Second Honeymoon

Story Info
Double the Christmas Spirit.
3.5k words
4.61
24.8k
1
Share this Story

Font Size

Default Font Size

Font Spacing

Default Font Spacing

Font Face

Default Font Face

Reading Theme

Default Theme (White)
You need to Log In or Sign Up to have your customization saved in your Literotica profile.
PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here
sr71plt
sr71plt
3,017 Followers

"I vote for a scarlet one with see-through lace," Cliff whispered in Susan's ear.

"So, no more than eight months' married and suddenly I'm the scarlet woman, am I?" Susan said in her Miss Prim voice. With that, she rolled away from Cliff and off the couch and stood there, hands on hips, giving him her over-the-top pouty look and keeping just out of his reach.

"It was your idea to do a second honeymoon inside a year, toots," Cliff shot back. "That's you playing the fast woman. It's hardly my fault that I see a fast woman as wearing peek-a-boo red."

"Well, we shall see what we shall see. I'm off to Victoria's Secret and, if you remembered, today's the day you were to sign up for the Bermuda cruise at the AAA. So, we'd both best be off."

"Ah, and I'd just gotten the couch warm," Cliff answered. It was now his turn to try out the pouty look and little-boy-hurt voice.

But Susan wasn't having any of that. She was already half way to the door and grabbing her coat off the back of the wing chair.

"And I want a junior suite with a balcony," she tossed over her shoulder. "I don't care if it will be too cold to sit out there; those are the lowest-price rooms with full-glass walls."

"Money grabber. Tramp. Exhibitionist. Elitist," Cliff tossed out at her. But she was already through the door and revving up her Miata convertible.

Cliff made a note to call AAA from the office. He planned to go in for a few hours today, while everyone else was off for the weekend. It was the only way he could get out in front of the work without all of the distractions of a normal day at the office.

The Claytons were only planning this second honeymoon because they'd been married on a national holiday weekend and both had to get back to work the following Tuesday. They'd triangulated between Susan's home town, where they'd tied the knot, and Washington, D.C., where they both had to be at work bright and early two days hence. This process had resulted in two nights at the Foodergong Lodge in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, for their first, abbreviated honeymoon. Susan had thought the room with the Jacuzzi shaped like a transparent champagne glass was a little too corny, and what was to be their first sanctioned romp in the hay went terribly downhill from there when she had gotten her foot stuck in the stem of the glass à la drain and they'd had to call in the house plumber, he of the sucking teeth and roving eye, to extract her—a little too slowly and too hands on for Susan's taste.

Christmas was the first time they could get free for two weeks, so Susan had insisted that they go for a REAL honeymoon so that she could wipe out the memory of the first try. Cliff had agreed, but only with the stipulation that they considered it their second honeymoon, because he hadn't been at all disappointed with their first one considering what had transpired after the plumber had pulled Susan out of the champagne glass drain and had been convinced to reduce the number of blushing people in the room by one.

* * *

Susan smiled as she maneuvered the Miata into a tight space near the entrance into Macy's, and not just because she had jockeyed for position to get the space with a bottle blonde in a big-ass Mercedes—and lost—only for the blonde to discover that her car didn't fit in the space and Susan's car would. Susan also smiled at the thought of that first honeymoon. She didn't want to forget it at all—and especially the part about Cliff's prowess and that cliché heart-shaped bed—but she certainly didn't mind the chance at a real honeymoon this soon after they'd been married. They deserved this time away together. They both worked hard at their jobs. And they weren't exactly making money hand over fist, although, granted, they were lucky that both were still employed in this economic atmosphere. No, they weren't rich, and had been forced to scrimp and save to get what they needed for this trip, short as it was. But still, they were better off than most.

Susan climbed out of the Miata, still thinking of that first night at the Foodergong Lodge. No, she couldn't see that she missed not having to display for that plumber more than once. The thought of how ridiculous it all was made her laugh, as she closed the door to walk into the mall. Certainly something to tell the grandkids.

As she gave that little laugh, Susan heard a snort and looked up to see that the blonde of the big-ass Mercedes had apparently found a parking space nearby and was just passing behind the Miata. She was staring daggers at Susan. Then she flipped her head—without moving a single curl of her set-in-cement hair—and flounced off toward the Macy's entrance.

Susan momentarily felt deflated, realizing that the woman had misconstrued her laugh as somehow directed at her. But then Susan decided not to give it another thought. "And a merry, merry, jolly to you, too, Sweetheart," Susan mused. Some people just never would get into the Christmas spirit.

Susan was picking out a red, lacey nightie in Victoria's Secret, deciding that if that's how Cliff wanted her, that was how Cliff would get her, when she heard the snort again. It must be her lucky day. Helmut Head Blonde was passing by her again—and giving her that knowing smile of victory. Susan wondered why until she looked up and saw that she had been pawing around on a "last chance" sales table.

This wouldn't do.

Quite deliberately, Susan dropped the perfectly fine nightie she had found in the pile and turned and surveyed the store. She focused on a rack of obviously best-quality lingerie and made a beeline for it. The nightie she zeroed in on actually wasn't quite as nice, she thought, as the one on the sales table—at least it wouldn't as flattering to her as that other one would be. But Blondie was still in the store and keeping track of Susan's movements.

"Such a gorgeous nightgown," the sales lady gushed. "I know your man will just drool to see you in it. But, you know, I hope, that you can return it if you decide it's not suitable."

"Oh, that's all right," Susan said in a voice that was a bit too loud if she were only speaking to the saleswoman. But, of course, she wasn't. She was trying to project over to the bra table, where Helmut Head was pretending to look for the biggest cup size on offer. "My husband is taking me on a cruise to Bermuda for Christmas, and I'm sure this will be just perfect."

A half hour later, as Susan was shopping at the lower-end grocery store for the cereal Cliff liked and she could only find here, she was feeling a little testy—with herself. She didn't know why at first, wondering why she suddenly felt out of sorts. But then she thought back on her little challenge match with the Mercedes woman and felt a tad ashamed of herself. It had been so petty and she'd wound up with a nightie that was half as satisfying for twice the price. All because she had let a woman irritate her who had some justification, no matter how mistaken it was, to have been irritated with Susan. On top of that, Susan had criticized the woman's lack of Christmas spirit.

As she moved down the aisle, Susan noticed another woman pushing a squeaky cart ahead of her. She had one toddler boy sitting in the cart and a somewhat older girl hanging onto her skirt. She had a list in one hand, a fist full of store coupons in the other, and a hang-dog look of near collapse of her shoulders that gave Susan the impression she was bearing the cares of the world.

Susan would had zipped around her and grabbed Cliff's cereal and high-tailed it out of a store that she didn't want any of her friends to know she stepped foot in, except that the store was crowded. This store was where many of the people who held down more than one substandard job through the week that forced them to shop on Saturday afternoon came to. There were just too many carts coming at her down the aisle on the other side for Susan to get around the woman pushing the cart so lethargically.

But then, after a few minutes, Susan became mesmerized by the woman and her little girl and toddler son, and she found herself forgetting all about Cliff's cereal and following along behind this young family. The woman was methodical in her shopping, especially considering how little she had in her cart. She would stop and study the shelf, check her list and her coupons, take a can of something really basic—tomato soup or spaghetti in sauce—off the shelf, seem to almost pray over it, and then, more often than not, reluctantly and ever-so-carefully replace it on the shelf. The toddler was snuffling quietly, almost listlessly. In contrast, the little girl was chattering away, asking if they could get this or that—until, at last in the cereal aisle, where Susan had the presence of mind to realize that she had reached her own goal—Cliff's special maple crunch cereal—the little girl pointed at a chock-full-of-sugar cereal that was being pushed hard at American's children this month by Kellogg's. She begged her mother to buy a box, and she received a sharp retort in a very tired voice. Susan looked up sharply as the little girl, full of rebellion, if only for a moment, reached out and snatched a box off the shelf and pushed it up and over the top of the side of the cart and into the basket.

The mother stopped dead in her tracks, looked down at the little girl and admonished her in a whisper that Susan couldn't quite hear. The woman hesitated and then, with a sigh that reached Susan's ears, shuffled around in the coupons in her hand as if some cosmic miracle would have put a 100 percent off coupon for that particular cereal in the collection without the mother having noticed it. Coming up blank, the woman reached down and picked the cereal box up and, moving slowly, as if fighting with herself on just what to do, managed to put it back on the shelf. Susan could see tears in the woman's eyes, and then snuffling started in harmony—not just the toddler now, but the little girl also, as the wheels on the woman's cart started to squeak again slowly along the aisle.

This time Susan did not take up her position in the parade. Indeed, why should she? She had reached her goal. She was standing in front of a whole row of Cliff's favorite maple crunch cereal. Beyond this, Susan felt welded to the spot. She had no control over her legs, even though they were trembling slightly. She was plastered to the spot, finding that her eyes were moving between Cliff's cereal and the sugary puffs the little girl had wanted. And she didn't know why, but there were tears in her eyes.

* * *

Cliff had counted on being alone in the office that Saturday afternoon. He most certainly hadn't counted on trying to think over the sound of a vacuum cleaner out in the hall.

And now the door to his office was opening and howling Hoover sounds were reverberating off his walls.

"Oh, sorry, Mr. Clayton. I didn't think anyone was here today. I'll just take my business over to the other side of the offices. I hope I won't be too noisy over there for you."

"No bother, Clarice," Cliff answered. "There's more reason for you to be here working today than me. Although it's too bad you have to work today. Doesn't your son, Maurice, have his football games on Saturday afternoons."

"Yes, thas' right, Mr. C. But Saturday is 'big' day for us cleaners. Thas' not only the day when we can do sweeping like this without disturbing folks—beggin' your pardon again, though, for not knowin' you were here. But we also get paid more on a Saturday. More than when we can get for night work even. So I don't turn down no Saturday work here. Not me."

"And you don't mind missing Maurice's games."

"Course' I mind missing them. But my sister, Chanel, takes him mostly and roots for him in my place. She's got a disability; she can't work like I can."

Clarice turned the Hoover and started pushing it back out of the office.

"Well a Merry Christmas to you and your family, then Clarice. I guess you won't have to work that Saturday, Christmas day, at least. I guess you'll have the family all together around a Christmas tree and with a big meal with all the trimmings. I've heard what I good cook you are. You do that cake baking over at Hot Cakes, I hear."

"Oh, I don' do that no more, Mr. C. They had to cut back because of the economy and all, ya know. No, it's just this job now. And I'll work that Christmas Saturday if I can. It would mean double time."

"Oh that's a shame," Cliff said. "Having to leave Maurice and your other little guys at home alone with the tree on Christmas day."

"No tree this year, either. Not for our family. I just feel lucky I have this job and we'll still be able to have a roof over our heads and a bit of heat in the grate. No, the way things are down where I live, we'll be living high on the hog this Christmas just to have some boiled ham for sandwiches come Christmas night when I can get home.

"But that's enough jawin' from me, Mr. C. You've come in to get some work done and I'm standin' here just a jawin' and not getting my own work any closer to done. Ya all have a great Christmas yourselves, Mr. C. I'll just go on over to the other side and put this machine on low."

And then Clarice was gone, shutting Cliff's office door behind her with a decisive click.

Cliff had felt pretty good when he'd come into the office. Now, for some reason, he didn't feel pretty good at all. He looked down on the surface of his desk, meaning to get right back into crunching those sales numbers and shaking off this sudden feeling of melancholy. But it wasn't the ledger sheets that caught his eye. It was that note with the number of AAA on it. He'd meant to call AAA and book the cruise to Bermuda as soon as he'd arrived at the office. But he'd forgotten to do so. He reached for the phone.

* * *

Susan had noticed that Cliff was very quiet and a little withdrawn ever since he had come back from the office. She would have said something—asked him if anything was wrong—but she felt a little nervous and sheepish herself. She needed to talk to him. But she could hardly find a convenient way to slip what she had to say into a conversation with him if he was being unusually reticent and they weren't having a conversation. It was very strange. Cliff wasn't normally like this. He was usually all over her—and joking and making her feel so good about everything. And she did feel good; but she also felt worried. She had no idea how he'd react to what she had to tell him. She opened a beer—and than another. She didn't often drink beer herself, but this was one of those occasions where it might be just what she need to do. Then she straightened her shoulders and her resolve and marched into the living room and over to where Cliff sat in his armchair, atypically lost in thought.

"Honey, I need to . . ." she blurted out.

"Susan, I've got to tell you . . ." Cliff was saying at the same time. Then he flashed a wan little smile and said, "Ladies first."

Susan handed Cliff one of the beers, cleared her throat and wetted her own whistle from the other beer and sat down on the couch. This was probably not going to be a short conversation.

"I went shopping at the mall for that scarlet lady nightie today," Susan said. But then she stopped.

"Ye-s-s-s, and . . .?" Cliff prompted her after a moment.

"Annnd," she picked up again. "I didn't find anything I wanted. I mean I found something at Victoria's Secret, but after I left the store, I decided it wasn't what I wanted at all. That I would have just felt foolish wearing that for you. So, I took it back. You've always liked the black Teddy. I think I'd like to just go with that one . . . I mean . . . if . . ."

"No problem with me," Cliff said with a laugh. "You wouldn't be in a nightie for very long, if it was up to me anyway." Then he laughed again, a little nervously this time. "Susan . . ."

"And I also accepted a dinner invitation for Friday night after next—Christmas Eve," Susan rushed on. "I know it was an impulsive thing to do. But I met this woman and her two kids—a little girl and a darling baby boy—in the Food Lion while I was getting the maple crunch cereal you like so much . . . and we just hit it off . . . and we were buying all of this food . . . and, well, she was so grateful that she asked us over for dinner to share their Christmas Eve dinner. Now I know it sounds strange . . ."

"Grateful?" Cliff asked. There was a twinkle in his eyes. He hadn't been raised by dummies. He thought he'd caught onto what was going on. And he didn't mind. He didn't mind at all. In fact, it made what he had to say a little easier.

"Yes . . . well, it's sort of complicated. You see . . ."

"Oh, no need to explain, Susan. I think I know. And this is the Susan I knew I wanted to marry. There's just one glitch, but I think we can work it out."

"A Glitch?" Susan asked. Relieved and suddenly all aglow that she hadn't misjudged the man she had chosen to marry. That they wouldn't be having a row over this.

"Yes, while I was at the office, the cleaning lady, Clarice was there—I think you remember her, don't you? And we were talking about Christmases and . . . oh, but first, I have a bit of bad news. I couldn't get cruise reservations to Bermuda. They said they were all booked for the sailing that fits with our vacations. So, we'll have to do that another time. I hope you don't mind too much." Cliff rushed on, being a little worried about how Susan would take that vacation-shattering news. But, to his surprise, Susan was giving him a broad smile touched with that "you-sexy-man" look she often gave him just before they headed for the bedroom.

"Anyway," Cliff went on. "Clarice saw that I was a little down at not getting the cruise we wanted, so, out of the blue she upped and invited us over to her place for Christmas Eve to help trim their tree with her family. She's taking her son, Maurice, to a Redskins game that afternoon, but she thought we could come over later. And it might work that we could go to your friends' place for dinner and then desert at Clarice's around their tree. You know Clarice makes a mean cake . . . What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Christmas Eve with friends and then Christmas here, just the two of us. It sounds just about perfect to me," Susan said in a hoarse voice that she cold barely control. She didn't know when she'd been happier and had felt so good. And she had no idea why she was on the edge of tears. She'd seen the credit card slips on his dresser after he'd come home. She'd wondered what he was doing shopping at that Christmas trimmings store and buying tickets to a Redskins game for while they were supposed to be on a cruise. She figured he'd explain that to her sooner or later. But now he didn't have to.

"But the second honeymoon. I'm sor—"

"Shush, Babe," Susan whispered. She leaned over and gave Cliff a big, sloppy kiss. "We don't have to wait for Christmas for a second honeymoon. And we don't have to go anywhere special for it. Here, stand up and come with me—I'll show you a second honeymoon you'll never forget—starting right now."

sr71plt
sr71plt
3,017 Followers
Please rate this story
The author would appreciate your feedback.
  • COMMENTS
Anonymous
Our Comments Policy is available in the Lit FAQ
Post as:
Anonymous
9 Comments
KarensClit1990KarensClit1990almost 6 years ago
Wonderful warm story...

Unexpected but welcomed.

Thank you for such a sweet story.

AnonymousAnonymousabout 15 years ago
Thank you for your holiday story

You've got a 58 year old guy, sitting here with tears in his eyes. I couldn't get off from work for the holiday week, so my (wonderful, loving, beautiful, caring, most-important-thing-in my-life) wife drove 500 miles by herself to visit the kids and grandkids. And so the old fart was sitting here feeling sorry for himself. I realize it was fiction (it was, wasn't it?), but it made me remember to count my blessings. Thank you for that. That one simple act of kindness is all it takes. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings to all

sr71pltsr71pltover 15 years agoAuthor
Note from Author

Note that this is one segment of an interrelated series of standalone stories. Those wishing to read in order can travel the following route: “Second Honeymoon,” “Second Sister,” either “Second Christmas Tree” or “Second Chance,” and ending with “Second Sight.”

AnonymousAnonymousover 15 years ago
Excellent!

This a great 'feel good' tale. Thanks for giving it to us...

sacksackover 15 years ago
this is more human than most of your stories......

with more personal warmth and an elegant sense of style. On the other hand, your gay fiction strikes me as cool and uninvolved for the most part. Are you going in a new direction? Future stories will tell the tale.

Show More
Share this Story

Similar Stories

Welcome to the New World - The Stories What happens when the gender power balance shifts?in Loving Wives
Beyond the Wall of Sleep - Coming Soon An author-curated story event based around Gothic Horror.in Erotic Horror
Armadillo Crossing Who knew what could happen because of an Armadillo?in Romance
Color Me Your Color Left with few options, Johanna makes a choice.in Romance
Barn Rules A crippled Veteran meets a crippled bull rider in the barn.in Romance
More Stories