Lightning Bugs and Spring Storms

Lying on my hammock, listening to the soft singing of the cicadas in the trees, I swayed in the cool spring breeze that was making the white, dogwood blooms dance overhead.

Far above those white flower-laden trees the clouds were sweeping past, not fluffy and innocent cotton candy clouds but angry looking clouds. Off in the distance I heard a rumble that promised the rain they had said was soon to come. Within an hour or so I would have to go inside, but for now the approaching storm was just enough to drive away the muggy late April heat. It also helped carry off some of the far-too-sickeningly-sweet honeysuckle smell of the blooming shrubbery. The tall hedge was yellow-white with the flowered vines. The hedge that separated my yard from my neighbor's.

Ah, my neighbor, Sharon.

A more beautiful woman I have never in my life seen. Her hair was like sun-burnt corn, it shown golden in the sunlight, giving her head a gilded halo. When she looked at you her, eyes were the waters of the swimming hole I spent half my youth at. Warm and dark blue on top, but underneath they were almost cold. Cold and with a half-hidden darkness that could pull you down into those cold unimaginable depths. Those eyes hide things. Secrets. Secrets I would have loved to know. But then I had my secrets as well.

She didn't recognize me when she moved in, but there was no reason for her to but I knew her though. We had gone to the same school. She had been prom queen, head cheerleader, most popular senior. Me? I had been just another of the trench-coat-wearing, cigarette smokers on the corner. No one for the likes of her to remember.

She had grown in beauty since school. But even then she had outshone the girls around her.

Now?

Now she was a goddess.

A goddess with a flaw.

I smiled when I heard the soft music from her open window on the other side of the hedge. "You could almost set a watch by this woman," I thought as I adjusted myself in my sweatpants. I strained my ears to listen past the sounds of the bugs and the sound of the music.

Startled, I blinked as a lightning bug blinked right in front of my nose. Smiling, I lifted my hand and snagged him from the air, old memories of catching and putting them into jars lending my hand old skills. I opened my palm and looked with the same delight I had felt as a child at the little black bug walking across my palm. His lighted tail winked at me. As I watched him walk towards my thumb, he gave me a few more blinks, and then opened his wings and flew off into the night.

I grinned thinking the story he would have to tell his wife.

That grin grew as, in the growing darkness, I heard the low, soft moan of a woman lost in the throes of passion. I wondered, as I listened to her, if she was even aware of the pattern she had fallen into. Masturbating at the same time every Saturday night, like a clock.

Now, like most of the houses around here, my neighbor Sharon opened her windows at night during this time of year to save on the power bill.

Listening to her moan, I relaxed into my hammock and enjoyed the throaty sound. I turned my head more towards the thick hedge that hide me from her view. The honey suckle smell was beyond perfume. It was nearly obnoxiously sweet.

I heard a second deeper moan.

Looking between the flowers I could make out flashes of light from her side of the hedge. I wondered absently if the bug I had caught was among those flashing. I took hold of my cock as I listened to her moaning. Soon those sounds would be coming quicker and quicker together. Low moans, soft gasps of pleasure. Clockwork. I wondered what event in life has her locked into this pattern of Saturday night self-pleasure. My mind had played through different scenarios, but I was sure none were right.

So many years had passed since the last frantic days of high school. That mad scramble to get yearbooks signed by people you would never see again. I knew without looking that her name wasn't in mine. I didn't have the courage to ask her to sign it back then.

I slipped my hand quietly up and down my cock listening to her. The shaft was hard and the skin slid silky through my fingers. The idea of how silky her skin must feel passed through my mind. The sounds from the window, only feet away beyond the hedge, grew in volume. The tone changed to a more demanding pace. I stroked myself faster in response. A flash of light pulled my eyes, not bugs this time, but true lightning. The rumble of thunder silenced the cicadas. The breeze stopped suddenly. The wind chimes on my porch grew silent. I heard deep throated begs for pleasure from her now. Demands for sexual gratification really.

I wished, as I stroked my cock, that I had the courage to go knock on her door and offer to satisfy those demands. Those and any other she might have in mind. Hell, I would have worshiped at her feet if I could make her cum just once. My fingers, tongue, and cock would have been all hers to command. Her moans begin to become whimpers and I had to suppress the desire to join mine with hers. I knew if I did that, and she heard me, she would stop and these magical nights would end.

Opening my eyes, I watched the lightning bugs by the hedge blinking their frantic codes, probably looking for their lover's light pattern in the darkness. I smiled as for a second I wished it was that simple for me. Then the absurdity of my ass flashing a light to attract a woman distracted me for a second.

The breeze returned at that moment, stronger than before. The smell of the hedge disappeared and the scent of rain began to fill my nose. I looked up at the sky, but then I heard her all but scream out her passion as her pleasure peeked. My distractions had me off pace with her, and I tried to pull on my cock all the faster hoping to cum while my ears were straining to catch those last few panting moans. I was so very close to coming.

So very close.

A dreadfully close crawl of lightning split the sky overhead! Hunkered down in the hammock, I heard the wood framed glass panes in my open windows rattle when the thunder shook the whole neighborhood.

Through the hedge I saw the lighted outline of her window suddenly appear. Her window jam slammed shut, killed the notes of soft music. My desire had already been killed by the scare and without her unknowing presence I couldn't have finished anyway. As I put my cock away it didn't concern me overly much. I knew that next Saturday night my vocal lover and I would again be together. If only she knew she was that to me.

At a second flash of lightning, not as close but still far too close, I rushed from the hammock to go close my own windows. Once inside the house I was a rat in a maze, going from corner to corner, closing windows, shutting out the storm. The first heavy drops of rain were falling as I got to the last one.

Looking out my window, across the hedge, her eyes and mind meet. We both stood arms lifted to pull windows down. She was wearing only a thin slip of pale blue, which hugged her incredible body like an old lovers hands. I saw the terror on her face as the distant storm sirens started to howl. The low to high screams warned of this storm's approaching fury. Looking away for a second as lightning flashed, I missed seeing her dash from the window.

Moving through the house, I paused by the TV. What I saw told me I needed to be moving faster. A lot faster. I grabbed my raincoat and flashlight from the backdoor as I rushed out into the storm. I saw a light moving franticly across her backyard towards the hedge gate between our yards. When she had first moved in I told her to use my storm shelter if the weather got bad, since her house doesn't have one. I struggled my way into my raincoat as I crossed my yard. The lightning bugs were gone, their night of pleasure with their mate as interrupted as my own had been.

I watched her flashlight disappear into the door of the shelter even as lightning struck a tree in my own front yard. I hugged the ground in terror, as frightened as my cave dwelling ancestors must have been at the power of the sky.

As even more lightning ignited the sky above I saw for a second a demonic shape in the clouds that make that bit of electrical terror seem insignificant.

A funnel shape!

Shaking, I clawed at the wet grass trying to bring myself to my feet, and then I fled, in mindless terror from that which I cannot fight, even as the wind begins to build a roaring sound. As I pulled open the door of the tornado shelter my ears were popping. I saw the transformer, on its pole across the street from my house, exploded in a ball of green fire that was then sucked upwards. I had to fight a horrible suction to get the door closed again. I slammed the bar into place even as the roar became loud enough to be heard through the thick concrete walls. Less a train, as I've always heard, more a big jet engine before the plane takes off.

I backed away from the door when something-heavy hit it bare seconds after I got it closed. I turned and found her in my arms. Her body was trembling like the leaves in my trees. I held her to me as she cried in terror, but I could not hear her sobs over the sound coming through the walls to us. She was I noticed, in the light of her discarded flashlight, still dressed in the blue slip I had seen her in earlier, only now it was soaked. It clung to her body like a second skin, the silk wet from the storm.

As I held her trembling body, I realized then that some of her shivers were maybe from the cold. I shrugged out of my coat and wrapped it around her. As I did that she looked up at me and I found myself lost in those deep blue eyes. Pushed beyond simple fears by the terror of the storm, I did what I have never had the courage to do my whole life. Even as the full fury of a southern wind was destroying the world outside, I pulled her to me and kissed her.

She froze startled into immobility, and then she begins to push against me. I hold us together even as the world outside sounded like it was coming apart. Ever so slowly I felt her begin to kiss me back. The passion of the kiss grew when I felt her hands in my hair pulling my mouth closer to hers. Her body was soft and yielding to my hands as I gently caress wet silk then equally smooth skin. Her mouth opened as I took her bare breast into my hand. Her tongue danced with mine as I pinched her taut nipple. I heard her moan against my chest, so familiar a sound. Hearing that, I realized then that I could hear her perfectly.

All the sounds outside had stopped.

When she pushed gently against me this time I didn't resist. As we parted her eyes looked at my face first with surprise then with a puzzled look of some recognition. Going to the door, I tried to push it open, but it wouldn't budge. Flipping a switch on the hinges I opened it inwards. One of the large trees my hammock was normally tied to was snapped in half. The top part of its trunk was what had been piled against the door. I heard sirens in the distance as I helped her carefully out over the tree. As I lifted her down, my hands at her waist, hers on my shoulders, our eyes met again.

She still looked at my face puzzled. I could see that she had recognized me as someone beyond being just her neighbor, but couldn't place where. We turned from each other's eyes and looked at our homes.

Her house looked untouched at least from here. No, the roof I saw had a lot of shingles missing. I saw that as lightning flashed. I wiped the wet drizzle out my eyes and looked to my place.

My roof was gone!

Looking behind me, I saw parts of my roof were on the neighbor's house diagonally behind my damaged home. The rest of my roof appeared to be in various trees across his yard. Looking around, I noticed that my car was not in my driveway but in the front yard of the woman beside me.

That's when I noticed something else.

I shouldn't be able to see her front yard from here. The honeys suckle and sweet shrub hedge that had separated out houses was nowhere to be seen. Its beautiful smell was gone from my life forever. What I smelled now was a too heavy scent of pine in the air as I heard the sirens growing closer and greater in numbers.

"I'm Sharon," she said suddenly. "Didn't we go to school together?

I turned to her. There in the dark between us a lone lightning bug flashed. The thunder rumbled in the distance as our eyes meet. I smiled to myself, as I understand what had happen. Fate had moved us with not too gentle hands.

"Yes," I told her smiling.

In the days to come people would say how our marriage had been blessed.

I believed it.