The Uncles (working title): Chapter 1

I have only written this one chapter. I don't know when I'll write more, but it'll be after I've polished off both In Too Deep and had a chance to go through all of your feedback on Castaway Wife.

This is my attempt at a 'hotpast' story (special thanks to Paul G, who helped me coalesce around this particular thread).. I have a lot of ideas on what happened, and I have a general understanding of Jennifer's past, but I always love to hear your thoughts.

Chapter 1

I watched the young woman pull herself from the pool, water cascading off of her tight, bikini-clad body, which glistened and teased every guy around. I was thankful for the sunglasses because I couldn’t stop staring.

And I felt awful about it. I knew her. Raelynn was the neighbor’s daughter, home from college for the summer. She was a good kid, crazy smart, going to some Ivy League school, and always so responsible. She’d babysat our kids when they were just girls. But as I watched her emerge from the pool, all I saw was a hot blonde in a black string bikini that didn’t come close to hiding her flat stomach, the flare of her hips, or her full tits.

“Bryan, are you even listening?” My wife snapped me out of my lurid thoughts. I felt even worse because I definitely wasn’t listening.

“Umm… sorry, I must have dozed off there.” I laughed nervously. “Sun is so bright.”

Jennifer, my wife, followed the direction of my face to Raelynn and her coed body. I couldn’t entirely gauge her expression, but I didn’t have to. “The sun. Right.”

I braced myself for the you-know-she’s-old-enough-to-be-one-of-ours comment. Instead, she called out, “Hey, Rae. How was your first year at Cornell?”

The blonde teen turned to Jennifer with a bright smile. “Oh, hey, Mrs. Turner. It was great, although I’m so glad finals are over.”

The girl seemed to have no idea how distracting she was, standing there, dripping wet, in that suit. Or maybe she did, but she was just used to it.

“Oh, God, yes,” Jennifer said. “I still remember my freshman year at Columbia. So much freedom, but also so much pressure.”

“Yeah, for sure.” She turned to me. “Hello, Mr. Turner. You get on any rocks lately?”

I actually blushed at her attention, and the fact that she remembered my climbing hobby. “Nothing outside in a while, but I try to get to the gym a couple times a week.”

“It shows. Lookin’ good, Mr. T. Bye now!”

Jennifer snickered beside me. “Be careful with that one, dear.”

“I only have eyes for you,” I said, very purposely not following Raelynn as she skipped away.

“Aw, thanks, honey,” she said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. The whistle blew, marking adult swim. Jennifer got out of her lounger as the kids streamed out of the water, and I stole a look at my wife.

“I’m not joking,” I said, checking her out.

We’d been together for 15 years and I’d definitely started to take her for granted, which was unfair. While she didn’t have the effortless, nubile sex appeal that 19-year-old Raelynn had, her athletic body was actually sexier to me because it did take effort.

“But have you considered talking to Raelynn about bathing suits?”

Jennifer snorted a laugh. “I’m wearing a two-piece.”

Technically, she was, although the ‘tankini’ covered about as much of her as a one-piece. Even still, it showed off her toned arms and dancer’s legs, hewn from weightlifting and all those laps in the pool.

“You know what I mean,” I said suggestively.

“Oh, I know all too well, you pervert. But what kind of example would that set for our girls, hm?” She stood up. “I’m going to get my laps in. Try not to stare too much at the neighbor.”

Jennifer was a woman who believed in leading by example. It’s what made her such a great COO at her small association, and such a wonderful mother. Having two girls at the dangerous ages of 14 and 11, she knew that they were always watching.

Even in the modest suit, she looked good—and not “good for a 43-year-old.” She still turned heads as she padded over to the lap pool. She liked to complain that her butt was too big and her thighs too thick, but I knew that she was just being modest. I’d caught her checking her ass out in the mirror after a workout and nodding. She worked out too religiously and ate too healthily not to know that she looked good.

We packed up and headed home in the afternoon. Greyson, our teenager, didn’t spend much time in the pool anymore, preferring to hangout with her friends playing ping pong and eating junk food from the concessions. Kristi, the eleven-year-old, could have stayed at the pool all day, although even she started to get hungry by the time they blew the 5 o’clock whistle.

We picked up some Peruvian chicken on the way home. Dinner was on our back patio, which we’d just finished having installed for the summer. We opened a bottle of white wine. Jennifer put on some ABBA over our Sonos speakers and got the girls to get up and dance with her. 

As I sat there, mildly buzzed in the warm, evening air filled with the pop romance tunes and the people I loved, I realized that this was what a memory felt like as it formed. I wanted to remember this forever. 

‘Dancing Queen’ came on, and for a moment, I saw Jennifer as she’d been when she was Raelynn’s age, when she was “Jenny,” young and free. Her hair had dried from the post-pool shower, flowing in dark blonde waves about her chin. She’d changed into a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeved blouse—embodying the suburban mom—yet as I watched her flash a smile at me, holding out her hand for me to join her, she might as well have been wearing a flowing summer dress and flowers in her hair.

I joined her, the magnetism of the moment too strong to resist, and soon we were prancing around the patio under the beer lights as ABBA filled us with joy.

Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene / Digging the dancing queen.

“I so don’t need to see this,” Greyson, the teenager, said.

“I think it’s sweet,” Kristi disagreed.

The two started to bicker, and the mood ended as Jennifer shifted back into mom mode. Still, the sentiment lingered. We sent the girls inside, but remained on the patio, snuggled on a wicker loveseat, listening to the crickets sing.

“I love you,” Jennifer said. “And I love this life we have.”

“What’s not to love with a house filled with constant fighting?”

Jennifer laughed. “Even that is magical.” She looked around. We had a good home in a great neighborhood. “You know how little I had when I grew up. I love that we can give all of this to our kids.”

Unlike me, child of an upper middle class family, Jennifer’s parents struggled to make ends meet. Neither went to college, and it took all of their savings to send her to Columbia—and that was after Jennifer’s scholarship.

“You did all of this, you know,” I said. “No way could we have afforded this house on a freelance journalist’s salary.”

“We did this, you mean.” She kissed me on the lips, and I decided to turn it into something deeper. It had been too long since I’d felt her tongue in my mouth.

Jennifer broke it off, though, aware of our kids somewhere in the house. “Later,” she promised before getting up to start doing the dishes. 

Dishes turned into other chores, though. Those Girl Scout emails weren’t going to write themselves—Jennifer led Kristi’s troupe—which led down a rabbit hole of activity research. I got it. She had a lot going on, and it didn’t stop just because it was a Saturday night and I was suddenly horny.

I retired to bed, pulling up my phone and guiltily started browsing porn. Even worse, I searched up ‘bikini’ and ‘blonde,’ knowing how wrong that was. I heard Jennifer doing something up in the attic, changing to my news app when she finally came into the bedroom with a mischievous grin on her face. 

“What?” I asked. She had something behind her back.

“Nothing,” she said, quickly diverting into the master bath and shutting the door.

I shrugged and went back to my phone, this time actually reading my news app, when the door opened again and my breath caught.

“It still fits,” she said, looking simultaneously awkward and hot as hell. She was wearing a bikini, but it wasn’t just any bikini. The pink material seemed to shimmer like fish scales—where there was any material at all. The dental floss strap strained to hold her breasts up, and the bottom was so small that her light brown bush escaped not only the sides, but out of the top. 

But she wasn’t wrong—it definitely did fit her. Other than the way that she slumped her shoulders forward and looked like she really wanted to cover herself, she could have been a model for the suit. All the hard work she’d put into her diet and exercise regimen was clearly paying off.

“Wow,” I said once I picked my jaw off the floor. “Where did that come from?”

“A younger me,” she said. “Is this what you had in mind?”

“Um, no! But I’m not complaining.”

The bikini tied behind her back, and high on her hips, in big, looping bows. She released some of her tension as she saw my reaction, rolling her shoulders back as she crossed over to me and took a seat on the edge of the bed. Her stomach was no longer as flat as it once was and her tits not as perky as Raelynn’s, but she’d never looked more sexy than she did right then. She was real, she was a woman, and she was my wife.

“So tell me,” Jennifer said. “Do you really want your daughters wearing this?”

Any erection I had wilted. “Aw, come on, Jennifer. Why did you take it there?”

“Because if they see mommy wearing this, how can we tell them no when they want to wear a bikini?”

“We drink wine. How’s this different?” I shot back. Any romantic thoughts were dead and buried now. We were parents again.

“Because it’s illegal? And we’re also setting a responsible example there, too, but showing moderation. This…” She shifted, showing the back of the very tiny suit, “is not moderation.”

The back was a thong. “Damn, that’s hot. Why do you own this? And why haven’t I ever seen it?”

“You’re trying to change the subject,” Jennifer said.

“I am. I generally don’t like to think of the kids when I want to have sex with my wife.”

Even Jennifer couldn’t resist laughing at that one. “You’re such a man.”

“I mean, I don’t think the sentiment is exclusive to me having a penis.”

She shoved me playfully and got up, like she was going to get changed. I grabbed her by the waist, feeling all that exposed, soft skin, and tugged her back to me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I thought you weren’t in the mood.”

“Seeing your butt in this bikini got me back in it.” It was still hard to believe that this C-suite exec and my very type-A wife owned a thong bikini, but I wasn’t going to lose this opportunity. Before she could make this weird again, I pulled her towards me and kissed her. 

This time, she gave into my persistence, relaxing a little, kissing me back. I brushed her hair over one ear, caressing her soft cheek. We broke the kiss slowly, but didn’t pull away from one another. “I understand what you’re saying,” I said quietly. “I do, and I’m only kidding about the bathing suit stuff. But I do love that you own this.”

I ran my finger along the thin straps that looped behind her neck, right up to the bow. I pulled it, letting it fall open, releasing her soft breasts. She had small, caramel nipples that were hard, sitting high on her baseball-sized breasts.

I swooped in, knowing how much she liked it when I licked her nipples. She moaned softly, careful not to make noise—a habit we’d both gotten into over the years. When she slid her fingers over my head, over the scalp that I’d started shaving ever since I’d started to grow bald, I knew we were headed towards a good night.

We shifted. I laid her on her back, going back to kissing her. She tugged at my t-shirt, and together we pulled it off before returning to the make out session. How long had it been since we’d done this? I couldn’t even remember the last time we had sex, and that was sad.

I kissed down her body, licking her nipples before moving lower. My cock was hard enough that I had to adjust it in my pants before ending my journey between her thighs. Rather than peel the bottoms off, though, I did the natural thing—I untied the bows on each hip.

“Oh, Bryan, mmm…” she whispered as I dove in. She trimmed her bush a little for the summer, but only enough for her more modest suit. This bikini was too small, but it did make me wonder about her past. At some point, in a time before me, she must have done a lot more grooming. My pants tightened even more as I considered my wife with a landing strip—or even less—or even… nothing at all.

“Uh!” her cry broke through the hush of the bedroom before she clamped her hand over her mouth and quieted herself. I took a perverse pleasure in pushing her out of her comfort zone, though, and didn’t relent. I had 15 years of history with her, and even if we weren’t as active as we once were, I knew exactly what made her tick.

She moaned again as I pressed a finger inside of her and worked her clit in quick, short flicks. Reaching up with my free hand, I softly tweaked her nipples, not too hard, rolling them between my fingers as she gasped and shifted beneath my touch.

I knew I was close when she wrapped her legs around my head and started to squeeze. It was even closer when her hand returned to my head, her nails dragging along my bare skin as she lifted her hips up into my face. Her orgasm was quiet, but only through sheer force of will, and when she released me, I gasped for breath.

I sat back, sucking in oxygen once she finally released me from her taut thighs, and surveyed her heaving body. She looked good like that, her tits still half-supported by the flimsy bikini top, and naked from the waist down.

I stripped out of my pants and climbed over her, cock in hand. She shivered with each kiss I left along her body on my journey up—her hip bone, her stomach, the underside of her breasts, the side of her neck. I wiped my face on the pillow behind her, cleaning it of her juices before kissing her mouth.

Between us, she grabbed my dick and positioned it against her opening. It actually took a couple of tries before I could push myself inside of her—she was that tight and we were that out of practice. When I did slide home, though, I wondered why we didn’t do this all the time.

“You feel so good,” I sighed, starting to pump her.

“Oh, Bryan…” she mewed.

We did it in silence otherwise, serenaded by our gasping and huffing bodies. As good as Jennifer felt, though, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to other, sexy things. For a brief and guilt-inducing moment, I thought about Raelynn and her coed body, then her wearing the thong bikini, then a younger Jennifer wearing it.

That’s where my thoughts snagged, caught in the swirling eddy of my wife’s past, which I knew only a little about. She maintained that while she was in college, at Columbia University, she didn’t have time for boyfriends. That didn’t mean that she was celibate during that time, and while I never pressed her for many details—and she offered very little—I did know that she had at least one or two friends with benefits.

And apparently, she also had gone somewhere that allowed her to wear a racy bikini—presumably not a New York City public pool. This was so out of character for Jennifer that it had to be for some guy, which only got me going even harder.

“I’m close, honey,” I gasped.

“Yes, Bryan…” She was humming beneath me. I felt one of her heels dig into my back. “Do it, honey.”

“Oh, Jenn… uhh…” I buried my face in her blond hair. She smelled good, familiar, a return to the woman I was married to. I was there, pumping my come into her as she bit down on an orgasmic cry of her own.

“Bry…”

“Mmm…”

“Oh, that was…” She was out of breath. “That was good.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, flopping on top of her. My heart was racing with the exercise. “So fun.”

We kissed again as I rolled onto my side, taking my weight off of her. “You think the kids heard?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, stop with that.” Fingering the bikini top that was still tied around her torso, albeit now completely askew, I said, “We need to take a vacation together, away from all of this.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “Somewhere that I can wear this bikini for you?”

“Who did you wear it for?” I asked.

“Someone who liked bikinis about as much as you do.”

I was starting to get hard again. “Do I know him?” 

“Are we having this conversation? No, you don’t know him.”

“He must have been special to you,” I said.

“Why do you say that?”

I smiled, touching my face. “Baby, if I bought you a suit like that, you’d just laugh at me and tell me to return it. But this one, you actually held onto. That tells me he was special.”

“He… represented a different phase in my life, that’s all.” She untied the bikini top and held it up. “This did, too.”

“Sounds like a hell of a phase.” I toyed with her nipple, which had grown stiff again. “I would have liked to have known that version of you.”

Jennifer looked guarded. She shook her head. “No, I don’t think you would have.”

“Why’s that?”

She considered me, her soft blue eyes calibrating the right thing to say. In the end, she deflected. “Because who would fold your laundry or clean the bathroom or bring you coffee in bed every morning?”

She didn’t want to talk about it, and I wanted to respect that. We’d all done things that we weren’t proud of, even Jennifer.

Didn’t mean I didn’t wonder, though. Didn’t mean that when I dreamed that night, it wasn’t of a younger version of my wife, walking along a beach in that bikini, holding the hand of someone else. 

***

The next morning, we were at breakfast when the doorbell rang. Greyson got up to answer it while I said, “Solar panel salesman?”

Jennifer shook her head. “New windows.”

We played this game whenever we got a solicitor at our door, and we always sent one of the girls to answer it. Greyson was particularly good at telling them to go away.

This time, though, she called out, “Mom, it’s for you.”

Jennifer looked at me with puzzlement. We were still in our PJs, and while Jennifer’s jersey shorts and buttoned-up top were perfectly acceptable for the family, they were still definitely pajamas. 

“Be right there!” she shouted, going upstairs.

Kristi and I headed into the front hall, where an elderly man with a mustache and a charcoal grey suit stood patiently. If he was selling something, it wasn’t windows or solar panels. 

Jennifer was right behind us, tugging a robe around her. “May I help you?”

“Are you Jenny Olson?” 

“That’s my maiden name, yes.” Her answer was more tentative than I was used to hearing, like she was expecting to be served a subpoena. For a moment, I actually wondered if that’s what was about to happen as he held out an envelope.

“Then this is for you,” the man said.

“What is it?” Jennifer asked without actually taking it.

Another man approached behind the first, this guy closer to our age. He had a beard with streaks of gray though it and astonishingly blue eyes. “It’s a gift,” this man said. “From Charles Wellington.”

“Danny?” Jennifer asked the bearded man. She knew the man?

I had no idea what’s going on. Kristi, being Kristi, just asked it. “Mommy, what’s going on?”

The man, Danny, softened when he saw the family around her. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but Mr. Wellington passed away.”

“Oh.” Packed into that one word from Jennifer was a universe of emotion and grief. The hand clutching her robe went slack. Her face fell.

“He left you this letter,” Danny said. “And these.” He held out a set of keys. 

Jennifer took the keys from him. “Keys?”

“To Charlotte.” He stepped aside, and there, parked in the street, was a bright red, classic Corvette. Charlotte was the car.

“Whoa, Mom! Someone gave you this?” the girls squealed as they ran out to the sports car on the curb.

Jennifer just stood in the door, loosely holding the keys, her face pale and her eyes lost.

The older man produced a tablet, handing it to Jennifer. “Please sign this. It just acknowledges that you received the gift and letter, and transfers ownership.”

Jennifer signed it without reading—a very uncharacteristic thing for her to do. Then again, owning a red Corvette was about as uncharacteristic as it gets.

“It’s good to see you, Jenny,” Danny said. “Maybe next time we’ll meet under happier circumstances.”

“You may want to move the car into your garage,” the older man said. “This is a nice neighborhood, but you can’t trust the teenagers anywhere.”

With that, the two men said their goodbyes, then got into a black Town Car and left. 

“You going to explain any of this?” I asked Jennifer.

“Remember last night, when we were talking about that phase of mine?” she said, careful because the girls were still within earshot.

“Yeah?”

“Well, Charlotte here was from that time.”

“And the guy… Charles Wellington?”

Jennifer didn’t reply. She simply stared at the red sports car and nodded.

I had so many questions but now wasn’t quite the right time. The bikini, the car… There was more to this phase than Jennifer was letting on, and in that moment, I decided that I was going to find out what.

So many questions. Who is Charles Wellington? Why did he give Jennifer his named Corvette? What's in the letter? And why does she own a bikini like that? Let me know what you all think, and what you're hoping to read once I get to this story. Leave comments in this post, and I can more easily reference it in the future.