F6: Of Love and Laundry

Helen was looking blankly at him. "Rumors?" she said.

"Uh ... yes, about you and the ... the laundry room in the dorm where you're staying," Jim was looking at the wall, his computer screen, the dis-assembled bits of pen in his hand, anywhere but at her. "You realize, of course, that ... strict code of ethics and ... regarded very unfavorably but I will do all I can to help you," he looked earnestly at her, cleared his throat and said in a too loud voice: "Rumors that you ... might have had relations with students in the laundry room of your dorm."

"Oh my God!" Helen burst out laughing.

Jim felt both embarrassed and relieved. He had a moment of intense pleasure imagining going and telling that fucking asshole Carver what he thought of him for falsely putting Jim in this position.

"It wasn't with a student," Helen scooted her chair in. "Do you mean that someone saw us and ... reported us? How embarrassing." She giggled merrily as she stooped her head to look up at him through her lashes.

"Oh," Jim said. "So you did ... uh."

"Oh God," Helen laughed. "I'm so embarrassed now. I can't believe people thought I'd have sex with a student!"

"Students," Jim mumbled, starting to blush.

"No! Seriously?" Helen was overcome with mirth. "Oh no, Jim. I'm sorry," she reached out and put her warm hand on top of his, over the dis-assembled parts of the pen. "It was Davey. You know, that time after the drinks party."

Jim sat quite still, staring at their hands over each other and the pieces of pen on his desk.

"I didn't mean anything by it," Helen went on penitently. "Well I ... I was a bit mad at you, I guess, and Davey was up for it. I'm sorry, Jim."

"You ... and Davey," Jim said slowly. "Our technician, Davey?"

"Well, yeah, sorry," Helen said. "But it didn't mean anything. It was just a bit of fun."

"That's why his work is off now," Jim said, lifting his head and looking suddenly round into her eyes.

"I ... no, surely not," Helen protested. "It was just a bit of fun. He knows it wasn't serious."

"Helen, how could you!" Jim protested. "Davey's a junior member of the team. That would be like ... me hitting on you."

Helen turned her head, staring at him from narrowed grey-green eyes. "Would that be an issue?" she said softly. She pressed down on his hand with her soft warm hand.

Jim felt a sudden rush of adrenalin through his body. It was as if all his blood surged to his cock. He felt his cock stiffen in his pants, harden against his thigh. He started panting. A picture popped up in his head of Helen Buchan, sitting on a washing machine, with her long legs wide open for him.

"You like me, don't you?" Helen's voice had a pleading tremor in it. "I ... I like you, Jim. I'm sorry I went off with Davey. I only did it to get at you."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He stared at her, dumbstruck. His cock throbbed hard in his pants, he felt a wet leak of precum on his leg.

"I know you're a married man," she said, in that trembling pleading voice, looking at him with her gray-green eyes shimmering with tears. "I don't want to get in the way, break up your family or anything." He gave a galvanic shudder. "I just thought you could handle a little bit of fun. A game or two if we go to a conference together? A lunchtime blowjob maybe?" Jim stared speechless at her. "Or a titfuck?"

The situation had gotten completely out of control. He stood abruptly up, pulling his hand away from under Helen's. He walked over to his window and stared out of it.

Suddenly all he could think about were Chloe's big bouncing tits. He thought of shoving his cock between them. He had never imagined such an act and now it ballooned in his mind. Those beautiful big breasts with the large round dark nipples. He had loved to play with them: fingering and squeezing them, turning Chloe on until she was ready to explode on him.

Once in the later days of her pregnancy with their son Peter, he had even suckled at her tit. She had playfully squirted thin sweet milk into his mouth.

Then she became so sensitive. She couldn't bear his rough fondling of her breasts. Breast-feeding Peter was difficult and painful for her. Becky was an easier baby but by then Chloe was bogged down in a morass of nappies and blended food -- exhausted, sleeping with one or both babies cuddled to her. He wasn't the kind of egotistical monster who would demand he too got a turn at the fabulous funbags.

"My God," he said, turning round to the colleague sitting in his office. "What kind of old lech do you think I am?"

Her face crumpled, became narrow and shrewish. "I've seen you looking at me!" she cried. "I just want ... to write with you, but you told me off to present some crappy old stuff and now you're going to write with Brian!" She burst into tears.

This was a nightmare. Tears at home, where Chloe sniffled through the nights by his side in bed. Now tears in his fucking office. What was wrong with these women? Jim seized on the one thing she was saying that made any sense to him.

"You just want to write with me?" he repeated. "What do you think we're working towards, in the lab? You don't have to sleep with every member of the team for us to write with you!"

Helen sobbed bitterly at this.

Jim crossed back over to her and sat down in his chair, trembling with adrenalin and emotion. He conceded to himself that perhaps he had been a bit harsh there. He found one of the paper napkins which Chloe would put in with his sandwiches on his desk and offered it to Helen. She took it with a little claw of a hand and sniffled into the rag of paper.

"Of course I look at you," he said, conscious of his swollen cock throbbing against his thigh. "You're a very attractive woman. That doesn't mean I'm going to act on it."

"Why not?" she whimpered. "What's wrong with a bit of fun?"

"It wouldn't be just a bit of fun," he said intently. "We're colleagues, part of a team. I'm your line manager."

She stared at him over the rag of paper napkin with her gray-green eyes still awash with tears.

"OK," he said. "I was wrong to give you an easy ride ... time of it at the seminars. I just thought you were so loaded with teaching, and new in the department ... maybe I wouldn't have done the same for a guy, though, maybe I would have pushed him harder. But you can't react to that by coming on to me, Helen. You should've come to tell me how you felt about it, then we could have made some plans for what you might write in the spring.

"Well," he said. "At least we can tell that asshole Carver where to stuff it, with his crap about sex with students. He'll still rant about improper behavior on the university premises. I can handle that though. I'll tell him, like Chloe says, people ramp up any story about you because you're an attractive young woman and they're jealous.

"But, Helen, I can't have you playing fast and loose with the team members. This isn't a James Bond movie set. We may be a bunch of old fuddy-duddies whom you can take out one by one because you are hash tag distractingly sexy, but if you want to work with us you better take us seriously as colleagues."

"I'm s-s-sorry," she sniffled.

"Yeah, well, let's put it behind us," he said bracingly. "Davey's young, he'll get over it and stop leching at you instead of paying attention to the algorithms in Nanomodeler. Hey, let's get some lunch -- we can go to the faculty dining hall and pick something up," Jim suggested, desperate to get out of the one-on-one.

Helen looked at his desk and said: "Haven't you got your sandwich today?"

"Oh ... uh, my wife's been busy," Jim said. "She didn't get time to make a packed lunch today."

"Oh," Helen said. "Your wife ... makes your packed lunch."

"Oh yeah," Jim laughed. "You don't imagine I get up every morning and cut myself a sandwich!" He laughed heartily, mainly with relief that the embarrassing discussion was over. "Never mind the dining hall, it will be full of those gossiping assholes. They'll be talking about us next! You don't want your reputation tarnished by people saying you'd bother with an old lech like me, ha ha. I'll drive us to the mall and buy you lunch," he got up and fetched his coat before she could disagree.

In a public place, ordering a meal, he felt more relaxed. He avoided wine, suggesting in a decisive manner to Helen Buchan that they should have some mineral water with their meal.

She went off to powder her nose -- he hoped. It was quite red with her crying.

He was checking out the menu when he heard his name and looked up to see the manager of the shelter, Dora, coming towards him.

"Oh Jim!" she said, sitting down beside him. "I'm so very sorry." She looked earnestly deep into his eyes.

"Oh ... yeah," Jim said vaguely.

"We're all hoping it will be good news. For you and Chloe and the kids' sakes. Although truth be told, I don't know what we'll do if Chloe has to take too much time off," her voice quivered with emotion. "She's our rock, Jim. You will take care of her for us, won't you?"

Helen was coming back and Dora lifted her head, assessed Helen with a considering look, then just smiled a greeting.

"I'm so particularly sorry, Jim," she said, getting up to go. "I know how hard you must find it, what with having lost your father to cancer. Chloe told me how tough that was on you, how you had to hold it together for your mother and sister at the time. You're a good man, Jim. Take care of her, won't you."

And she was gone.

Jim stared after Dora. Helen was looking curiously after her, and then at him. He stared at the table, the cutlery lined up in front of him.

Suddenly, embarrassingly, he burst into tears. Great sobs surged up from deep inside him. The tears poured down his face. Dad! His Dad! Flashes of memory flickered through his brain. His first bike. Trips out with the scouts when his Dad taught them all woodcraft. He remembered having to stand at the graveside with his mother and sister clinging to him, howling with grief. Later Chloe tried to hold him, saying: "You can cry with me," but he couldn't.

Now this tidal force of sorrow came surging up from the depths to carry him away on a flood of tears. Helen Buchan was sitting by him desperately patting his arm and saying: "Jim! What's wrong? What's happened?"

Luckily they had a corner table and Helen drove off the concerned waiters, ineffectually patting his arm while he sobbed into his hands. Finally he was just sitting, his face wet with tears. He felt a curious sense of peace. He felt so much clearer about so many things.

He couldn't tell Helen Buchan he was weeping over the death of his father ten years previously. He said: "It's Chloe. It's my wife. She has a lump in her b-b-breast."

Suddenly he broke into a fresh fit of sobs. It was true! It was about Chloe. "What will I do if it's cancer?" he sobbed. "I couldn't live without her!"

His pocket rocket, his playmate and soulmate. The little energetic bundle with the rich dark sweet voice like licorice and the glorious gorgeous big tits. He was horrified at the realization that she might lose a breast. Those beautiful round boobs he had played with, with which she had suckled and nourished their children.

"Oh my God!" Helen put her arm around him and hugged him. "I'm so sorry, Jim. That's awful."

This second bout of grief was less intense and it wasn't long before he was able to wipe his face and sit up, heaving a big sigh. He ordered them some lunch and sat eating thoughtfully opposite a now rather guilt-stricken Helen Buchan.

"I'm going to take a couple of weeks down time," he said. "It's probably just fatty tissue but I need to be there for Chloe. I'll work from home and plan to come back after Christmas."

"I ... I can run the new set of experiments with Liam," Helen offered. "And ... uh, Davey," she gave an embarrassed smirk.

"Of course you can," Jim said. "Les will be able to take on most of the management of the project, you must step up to help him. He hasn't got the overall vision. Plus, can you work on that paper with Brian? If the two of you pull something together I'll go through it in January. If you pull it off ... manage that, you can be lead author."

Her face lit up. He smiled past the tears still glistening in his eyes. As he sat back, he caught sight of the golden flash in her cleavage. It was a gold electrode which had been adapted and made into a pendant.

Jim sat in his study staring blankly at his computer screen. He heard the front door open, then close, and one of the kids walk through to the kitchen. It must be Peter, his steps were heavier.

After a while, he heard a weird snuffling moaning noise. Although the sounds were quiet, he was worried they would get louder and wake Chloe, whom he had persuaded to lie down and rest before he went food shopping with her. (It was incredible how much stuff the family seemed to get through in a week. Good job he was pretty fit, the amount of canned goods and heavy boxes he had to lift into and out of the car.)

He walked into the kitchen and found Peter sitting at the table with his head in his hands, weeping. As he came in, Peter started to slowly bang his forehead on the table.

"Peter!" he exclaimed in a strangled hiss. He hurriedly shut the kitchen door to block the noise and went to prevent his son from banging his head again. "What's the matter? Is someone bullying you at school? What's happened?"

Peter lifted a face glowering and sulky with tears to him, refusing to reply.

"Come on, son," Jim pleaded. "What's wrong? You can tell me, I'm your Dad. Have you got a girl in trouble or something?"

Peter looked outraged, then burst into loud snorting sobs and threw himself at the table again.

"I don't want Mom to die! I don't want Mom to die-ie-ie!" he howled.

Jim had a momentary impulse to bang his own head on the table and howl: "I don't either!" but he sat down and put his arm around his son, patting his head.

"Mom's not going to die," he said firmly. "She just has a lump, it's probably nothing. Your Mom is a real healthy woman. She doesn't smoke, drink -- too much -- or do crack cocaine. She eats all your leftovers so she has enough greens to feed a horse." He wanted to huggle Peter in his arms but his son was too big for that now. Awww, when had his little boy grown up so big and tall? Nostalgic tears sprang to his eyes as he fondled the boy's hair.

"How about I make us some coffee?" Jim offered. "Or hot chocolate," he amended. Was fourteen old enough yet to drink coffee? What did his son drink at breakfast?

Jim bumbled between the cupboards until Peter got up, sniffing, and fetched out the chocolate powder and some marshmallows to sprinkle on top. Jim put some milk on to heat.

"That's way too much, Dad," Peter said. "Pour some back. God, you wouldn't last ten minutes without Mom," his voice started to wobble again.

"Don't worry about your mother," Jim said firmly, patting Peter's shoulder. "It'll just be a lump of fatty tissue, you'll see. And at least I know what to get her for Christmas this year."

Peter looked suspiciously at him. There had been some comic scenes when Chloe opened presents from him in the past.

"I can get her some bigger bras!"

"Ugh, urgggh, Dad, that's gross!" Peter cried in disgust.

It was still velvet dark with that lack of light that means the early hours of the morning. Jim lay staring at nothing for a moment. Tentatively he reached out a hand, into empty space beside him.

He sat up and peered at his bedside clock. Two a.m..

He went down the stairs, tying his robe around his naked chest, his pajama trousers flapping against his legs. He found Chloe in the living room, ironing a big heap of clothes and watching re-runs of Downton Abbey.

"What are you doing?" he asked, coming to try to take the iron away from her.

"I need to get this all ready so I won't have to do it after the biopsy!" Chloe's voice was high with anxiety.

"No, Chloe, I'll do it," Jim pleaded. "You need to get some sleep. Do it tomorrow."

"I have to run another laundry load tomorrow, it's going to be a fine day, I can hang it out."

"Jesus, Chloe, I'll do it. I said I'd help you but you're not letting me."

"You don't know how. You'll get it wrong."

"For Christ's sake, I'm running centrifuges in a lab all the time. I can turn on a washing machine."

Chloe paused, staring at him. Taking advantage, Jim pulled the plug for the iron out of the socket and took hold of her arm.

"Come on," he said. "Come back to bed."

"I don't want to lose my boob!" Chloe blurted out suddenly.

"Oh God!" he cried, pulling her into his arms. "I don't want to lose it either!" He felt them mash against him, the big rolling playthings of their early marriage years. "Don't, Chloe," he moaned. "It'll be fine. You'll be fine."

She stood shaking with fear in his arms.

"I'll ... be fine," she repeated in that high anxious voice. She went through the litany: "I don't smoke, I don't drink much. I eat healthy."

Jim hugged her to him. What would he ever do if she wasn't fine? He wouldn't think about it.

"Come on back to bed," he steered her out of the door and up the stairs, past the closed doors of the kids sunk deep in psychedelic teenage dreams. (He would never have believed how hard it was to get a teenager awake in time for school.)

As they came in the bedroom door, Chloe said mournfully: "I never even got to wear a corset. Maybe I never will."

"You said you didn't like them," Jim said incredulously.

"What? When?"

"When the Mendozas were buying one. You said it was Frank making Karen into an object to ogle."

"Oh-h-h, maybe," she admitted. Then the tears started dripping down her nose. "Karen showed me the one he bought her online. It was so pretty! I couldn't help thinking I would look real good in it, because although I'm fat I have got good boobs."

"You're not fat," Jim said automatically.

"I don't want to lose a boob," she sobbed. "Maybe I will have to have both cut off, I can't go round with one boob, I'll look so weird."

"Oh no, Chloe!" he pleaded. "Your boobs are so great. Even if you have one boob it will be as good, because your boobs are twice as great as anyone-else's so it will even things up."

She laughed through her tears at this, then she turned urgently to him. "Jim," she said. "Please. I know I don't turn you on but I need you. I need to have something ... before maybe, I lose one of my boobs."

"Chloe, you're not thinking straight," he answered, sitting down on the bed. "Of course you turn me on! We're so stressed with all of this. It doesn't seem like the right time to just be having a little bit of fun.... Oh God!" Suddenly he reached out and pulled her to him so that his face smashed into the soft fat pillows of her tits. He rubbed his head side to side in between the two of them. Chloe clutched her head to him, hugging his head into her boobs.

He pulled up her nightie. She was helping him, lifting it up, jutting her big breasts out at him. With a greedy sigh, he eyed the large orbs with dark nipples like licorice wheels in the center of big fat buns. He groaned with lust, made a circle out of one finger and thumb to put round her nipple.

The teat was standing up and out. He put his mouth to her tit and ran his tongue over her nipple and teat. He suckled the breast into his mouth. He put his hand up to rub and play with her other tit.

"Yes, yes!" Chloe moaned. "Please, please, Jim. More; I need this, give me more. Play with my breasts. Please!"

He pushed at her to get her to lie back on the bed. He pulled her nightie over her head. Straddling her buxom hips, he placed hands on both her boobs and began massaging and fingering the flesh of her breasts and the teats of her nipples.