Work in Progress
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Mortal Turpitude - Chapters 21 - 25
Chapter 21
When I woke, I knew one thing for certain: Lisa or no Lisa, Fortino was not going to stop
his hunt for the B1-B gene complex.
I rose from bed disoriented, as if recovering from anesthesia or coming down with the flu.
For a few seconds, my attention was occupied by the pounding in my head, but then the
memory of the previous day came back in a rush that made my stomach turn. Once again,
I saw the pale blue eye amid the blood, the crumpled and twisted clothing concealing the
corpse, and Fortino’s blanched face. But now I wondered whether Fortino was more upset
by Lisa’s death, or because the B1-B had been snatched from his reach.
The angle of the sun told me it was mid-morning. My breakfast stood on the desk, still in
its cardboard box. I moved to it in a semi-crouch and sat heavily in the little chair. The
food was cold. So was the coffee, but I sipped at it anyway. A knock at the door, just a foot
from my ear, startled me.
“Barry, this is Paul. I see you’re up. Can I come in?”
Today, Fortino wore fatigues and Army field cap but no mask, and settled tiredly on the
end of my bed. “How are you this morning?” he said.
“I feel like shit. Yesterday was about the worst day of my life.”
“You’re not alone. I liked her a lot.” In the angled light from the window, Fortino looked
exhausted and old.
“You liked her B1-B more.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t hurt her, and everything happened before I could intervene.
Sergeant Hannon and I heard it all over the audio tap, and I started running for Lisa’s
room. She’d trashed the camera so we had no video, but the audio was enough. What I
heard will haunt me ‘til the day I die.”
Tears began to form at the corners of my eyes. I fought them back, with partial success. “If
you hadn’t been trying to get the B1-B from her, Buddy wouldn’t have killed her.”
“Buddy was jealous of her success,” said Fortino simply. “As far as I can see, she outshone
him on all quarters. A brilliant grad student eclipsing a mediocre assistant professor.”
“Bullshit. Buddy’s not mediocre. He didn’t like her arrogance, but he wouldn’t have killed
her for that. He wanted her to destroy the B1-B, beginning on the day we knew what it was
capable of. He was afraid of what people like you would do with it. Tell me he was wrong.”
He ignored my challenge. “So Buddy was pretty sure that only Lisa knew where the last
sample of B1-B is? Otherwise, there’d be no point in killing her without killing everyone.”
“Lisa wouldn’t have trusted me with that information. Buddy knew that. She’d only let me
see certain parts of her daily notebooks.”
“Is that true?” He looked at me perplexed. “Weren’t you suspicious? When you combine
‘amazing discovery’ with ‘paranoid secrecy’, doesn’t it make you think of scientific fraud?
What if she’d been making it all up? What if there never was a B1-B, and all this tragedy
has been for nothing?”
I shook my head. “Not possible. I was suspicious at first, so she let me experiment with it
until I was satisfied it was real. After that, she insisted I let her work on it by herself.”
“And you were okay with that?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t have anyone else to work on it at the time, and I knew her to be
careful and thorough. She works…worked as hard as any three other persons on my staff.”
Fortino didn’t try to conceal his smirk. “Not to mention, she had you thoroughly pussy-
whipped.”
My heart froze. I gazed open-mouthed at him for half a minute before I could stutter,
“What does that mean?”
“I gather from some of the recorded conversations that she pretty much had you by the
balls. I mean, I was pretty sure of that when we ate lunch at CDC. I gather your colleagues
think so, too. It was a don’t-ask-don’t-tell thing. Don’t get the boss in trouble or we’ll all go
down with the ship.”
In other circumstances, I might have blushed furiously. Now, I broke out in a sweat and my
stomach once more threatened to rebel. All I could say was, “Fortino, my personal life has
nothing to do with the murder or the B1-B.”
“Oh, but it does. She was given a level of authority far above what a grad student, even a
senior grad student, should be allowed. She’s taken secrets to the morgue with her that are
essential to national security. That should never have been allowed to happen.”
I wanted to burst out and shout that I knew about Project Qiyamah, and that I knew he
was working on germ warfare weapons. Instead, I only said, “That’s a matter of opinion.
You don’t know – didn’t know – Lisa nearly as well as you think you did.”
Fortino stood up. “What matters is that I still think you know where the B1-B is hidden.”
“Assuming she didn’t destroy all of it.” I felt I was losing something, but I wasn’t sure
what it was. Perhaps my ability to put two thoughts together.
“How would you feel about taking a polygraph test?”
“What for? And how? You’re not a cop.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a scientist just like you. But there are people on the way here with the
authority to detain you indefinitely if they decide you’re a security risk. Believe it or not,
I’m the good guy. I’m trying to help you get out of this situation.”
“I didn’t know I was in a situation.” My voice cracked, and I tried to force saliva into my
dry throat.
“Show me the B1-B and I’ll help you with the other thing.” He leaned over me, so I could
smell coffee on his breath.
“The other thing?”
“Well, these people think you put Buddy up to killing Lisa to keep your affair quiet. They
even think the three of you were conspiring to sell the B1-B to a foreign power and split
the proceeds. Maybe Lisa wanted a bigger share. Or maybe she was a real patriot, and
threatened to expose the plan.”
I was flustered now and barely able to speak. “The plan? You’re making this bullshit up
out of thin air! Where’s your evidence?”
He smiled crookedly. “We’ll get the evidence we need. These people don’t use polygraphs.
They won’t sit you in a chair and hook wires to you. They have more effective methods.
But you can stop the whole process by handing over the B1-B.”
“And if I can’t?”
He shrugged. “Then I guess people will wonder for years what became of the brilliant
Professor Croft.”
Chapter 22
Fortino refused to believe that I didn’t know where the B1-B was hidden, but trying to
convince him was like arguing with a marshmallow. He’d concede a point, and then return
to it moments later as if we’d never discussed it. But now his blather was overshadowed by
the imminent arrival of ‘these people’ who weren’t terribly concerned with due process.
Fear and fatigue reduced my thinking ability to the most elementary level.
Finally, he was called away on some urgent errand, but not before posting a guard on the
trailer. He didn’t say why the guard was there, but he didn’t have to.
It was time to contact my lawyer. Too exhausted to be frightened, I shuffled into the hall
and knocked on Rhiannon’s door. My heart jumped when she opened it, as if I’d forgotten
how beautiful she was. For a moment, she extinguished the images of Lisa, alive and dead,
that floated in my mind’s eye.
“An interesting conversation with the Major,” she whispered in my ear. With a gesture,
she cautioned me to keep my voice low.
“You heard?” I was close enough to smell the aromas of her body and perfume, which,
surprisingly, were able to distract me in spite of everything.
“All of it. Apparently, Major Fortino neglected the ventilation duct in the wall between our
rooms. I didn’t even have to hold a glass to the wall.”
“Then you know what he threatened me with. Can he do that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anymore. Everything’s changing so fast these days.
When you’re dealing with people who can laugh at the law, legal expertise doesn’t help
much. My law books are no good against men with guns and torture chambers. I mean,
imagine writing Hitler a parking ticket.”
“You’re making me feel so much better.” I hated my voice for breaking, but beneath my
fatigue, I was now genuinely frightened. “What can I do?”
“I think the first order of business is to get you out of here.”
“There’s another angle to this,” I said. “Fortino is involved in a biological weapons
program called ‘Qiyamah’. It has to be illegal. The United States banned biological
weapons decades ago.” I spelled ‘Qiyamah’ for her and told her what it meant.
“Have you looked into Fortino’s past for any clues?”
“How could I do that? He works in a secret lab. Everything he does is secret.”
“Maybe it’s secret now, but what about his early career, before Detrick? He got to his
current position somehow.”
I shrugged. “Maybe there’s something in the scientific literature.”
“I was going to suggest newspapers and criminal records,” she said, “but your idea makes
more sense.”
I moved to the desk and turned on the computer. It seemed to take forever to boot up.
I signed onto Medline, and entered ‘Fortino, P’ into the search box. Though I had no idea
what I was looking for, my stomach wrenched with tension while a computer somewhere in
the world searched its records. Then the screen filled with text, each paragraph a
reference to an article somewhere in the vast output of medical science containing the
name ‘P. Fortino’. There were eight hits, the most recent four years ago. The journals were
not front-line journals, but rare specialty ones, easy to get published in. So Fortino called
himself a fellow scientist? If so, he was a poor producer.
The top article, the most recent, was titled, ‘Ethnic diversity in Neisseria infection rate
and virulence’. Neisseria was the genus name of the bacteria causing meningitis and
gonorrhea. I scanned down the screen. The word ‘ethnic’ appeared again and again in the
titles.
Behind me, the heat of Rhiannon’s body and her warm breath on my neck relaxed me a
little.
Last in the list was a reference to Fortino’s PhD thesis, awarded in 1999. ‘Sin Nombre virus
infection of cultured human cells from genetically diverse Native American groups.’ It
named his research adviser, Sidney Fagden of the University of New Mexico.
Rhiannon reached over my shoulder to point at the screen, leaving a faint, if distracting,
whiff of her underarm odor. “What do you know about this Sin Nombre virus?”
“You know where Four Corners is, right?” I asked.
“Where the four states comes together?” she said. “Arizona, and Utah, and, um…”
“Yes. What matters, is that it’s on the Navajo Indian Reservation, and the Navajo raise a
lot of sheep.” I slid unconsciously into lecture mode, which helped me forget about Lisa’s
bloody corpse and Fortino’s threats, at least for now.
“In 1993, some people died of a fatal pneumonia near Four Corners. Its victims sometimes
died within a few hours, and it scared the crap out of everyone. A few dozen people got it,
and nine died. When scientists looked, they found what they call a ‘hantavirus’, which had
never been seen on this continent. At first, they couldn’t believe it was really a hantavirus,
and they nicknamed it ‘Sin Nombre’ – ‘no name’. Later, epidemiologists found that Sin
Nombre grew in the mice that infested sheep pens on the reservaton. The rodents’ dried
droppings were swept up in the desert winds and inhaled by the herders.”
“That’s very sad,” she said.
“It was. These were poor shepherds scraping a subsistence living, not jetsetters bringing
back an exotic disease from Asia. But Sin Nombre was all the excitement in the virology
business. It showed all the signs of being a brand-new disease. Most of the time, a new
disease turns out to be just an old one that was misdiagnosed in the past, or hasn’t been
around for a while. But once in a while, something really new, an ebola or an HIV,
something never seen before, pops up from nowhere.”
“So Fortino was involved in this, too?”
“He couldn’t have been. Not at the time. His thesis is dated 1999. He wouldn’t have
started his research before about 1994, or 1995 at the earliest.”
“But what about his boss? He could have been in on the original thing.”
“It can’t hurt to look.” I typed ‘Fagden, S’ and hit ‘Search’. This time, pages of citations
appeared. In the years following 1993, a flurry of titles contained the terms ‘Sin Nombre’
and ‘hantavirus’ as well as Fagden’s name.
I shrugged. “Look at those dates. This Fagden guy seems to have worked awfully hard for a
two-year period around 1994. Any ideas?”
“Sixteen publications in two years?” she said. “Is that normal? Fortino only put out about
one paper a year.”
Smart woman; I’d missed seeing that. “Sixteen is a lot. It would take a sizable group to do
that, maybe eight or ten people. But if he’d had a group that big, I’d have heard of him
before now. I can name all the large virology labs in the West.”
“What if Fagden had already done the research years before the Four Corners outbreak?”
“How could he…? Holy shit!” I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.
Rhiannon’s forehead furrowed. “I can’t believe what I’m thinking.”
“They deliberately tested the Sin Nombre virus on Indians?” I shook my head. “That doesn’
t make sense. It’s freakish. It’s insane.”
“You say only Indians died of the Sin Nombre virus? Why no white people? No Hispanics?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. My head spun. “A race-specific virus…”
“It fits, doesn’t it? Develop a virus that attacks only the ethnic group you want to get rid
of. Test it first on a distinct group, especially people who lead isolated lives, people who
are invisible to most of mainstream society...”
“…like Indians.” I took up the stream of thought. “But it only killed a quarter of the
people it infected, and it didn’t spread from person to person. But with our B1-B in it…”
She finished. “…you’ve got a weapon that will race through any ethnic group you choose,
killing them all and leaving white folks untouched.”
My head began to pound. “If it is, no wonder he’s so anxious to get his hands on Lisa’s
work. The Sin Nombre virus wasn’t deadly enough, and a virus with B1-B would kill
everyone, friend and foe. But the two together would be a perfect strategic weapon.”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” she said. “So far, all we’ve got is information
from scientific papers and a lot of inference. That’s not evidence.”
“Well, both Fortino and Fagden could control what they published. But there’s got to be
information elsewhere. There were too many people involved. Something had to leak.”
“Google them?”
I shrugged, brought Google on the screen, and typed ‘Fagden’ and ‘Sin Nombre’. Instantly,
several pages of links appeared. Most were newspapers or discussion boards. I paged
through the first fifty or so links.
“Why does ‘Operation Raindance’ keep showing up in those links?” said Rhiannon. “What’
s that?”
I shook my head and changed the search to ‘Operation Raindance’. Nearly 200,000 links
appeared. “It’s supposed to be the military code name for the Four Corners epidemic. But
most of these look like conspiracy forums. Loony tunes. There’s everything in here from
fluoridation to flying saucers and the Lindbergh baby. It’ll be hard to get anything credible
out of this.”
She pointed to one link, “Isn’t that the British Medical Journal? That must be credible.”
The link led to a transcript of a panel discussion on ethnically targeted diseases. I read a
few paragraphs, and interpreted the jargon for her. “Seems there was a flurry of discussion
around 1999 on the subject. There are several genetics experts in here saying that there’s
no reason someone couldn’t develop a virus that targeted any race. All that was needed
was the will to do it.”
“And that was nearly ten years ago,” she breathed. “I wonder what took them so long?”
By now, I was up to the twentieth page of links, and my eye zeroed in on the name Fagden
again. The link said, ‘OBITUARY: Fagden, Sidney Bryant, 1948 – 2003.” I clicked on it
and we read for a moment.
“Seems he died of natural causes. He was cremated the day after he died.”
Chapter 23
Rhiannon had been watching from the corridor window for nearly a half hour, and I had
been watching her. Her fascinating legs were hidden by the fatigues that Sergeant Hannon
had brought for her, but the little movements, the shifting of weight from foot to foot, the
occasional toss of her head and fussing with her hair, were at once fascinating and
arousing. I punished myself, thinking, ‘Lisa’s been dead less than 24 hours, and you’re
having thoughts about Rhiannon. What’s the matter with you?’ Yet I continued to stare at
the tall, graceful form of my attorney.
I stood up and moved up behind her, whispering “Anything yet?”
“No. There’s a man outside the trailer door, and one or two men on the gate at all times.”
“So we’re stuck here until Fortino does whatever he’s going to do with us?”
“You give up too easily. Didn’t you say you have a cell phone? Is it charged?”
I passed it to her. “I turned it off when I was done with it. The battery’s okay, I think.”
We retreated into her room. I shut the door and turned on the water so it rattled in the
sink. I recalled old movies in which they used running water to defeat hidden microphones.
“That won’t help,” she said. “They have filters that remove background sounds. They’ll
hear our voices in spite of it.”
I turned the water off and watched as she held the phone in two hands, hitting the keys
with her thumbs. Since I didn’t use texting, it took me a moment to realize what she was
doing. After a few minutes, she smiled and pointed the phone display at me. ‘Hlp on th
wy,’ it read.
She turned off the cell and handed it back, resuming her watch at the window.
I looked over her shoulder. “What was all that about?”
She whispered, “You’re about to be arrested. It’s a setup to get you out of here. Go along
with it.”
I sat on her bed while she stood across the corridor and waited. About 20 minutes later,
she motioned me to the window. A large dark car had pulled up to the gate, a red cherry
light flashing inside the tinted windshield. “Have you got everything you need that will fit
in your pockets?” she asked. I checked my wallet, keys, and phone, and nodded.
Outside, two detectives approached the gate. One soldier spoke into his radio, shook his
head at the cops, and the scene quickly dissolved into a shouting and threatening match
as it had the night before. The guard on our trailer left his post at the bottom of the steps
and approached the group, his hand resting on his pistol.
“It’s not working,” said Rhiannon. “Plan B time. Come with me, quick.” We moved to the
door. She pushed it open cautiously and waved me through. In the bright sunlight, I
followed as she walked quickly and deliberately between two trailers. Once out of sight of
the gate, we broke into a run until the temporary fencing blocked our way. I expected to
hear whistles or shouts or even shooting at any moment, but the thought of Fortino’s
‘people’ spurred me on.
“I hope you can climb,” said Rhiannon. “Move! Now!” she stage-whispered, punching my
shoulder. I leaped at the fence and caught the toes of my New Balance shoes in the mesh.
She pushed at my butt as I worked my way to the top, teetered for an instant, and
sprawled onto the grass on the other side. I looked down at a sudden coolness on my leg,
and saw a shredded pant leg. A large strip of denim fluttered from the hooks at the top of
the fencing.
Rhiannon threw her purse over and climbed like a monkey, throwing herself over the top
and landing solidly on her feet like a gymnast. She scooped up her purse and gestured to
me to follow her. We ran around the corner of the Molecular Immunology building toward a
city street.
Moments later, we sat in the back of a cab, catching our breath. She looked and smiled
broadly at the remains of my jeans. “Arizona Hotel,” she said to the driver. At the hotel,
we climbed out and she pulled me behind a column.
“Your pants will make people notice you and remember. Stay out of sight until I’ve got
another cab and the door’s open.” I looked up at her, stunned by all this activity, while
she found the doorman and had him call up another cab.
“Where did you learn all this?” I said, when we were settled in the back of the second taxi.
“Never mind that. Do you have an ATM card?”
I’d never needed one, since there was a campus bank near our building. I told her so.
“Never mind,” she said, and tapped on the barrier behind the driver. “Take us to the
Chase Bank at Campbell and Speedway,” she told him.
She had me stay in the cab while she went inside. She returned with a thick bank envelope
with cash hanging from of one end, and we headed off through the afternoon traffic in the
direction of the airport.
The cab dropped us off at a new Holiday Inn, but Rhiannon led me down to the back of the
building to a parallel road and an older motel where the rooms had outside doors. She left
me beside a soft drink machine while she checked us in, and by four o’clock, we slipped
into a dark, slightly musty-smelling room. There were only a couple of cars parked outside
at this time in the afternoon, and little likelihood that we’d been spotted by anyone who
cared.
When the door closed behind us at last, and I’d settled into a chair, I said, “Are you some
kind of master spy or something?”
She chuckled in the back of her throat. “You’d be surprised at things I’ve had to do. Most
of the time, a corporate lawyer’s life is dull. But not all the time. I’ve been in a few
situations that the Chinese would call ‘interesting’.” She sat on the bed with a bounce.
“Also, I watch a lot of spy movies,” she added brightly.
“So here we are, in a motel near the airport, and you just took a pile of money out of the
bank. What next? Off to Mexico?”
“Well, we’re fairly safe, but not completely. I paid for the room with cash, just for the day,
and that spooks some motel owners. But these older motels operate on thin margins, and
the owners will keep their mouths shut. But if the Army comes around, we may need to
beat it out of here quick.”
“What did you do with my cell, back at Fortino’s prison camp?”
“I called a police detective friend of mine. He owed me a favor. I asked him to detain you
as a material witness to Lisa’s murder.”
“What’s so great about that? One jail’s as good as another. I’m still vulnerable.”
“Well, the Tucson P.D. isn’t into torture, at least as far as I know. That’s got to win them
some points.”
I took out my cell phone and opened it.
“Don’t turn that on!” she said.
My finger hovered over the button. “Why not? I want to call my guy in Washington and
see if he can do anything to help us.”
“Haven’t you heard about phone tracking? There’s a GPS chip in your phone. They’ll know
where we are the instant you turn it on.”
I put it back in my pocket and sat beside her on the bed. “What now? I’m guessing they’ll
find us sooner or later.”
“Not if my policeman friend finds us first.”
I pointed to the telephone beside the bed. “Why don’t you call him?”
“I will, but not while he’s near Fortino and his troops. They can monitor a policeman’s cell
calls as easily as yours.” She moved closer to me, so our hips touched. “In the meantime,
we’ve got some time to kill.” I felt her arm slip around my shoulders, warm and heavy, and
I tipped my head to rest against hers. She smelled good. “I’m still a little pumped from
yesterday’s card game.”
“Rhiannon, don’t take this the wrong way, but someone I felt very strongly about was
killed about 24 hours ago.”
“How long would she have grieved for you?”
I arched an eyebrow. “About fifteen minutes. But that doesn’t matter. I feel hollow inside.
It hurts. It’s going to hurt for a while.”
“I can help.” She pulled me tightly against her, so my face turned toward her neck. I
found myself kissing the soft skin under her ear.
“What is it about me? You could have any man you want, and I’m pretty ordinary.”
She chuckled; I felt it through my lips as they rested against her throat. “Why does there
have to be a reason? I like you. I have since I met you.”
“But you’re so obviously interested in me sexually. I don’t know whether you feel sorry for
me, or you’re just being charitable…” I became suddenly aware that I’d rested a hand on
her breast. It was soft, even through the coarse cloth of the fatigues.
“Don’t belittle yourself. I’ve had a bellyful of rugged, macho guys. To them, I’m just a
trophy, or a mirror they can admire themselves in, a notch on the bedpost. I outgrew them
a long time ago. When I meet a man, I’m looking for a little depth.”
I gave her breast a little squeeze, and unzipped her fatigues down to her lap. The skin
above her bra was warm and resilient to my fingertips, and I felt the swelling in my torn
pants. I stretched and kissed her cheek, and she turned her head and offered her lips. Her
breath was a little sour, but I imagined mine was far worse. It didn’t seem to matter to her.
We kissed for a long moment as she shrugged the fatigues from her shoulders to bunch
around her waist, and whispered, “Take off my bra, Barry.” It wasn’t as easy as I
expected. Her broad shoulders and generous breasts forced me to stretch my arms to reach
the hooks and tug at them. At least I’d had practice – it had been several years since I’d
taken Shirley’s bra off, but I had Lisa to thank for the abundant practice during our furtive
evenings. As the satin cups fell away, I was dazzled by Rhiannon’s breasts; they were the
largest I’d ever seen at close range.
A tear ran from my eye, beside my nose, and between our joined lips. She broke the kiss
for a moment. “This might not be easy for you, Barry. Take my body and use it for
whatever you need. Sex or no sex, you’ve got to start healing, the sooner the better.”
I took a deep breath, interrupted by sobs, and kissed the top of a breast, warm from the
heavy fatigue uniform, and damp from our frantic dash through Tucson. I bent and licked
at the silken skin. With little urging needed from my conscious brain, I lowered my head
and sucked gently at a nipple. Rhiannon moaned quietly and thrust her chest toward me,
and the nipple swelled against my tongue.
The position was awkward, and I moved to kneel in front of her. Now I could open my
mouth fully and suck in a generous amount of fragrant breast, which made her grunt like a
wild animal. Her fingers gently stroked the back of my head, but she soon pushed me away
and eased me onto the other nipple, which was already swollen.
I moved up and kissed her mouth again, barely touching her nipples with my fingertips.
She breathed hard and grunted into my mouth, her torso writhing wildly. “I knew I was
right about you, Barry,” she whispered hoarsely. “You’ve got a nice touch. You don’t mind
taking your time to make sure I feel it. Now suck my breasts some more.”
I resumed sucking on a breast, teasing the other nipple with my fingers and reaching down
to the elastic of her panties with the other hand. Her belly spasmed against my touch, and
she gasped as I reached a mat of thick hair. But I could reach no farther while she sat on
the bed.
She broke off the kiss again. “Take these things off me. And yours, too.” I tugged at the
fatigues, marveling at the muscular belly and broad hips as they were revealed, inch by
inch. She lifted her hips from the bed to help me, and thick thigh muscles tightened and
bulged under the skin. I took a minute to stroke the heavy thighs before pulling the
bunched fatigues from her feet.
“And now you.” Her voice shook as she whispered. I stood up, feeling shaky and
disoriented. Abruptly, she laughed, looking down at my crotch. “Look who’s coming out to
play. No troubles there, apparently.” I looked down to see the tip of my cock protruding
where the denim had torn away. It was thick and crimson, ready for action. I shrugged my
shredded jeans and underwear to the floor and pulled at my shirt buttons.
“Mm-m. A little hair on your chest; just the right amount. Some nice muscles, too. You
must work out.”
I started to tell her that I swam and played racketball four times a week, but she was
already reaching for my cock. “Nice, very nice. Not too small, not too big; thick enough to
give a lady a good time.” She looked up at me, mischievously. “Are you going to give me a
good time, lover.”
I was dizzy at the soft touch of her fingers. She reached between my legs with the other
hand, gently grasping my balls. She tugged me toward her, and I cried out and looked up
at the ceiling as the warm lips met and caressed the tip of my cock. She slid me deep into
her mouth and licked briefly before pulling away. “Can I do this for a while, or will you
have an accident? I really don’t like man-juice in my mouth.”
“I’ll pull out if I have to,” I whispered, and continued looking at the ceiling as her hot
mouth engulfed me again and her tongue teased and electrified my nerve endings. I stood
it as long as I could, and said, “Stop.” She drew away and blew cool breath on it for a
moment before resuming.
She continued this wonderful, frustrating cycle until I tottered on the edge of hysteria. At
last, I said, “I can’t take it any more. Not safely.”
“That was nice,” she purred. “Now I’m going to get a condom for you.” She dug in her
purse. I lurched, blindsided by a sudden wave of grief – she’d been rooting through her
purse for a condom last night when Sergeant Hannon brought the news about Lisa.
She wasn’t aware of my reaction, and I got myself under control. By the time she had the
condom out of its wrapper, I’d started to soften. “Oh, Barry, poor man, you’re thinking
about her again. I can help.” She sucked me until I was hard again, and expertly rolled the
condom over my penis. She lay back on the bed and hitched her hips to the center of the
mattress. “Now put it inside me. Quick.”
Even through the latex, I thrilled to her heat as I slid in, though the condom blunted the
sensation. It was frustrating, and nothing like the wonder of her mouth on my naked flesh.
But as I moved my hips, I realized the enormity of the gift she was giving me – her body,
her affection, her desire to soothe my grief, friendship at its most sincere. She deserved to
get something out of this. I reached down between us, intended to find and stroke her
clitoris so she would climax with me. It was a skill I’d perfected with Shirley during our
one-note sex life.
But Rhiannon pulled my hand away. “This is for you, lover. I’ll get mine in good time.”
Soon I was beyond caring about good manners, or sharing the pleasure. Her strong hips
bucked fiercely, tugging relentlessly at my cock. Striving desperately to respond in kind, I
rocked against her long, muscular body. Her arms wrapped around my back and squeezed
so I could barely breathe. This was sex as eager and enthusiastic as any I’d ever known.
She hissed in my ear, “It feels like you’re ready to come, Barry. Come for me! Do it now!”
Her eager words broke the last straw. The sensation was of being pulled relentlessly over a
waterfall, dragged into the whirlpool, swallowed in her heat. My muscles seized violently
as she wrenched hot semen from my writhing body. I was barely aware of crying and
grunting against her throat. Eventually, the orgasm exhausted itself, and my body relaxed
like a noodle in hot water. I sank onto her, while she stroked my back with one hand and
my hair with the other, purring soft words in my ear.
“You really are a full-service attorney, aren’t you?” I whispered, still breathless.
Chapter 24
As my breathing slowly returned to normal, I looked around the room and saw that it had
become even darker as the day ended outside.
“I’ve got to do something for you,” I said.
“No need. There’ll be time for that. Right now, we have other things to worry about.”
“That’s not how I am. Sex isn’t complete for me if I can’t make it good for you.”
She smiled sweetly. “Now do you see what attracts me to you?” She took my hand and
guided it between her legs. Her pubic hair was damp and silky, and I let my fingers play
in it a moment before touching the wet edges of her labia. To my surprise, her clitoris
protruded slightly, and at my touch, she gasped suddenly in my ear.
All or nothing. Go for it now. “I’d be honored if you’d let me use my tongue for that.”
She squeezed my hand and pressed it against her pubis. “So the oral thing wasn’t all Lisa’s
idea?” She paused, horrified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mention...”
“It’s all right,” I said, taking a swollen nipple in my lips. It was true; I hadn’t thought of
Lisa even once since she’d fetched the condom from her purse. Even now, there was no
sense of guilt or loss. There was only the heat and luxurious aroma of Rhiannon’s body.
No doubt about it, she loved having her breasts sucked. Her eyes closed and she thrust her
chest at me, squirming and moaning, her eyes raised to the ceiling. But after only a
moment, her patience ran short and her hands bore down on my shoulders. I took the hint
and moved down, kissing and licking at her stomach and around her navel, where muscles
rippled under the skin.
“Mmm,” she purred. “No one’s done this for me in a long, long time.”
I slid from the bed to my knees and muttered into her belly. “I don’t know why not. You’re
the kind of woman any man should want to go down on.”
“Oh, my!” she said, turning on the bed and opening her thighs wide, so that her silky
pubic hair brushed my chin. A wave of her musky aroma enveloped me. The low motel bed
made me sit back on my heels to get a comfortable angle, and I pressed my lips against
her, feeling her wetness soak through the hair. With my tongue, I probed in the tangled
forest and found the thick, slippery lips, licking them eagerly. Her breathing grew loud
and hoarse as the lips softened and I was able to bring the rough part of my tongue into
play, just touching her clitoris at the end of each stroke. I reached up under her thighs
and played with her turgid nipples.
“You really know what you’re doing, don’t you?” she gasped. “But you’re driving me
crazy. Lick my clit and stop teasing.” My cock grew hard again, so soon. Years had passed
since I’d been erect twice in the same hour, but her praise and enthusiasm were exciting
me. Perhaps it was her taste, too. Her honey wasn’t sweet like Lisa’s, more a heavy musk
that unlocked some hidden chamber in my brain. In my frenzy, I thrust my tongue deeply
into her vagina, intent on harvesting every drop of her holy nectar.
“Please lick my clit, Barry, please!” she begged. Her labia were thoroughly relaxed by now,
and my open mouth rested against her silken tissues. With the flat of my tongue, I stroked
her steadily, at the pace of a heartbeat.
Whimpering, she pulled at my hair until I moved up, and her large clitoris slid across my
tongue. Almost immediately, she whispered, “Barry, I’m going to come.” Her hips bucked
against my mouth, and her shouts echoed in the tiny motel room. I worked desperately to
follow her movement as she thrashed from side to side, moaning and calling my name, over
and over.
When she finally sagged back on the bed, and I rested my cheek on her pubic mound, she
said, “That was completely unexpected. I had no idea I was in the presence of a maestro.”
I chuckled into her hair, and in a muffled voice, said, “That was only the first movement.
Are you ready for the whole symphony? It’s quite long.”
“Yes-s-s,” she hissed. She arched her back and opened her thighs again, stroking my hair
with a gentle hand.
An hour or so later, I finally rose from my cramped position beside the bed and had to
steady myself for a few moments. I floated in a kind of euphoria. The walls spun around
me. My jaw and neck ached.
“I think you’ve done something to me,” I said.
“Mm-m?” She remained sprawled on her back, lolling on the bedsheets.
“This evening’s been like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I think you just made me
addicted to you.”
She giggled. “I think we should try to grab a couple of hours sleep while we can.”
I lay down beside her, and she rolled against me with her arm around her waist, a breast
resting on my chest. Her hot breath whirled in my ear.
Soon she slept, but sleep evaded me. My head buzzed with arousal, it’s true, but more
mundane things, like the lack of a toothbrush, and having no decent clothing ready, had
broken my routine. I’d never been an adventurous person, nor very adaptable to change. I’
d always organized the infrastructure of my life so I could get on with the things I thought
important: research, travel, writing, even teaching. But I sensed that my comfortable life
had ended now. First the divorce. Then a chain of events, beginning with the decision to
reveal the existence of B-1B, had led to this hotel room. But its further unraveling was
almost certain to end with me disgraced and out of a job, and my research group scattered.
So many things were already broken and could never be fixed. Lisa was dead. Buddy would
likely spend decades in prison. To cap it all, I might vanish into some mysterious
Government facility, never to be seen again.
And yet there was Rhiannon. The only bright spots in my life at the moment were this
woman and her uncritical interest in me. My life had been reduced to a moldering motel
room, a dirty shirt, and a pair of shredded jeans, but I’d just had the most mind-blowing
sex of my life with a woman who’d once existed only in my imagination. But now the
fantasy was real, with a face, and a name, and a rich intimate aroma, and a beauty that
exceeded anything my imagination could have manufactured.
Rhiannon stirred. “Are you all right, Barry?”
I smiled into the darkness. “I’m still buzzed. You have to let me complete my fantasy
before I can sleep.” I retrieved the miniature bottle of lotion from the bathroom and began
to massage her perfect body. Perched on the side of the bed in the near-darkness, I
kneaded the thick muscles around her spine and shoulders, the knotted mounds of her
buttocks, and the long, sleek powerhouses of her thighs and calves. She lay with her chin
on her folded hands and purred and wriggled in satisfaction. But soon she snored softly,
sleeping again. I crawled in beside her and pulled the sheets over both of us.
I woke with a start. A siren had hooted briefly and propelled me from a confused tangle of
dreams; Rhiannon had been there, naked, but so had Lisa, holding her bloody head upright
on her shoulders. We were in a gray concrete labyrinth, probably a prison or some faceless
Government building, trying to find our way out.
The dream images slipped away, but I was already on my feet. Rhiannon – the real one,
not the dream – stood by the curtain, holding it open an inch. She had the motel’s
disposable shower cap on, and a towel wrapped partway around her shoulders, leaving her
bottom half open to the breeze, and to my gaze. On her skin, drops of water flickered in
the sunlight.
“A cop just pulled over a driver in the parking lot. No need to get alarmed.”
“I guess we’re going to have a busy day,” I said. “But what exactly are we going to do
next?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been in some interesting situations before, but this
has them all beat. We’ve got to plan very carefully.”
“First, we need to eat something, don’t you think?”
“I made coffee in the machine, and there’s a vending machine two doors down. I saw it last
night. Why don’t you shower? It’ll help you wake up, and who knows when the next
chance will be?” She let the curtain fall shut and rubbed herself quickly with the towel
before putting on her underwear.
“Does waterboarding count as a shower?” My stomach was still heavy with apprehension,
but I put on a goofy grin for Rhiannon’s benefit.
I went into the still-steamy bathroom, urinated, and stepped into the shower. The warm
needles of water were a pleasant relief after nearly a week of washing in the quarantine
trailer’s microscopic sink. I let the water flow over my head for a few minutes before
lathering my hair and scrubbing my skin. After drying off, however, I still had to get into
yesterday’s underwear. The briefs looked clean, but my skin still crawled when I put them
on for a second day, violating a lifetime habit.
Wearing only her underwear, Rhiannon turned a chair to face me where I sat on the edge
of the bed. “Right now, we’re stuck in here. Your pants are ruined, and all I’ve got to wear
is fatigues. Neither of us can walk around the streets like that. We’ve got to get clothes
from somewhere. Any ideas?”
“Well, I could wear the fatigues and go get us some food and such.”
She shook her head. “You’ll still be noticed. If there’s some kind of bulletin out on us, the
fatigues will be in it.”
“What if…?” I pursed my lips. “Do you have a knife in that purse of yours?”
“A little pen-knife. Why?”
“Let me have it.” She rummaged in the purse and pulled out a bunch of keys. A tiny knife
dangled from the fob. I removed the knife from the ring and picked up my ruined jeans,
cutting and tearing at the denim until I’d removed both legs, leaving a pair of very short
shorts.
“Try them on,” I said.
“They’re too small.” She slid the abbreviated jeans over her legs, and stood up, pulling
them up around her hips. She was barely able to fasten them. They were snug, and perfect
for our purposes.
“No one’s going to look at your face as long as you’re wearing those,” I said. It was true,
too. I could barely tear my own eyes from those long, magnificent thighs. A tiny tuft of
pubic hair showed, down underneath where she couldn’t see. I figured that if the legs didn’
t distract, the hair would.
She held up the khaki tee shirt she’d worn under her fatigues, made a face, and tossed it
aside. She picked up my shirt and pulled it on. It fastened as far as the underside of her
bosom, but flared open above.
“There you go,” I said. “A perfect fit. Your trademark cleavage, too.”
She smiled sweetly at me, grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
Chapter 25
With Rhiannon gone, even temporarily, the room ceased to be a magical place, and
resumed its existence as a worn and musty cell in a motel that had barely survived from
the fifties, and was badly in need of renovation. But I was trapped here. Outside, the
hostile world, with its Fortinos and all the fallout from the past week, waited to pounce.
And I was hungry, too.
I stretched out on the bed and switched on the TV, but it was well into the daytime
schedule. The only news was national, and I switched it off again. In the trailer, there had
been a computer, but here in this motel room there was nothing to occupy my mind, not
even a newspaper.
I knew I should be pondering what to do next, but I was incapable of concentrating. The
smells of our lovemaking still hung over the bed. Whatever else was happening to me, or
might happen, I couldn’t avoid feeling thoroughly contented. How many men had their
wildest fantasies come true, unasked and out of the blue? In fact, how many men had their
wildest fantasies come true twice in their lives?
My brain drifted back twenty-five years, to my Aunt RoseAnn. With a start, I realized that
Rhiannon reminded me in so many ways of my first lover. Rhiannon was tall and dark-
haired, like RoseAnn, and as aggressive and enthusiastic.
Aunt RoseAnn had been my graduation from teen-aged fumbling to adult sex. She
accounted for my fascination with tall, assertive women and cunnilingus. She wasn’t a
relative; she was my mother’s best friend, going back to their childhood. She never
married, so she’d always been included as an honorary member of our family. She’d paid
special attention to me, bringing gifts at Christmas or sometimes for no special occasion,
and celebrating my birthdays with the family. When I grew into my middle teens, her
interest grew, and I was inclined to reciprocate. She was extraordinarily beautiful, and
became a regular actor in my youthful fantasies. When she took me to museums or baseball
games in downtown Chicago, my parents were fine with it. Each time we went somewhere
together, I grew increasingly aware of her tall, luxurious body and her perfumed, radiant
sexuality.
For my eighteenth birthday, my parents took me to the Wisconsin Dells, a place I didn’t
care for. The Dells had been a theme park before the term ‘theme park’ was invented, a
postwar leftover from my parents’ youth. When they invited RoseAnn to accompany us,
the prospect became interesting. But the trip became a real birthday gift when my parents
decided they would sleep in one hotel room while I would share the adjoining double room
with RoseAnn.
It was all very proper. At day’s end, she had me go into the room and get ready for bed
while she shared a drink with my folks. When the adjoining door closed and she prepared
herself for bed, I hid under the blankets, pretending to be asleep, my eyes open the
slightest bit, merrily playing with myself. She came out of the bathroom wearing a sheer
dressing gown, which almost concealed her underwear, and moved like a cat around the
room, her long black curls rippling about her shoulders. The smells of perfume and
powder, and the sound of splashing water from the open bathroom door, and even the
sound she made brushing her teeth, stoked my fantasies to a fever pitch. I was acutely
aware, too, that beginning several hours before, whatever might happen between us was no
longer against the law.
When she finished her ablutions and came back into the room, her body was silhouetted
against the light from the bathroom door. Now, she was clearly naked under her dressing
gown. I was at the verge of climax when she came over and leaned over my bed. Although I
tried desperately to feign sleep, her breath warmed my face. She kissed me on the cheek,
and whispered, “Good night, Sweet Prince.”
Her lips lingered a millisecond longer than they should have, and her breath whirled in my
ear. That was too much. I came, gripping the handful of tissues around my cock and
fighting desperately to hold back the gasps and the involuntary thrusting of my hips.
When my contractions had finished, she chuckled in the back of her throat and got into
her own bed. I whispered “Good night, RoseAnn,” omitting the ‘Aunt’ for the first time in
my life.
A month later, my fantasies were dashed when RoseAnn moved to California, taking up a
new job with a booming Silicon Valley company in Mountain View. Two months after that,
I received acceptances from all four universities I’d applied to.
“I’m guessing you’ll want to go to Stanford,” my father said.
I shuffled the four letters, as if that might help me decide. “If I go to Michigan, I’ll be
closer to home.”
“But if you want to study biochemistry, Stanford’s the place.”
“I’d have to work two jobs to survive, Dad. The rents in that area are sky high.”
“Maybe not. I hear your aunt has a nice roomy apartment with a pool and clubhouse.
Maybe she’d like some help with her rent.”
That settled it, as far as I was concerned. My parents, innocently or perhaps by design – I
never knew for sure — put me alone in an apartment with the first love of my life,
RoseAnn Pendleton, a woman nineteen years older than me. My folks were both
physicians, and not naïve, nor overly burdened by conventional morality. Perhaps they
preferred to have their son explore his sexuality with a known quantity, someone they
trusted, rather than random co-eds who were hunting a husband, any husband, and
perhaps carrying nameless diseases into the bargain.
Whatever their reasoning, on a Tuesday morning in mid-August I found myself parking my
car in the visitor’s spot outside a row of white stucco townhouses with red tile roofs and
lush landscaping. The air was fragrant with the scents of unfamiliar flowers, and dry and
cool after the sweltering drive across the prairies.
I took RoseAnn’s letter from my briefcase, shook the key from the envelope, and began
hauling suitcases up the steps to the oak door marked ‘R. Pendleton’. Inside, like a
remembered song, the aroma of her signature perfume, Samsara, woke my lust from its
slumber. Little signs of her were everywhere in the dark apartment: photographs on a
mantle, a partly finished book by the couch, a half cup of coffee on the kitchen counter, a
sweater tossed across a chair. I picked up the sweater and held it against my face,
inhaling the scent of her body against a faint background of Samsara. The armpit held the
sharp tang of her and I felt myself growing erect.
I found the bedroom with the note ‘Barry’s Room’ taped to the door, and moved my luggage
in. One dresser was filled with her clothing, but another, empty one sat across the room. It
still had a store tag on it – apparently, it had been purchased just for me. A new desk,
chair, file cabinet, and bookcase stood in a corner, also with tags still attached.
I was about to start unpacking, but I was weary from three long days of driving, plus the
morning’s drive in the fierce Bay Area traffic. I kicked off my shoes and tossed myself onto
the bed. In line with my gaze, a photo of RoseAnn hung on the wall. She wore a one-piece
bathing suit and leaned against a stucco wall, a knee raised and supported by her bare foot
against the wall behind. Her black hair was tousled, as if by the wind, and her dark eyes
shone from under the tangles. I marveled at her long, tanned legs and the thick muscles
around her shoulders. I longed to touch those shoulders, perhaps press my lips to them.
I felt like a burglar as my lust got the better of me. I opened the dresser drawers and found
some underwear, somewhat the worse for wear. Clearly, this was her old stuff. I held up a
brassiere, imagining the size of her breasts and wondering what her nipples would look
like. Would they be pink and tiny, or brown and olive-sized? If I licked them, would they
swell?
In the top drawer, under some jewelry and papers, was a slim album marked Sybaris
Boudoir Photography. I opened it and drew in a quick breath. Inside were more photos of
RoseAnn. In some, she wore a scant bikini. Her slightly rounded belly invited me to stroke
the surface of the paper, and to sketch a mental picture of what lay under the bikini
bottom. In another series of photos, she sat at a boudoir mirror, wearing a sheer nightgown,
her legs drawn up and accented by old-fashioned seamed nylons. In the last picture, the
nightgown had fallen open; through the negligee underneath, a slightly darker shadow was
barely visible. Could it be her pussy, or just a trick of the lighting? I gazed at the photo,
taking the book near the window for better light, but the skill of the photographer,
obviously intending to tease, left me in doubt.
By now, I was painfully erect. My first impulse was to take the album to the bathroom and
masturbate, but it would be the wrong thing to do now. I wanted my arousal at maximum
when I met her. I wanted my need to show in my eyes and my actions. I’d hold my lust at
bay and wait.
I decided to go for a walk to calm down, and soon discovered a unique feature of California
life. Passing drivers slowed and gawked as if I had three heads. Within minutes, a police
car stopped. The cops wanted to know who I was, and what someone from Illinois was
doing in Palo Alto, and why was I out on the streets? It dawned on me that people didn’t
simply go walking in the land of car culture. I still had RoseAnn’s letter with me, and the
officers passed it back and forth between them until they decided I was only a naïve
tourist who didn’t know better.
So I ended up stuck in the apartment, surrounded by RoseAnn’s photos and aromas,
stimulated to a red heat. After three days in the car, driving around sightseeing was
unthinkable. TV could not distract me, nor the collection of novels she kept in her study. I
was at the end of my rope when the door latch rattled at 5:30 that afternoon.
In the open door, her tall form was silhouetted against the daylight. She tossed her brief
case to one side and cried, “Barry! You’re here!” A moment later I was in her embrace. The
Samsara struck me like a hammer. I kissed her cheek, formally, but she drew back and
kissed me full on the lips, something she’d never done with me before. I recovered in time
to return the kiss with equal force.
Our lips were locked together, my arms were around her, her breasts thrust against my
chest, and her hips snugged tight against mine. I was dizzy with her scent. She
overwhelmed and blasted my senses. Without warning, contractions welled up from the pit
of my groin. I grunted in her ear and came, bucking my hips against her like a dog.
“Oh, shit,” I said, backing away.
“What’s the matter?” She looked down at my shorts and the stream of semen coursing
down my leg. “Oh, Barry!”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. I was embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed, and now I felt
the beginnings of a post-orgasmic funk, too.
She put her hands on her hips. “Never mind. Go clean yourself up and get some fresh
clothes on. I’ll wipe up here.”
I washed the sticky semen from my crotch and leg, changed, and sheepishly returned to
the living room, where she waited on the couch. Two glasses of wine sat on the coffee
table.
She made a wry smile. Her eyes were so beautiful! “Come and sit down. Don’t make such a
big deal of it.” She patted the couch cushion.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and sat at the other end of the couch.
“Barry, you’re eighteen. Your hormones are at their peak. At your age, if you weren’t horny
all the time, you’d need a doctor.”
My face still burned. I took the glass of wine and sipped, because I didn’t know what to
say.
“For what it’s worth, I’m actually flattered. You’re attracted to me, aren’t you? In a sexual
way, I mean.”
My stomach clenched, but I nodded, staring into the clear, red wine. “I’ve been fantasizing
about you all day,” I admitted.
She reached a hand and touched my wrist. “Do you really think I haven’t known that? It’s
been in your eyes since you were thirteen. Now you’re a full-grown man, virile and
handsome, but I wonder how much experience you have with women?”
“A couple of girlfriends,” I said sheepishly. “We just fooled around. None of us knew what
we were doing.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. All eighteen year olds are naïve about sex. They’re clumsy
and self-absorbed, and they usually learn about it from people their own age, people who
are equally uninformed.” She moved a hand to my knee and squeezed. “You were accepted
at Stanford, and I happened to live nearby and have a spare room. I call that destiny. Don’
t you? I think I was meant to teach you a few things.”
To my dismay, I felt my erection returning.
She moved next to me, so our shoulders and thighs touched, and I felt her heat. “I came
home from work today nervous as a kitten and horny as a tomcat. Ever since I offered the
room to you, I’ve wondered how I’d approach the subject with you. But it seems your
unfortunate accident provided the perfect ice breaker, didn’t it?”
She slid the hand up my thigh, and I put my arm around her waist and pulled her to me.
We kissed, a deep, soft, long kiss, while the breath hissed through our noses and her
perfume assaulted my senses again. Her hand moved higher and touched my erection.
“Just like an eighteen-year-old. Ready to rock and roll again after just a half hour. Why
don’t we go to the bedroom and see what we can do about those fantasies of yours?” She
broke the embrace and stood up.
“Yes, please.” I was short of breath and my head spun with nervousness and anticipation.
She quickly shed her clothes and stretched her long body on her bed. Although her waist
was small, her belly was rounded in a deliciously inviting way. Her breasts were
substantial, and tipped with large, brown nipples, much as I’d imagined they might be.
She flexed her long, tanned legs, rubbing her thighs together. Between them, in the pale
bikini shadow, a thick patch of curly hair beckoned.
It helped that RoseAnn was so matter-of-fact. Her nakedness made me more comfortable
stripping down. She watched intently, gazing at my erection and reaching her arms to
invite me onto her bed. Again we kissed, our bodies writhing together, until she pushed on
my chest, opened her thighs, and guided me into her hot, wet pussy. None of the girls I’d
had sex with before had been as willing, or as uncomplicated, as RoseAnn and her sweet
vagina.
“No…no condom?”
She giggled. “No condom. I started taking the pill as soon as I knew you were coming. Now
get to work.” She gripped my buttocks and started moving her hips.
It’s true what they say about angels singing. I heard them in her voice and in the wet
sounds of her pussy gripping my aching cock. Her heated flesh stroked, sucked, worked to
push me over the edge into the chaos of orgasm. Everything focused on the intense
sensations radiating from my crotch. Without feeling the approach, the orgasm swept over
me. I grunted like a cave man and bounced my hips against hers, feeling the renewed load
of semen pulse into her body. She felt it, cried into my ear, and squeezed me in her arms.
“Quick,” she said. “Touch me.” I rolled off her, and she guided my hand between her legs.
I found her swollen clitoris easily, and stroked with a delicate finger. After only a few
seconds, she hugged my chest tightly enough to stop my breathing. She shouted into the
room and thrashed wildly on the bed as if suffering a convulsion. When she finally relaxed,
she looked up at me with those deep, brown eyes, the most beautiful God ever made.
I was about to get dressed, and she said, “Just your briefs, Barry.” She wrapped herself in
a thin bathrobe and made sandwiches. While we ate, she put on a movie. After the food,
she had me lay my head in her lap while she stroked my hair and ran her fingers over my
chest, sometimes teasing my nipples. Concentrating on the film was difficult. Lying there
on her warm thighs, her scent enveloped me. Soon I trailed my fingertips over her thighs
and belly. The rest of the movie was forgotten as she pulled down my briefs, climbed on
top, and eased herself down on me.
The next morning, she called in to take a vacation day, and at nine o’clock, she taught my
first lesson in cunnilingus. After breakfast, she lured me back to the bedroom, where we
hugged and kissed, standing naked beside her bed. She led me to an armchair and seated
herself, holding my hand as I stood puzzled in front of her. She tugged at my wrist, and I
went to my knees on the carpet before her.
“I’ve done my best to fulfill your fantasy, Barry. But I have fantasies, too. Will you fulfill
mine?” In a trance from a long evening and night of fucking, I nodded absently. I seemed
to be a disembodied watcher.
“Have you ever gone down on a girl?” Her voice was low, nearly a whisper.
I shook my head. “But I’ve thought about it.”
Her voice was unsteady. “Would ... would you go down on me?”
My gaze fixed on the dense black bush between her legs. I nodded. “Yes. I want to, very
much. But you’ll have to teach me.”
“Just lick, Barry. It’s that simple. Lick my pussy all over, but save my clit for last. Don’t
lick that until I tell you to.”
I nodded and smiled, but my insides were in turmoil as she spread her thighs wide. She
hooked a wrist behind my neck and gently drew my face to within inches of her pussy.
Moist red lips pouted within the nest of dark curls.
She pulled me closer, and her rich scent lured me in. My heart thudded in my chest as her
potent chemistry blew the cobwebs from my brain. I had never wanted anything more in
my life. She brushed the hair aside with her free hand and used two fingers to spread the
labia. “You know what a douche is, Barry? I used it to wash your jizz out of my pussy. I’ll
be clean and nice for you.”
Shaking with lust and nervousness, I leaned into her wide-open crotch and reached with
my tongue. But at the first taste of her honey, the first sigh of pleasure, the first
enthusiastic heave of her hips, my hesitation vanished. I pressed in close and burrowed
like an animal. I opened my mouth wide against her flesh, and pushed my tongue into her,
greedily harvesting her sweet fluid. My mind whirled with the wonder of the female body,
its taste, its entrancing aromas, the hypnotic undulations of belly and thighs, the gasps
and whimpers of pleasure.
As I licked, I wanted desperately to feel her come, but she held my head down, away from
her most sensitive flesh. It was a few minutes before she said, “My clit, Barry. Lick my
clit, please.” She pulled her hand away so I could do what I wanted most. When she came,
seconds later, it was like riding a bull, an explosion of the senses, of rich taste and loud
moans, of striving to stay with her through the violence. As her frenzy faded and her body
relaxed, I grew conscious of an ache in my balls. Yet all I wanted was to lie there with my
lips resting in her pubic hair.
“I was afraid this day would never happen,” she whispered, stroking my hair with her
fingers.
Though I hadn’t come, I’d just had the most intense sexual experience of my life, and I
wanted more. When her breathing seemed normal, I asked if I could lick her again, and she
said yes. By the time we stopped for a late lunch, I may have gone down on her as many
as five times, and I took a couple of ibuprofen for my sore neck muscles. She did not mind
when afterward, I resumed my oral explorations of her body. We topped off the evening
with a slow, weary fuck.
Living together involved logistics, and our life was not entirely about sex. There was a
household to maintain, too. She gave me chores, mostly the vacuuming, dusting, and
making the bed – one bed, since the bed in my room was never actually slept in. Often she
came home tired and late, and on those days, I did the dishes for her. Saturday mornings
were cleaning and laundry day, and we worked together amiably, like newlyweds, to keep
the apartment spotless. We shopped together for groceries. Classes began, and I worked on
my assignments at the desk she’d bought for me. I called my parents regularly and
updated them on my progress and the games and plays I attended with RoseAnn. We even
developed mutual friends among the many fascinating people that crowded Silicon Valley
and made it the powerhouse of invention that it was in the Eighties. By and large, they
were people who were tolerant of idiosyncrasies, and no one ever mentioned our age
difference.
Every day, except for her monthlies, I’d worship my thirty-seven year old lover with my
tongue, one, two, or three times, whatever she demanded. Less often, she’d invite me to
slip my roused cock into her and vent my youthful passion in an explosion of hot fluid.
One morning, in a burst of gratitude for a particularly passionate night, I brought her
breakfast in bed. As she dabbed egg yolk from her lips, she smiled sweetly, and told me
that from now on, it would be a regular duty of mine. The no-nonsense tone in her voice
made my belly tingle. Thereafter, I woke her every morning with a tray of coffee, cereal or
eggs, toast, and juice. Her smile was reward enough.
Later, she taught me the art of full-body massage. Her job sometimes left her tense and
aching at the end of the day, and I was able to relax her in a way that her glass of wine
could not. Soon she wanted the touch of my hands every day. I considered it a privilege,
and her insistence was fine with me. If she tired of the massage before going to sleep, she
would often roll onto her back and invite me to feast between her thighs.
As the months wore on, her demands on my tongue increased, and her offers of relief grew
further apart. Yet I’d already grown addicted to the joy in her cries and the violent
thrashing of her hips when she came against my mouth. I felt a rush of emotion not unlike
a real orgasm, but instead of leaving me drained and irritable, this new kind of completion
left me in a euphoria that made the rest of my day float by like a pleasant dream. I
thought about her constantly; her image floated before me even as I walked the campus,
sat in class, bantered with classmates, and stared at textbooks.
For nearly three years, we lived like lovers, like man and wife, and to a degree, like
mistress and slave. But late in my junior year, some days after we’d celebrated her fortieth
birthday, she came shyly to me and told me she wanted to date men her own age.
“What did I do wrong?” I asked. I took her in my arms and we held each other.
“You’ve been a perfect lover. But I’m afraid of growing old alone.”
“I’d marry you in a heartbeat. Just say yes.” I felt tears begin to well up, in spite of my
efforts to stop them.
“Barry, you’re young. You need someone your own age. Someday you’ll want children and
a real family life. Maybe not now, but later. You won’t want to be tied to an old woman
while you’re still a handsome, virile man.”
Now I tasted tears. “I can do without anything else, but not without you. Age doesn’t
matter. It never mattered. Please, RoseAnn.”
“Barry, a man at work has asked to date me. I don’t want to hurt you, but we’ve taken this
thing as far as it should go, for both our sakes. Please say it’s okay with you.”
I nodded, and for days my heart felt hollow, my life empty and worthless. Even so, we
made love regularly, as if nothing had been said. But on the eve of her third date, she
confided that she expected to sleep with her new boyfriend the next night. Next morning, I
moved into my own bedroom and accepted my demotion to live-in nephew.
But hearts heal quickly at twenty-one. Less than three months and three potential
girlfriends later, I found a tall, lovely redhead who liked having her pussy licked as much
as RoseAnn did. It seemed only fair that I ask RoseAnn’s permission, which she gave, but
not without a moment of tears and sad handholding. I moved in with the redhead a week
later.
RoseAnn had a series of men friends over the next year. Sometimes she summoned me to
be a shoulder to cry on, or a loving tongue to put her sorrow and frustration to rest. But
she stoutly refused to resume our relationship, however much I begged. Ultimately, her
quest succeeded. Just before I graduated and departed for grad school in Michigan, she
announced her engagement to a recently divorced computer engineer. I returned to
California with my parents for the wedding.
That was twenty-three years ago. Every Christmas since, I’d exchanged emails with
RoseAnn. She seemed happy, and last year, attached a photo of her and her gray-haired
husband, smiling into each other’s eyes. His adoring gaze told me all I needed to know.
She was happy, and that made me glad, too.
A blast of daylight yanked me from my reverie. Rhiannon stood frozen in the doorway,
staring at my briefs. “Barry, you’re hard again. What is it with you men?”
Chapter 26 coming soon - Back to Index
