Discovering Daniel

"Brown," she said automatically and then realized that it didn't really describe her hair color accurately." Well, medium brown with natural reddish streaks, from my paternal grandmother, I am told, and blue eyes."

"Blue eyes huh? How blue?"

"Not as blue as yours," she said softly. "Nobody has eyes of blue like you do..." Claire stopped suddenly, hoping that she had not offended him with her reference to his sightless eyes.

He smiled wistfully," Yeah I remember they were deep blue. Real chick magnets." He laughed again, that deep sexy laugh that filled the air "And they got me into plenty trouble."

Claire laughed with him. She could just imagine what kind of trouble those magnets got him into. "You know," she said, the words slipping from her lips before she could stop them, "they could still get you in trouble. You're a good looking boy."

"Hear that Sheena?" he said, a mischievous smile lighting up his face as he petted her. "Claire here thinks I'm hot!"

"Oh Daniel!" She said punching him lightly on the arm. Her face was crimson with embarrassment. God, she felt like a school girl.

"Now I bet you're blushing,' he teased, "Bright red."

"Yes," she admitted, shaking her head as if to clear it. She couldn't believe the effect he was having on her.

They sat on the rocks and he turned to her. "Now," he said gently, "Do you want to tell me why you are so angry? Why you haven't laughed that gorgeous laugh in a long time?"

Tears slipped down her cheeks as the words tumbled from her mouth. She told him of her loss and the gaping void that it had left. The anger and excruciating pain she felt and her feelings of guilt at wallowing in it since she knew there were many others like herself who had also lost loved ones. She told him about Stanley, the divorce and how hard Thanksgiving had been.

Daniel listened quietly, nodding his head occasionally as she spoke, stroking her hand when he sensed she was hurting. He waited until she was finished, until her emotions were back in control before he spoke.

"It's good to let it out Claire, and to let it go," he said quietly. "Anger is like a snake it comes back to bite you over and over again with its venom. You're never free of it until you let it go. I know that..."

"Your blindness…?" She said trailing off. He looked up and said softly, "I wish I could say I got it doing something heroic like Craig, but it was a drive by shooting just on two years ago. A classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - - fate, I guess," he said philosophically. "The shot caught me in the side of the head." He brushed his hair aside so she could see the thickened scar tissue. "It severed my optical nerves. One day I could see, the next day I couldn't, simple as that."

"God how awful," she murmured and touched his hand to let him know.

"I was angry, real fucking angry. So angry that my friends turned away from me, I virtually alienated my parents. I hated everyone, everything. I wished I could die like the other two people who were hit."

"And what changed you?"

"A real sonofabitch counselor named Butch." Daniel laughed heartily at the memory. "He gave me no sympathy, but a lot of sound advice peppered with plenty of 'fuck you too,' and then he kicked my ass into gear. I only started to listen when I realized he was blind as well. He's a good friend and the only other blind person I hang out with." He grinned, "Right now I'm trying to convince him to do Judo with me."

"Judo?"

He nodded, "Yeah it's a great contact sport where sight is not an issue. It's all about discipline and confidence. It helps me to keep fit plus it's an opportunity to mash somebody good who can see."

Claire laughed again at his words. She had been intently watching his facial movements and his gestures. It was so difficult to believe he was blind, and she told him so.

"It's been a tough journey," he said wryly. "The worst is the loss of your independence and the way people react to you. I still get people saying dumb things like, "Does Daniel take sugar in his coffee?" I'm only blind for fucks sake, not deaf and mute as well."

"Yes and then I go right ahead with my rudeness the other day and ask you if you are deaf."

"But at least you did that before you discovered I was blind, and afterwards, you treated me the same anyway."

"Thank you Daniel," Claire said softly.

"What for?"

"For listening and for making me feel better."

"Look Claire, I'm not going to give you the whole 'fuck you too speech' he grinned, "but think about it, try letting the anger go ok?"

She nodded thoughtfully, "Yes, ok I will try."

"Good," he said standing up and stretching "Now we better head back. I have a date tonight. But before we go I want to do something."

"What?" she choked as she absorbed his words. A date! Dammit!

"I want to give you a hug," he said pulling her towards him and wrapping his arms around her. She had wanted nothing more all afternoon than to be in his arms, but suddenly she felt self-conscious, aware of her 45 years of age and his youthfulness, that he had some other woman, a younger woman waiting for him somewhere. Why the hell did she feel so envious of the girl?

"Shit," he said, "That's not a hug Claire, you are as stiff as a board. Let me show you how to hug." He guided her arms around his waist and embraced her firmly, pushing his pelvis towards hers "Ok," he grinned,"now here's the best part; you relax and squeeze hard like you mean it, like it feels good."

It did feel good. It felt better than good being crushed against his broad chest, pressing into him and feeling the pressure of his groin up against hers. She pulled away reluctantly.

"Lets go, you'll be late for your date," she said trying to steady her breathing.

"Yeah, "he said following Sheena's lead as they headed back to the path. "It's a once-a-year-date with Kurt the Pastry Chef and his red-haired babe Angela who waits tables in the dining room. Tonight we get to..."

"To do what?" Fuck, she wished she didn't sound so inquisitorial.

"Decorate the Christmas tree in the small lounge." His words rushed out in a humorous babble.

Claire almost fainted with relief and her heart skipped a beat. There wasn't a girl after all. There wasn't a real date.

"How about joining us?" Daniel said.

"Uh you mean helping to decorate the tree," She shook her head, "I uh don't think so, no but thanks for asking," she blurted.

A look of disappointment flickered across his face, "Ok I guess if you're not ready, if you want to keep hiding from people..."

"Daniel, that's not fair!"

"Claire c'mon it'll be fun. Kurt makes a mean eggnog and we won't play the fucking carols." His sightless eyes bore into her. " Please..." He urged, "I want you to be there with me."

~ ~ ~

Kurt refilled Claire's cup with his high-cholesterol, high-octane eggnog. The first cup of the frothy brew had slid down well, after she got accustomed to the potency. Angela had bragged that Kurt used George Washington's recipe and that only the very courageous could handle the stiff drink. She had winked adoringly at Kurt when she uttered the word 'stiff' and Claire smiled to herself at their little intimate exchange. The eggnog had definitely spiced up the atmosphere and added merriment to the proceedings. True to his word, Daniel had ensured that no Christmas Carols were played, but their rowdy banter drowned out the background music anyway.

Daniel placed the last round bauble on the tree and took a step backward. "So are my red balls skew? Or do they fit in with your bows?" He asked Claire.

"Your balls look perfect between Claire's bows," Kurt said chortling while he threaded small fairy lights through the tree. He switched them on and the tree lit up in a riot of shiny colors.

Claire giggled uncharacteristically but she couldn't help herself. She felt surprisingly good. Much better than she thought she would have. Daniel dropped onto the couch next to her and casually put his arm around her shoulder.

"Has Angela put up the mistletoe yet?" He asked with a roguish grin.

"Why," Claire said, enjoying the light pressure of his thigh against her own but knowing that smile meant trouble.

Daniel moved his lips to her ear. "Because I want to kiss you," he whispered.

Christ, he didn't need a mistletoe excuse to kiss her, but she shrugged nonchalantly bolstered by the liquor.

"Are you trying to hit on me Daniel?" she asked teasingly.

"Take me to the nearest mistletoe now." He growled huskily and she felt a bolt of heat course through her veins at the tone of his words.

She led him to the doorway and stood facing him. Very gently he took her face in his hands and caressed her lips with his thumb, before bending towards her and brushing his mouth against hers. It was a soft sweet kiss, and Claire thought her heart might break from the tenderness of his lips. A small sound ripped from her throat as she moved into his arms and kissed him back more fervently, her passion rising as his tongue snaked into her mouth and found hers.

"No, stop…" She gasped, tearing herself from his embrace.

"Why?"

Claire looked around expecting Kurt and Angela to be watching them but mercifully they were nowhere in sight. Her heart raced like she had just run a mile and she flinched at the wetness that had moistened her panties. God she was a mature woman shamefully leading on a boy young enough to be her son.

"I just... I don't know," she stammered, "I mean we can't do this Daniel, it's not right."

"Not right," he said softly. "Why? I like you a lot Claire and I sense you like me, so why is it not right?"

"Because it's not going to stop at a kiss," she said breathlessly, her heart threatening to explode between her ribs.

"And what's wrong with that?" He asked cynically." Or are you afraid it's going to be a sympathy fuck?"

Claire recoiled at his words, "God no Daniel, Never! Oh Jesus no. I mean, I'm forty five and you're what? Twenty five, I'm old enough..."

"Twenty eight." Daniel corrected, "But so fucking what? I've learned that life doesn't come in small neatly packaged boxes of perfection, like presents under a Christmas tree. It comes in strange shapes and sizes. It sometimes kicks the shit out of you and other times it comes in wonderful crazy forty five year old women. I take it one day at a time, because that's all I can do. Who the fuck knows what tomorrow will bring."

His words resonated in her ears, he was right. Who would have ever thought that her life would have changed so dramatically that...?

"Come," he said taking her hand firmly. "Sheena let's go home girl."

He led her outside and around the main buildings. It was bitterly cold and small flakes of snow had begun to fall. Her breath came out in steamy swirls as they made their way across to the staff quarters which were situated in a two story building. By the time they stepped into the entrance Claire was feeling dizzy with nervousness.

As she climbed the stairs in the richly paneled stairwell, Daniel ahead of her with his dog, a million thoughts rushed through her head. She wished she were wearing a skirt instead of jeans, wished she'd had the foresight to have dressed in something more accessible, something that would make the impending, inevitable and irrevocable act easier to accomplish. On the landing outside the door he stopped and turned to her kissing her again. She moved in against him, her bulky jacket yet another obstacle to overcome. His hands crept inside the jacket and caressed her sweatered breasts. Oh God what am I doing? She thought as she tilted her pelvis into him an instant before he broke away to unlock the door.

She scarcely saw the room. It was a swirl of background impressions that served only as a setting for Daniel, for what he was doing to her and about to do to her. Daniel bent to free Sheena from her harness and leash and she scampered happily away to her basket Claire watched him, his movements so sure and confident as he slipped the jacket off her shoulders and tossed it onto a nearby sofa. He took her into his arms again and found her mouth with his lips. His hands slid swiftly under the bulky woolen sweater and caressed her back. She felt her breasts fall suddenly free and realized he had unclasped her bra. A groan escaped her as his fingers found her naked nipples.

He took her hand and led her swiftly to the bedroom. She felt a rush of excitement and a tug of guilt, he was so much younger than her, but she needed this, needed him so much. This was the one place in time that she wanted desperately to be with this man. They both shed their clothing as they moved toward the bed. He tossed his jacket wherever it landed, unbuttoned his shirt down the front and at the cuffs, took that off as well and pulled her towards him again, kissing her, her hands on his smooth bare chest, his hands clutching her ass. Breathlessly she broke away and sat on the bed, took off her boots and dropped them to the floor. She eased out of her jeans and stood again to rip the sweater off. She turned to him wearing only short white woolen socks and white cotton panties cut high on the leg.

He was naked. Her eyes roved over his body, grazed his cock and boldly lingered there. She wanted to touch him, suck him, and take him inside her.

"Oh Daniel," she groaned feeling girlish, almost virginal standing there in socks and panties. Her pussy was suddenly so wet that she thought she would come in the next instant whether he touched her again or not.

Daniel stood with his legs slightly parted, his arms opening to accept her. She moved into his embrace and felt at once the enormity of him between her legs, nudging the moist panties covering her pussy. They stood this way, joined but yet unjoined for several seconds, her arms on his shoulders, his arms around her waist, she looking up into his face, his eyes closed as he savored the feel of her nakedness against him. He lowered his face to hers again and found her lips, he parted them with his tongue and she took it hungrily into her mouth. She rode his cock gently, her panties drenched, rocking herself back and forth on him, her eyes closed, her mouth joined to hers. With a sweep of his arms he lifted her and placed her on the bed.

Lying beside him in his arms she started to say, "I've never..."

"Shhh," he said as he claimed her mouth again and let his lips trail down to her breasts. Gasping for breath, she tried to find the voice to tell him that she had never done anything like this before. That her husband was the only man she had ever been with, but his lips on her nipples drove all thoughts from her fevered head. She clutched him to her passionately, twisting on the pillow, tossing her head and her hips as he licked first one nipple then the other, while he caressed and fondled her breasts.

"Yes, yes," she whimpered as he suddenly clenched both breasts in his hands, bringing them together, the nipples almost touching as he took them in his mouth simultaneously and sucked on them deeply. She was delirious; she had never in her life felt anything like this intense pleasure as he worked them relentlessly. She was going to come. Oh Jesus, she thought, don't make me come yet, just fuck me damn it, just put that cock in me.

"Oh God," she groaned out loud.

As deliberately as Daniel had worked her stiffened nipples, he now began to work the crotch of her saturated white panties, his hands moving mercilessly, stroking and caressing. She raised her buttocks off the bed and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of the panties at the same time. She began yanking them over her hips.

No, don't," he said firmly.

He gave her no time to register puzzlement. He clutched her hands by the wrists instead, her thumbs still hooked in the panties and glided his body down the length of hers, kissing her breasts again in passing, trailing a wet line between her ribs, licking her navel, kissing the fingertips of each hand captured in his, brushing his lips over the soft curves of her hips and the flat of her belly above the panties, and finally pressing them to the bulge of her cotton covered crotch.

Claire felt the pressure of his mouth and chin on her pussy. She knew he could feel and smell how wet she was, how saturated her panties were, how revealingly soaked she was, how drenched and dripping and desperate she was for him. For Christ's sake fuck me already, she thought, hesitant to say the words out loud, but saying them over and over in her head like a mantra. Fuck me, fuck me, damn it! The exquisite pain of his slow exploration was driving her wild. She tried to reach for his cock, but he moved his hips skillfully keeping it out of her reach.

'Don't interfere with my discovery of your body," he growled as his lips kissed the insides of her thighs on either side of her panties and licked the tender flesh there. He moved the panties aside, just the merest fraction of an inch to lick the soft secret skin close to her pubic patch.

"Fuck, Daniel, please, please!" she whimpered as he bunched the panties in one hand so that they created a narrow thong covering only her slippery slit. He yanked up on the thong to capture the slit, working her clitoris with the cloth. Slit and clit and cloth so thoroughly shamelessly sodden. Then suddenly, overwhelmed by his own desire he grasped the fabric in both hands and ripped it wide open over her cunt, exposing her completely.

"Do it," she whispered as he lowered himself down to where she was waiting, wet and open for him.

'Fuck me! Yesss!" she screamed as she felt him entering her, filling her wet aching void with his rampant hardness. "Oh God," she groaned again as she wrapped her legs around him and lifted herself to him. She realized she was still wearing the silly white socks as he began his relentless thrusting into her.

He drove into her deeply. Claiming her body and reaching into the very core of her soul as he took her higher and higher with each thrust until the sensations coursing through her forced her to scream out and jerk uncontrollably with him. They writhed and arched as if dancing to some mysterious beat, moaning and kissing as they fell over the edge together in an explosion of pure pleasure.

~ ~ ~

Their night of passion had thrown Claire into a spin. She kept reliving it; the exquisite teasing, his hands, his cock and her orgasm, the most intense and satisfying of her entire life. Daniel was working with a fully booked schedule and the time dragged agonizingly slowly until she could see him again. When they finally met for dinner she was a bundle of taut nerves. Their electric touches over dinner told her that Daniel felt the same way and by the time they were naked in his room she was trembling uncontrollably with desire.

'God, I missed you today," Daniel moaned as he kissed her hungrily and let his hands slip into her seeping cunt.

"No, wait," she gasped squirming from his grip. "Tonight, is my turn to have you completely." All the doubts she had about them were pushed from her mind. They were the fears of yesterday, of a time when she was not so confidant about herself. Today she was a beautiful sensual woman living in the moment and she wanted more than anything to pleasure the man who had brought her to this point.

She saw the questioning look on his face fade and she almost thought she saw a spark in his eyes. Oh God, what beautiful eyes.

She began her journey there. Kissing around his eyes and over the thick dark lashes when he closed them. Her hand moved softly, drawing lazy circles through the fine dark hair on his flat belly as her mouth worked over his face kissing his neck. She darted her tongue into his ear and sucked on the lobe as he shuddered. She smiled, and continued with the light imperceptible swirls on his belly trailing her fingers lower into his pubic hair but not touching his aching cock. Her lips brushed his as she dragged her tongue downwards to his nipples. Her own arousal threatened to overwhelm her as she sucked his nipples into her mouth and felt them stiffen against her tongue.