The Heart - Sex Stories

The Heart

... mind my saying this, but I think you’re beautiful.” “Oh, you do? Well, thank you.” Emily felt her cheeks reddening, stunned by the way he just blurted out those words. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to you,” he said. “I’ve been coming here since the day I arrived, wishing I could get up the nerve to talk to you. I started coming here everyday when I knew you wouldn’t be busy. I didn’t just come in for the pie and coffee, I came to see you.” “Really? I had no idea.” “How could you?” Walter chuckled. “Until the other day we hadn’t said more than two words to each other. All you would say is, ‘Let me guess…apple pie and coffee.’ and that was it.” Emily took a deep breath. “Yeah, well, I guess we broke the ice, opening up like that. You know my story and I know yours.” “I’m sorry about Jonathan.” “Thanks,” Emily said, nodding. “Well, if I can find Jonathan’s paints I will bring them in tomorrow. You can have them.” “Will that be hard for you, just giving me his paints?” “No, not at all. If you knew Jonathan you would understand. He was very generous. He’d give a stranger the shirt off his back, that’s how he was. He was a very special person and really talented. He also wrote poetry and loved to paint. You would have liked him.” “Well thanks,” Walter said, finishing his coffee and closed his notebook. “I’m keeping you from working and I better get going. I want to go for a bike ride before it gets too late.” Okay,” Emily said, hopping off of the stool. “I’ll bring ...

... the paints in tomorrow, also brushes. See you.” She went back behind the counter. The next day when Walter came in, she gave him the gray plastic box with Jonathan’s tubes of oil paint and a paper bag filled with brushes. “You’ll have to make your own palette. I couldn’t find his and you can get things to paint on at McGregor’s Hardware, that’s where Jonathan got stuff. He liked painting on pieces of wood. Sometimes he made canvasses.” So, Walter started painting. He wrote in the morning. A few mornings he went to his gardening job, but every afternoon he came in for apple pie and coffee after having lunch in his room at Miss Henderson’s, usually canned soup he heated up on the hot plate. He’d write in his journal while Emily prepared everything for the next day, but they always ended up having conversations, often having deep discussions about life, or Walter telling her he was painting the sheep in the pasture on Kinghill Farm, or, the big old chestnut tree at the rear of the park. One day, he told Emily about this beautiful, magical spot he found and went to every day. It was about a ten minute bike ride out of town and he loved painting there, but there was something else that surprised her. He started calling her “Em” instead of Emily. He’d say, “Em, you should have seen the fish jumping in the pond and now there’s a couple of swans that live there.” No one ever called her “Em” except Jonathan, and it surprised her at how natural it felt. She liked the way he said it and ...