her as he came once more. She had turned into a wanton slut, so easily giving a man full access to her body, and she was loving every enervating minute of it!