Parallel Lives of Jim & Linda

Her wetness allowed him to enter her. He went in slow with short strokes, and when she indicated that she was ready, he pressed inside her fully. Within a few moments, she orgasmed again and with that a passion fueled them, and Jim made love to her hard and fast. With a hunger that he kept hidden from her, he made her his and when she orgasmed on his hardness again, he emptied his seed into her. Consummation of their love had arrived.

They showered together afterward, and learned more of each others bodies. They dried each off and returned to the bed. Under the sheets, they touched and kissed. When Jim's erection returned, she mounted him. "I'm a little sore, so I'm going to go slow. I'm out of practice."

"Me, too." he smiled.

She rode him slowly, and when he started to feel her tighten, Jim would thrust upward until she climaxed. Her smile of satisfaction warmed his spirit. After more small orgasms, she announced her exhaustion. "I'm out of shape for this."

She slid off his erection, and he kissed her. "We have plenty of time for that later. Besides since I already came, it's going to be a while before I can again."

After they napped, Maria wanted to swim. In the pooling, they re-inacted their first time in the pool together, but this time she took off her swimsuit, and wrapped her legs around Jim, and rode him in the pool. This love making was for Jim only, she didn't care about her satisfaction this time. Even though she climaxed with Jim as he erupted, she only wanted to please him. This was for Jim because he was hers and she was his.

By Monday, she felt like she needed an ice pack on her snatch. She tried to make up for a decade of doing without. Jim felt renewed as a man. To have someone desire him, and make love to him made the difference in him.

They had made the 4th bedroom/home office into a room for Jason, and moved the office into the sun-room. It would be another few months, before Tommy was finally ready to sleep in his room. Emma was glad when he did. It seemed having a mother in the home was the cure that he needed. It wasn't a month before his children started calling Maria, Momma. That's was what Jason called her, so Momma, it was. Emma told her father, "I have a Mommy, and a Momma." She was so smart that way. Just like she had a "new Gramma, and a grandmother."

Over the next six months, Jim would research so farming ideas. He took his first two bonuses, and purchased fifty acres and 75 acres along Johnny's farm. They formed a partnership where they partnered with a large poultry company to raise chicken for processing. Jim built six 10,000 sq. ft. chicken houses for the chickens to grow in. Johnny oversaw production and the several employees to help run it. They would eventually expand to another six chicken houses, and get into hog production as well.

For Jason's fourteenth birthday, the family stood before a judge, who announced that he was adopted by Jim, and his new name was Carlisle. Jim was amazed at how easy it was to convince Jason's absentee father to allow him to adopt Jason. He knew that he would never allow another man to adopt his children. Jason was Jim's son in every way even if he hadn't adopted him. He may have been sired by another man, but his demeanor was so much like Jim, that everyone assumed that Jason was Jim's son. He was a wonderful brother to Emma and Tommy.

Two years later, Jim surprised the company when his idea of the electric four wheeler took the hunting community by storm. With another huge bonus, he purchased more farm land around Shreveport. Some acreage, Johnny supervised to farm it for Jim, and other parcels he leased for hunting.

With Jim's engineering team designing a new style electric automobile, Jim was offered a promotion to a Vice-President position at the home office. Jim thanked the CEO, but refused so he could keep his family in Shreveport. It was his home. The Board had no idea that Jim had invested his bonuses into income earning real estate, and he and his family were invested in the local farming community. Besides, he wasn't about to move Jason in his senior year. He was probably going to start as Middle Linebacker, and tight end on offense. The boy had taken after Maria's father and was a couple inches taller than Jim.

After Linda and her parents returned home, she was thrown into her job as manager. Her store was short staffed, and the employees that she had weren't worth keeping. She hired fast and fired fast. She went through more than a dozen reject employees before she found a core group that worked together.

Working as a manager for a dollar store in poorer areas of the city had given Linda a better perspective of poor people. At first she was put off by some of the dirtier working class people that shopped there, but she soon found them to be honorable people just trying to live their lives.

It became the norm for Linda to turn around a store then be transferred to another under preforming store to turn it around. Early in her second year, she was asked to cover for a District Manager who was having surgery in another state. A vacation manager traveled to Linda's current store to manage it while she went to HQ for District Manager Training Clinic.

She found that she had to stay away from the other candidates for District Manager training positions because they liked to drink too much. At the end of the first week of training, she was teamed with a younger man during training. He talked her into having dinner with him.

He was ten years younger than Linda, and married with a small child. Since it had been ages since Linda had sex, she gave in to him. It wasn't spectacular sex, or even good sex. Even though he was young and good looking, he wasn't a "Marc' or even a 'Jim'. He didn't rock her world like Marc did that first time, and he could never come close to making love to her like Jim always did. He was a five minute at best lover, then off to sleep. Strangely, she had sex with him five times during their training clinic. It was depressing for her to have sex because it was so unfulfilling. Was she that sad? She felt like a ton of bricks landed on her when she realized that she was helping a man destroy his family, something that she had done. He was doing it so easily without a care for his wife or his child, just as she had done. She had to change.

After serving three different District Manager Temp positions in two states, she was offered her own district in Missouri, north of St Charles. With the new position, her salary doubled and she had an expense account for travel.

She reached out to Jim, and allowed Jim to put the old house on the market. She drove up and with her parents, she chose what she wanted to keep, and what to sell. Jeff and Rebecca helped her find an apartment in a safe area, and got her moved in. Her parents hated to see her move away but they did feel relieved to not have her in their house anymore.

Jim kept his word and brought the children to see their grandparents every couple of months if they didn't drive down first. Linda didn't find the time to come down to see them, but she made time when Jim brought them north.

As Emma became a teenager, the trips north came less and less. Her activities took over their weekends, and Tommy didn't feel a connection with Linda. Maria was his Momma, since he was small.

It was a sad reality for Linda.

Jeff and Rebecca came south for Jason's graduation. Jeff felt that the young man was his grandson, just as much as Emma and Tommy were. He had come with Emma and Tommy on most of their visits to Grammies. He made himself helpful on every visit. The boy was accepted to Baylor for Pre-Med, but he would graduate as an engineer.

Traveling as a DM, Linda would meet men in the motels that she stayed in. Unattached sex with unmarried men became her way of feeling something as she traveled. She lived a lonely solitude life.

On a training seminar trip in Nashville, she met an attorney, Larry Burrows, that lectured the seminar for drinks. He was almost ten years older, short, balding, and overweight, but he mesmerized her. They had three diners together before she went to his room with him. The sex wasn't great but it was better than she had in years. His equipment was adequate, and he tried really hard to please her. He made sure that she got off every time that they had sex with either his fingers or his mouth, if intercourse hadn't achieved it.

Financially, Larry was set for life. He had been a partner for years, and was quite successful. At functions, he was the life of the party, he did love the attention of others. People seemed to gravitate towards him, and Linda found that she did that as well.

The long distance courtship continued for most of the year with Linda seeing Larry a couple times each month when he would fly to meet her or she flew out to Nashville to spend the weekend with him. He would shower her with lavish gifts which she pleaded with him to stop doing. After living on a store manager's salary, Linda had learned the value of a dollar, and she had become quite frugal. He promised to stop but he had one more gift that he wanted her to have. She gasped as he opened the small box, and handed her the engagement ring.

Linda was able to secure a District Manager position in western Tennessee, around Jackson. Her parents insisted to help her move to Nashville, it was Jeff's way to meet the prospective groom. He pleaded with her to get her own place, and not live with Larry, but she was marrying him, so she was living with him.

Larry was too boastful and too old for her parents, but they could tolerate him for Linda's sake.

The couple would wed on the beach in Florida, and were off on a honeymoon cruise. She did allow Larry to purchase her a wardrobe for the honeymoon. Linda was wonderful 'Arm Candy' for her new husband. She was tall, thin, and pretty with enough allure to keep men hovering around Larry with their companions along side.

Though he had wanted her to step down from her employment position, Linda refused to do so. She remembered how hard that she worked to get this position, and how easy she lost her reputation on her other corporate job. Her work did not impede her from being "Arm Candy' whenever her husband had need of it.

A few days before their second anniversary, she had not felt normal in a couple of weeks. When Larry found that she had not had a annual check up in years, he stressed that she receive some medical attention.

A good bill of health was given to Linda with the exception of needing to eat better, and get more rest. The Doctor felt that her work stress was responsible for her weakness, but he did find that she had HPV, a transmittable sexual disease that could cause cervix cancer over time. He could not guess how long that she had it. It could have been from her first affair, or any of her 'one night stands', or possibly her husband. She learned that it should not affect her lifestyle.

She chose not to tell Larry. If he was monogamous then it wasn't an issue, as she saw it.

Even though, she and Larry would be married for almost six years before he would perish from a heart attack, Linda never introduced her children to Larry. Though she wouldn't admit it, she was embarrassed by his appearance and age. Larry could never compete with Jim, in any way.

With Emma speaking with her mother from time to time, she was aware of having a step father or step fathers over time. She traveled North with Tommy for her grandfather's 65th birthday. She and Tommy would meet their mother's fourth husband. She felt that he was as old as Granddad, but he might not have been. Even though they shared the same name, Tommy didn't like him and refused to sit and talk with him, especially when his Dad and Momma arrived for the celebration.

Tom really didn't like the attention that Linda's parents heaped upon Maria and Jim. He could not understand that Jim would always be their favorite son in law. Even though divorced from their daughter, Jim had kept them in their grandchildren's lives. Jim had arranged family trips to include them, as well as Holidays events.

Tom would say some unflattering things, and when Jim saw Jeff's face, he grabbed Tommy's right arm, and lead him outside for a 'talk'.

Linda's latest husband would storm off in their rental car back to their hotel. Thus stranding Linda at her parent's house.

She opened the door, and walked over to Jim standing on the front steps. "Guessing you pissed him off, Jim."

"I think it's his personality. I told him to give it time, and not to try so hard. I've been a part of your family for over twenty years."

She patted Jim's shoulder. "He's not like you, he doesn't take criticism very well."

He turned to look into her eyes. "I hope you learned from marriage three?"

She nodded. "Yes, I got a Pre-Nup this time."

Jim and Linda would interact for the rest of their lives. They would always be connected by their children. School Graduations, marriages, children births, birthdays, and Holidays, the former couple would socialize together. After almost ten years, Linda forgot her grudge against Maria, and she would form a friendship of sorts with her. They would never be BFFs, but she could call Maria and find out about the children's lives.

As she approached Fifty-five, Linda was diagnosed with cervical cancer from her HPV. Maria was her confidential friend. Maria and Jim would be there for her as she received treatments. As Linda's parents had passed by then, Linda would return home with Maria and Jim to heal.

Linda healed and she returned to work as a Regional Director for her company. After her treatments, she would not marry again. Four marriages were enough for her. Two small dogs were always waiting for her at home. She would date from time to time, but nothing was lasting more than a few months.

Jim and Maria were excellent grandparents. Jason didn't provide the first grandchildren, that would be Emma. Unfortunately, she would get pregnant in her Junior year, and have to leave the Christian High School for Public School. Can't have a scandal like that at the old school. Maria would leave her job with the school district over the treatment of Emma's pregnancy. Maria didn't need to work, and she was more than happy to stay at home and help with their first grandchild.

Jim was very successful. He passed up many promotions to stay in Shreveport. He invested his bonuses into farming ventures, and it had really paid off big. He owned more than a thousand acres and leased another thousand acres. He employed more than a dozen men on his farm which Johnny oversaw and managed.

When the Company decided to sell the electric vehicle business, Jim got a group of investors together, and bought the business. His idea for a safe electric sporty SUV was manufactured, it sold at Tesla levels. It seemed that Jim had a few great ideas that the old company didn't want to invest in.

At Jim's retirement celebration, he installed Jason as CEO of the E-Charged Motors, and Tommy as General Manager of Carlisle Farms. As the guests milled around visiting and eating, Jim went outside and sat on the back porch steps to watch the grandchildren play. Linda looked outside and saw him sitting there with a smile.

She opened the door, and came outside. "Want some company?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her, and patted the step beside him. "Sure."

She pulled up her skirt as she sat beside Jim.

"Jim, I know that I said it a long time ago, but I want you to know that I am sorry for what I did that night, and I have always regretted it."

He nodded. "I know."

He took her left hand into his right hand. "I like to believe that 'It' was part of God's plan for this." He waved his left hand around in front of him. " It was important so I could be here and achieve this. Our children flourished down her away from the big city. I flourished as well, as you can see."

Linda had a tear in her eyes as she realized that even though Jim and Maria had done as much as they could in include her over the years, that she was never going to be more than a side character in Jim's life.

"Do you hate me?" She asked.

He squeezed her hand in his. "No, I haven't hated you ever, but I didn't like you for a lot of years, but I have always cared about you. You gave me my most precious things in my life, Em and Tommy."

He released her hand and pulled her into a side hug, her left shoulder against his right chest. "I like to think that through all that we have been through, Linda, you will always be my friend."

Though she could never be more than a friend, she knew that she would always care for Jim. She wept on the inside as they sat on the porch steps and watched their grandchildren play in the afternoon sun.

Thank you for reading.