Message-ID: <22702asstr$950073002@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Original-Message-ID: <00b301bf7259$7cba4060$2201a8c0@sromeo> From: "SJR" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Subject: {ASSM} ME AND MARTHA JANE '99 (m/F,teen) MJANE11.TXT Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 00:10:02 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, apuleius, IceAltar, kelly, Lambchop, newsman SJR <1st attachment, "MJANE11.TXT" begin> **** WARNING **** WARNING **** WARNING **** THIS DOCUMENT IS A SEXUALLY GRAPHIC STORY ABOUT AN INTENSE SEXUAL, EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A TEENAGE GIRL AND A YOUNG BOY AND THE COURSE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP OVER A PERIOD OF 10 YEARS. IT IS A DRAMATIZATION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE AND THEIR CON- FLICT WITH SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS. IF THIS SUBJECTS OFFENDS YOU OR IF SEXUAL LANGUAGE UPSETS YOU, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS MATERIAL SEEN BY UNDER-18 OR OTHERWISE UNQUALIFIED PERSONS, DELETE THIS DOCUMENT. THIS DOCUMENT IS COPYRIGHTED 1994, 1999 BY SJR. SO--HEY, YOU CAN COPY IT BUT YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT OR SELL IT UNLESS I SAY SO. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE by S.J.R. PART 11A: I sat dumbfounded while viewing my first foreign language film, so amazed, that at first I didn't feel Martha nudge me with her elbow in the dark theater until she did so insistently. I turned to her. She wiggled her fingers near my face. Understanding, I took her hand in mine. She smiled contentedly and hugged our clasped hands against her thigh over her skirt. She rubbed my arm cozily, and turned back to the movie. I had never seen such a film. The movie was "Bicycle Thief," which had been released years earlier. The lilting rhythm of the original, unedited Italian dialogue rolling off the actors' lips, the newness of their attitudes and the earthy acting style -- all of it had me, as had happened so often since I arrived in New York, sitting with my eyes bulging and my mouth open. When we left the cinema I was dazed. Everything I knew about acting and theater production and movie making had been expanded beyond my expectations. I sat wordlessly at our late dinner in a Greenwich Village coffee shop. Martha asked, "Is anything wrong? You look lost." I explained with difficulty, "My brain is working overtime." And it was. So many impressions were striking me at once that I was soon exhausted trying to sort them out and keep track. And this was only my third day in New York! We took a long walk all the way uptown to her apartment, during which I had to inspect every store window and peer around corners to see what was there. It seemed every inch of Third Avenue presented something new and exotic. Martha was pleased that I was so enchanted. "It's a little intimidating," I remarked as we strolled with Martha hugging my arm. "It doesn't really frighten you, does it?" "It's a lot like being in the middle of something that has no beginning and no end. And that movie -- now I have to learn about the theater all over again. From scratch. All of this...it just keeps going, doesn't it? It never stops." "Oh, it stops. At around 4 A.M., for an hour or so." In her apartment as we prepared for bed, Martha told me about the schedule for tomorrow. I had Fiore at ten, and Ronnie would meet me at noon where she worked at 33rd and Madison. She would take me to the eyeglass dealer and help me choose a set of frames. Then I was free, until Martha returned at around five. Martha would wake at six and be ready to go to a meeting at Columbia by seven. "I dread these things," she said, slipping out of her skirt. "So political, so artificial. Everything is numbers, bureaucrats, commit- tees. For such educated people, there seems to be no one person who can do or decide anything alone." I watched her. She removed her bra, her panties. She stood naked, her flesh glowing in the lamplight. She reached into a drawer for her pajamas -- blue ones this time -- and started unfolding them. My balls ached. I was accustomed to her making the first move or giving the first signals. Holding back, I felt myself tremble. I looked down at my shaking hands. How long, I asked, would I continue to be so unsure of a woman who so obviously desired me? Or was it just the vitamins and Fiore's workout? Or was this really me, my new sexuality more demanding than ever before? Almost always, sex with Martha was prefaced by moments of relaxed conversation and touching. There was usually some kind of emotional warm-up that led to physical results. What I felt now was spurred by stronger emotional and phys- ical energies than I was accustomed to. Standing in my underwear, I looked at her nakedness as she talked about the meeting and unbuttoned her neatly packed pajama top. She was luscious. Her breasts were so perfect and firm they barely jig- gled as her hands worked at the buttons. She stood with one leg on the floor and one knee on the bed as she rambled on. She had the pajama shirt unbuttoned and would soon have it on, covering her pink tipped breasts. I stopped arguing within myself. I walked to the bedside lamp and turned it off. She stopped talking and looked up at me. I stared daringly into her wondering face as I approached her. I dipped my head, licked a breast, found her nipple with my tongue, and sucked. I heard her murmur a surprised, "Hmm. Hon." Her fingers held the breast to my mouth and I suckled gently. I raised my head and placed my lips into the warm hollow of her throat. She sighed pleasurably as I kissed and licked my way up her long neck. I looked at her. She looked at me with sultry playfulness, her eyes narrowed. She said, "Well. That was nice." I held her by her shoulders and gently laid her on the bed. She lay with her legs spread, smiling at me languidly from the dark as I removed my underwear. She saw that I was already stiff. I walked to the end of the bed, my dick wobbling, and knelt on the mattress near her feet. She pulled her knees up and opened her thighs and waited. I moved forward, and placed my head directly over her pubis, gently spreading her cunt with my fingers, and gave her a long, slow, wet lick along her slit, from bottom to top. She gave a small gasp and breathed, "Oh! We're not wasting any time, now, are w--?" She stopped talking and gasped again as I gave her another lick, then gave a long breath outward as I began a slow rhythm of lingering licks that soon had her sighing, "Oh hon. Yes." Perhaps it was the lecherous hunger in my mouth and movements that heated her so quickly. I raised my head to look at her smooth, thick- lipped, attractive pussy. After only a moment of licking, her nub was bared, defenseless, already swollen and ready. She looked down at me as I dipped my tongue toward her button. I licked, circling slowly. She uttered a quietly steamy "Ah" and gritted her teeth and watched my eyes watching hers. Then her eyes closed, her neck taut, and her raised knees fell aside and opened her smooth thighs, and against my shoulders and neck and cheeks I felt the heat and the throbs and flexing of the tendons of her inner thighs as they yawned wide to receive and enjoy my mouth on her. I left her clit and used the tip of my tongue to draw small vertical ovals on her, laving the rim and inner ledge of her firm cuntlips, all around but not touching her clit, and her body tensed. I made more of the teasing ovals and then gently sucked her clit. She caught her breath. "Ah. Nice." I settled my mouth onto her mound. Yearningly I started sucking her clit the way she might suck my longer cock, using my lips as a warm cone sliding up and down her stiffening length. Her thighs stiffened. She gave a hushed, surprised "Oh!" Her head fell back and she gasped irregularly, her hips arching. Unrelenting, I sucked and stroked with my wet inner lips in a steady cadence, feeling the smooth swell of her furrowed mound against my mouth, feeling her thighs flutter. Soon I heard her moan achingly toward the ceiling, "It's so good. Oh, it's so GOOD!" It did not take long for her to signal that she was near cumming. Her entire body quivered briefly, then her thighs widened even more and she began a slow, irregular, sensuous writhing of her hips. I continued to suckle and lick, my mouth patient and ardent, and I was delighted when I felt the stiffening and heard the broken breathing that told me she was climbing swiftly toward a climax. I stopped, with Martha still gasping and writhing. I rose over her, my erection swaying, my tip glistening in the dark. I knelt over her with my knees astride her head. She looked up, her face flooded with excitement, her eyes questioning. I grasped the headboard as I raised my hips and dangled my cock over her mouth. Her eyes narrowed wickedly and she gave a low chuckle and whispered, "Yes." She reached behind her head and bunched the pillow so that her head leaned forward comfortably. She smiled into my eyes as she lathered her tongue inside her mouth and then extended her tongue to slowly and completely wet me with long, lingering, curling licks, often re-wetting her tongue to keep the licking warm and drippy. Rapidly my cock hardened more, until it ached. I looked down at her, and I was surprised to hear myself murmur so lecherously, "Yeah. Ahh, yeah. It's good," and as the pleasure began eating its way into my very bones I clenched my jaws and whispered through my teeth, "Suck it. Suck." With a single movement of her head forward, her mouth enclosed me, wet and torrid, immersing me entirely with warm spit and a clinging tongue. I grunted and sighed at the poignant, itching pleasure as she drew her mouth back and along my entire length, releasing me with a muted slurp. Then she mouthed my tip gently with the soft inside of her lips. My cock throbbed, rising and falling blissfully. "Hmm," she breathed. She smiled mischievously at me, whispering breathlessly, "I love this." I whispered again, "Suck." Her narrowed eyes fumed and then closed, and her mouth took me again. Her head nodded with slow, spitty, lingering sucks. Her mouth moved only an inch or two, her lips riding loosely and wetly up and down, the pressure of her tongue on the underside creating most of the tantalizing sucking effect. I sighed hotly, looking down at her, thinking again that what Martha did when she sucked was not really sucking; it was mouth fucking, pure and simple. Martha knew how to make her mouth feel like a warm, affectionate, perpetually moving cunt. Her skill had not diminished with time; soon my cock was twitching against the roof of her mouth and I knew she'd make me cum early if this didn't stop. I gently pulled away, her mouth loosing me with a slight, sticky sound. My eyes on hers, I watched as I slithered down, straightening my legs and settling onto her. The surprise on her face softened when she saw me rise on my arms and angle my cock toward her center. She continued to gasp, her breath wobbly and her staring eyes seeming to plead helplessly for me to fill her, telling me she was still near orgasm. My tip touched her dense, drippy outer lips. Her thighs fell open again and her pelvis lifted, her cuntlips kissing and then encircling my glans. I moved forward. And her eyes glistened and I exhaled with the pleasure of my slide into the familiar, slick, smooth, welcoming sleeve, the clinging, loving comfort of the gripping flesh of her. My shaft lurched upward, saying hello to her secret place inside, and she clinched me in return. I began to slide in and out, to luxuriate in her, with long and deep and slow and powerful and steady strokes, my butt tightening in the warm air and my belly grazing hers. She whispered happily, "Fuck!" Her eyes glistened. "Fuck!" I watched her pant frenetically, felt her spasm wetly around me. I tightened my tummy and moved upward on her slightly, brushing her seeking, swollen clit with every glide in and out of her, and her eyes flared with pleasure. I teased, "Are you close?" She nodded, quickly, her eyes darting back and forth across my face, her breath shuddering. Then her eyes widened again, excitedly. Unsmiling and seemingly entranced, she parted her lips and tried to speak, but couldn't seem to. She gulped thickly and panted more madly. Then her eyes changed again, melting into a longing, helpless stare. Her nails clamped into my shoulders, her taut arms quivered and I felt her getting tighter and tighter around my strokes. Bal- ancing on my right hand and still fucking, I quickly swooped my left arm under her, around her trim waist, and held the rigid small of her back in my spread palm, and I held her midsection close to me, my arms and hips and cock fueled with the power of two years of not fucking her, needing insanely to keep her hips and pelvis and cunt closer to me, closer. I felt the muscles in her hips lurching under my hand. I whispered "Cum," encouraging, helping, and whispered "Cum" again, watching her eyes, watching her mouth part and her eyes glaze and watching her lips mouth the word yes and watching her gasp and mouth yes again and then feeling her stiffen, suddenly, taut as a wire, her pelvis grinding her rigid clit against my shaft. And then her sudden, moaning, low-pitched, frenzied "Yes!" and she came, her cunt fiercely clamping, her neck straining, her face nodding forward in small spasms as she stared at me, cumming, and I smiled down at her and whispered a pleased "Yes, yes," happy for her, taking pleasure in her pleasure. Her face and wild eyes froze with staring joy, and her cumming was long and taut and her throat uttered that powerless, animal sound she sometimes made, and I slowed my fucking to make it last for her. Then she winced, shuddered, stiffened, and winced harder and shuddered, and finally her face fell forward and her arms enclosed me and she hugged me to her and opened her mouth against my shoulder and gave a short little yelp, and then she relaxed, and whimpered, and gasped for breath, and then fell back with a sigh, her face soft and loving and her hand reaching up, her fingers on my cheek and her eyes tearing, her mouth soundlessly forming the word Steven, her eyes painfully loving and pleased. Then she whispered plaintively, weakly, "Cum in me. Cum inside me." I raised on both my arms and looked down at her pale body stretched under me in the dark, at her spread thighs ex- tending far outward from the warm, smooth-muscled pasture of sleek belly and hips, and at the soft tuft raising upward, asking for me, and I began lancing into her strongly again, steadily, deeply, pumping, pumping. Then the warning throbs and my cock stiffening more and more and I sighed, knowing it would be soon, soon, and she signaled that she knew, clamping on me, and I felt again the new pleasure I had first felt two days before, the nub of her womb and the deep sucking, and her cunt tightened imploringly, and then I felt the blessed release. I gasped and shook with it, seeing below me as I fucked her that what I had suspected was true, that while my glisten- ing shaft gushed cum into her, her tummy did indeed move, but subtly, in a slow, tiny circle so that her serpentine cunt could wring cum from me, ruthlessly asking for it all. I slowed, groaning, spurting, twitching against her cunt's roof, hearing the rhythmic rasp of my knees flexing on the sheets and my hips moving between her legs, hear- ing her sweet "Mmm" and her softly hissed "Yesss" as she raised her head to watch me fuck her. With my last, slowing strokes she sighed a long, quiet, contented "Ahhhh," and I stopped, and collapsed on her, my face hot against her neck. She hugged me and cuddled into me. She reached down between us for me to raise my belly so she could give my cock a tug as she liked to do, and then she hugged me again. My breath was hot and damp against her neck, and her hips gave a single, affectionate writhe as my twitches waned inside her. She raised her legs around me, her whole body enclosing me completely in her heat and damp flesh and the scent of warm milk that came from her. Loudly, we both struggled to catch our breath. Against my ear she gave a low, pleased chuckle. "Lord, Steven. When you set your mind on it, you can really fuck." I panted, my aching balls empty, empty, empty. After a few moments I whispered, "Don't you have to go to the bathroom?" She sighed wearily. "Not really. It's not the right time of the month." "Maybe you should be sure." "I'd love to just sleep after feeling so good." "Mother nature would love it too." "Mm...Okay. But hold me a little longer. Wait 'til you're asleep." I listened to my own labored breathing. My own passion had scared the hell out of me. I'd have to be careful; in such an uncontrollable state, I could easily have spoken the words and made the very demands I feared. At the window, the warm summer night sent a breeze that made the curtains whisper sleepily. For a few minutes, I thought, New York was stilled. My mind whispered silently: Stay. Stay here. Keep holding her. Hold this moment, here, now, forever. Unaccustomed to sleeping for more than five or six hours for the past several days, I awoke on Monday a little before six-a.m. Beside me, I saw that Martha had changed into her blue pajamas while I slept. I touched my lips to her cheek, and got out of bed and dressed and made coffee. I had been sitting in the dining room only a couple of minutes before I heard the same soft knock at the door that I'd heard the day before. Going to the door, I cleared my throat loudly, as before. "Steven?" Ronnie called softly from the other side. Removing my glasses first, I opened the door. Ronnie waited in the same pajamas and bathrobe as yesterday. "Steven," she said. As before, she made the same begging gesture and sheepish grin. "Sugar?" "Sure," I said, extending my arm into the room. She tiptoed into the kitchen. I sat waiting at the dining table until she tiptoed past me toward the front door, holding a coffee cup half filled with sugar. I opened the front door for her. She glanced at the sofa, which of course was made up and intact as before. "What a fireball," she whispered, slithering into the hall. I closed the door and turned to hear Martha rustling in the bedroom. In a few seconds she appeared in the living room doorway as she had yesterday when Ronnie borrowed coffee. Martha slumped in her pajamas and scratched her side. Her face was half covered with the same fuzzy tousle. "Ronnie again?" she slurred. I nodded. "Right. She ran out of sugar." "God...she's so disorganized." She stumbled into the bathroom. I read the Sunday New York Times that I had not finished the day before. After a minute I heard Martha dropping things in the bathroom again. In a few seconds she emerged, carrying an armful of cosmetics and drifting toward the kitchen. She stopped in the kitchen door and sniffed, testing the air. She turned to me, her eyes still half closed behind the hair in her face. "You made coffee again?" she asked. "Yes," I said, looking up from my newspapers. She paused, seeming to fall asleep for a second or two, then drifted toward me and dropped the cosmetics on the table and shoved the table away from me with her hips, and then settled with a plop onto my lap and buried her face in my shoulder. She kissed my neck. She nestled into my shoulder for a minute, her breathing still noisy and sleepy. She pulled her head away and looked at me, eyes hooded. "Kiss me," she murmured, a little drunk with sleep. We kissed, warmly. She pulled away. Still sleepy, she gazed without expression at my mouth. She shifted on my lap, closer to me, her arms around my neck. "Kiss me again," she murmured. I did, for a long sweet minute. She pulled away. She paused. She made a sound that was something like a little whimper of frustration. "Kiss me again," she murmured. I did, more longingly this time, giving her lips a little lick while we were still connected. Pulling away, she experimentally ran her tongue around her lips. "Mm. New sensation." She looked at me, her lidded eyes hidden behind her hair. Mostly, I saw nose, lips, and chin. "You never did it that way before." "I didn't?" She shook her head no. She leaned down. "Kiss me again," she murmured. I did. This time she gently invaded my mouth with her tongue, which wrestled wetly with mine for a few seconds. When she pulled away she rested her forehead against mine. "Do you know what you did to me last night?" she whispered. "I have a vague recollection," I said. "Try to remember. I want you to do it again when I get home this afternoon." "I'll consult my notes." I thought secretly that if I did again what I'd done last night, it would be the last act of my short life. "Okay." She rubbed her nose listlessly. "Remember," she said, "Fiore at ten. Ronnie at twelve. Then rest. Then me." "Okay." "You were very good last night." "Mm. Thank you, Miss Scarlett." "We're seeing West Side Story tonight, don't forget." "Will we have time for that, and for you when you get home?" She said, "Mm-hm," and then tilted her face again, her mouth parting. She murmured, "Kiss me again." I did. Finally she pulled away, patted my shoulders, and rose. Gathering her cosmetics, she sighed, "What a mouth," and she drifted toward the kitchen. Again, she stripped quickly, affording me another view of her perfect, lithe body from the rear, and stepped into the shower. I thought: Four days in New York and my groin is aching and my balls are falling off...Fiore, help me with this. PART 11B: At ten o'clock Fiore, looking me over with his hands on his hips, grinned at me from his big ruddy face. "So! Still with smoke on your breath, heh? You're lucky you have only light work today! Every other day, we do the heavy work! Today you work light. You are going to learn to stretch and bend like a rubber band! I will show you! Now -- onto the table!" Again, Fiore flipped and kneaded me on the massage table, showing me how to detect which muscles and tendons were too tight and required either more work or more rest. Then he showed me the stretching move- ments that the dancers in his gym performed. I strained and grunted through all of them. Then: "On the bicycle! And don't fall off!" "This is light work?" I remarked, climbing onto the exercise bike. I started pedaling. "No!" Fiore exclaimed. "You destroy your knees moving that way! Remember what I told you! Start again!" By eleven o'clock, huffing and puffing, I was tired but definitely awake. I took Fiore's advice and stopped in a shop on Madison Avenue to buy a pair of first class workout shoes, then walked downtown to 32nd Street to meet Ronnie in the building where she worked. She appeared at exactly noon, hurrying across the expansive lobby of the building, wearing a gray business suit. She carried a wide cardboard artist's portfolio. Ronnie had a woman's face whose slightly squared jaws and narrow nose might have been considered a liability were it not for her overall quality of soft femininity and her dark, pretty eyes. Not one to smile constantly, her normal expression was a serious, reflective, older one, with a hint in her eyes of some unspoken sadness. When she did smile it was an easy, playful, contagious one that brightened her whole face. I smiled at her as she approached, aware that her winning grin and friendly blue eyes were beginning to affect me warmly. She greeted me with a lilting "hello-ooo" and a flitter of raised fingers. She asked, "Did Fiore leave anything for the rest of us?" "I'll be okay, as long as I can sit at lunch." "No problem," she said, chuckling. "No extra charge for chairs at this place." We walked quickly along the crowded street toward a restaurant on 35th Street. She asked about my workouts with Fiore. I described the special movements Fiore taught me and the diet he assigned. "Uk," she said, making a face, "Brewer's yeast. Yeah, he made me take that stuff once. Three tablespoons a day, right?" "Me too." She eyed me skeptically. "You don't cheat, do you?" "Nope." "What dedication. I had to lay off that stuff. It made me so healthy I stayed horny all the time. Couldn't stand it." We sat at a small table near the window of the second floor of the restaurant she took me to. There was no lack of material to talk about. We shared many interests. I found Ronnie to be quite easy- going, despite her occasionally self disparaging remarks. "I can't believe," she said, salting her food, "that you worked for two years day and night to come up here. You must be very determined." She was interested in every detail of what it took to keep a paper route, a subject I considered tedious, but she wanted to know about it anyway. Then she asked about growing up in the Lauder- dale Courts. "You know," she said, "Elvis Presley grew up there, too." I told her I'd seen Elvis in the neighborhood and that he still visited my stepdad's supermarket now and then, accompanied by a string of pink Cadillacs. She winced. "Oh, the Cadillacs! Almost as bad as his movies, and some of his stuff is just too teeny. But I love it when he gets into the old rhythm and blues stuff." Pouring cream in her second cup of coffee, she sang lightly, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...," She concluded with a droll, "Am I awful, or what? Wanna see me wiggle?" Out on the sidewalk, she asked me to hold still and put my glasses on. I balked, but she insisted, "Oh, come on, let's see what we have to work with. We'll still be friends." I donned my glasses and let her have a look at me. She gazed at me, studying. I began thinking she was actually quite cute, with a casual, girlish charm and an easy acceptance of me as I was -- a far cry from my carping relatives. "Yeah," she conceded, "Martha's right. New frames will make a b-i-g difference. Come on, we're going to a place that not many people know about." On the way, she asked me about my theater work. She was awed that I had gone onto the stage before I was a teen. Teasing, she wanted me to perform a bit from one of my former roles. By the time we arrived at the frame vendor's place on the fourth floor of a building near Macy's, I felt easy and comfortable with Ronnie. I didn't wonder that she was a close friend of Martha's. And she was the first young woman I knew other than Martha who expressed a serious interest in and knowledge of the arts I'd left behind for my paper route. In the frame shop I tried several designs, with Ronnie giving her impressions of each. "Really," she said, "I like every one you picked out. But you tell me which one you like best." I put on my favorite and she looked me over carefully, and then nudged her lips approving- ly. "Right. Thin, dark frames look really good on you. They're drop-dead gorgeous, Steven. You look seriously like a New Yorker." The frames cost forty-five bucks -- a pretty sum in those days, considering that my originals cost a mere fifteen. The salesman behind the counter told me I could have my lenses mounted on the premises for eight bucks if I would wait an hour. I agreed. Ronnie and I sat in a corner and chatted until she was due to return to work. "You get involved in so many fascinating things," she said, sitting beside me and looking pensively down at the floor. She had a slim figure and a slinky, easy manner of sitting and moving. "I'd give anything to have brains and endurance. I just slug along. Don't even know where I'm going yet. Feel like I'm twenty-two going on sixty." "You've got a start in the design business, though. Back in Memphis, women don't even know such jobs exist." "Yeah, Martha told me about Memphis. Minimum Wage Capital of the World, right? God, Mom, and apple pie?" I nodded. "Home of the red, white and blue -- Red necks, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer. Memphis would be a waste of your talent and personality." "Awww. Shucks. But those Southern accents are so cute. They never get it right in the movies. Yours is faint, but just right. Martha's is almost gone." I leaned toward her, and she leaned closer to hear me. "Tell me," I asked furtively, "all the salesmen in this place...why are they wearing those little black caps?" "Those what?" she asked, leaning closer. "Those little black caps." She widened her eyes and covered her mouth with her hands, grin- ning broadly behind them. "Those little black...?" she began, then she bent over with soft laughter as I watched, confused. She straightened up, and took a few seconds to calm down. "Oh, that's precious! I have to tell Martha about this!" The little black hat, she whispered, was a yarmulke; the salesmen there were Hassidic Jews. I blushed, feeling like a complete country idiot again. She chuckled over it until she left for work. "You're such fun, Steven. I can't wait for us to get together Wednesday." She gave me another of her innocent pecks as she left. Soon my frames were ready. I put them on, bought a new hard case for them, and headed for the street. The new frames felt better. The city looked better. I had made a friend of Ronnie. I wasn't wearing those loathsome horn rimmed gadgets. Instead of taking a bus to Martha's, I stuffed my old tennies in my shopping bag and laced on my new workout shoes. I broke into a slow jog up busy Third Avenue. As I huffed along in the breeze, I was surprised that no one on the street took notice. I could like New York, I thought; I didn't seem so uneasy about myself in New York. I streaked up the stairs to Martha's apartment and looked at myself and my new frames in the mirror. Not bad. The frames were very thin, barely visible. In the kitchen I swallowed my midday ration of yogurt, pills, and yeast. I took an extra dab of yeast. The food made me helplessly drowsy. It was sultry in Martha's place. I took off all my clothes and plopped onto the bed and slept for almost three hours, dead as stone. In the late afternoon I awoke and took a shower and dressed. Settling onto the sofa with my New York Times, I awaited Martha. She returned late, around five-forty-five, looking cheerless and enervated in the brown two piece suit in which she had been so fresh and pretty a few hours before. I opened the door for her and grinned, wearing my new frames. Unsmiling, she entered sluggishly and plopped her purse onto the dining table. I stood behind her, waiting, my new frames sitting squarely on my face in broad daylight. "Whaddya think?" I asked the back of her bobbed head. She turned around and looked directly into my eyes, and leaned close to me, and then put her hands on my shoulder and, gazing intently at my mouth, pushed me backward against the wall and pressed full length against me. She held my face in her hands. "What do I think of what?" she asked distractedly, her lips coming closer to mine, her eyelids lowered sensuously. "The frames," I said. Ignoring the frames, she raised one hand and gently touched my lips. She murmured throatily, softly, "Outstanding." "You didn't look," I said. "Yes I did, they're lovely. Steven, I hate the New York City education establishment. I hate the politics, the shortsightedness. But I love your mouth. I've been thinking about your mouth all day." Still pressing against me and watching my mouth, she unbuttoned her suit jacket. I had not expected her to be so direct, willing, and ready after a day of work. I cleared my throat. "I learned what a yarmulke was." "You did? You gonna start wearing one?" She slipped the jacket off her shoulders and let it slither to the floor without looking. "And had a nice talk with Ronnie." Gently she wedged one leg between my thighs. "Fiore didn't wear you out, did he?" "No, it was okay." Her voice was soft, sultry, whispery. "Steven, I demand that we fuck immediately." "Right here? Now? Standing up?" "Hmm...I didn't think of that. Can we do it standing up?" "I guess. Horses do, don't they?" "Not face to face." "Well, they're horses, what do they know? I bet we could. We've both been very resourceful so far." "Resourceful, yes. Not necessarily lucky." I looked at her face and she looked at my mouth and I gathered the hem of her skirt and ran my hand up her leg. She whispered, "Careful, hon, don't tear my hose. They're so ex- pensive." I cupped my hand between her legs over the hose and pant- ies, my thumbs negotiating their way through the garter straps. She was warm and humid. "Here," she whispered, "I'll pull them off. You get your pants off." "Lucky? Why did you say 'Not necessarily lucky'?" I heard things snapping under her skirt, and her shoulders jerked as her hands moved under her suit, and I guessed that as we spoke she pulled her panties down and kicked them away somewhere. She stayed against me, looking into my eyes and at my mouth, her lips nearly on mine. "I think, " she whispered as she worked, "that the parts have to fit in a particular way, you know, for intercourse to be conducted between standing humans." "But we're the higher species, we differ from lower animals in our ability to stand upright." I was joking. Surely we weren't going to really fuck like this, now. Again! "I think we stood up to hunt, Steven, not to fuck -- No, don't do that." "...Just reaching for the table lamp, so we can --" "No. No seeing. Just hearing. Feeling. There's just enough light from the window. I wish it were darker." "You realize, you're seducing me." "I thought standing was your idea." "I was naive and innocent. I didn't know it would lead to this." She gulped when I raised her skirt and my cock grazed her bared cunt. I said, "Look, you're already wet. I got you wet, didn't I? Hm, this is getting you hot. Isn't it? And you thought it was a silly idea. You're a fraud, you're as wicked as I am." "You're one to talk, look how hard you are. Come on, get in me... in me, hon...Mmm. Push. Push. Wait, I'm not wet enough. Wait. Here, rub it on me, rub...Rub your tip." "Ah." "Hmm, he likes that, I felt him jump. Mm, don't move, no. Stay still. Stay still. Rub, I'm getting wet. Mmm." Her eyes closed, concentrating, and she breathed heavily. "Ooohh, yes. Yes. Now. Push now. A little more...A little -- oh, darn, I don't believe this." "Don't spread your legs so wide, you get lower to the floor and I can't reach you." "Let me lean against the wall. Then I can open my legs some... Here. Here. Come on, here." "Martha, that's my belt." "I know it, I know. Here. Try again, hon...easy...lower...There, right there. In. In, in. Mmm." "Your cunt's so hot!" "Slow, hon...This is too outrageous not to let it last...Oh, yes ...nnn, deeper...Is that okay?" "Well, It's strange, all our clothes on and the only place we can...Mmm!...feel each other is down there." "No, I can feel your face, your hands on my back. Ahh. Oh. But you can't go very deep." "I know. You sure you want it this way, it's not that comfort- able. No wonder horses do it the other way!" "That's right, doesn't the mare gets down on all fours? Hm?" "I never watched horse do it. Ahh. Be interesting to see what they get out of it." "I understand...I...understand it feels very good that way." I settled deep into her sucking wetness and watched her eyes. "Yeah? How do you know?" "Ahhh...Ronnie." "Ronnie likes it that way?" "No, hon, Ronnie and I discussed it." "I see, the two wicked witches of East 87th Street." "Okay, stop. Stop, let's try it horsie style. Come out, hon... Oh, it's always so sad when he leaves me." "He'll be back." "You stay right there, little horsie. Oh, my, I got him all wet, didn't I? Here, I'm supposed to get on my hands and knees, right? This way...? Come on, you kneel behind me. Push my skirt up, hon. Okay. Okay, wait. Wait!...Steven, where'd you go? Feel my hand back there? Huh? Where are you? Here, horsie. Here, horsie." "Wait, wait, let me get closer." "There he is...Move closer...Closer, hon." "I think you have to raise your tail a little, miss filly." "That okay? Hm? Oh. OH!" "Hmmmm." "Oh that's feels so good! So depraved. Oh, hon, are you sure this is legal?" "Martha this ain't legal for *me* in any state!" "Heh-heh, you're right. Ahh! God, you're in deep! Oh Steven. Oh. Oh. You feel so big." "No, you're just tighter. Oh. So tight!" "Baby...Mmp!...Why didn't we do this before?" "We were too busy...doing other things. I'm out of breath already." "Oh, look, all I can see under me is your balls bouncing. Oh, how sweet. How perfectly, beautifully obscene, your balls bouncing. Go all the way in and hold it, all the way in...ahhhh, hold it, Steven. Oh, it's so...your balls against me, so nice. I can just barely touch them, if I can reach back far enough..." "Martha...no, don't-- Mm!" "You don't want me to squeeze 'em? Does that feel good, if I squeeze, just a little? They feel so heavenly in my hands. I can't feel them like this when we fuck the other way." "Martha...!" "Just a little? So fragile and warm and hairy." "Oh, fuck!" "Are you cumming? Oh!...oh that's...I can feel the muscles." "...Oh...Oh..." "Is it better if I move on you?" "MMM!" "Feels good, huh?...Does it?...uh!..Oh, you animal!...Mmm!... Cum, honey...ahh." "Oh god!" "Steven, I like this..." "Whew! Okay. Okay okay okay. Okay, stop. Stop." "Oh my, what a short lived experiment. Look at you, you look like you're ready to fall on your face. Haha, oh, that's so funny, I never saw you cum so fast. Instant hot Steven! You poor thing, we'll have to take this a little slower next time. Did you like it?" "Oh yes, *ma'am*, yes...Whew!" "Wanna do it again?" "Huh? What?" "Wanna do it again?" "Whew! Okay. Right." Sitting back limply on my heels on the floor, my head leaned back against the wall. "Five minutes. No, ten." "No, silly, after the show tonight. Oh, I have to wash up! I dripped. I didn't think you had any left. Here, you just have a quick nap while I clean up." "Whew!" "Well, okay, if you like resting on the floor, go ahead." "Whew! Don't make me move yet. Not yet." "I'll just hurry, hurry, hurry into the bathroom --" Martha rushed into the bathroom and ran water in the sink. "After you rest a minute you should fix us a quick sandwich or something, 'cause we won't have time to eat out. You can make me cum when we get back, okay? Steven?" "Whew! What? I can't hear you when you're running water in the bathroom with the door half closed!" "I thought too much sex made you blind, not deaf. I said, you can make me cum when we get back. Maybe we can even horsie. Oh, my clothes are a mess. I'll have to change." "It's doggie style, isn't it?...Whew!...Not horsie." "It's eff-yew-see-kay, hon -- horsie, doggie, froggie, whatever. Let's do it so I can watch in the mirror. Wouldn't that be deli- cious?" "Right. Whew! Cumma ti yi yippee yippee yay..." After watching "West Side Story" we returned directly to Martha's. As soon as we entered the room she plopped onto the sofa, tired, and begged that I let her rest a little, just a little. After only a few minutes she asked me to touch her, then she pulled up her skirt and put her heels on the edge of the sofa and wanted me to lick her, just lick her, now, with her clothes on. She came almost right away, sigh- ing deliriously as she recovered, "It's been so long since it was this good. Oh! Steven!" But that was hardly enough to satisfy her. We undressed and went into the bedroom and she rested for a bit, then she closed the bedroom door so the mirror on the back of the door faced the bed while we copulated doggie style. She thought watching the mirror to be exciting for a while, but she soon found it artificial and distracting. She preferred looking in my eyes and talking in the dark with me on top. My back was feeling the effects of the last few days with Martha and Fiore and the rest of New York. I turned over and she got on top, a position we seldom used. I directed her hips, reading her carefully to make certain she held back long enough to build what I hoped would be a thoroughly exhausting climax that would give both of us a rest. When she started humping and grinding on her own, I withdrew my hips and avoided contacting her clit until I could get her going all over again. Finally, when she was so agitated that she seemed incoherent, I humped steadily under her until she came in a long, gasping, whimpering finish. She gulped and floundered on me, swallowing and sweating and catching her breath with tiny yelps. She lay her cheek on my chest and breathed heavily for a moment. Soon, still slightly breathless, she raised up on her arms. "Whew! You think you're pretty smart, don't you?...Whew...Holding me back like that and...driving me crazy." "You didn't like it?" "Whoo!...Of course I liked it!" She raised her head and looked down into my face. "You didn't cum yet, did you?" I shook my head no. "Want to?" "Yes." "Now? Hmm? You wanna cum now?"" I lay still, strongly suspecting something was up. "Well..." She grinned devilishly. "So...you wanna cum now, huh??" "Perhaps I made a slip in judgement..." "Yeah?" "...and drew things out a little." "Yes? A little?" She began moving on me, ever so slightly, most of it internal and secret. She smiled greedily. "Think you might have miscalculated?" "I may have, uh, yes, miscalculated. 'S possible." "Uh-huh." Knowing I was already hard as a rock, she made a tiny motion inside her somewhere that deftly squeezed the entire length of my sensitized, swollen knob. I jerked. "Oh!" "Hit the spot, huh?" "God, I think so." "Oh, I'm so glad I found it." She did it again and grinned trium- phantly when I jerked once more. "Think you're gonna cum? Hm?" "Yes." "Think so?" She raised on her elbows again, looking down to watch my wet, distended shaft. She lifted until the snug ring of her opening barely encircled the ridge of my tip, and held there. "Not yet..." I whimpered and gasped. Suspended over me, she started squeezing my tip rhythmically, kissing and circling with her cuntlips. I moaned and tensed. "Not ye-e-et," she sang, her face near mine. She pulsed slowly and methodically as she settled onto me, an inch at a time, pausing for several squeezes before lowering another inch. After a long minute of this routine she breathed a deep, wobbly sigh and imbedded me in her to my root, her pubic fuzz tickling my tummy as she settled and then circled her hips. She contracted, watched my face, and contracted again. My cock leapt yearningly inside her. "Don't cum," she whispered. Then she began moving, watching my face and smiling as she rose and fell slowly, taking about two seconds to rise and two seconds to fall. "Don't cum," she said again, "It feels too good right now." She worked on me in exactly that way for about ten minutes, never changing her pace or the depth of her stroke. Or maybe it was five minutes. Or maybe it was half an hour. Or maybe I have no idea how long it went on. "Not yet," she chanted cloyingly as she continuously caressed my face with one tender finger. Now and then she urged her cunt a little lower as she engulfed me, knowing that I now could feel her cervix at my tip, her smile widening each time I tensed and gasped at the sensation. Finally, when she saw that my entire body had gone rigid as a lamppost, she began kissing me softly on my eyes, face, and neck. "Ready?" she taunted. "...Yes," I groaned, sounding as if I were someone speaking on the other side of the room. Was this my voice? My legs stretched so tautly that I imagined they approached the far wall beyond my feet. "Your balls getting tight?" "Yes!" She continued, her hands cradling my face, her lips bare centi- meters from mine. "It'll feel so good, Steven...it'll feel so good." I trembled. Her words and movements had me in that strange, unimaginably erotic galaxy. I knew I had some cum left down there, maybe, somewhere. Where was it? I searched frantically for the elusive source of the orgasm I desperately needed lest I lose all control and start making absurd cries and noises. I feared everyone in the building would hear me if I didn't cum soon. But her crooning and her writhing, sliding cunt obliterated everything except wildly panting, arching, trembling sensation. I stiffened and arched and thought damn she's so good at this, and I quivered and I... Squirted. Once. Twice. Hot. Strong. She whispered, "Yes." Martha, I thought. And I squirted. And squirted. "Yes," she whispered again. "Yes..." I whimpered, floating out of the dark place of pure pleasure like flotsam rising to the top and bobbing on the surface. I felt her face grinning with her cheek against mine and heard her chuckle near my ear. "There," she crooned, "There, baby." Her hips slowed and stopped. She held me securely inside her and stroked my face. I blinked and opened my eyes. She wore an amused, self- satisfied smile. She whispered, "Gotcha." "Whew!" I had a mustache of salty sweat above my lip. I removed it with a finger. "Didja like that?" I pushed my hair out of my face and shrugged, nudging my lip forward nonchalantly while gasping for air. "It was, uh, you know... okay." "It was the best, wasn't it?" I looked into her eyes, seriously. "Yes, it was. You fucked my brains out." "Have any cum left?" She kept eyeing me, but her mind was on her inner muscles, which closed on me once or twice. "Not only do I not have any more cum, I don't have toenails anymore." "C'mon, after a cum like that I want to hear you say something deliciously dirty to me in gratitude." "Hmm." "C'mon." She squeezed. I looked at her. Her eyes studied mine mischievously. I stroked her hair. "Go ahead," I whispered. "Milk me with your pussy. Get all of it." "Yeah..." "Every drop." "Yes..." "There," I grunted, blinking. I lied, "You got some." "I Did?" "Yes." "Any more?" "I don't think so." "Sure?" I nodded. Her lips glistened. Her eyes smoldered. "God, I love this with you." I looked up at her. I placed a palm warmly against her cheek. She lowered her head and gently chewed my ear and slithered her wet labia and her firm clit against my tummy and whispered wickedly, "Maybe there's just a tiny, teeny, little bit more? Maybe with my mouth? Hm?..." PART 11C: Wednesday morning I didn't open my eyes until I heard Martha getting dressed on the other side of the room. I turned onto my side and saw her slipping a belt through the loops of her skirt. She smiled at me, a little sleepy but happy. "Did I wear you out?" I groaned, "Yes." "We can rest tonight." She fetched shoes from the closet and set them on the floor by the bed, then she sat on the bed, embracing me and snuggling into my neck. "You certainly have me in a great mood for doing combat with the bureaucrats this morning. At least I can escape for a while later today and do some serious tutoring before I come home. I'd much rather struggle with the kids than with the grownups." "Martha," I said into her shoulder. "Mm-hm?" "Do you have any idea how good you are in bed?" She nodded against my cheek. I said, "Then I don't have to tell you." "Tell me anyway." "I just did." "Tell me anyway." I kissed her neck. "Martha," I whispered, "you're so good in bed." She sighed. "Oh, well...For you, it's a start." She finished dressing and gathered her things into her purse and her briefcase. In my whole life in Memphis, Tennessee, I had never seen a woman carry a briefcase. Martha reminded me that I had Fiore at ten, I had to take my vitamins and the yeast, and I could meet Ronnie for lunch again if I wanted. Later that night we were due at an Artur Rubenstein concert. "Then we'll rest," she said. "Maybe we can just sit around later and get some of our Fire Island stuff ready for later." I yawned. "I thought Ronnie worked." "She does, but not everybody in New York works nine to five. This isn't Memphis, Steven, people here get time off when they need it." She blew a kiss as she rushed out the front door, leaving me standing in my underwear in the living room. I listened to the traffic bustling outside. I could like New York, I thought. I started laying out my vitamins on the kitchen table. I could like this hustle and bustle, this constant stimulation, this variety, this surfeit of possibility. There was a knock at the door. "Steven?" Ronnie called. I stood near the door. "Sugar?" I called back. "Coffee?" She laughed. "No, no. Wanna meet for lunch?" "Okay." "Remember where?" "Same as yesterday." "Right. 'Byyye, y'aaall....Did I do that right?" "...We'll work on it." She laughed again. "All right. See ya!" I heard her clatter down the stairs in her heels. I could like this place, I thought. I poured water for a cup of berry tea. I could even like brewer's yeast. Fiore worked me to a frazzle. He set up a coordination and aero- bics exercise in which I had to race around a small room and catch handballs that he kept pitching to me. He began pitching more balls, faster and farther from wherever I stood -- until, finally, I had enough. Snatching one ball that he pitched into a corner far from where I stood panting and recovering from the previous pitch, I squeezed the ball and grimaced and threw him a hot, angry stare, and then slammed the ball into the wall as hard I could. Fiore grinned, his hands on his hips, while the ball bounced away and I stood gasping and glowering. "Good!" he said, nodding. "Good, my friend! I was wondering how long it would take you to speak up for yourself! Iss feel good, hah? Good! Know your limits! Admit them!" He strode toward me, his grin softening. "If you don' learn your own limits, THEY control YOU. As you build your body, build your aware- ness. As you develop awareness, develop the body. Mind and body, my friend! They work together! Hah? Good!" He slapped me on the back, and I managed to stay on my feet. "You rest a minute! Then...More of this, hah? Good!" Later, as I was walking downtown on Lexington Avenue, I thought: I'm surrounded by geniuses. Surrounded by artists, writers, thinkers, doers, teachers, seers, makers, strivers. Every store front, every skyscraper, every crowded street corner offered new possibilities, new freedom -- and new crises, with little room for the laxity or purpose- lessness I knew in Memphis. New York was swift, extreme. People seemed to have a certain cunning, a toughness, that came from being forced to look deeper and try harder. I felt intimidated, but that in itself incited me to look more deeply into myself, to listen to my impressions. As I strolled, I began observing everything more metic- ulously. New York struck me at first as simply a chaotic puzzle, a violent offhandedness. But taken separately, some pieces seemed studied, calculated, learned and honed to the point where they leapt out with an ease that seemed spontaneous, innate. Merged, everything merely seemed disordered. People seemed to know where they were going and how to get there; those who didn't wandered at grave risk. The few who stopped to read a street sign were shoved by unpausing others, honked at by speeding and careening traffic, glowered at by those who suddenly found a lost soul impeding their own progress. I somehow managed to express this to Ronnie during her lunch hour as we sat looking out the window in a Chinese restaurant on Seventh Avenue. She stared at me as I related my impressions and she said, "Jeez, you do need to live here. Did you really come from Memphis, Tennes- see? I wish I had a brain. I have such a hard time getting down to the guts of life. I guess I'm too busy trying to remember where I put my laundry ticket. But it's true: in Manhattan, if you don't learn life well, you either get stepped on or you miss out on everything. In my case, both." She told me about the small Michigan town where she grew up. "It seemed so nice when I was very young. Very serene. But then I made a terrible mistake: I became twelve years old. And the land wasn't serene anymore, it was just flat. The trees didn't seem to grow. People just walked in and out of my life as if I weren't there, while I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything. I kept saying, hey, there has to be a next moment somewhere. Y'know? There has to be a rest of me. So what do I do? I move to Manhattan and get stepped on and honked at like everybody else." "But it doesn't stop you," I said, smiling at her. She blushed. "Steven, there really aren't that many thinkers around here. Most people think you're supposed to be clever and slick...like, there's this formula they get down pat -- and they're good at it, too. They think they're all supposed to act like a guest on the Tonight show or something. But it's another thing to want to be a knower. A seeker." She flicked her cigarette against the ashtray and leaned forward on her elbows. "You're a seeker, aren't you? You don't want to know the formula, you want to know where the formula came from. You don't want to find the ocean, you want to find out how it got there, and why, and what's under it." "I guess that's me, yes." "What the hell are you living in Memphis for? I know you have family there and you have to get some schooling before you do any- thing else. But eventually you need to move up here and start looking for life -- like the rest of us, who haven't found it yet." She gazed out the window, her chin in her hand. "Aw, it's out there somewhere. I know it is. It steps on my feet all day, so I know it's there. I keep thinking, if I'm in the right place at the right time, I can just -- " She lifted her hand and made a fist in the air, hold- ing tight. "-- catch it. Like that." I asked, "That's a little chancy, isn't it? Like trying all the formulas until you get the right one?" "Isn't that what everybody does?" I thought for a second. "I don't trust formulas. I don't trust them because...so far, the formula isn't the answer, it's a replace- ment for answers. It's like self help books. Like religion. You read somebody else's answers and they work for a while, but you never look deeper for your own. And sometimes...you have to find your own answers." She gave me her easy smile. "You sound just like the type who'd move to New York just so you could hang around in the Village with the other rebels. No wonder Martha likes you. I always told her she was too picky sometimes. Maybe she just has taste." I blushed and said, "Are you sure you're talking to me?" She said, "Sure I am. Why?" I blushed again, and said, "Well, I'm not used to so much -- you know..." She looked at me, her eyes gently probing. I thought that if one could ignore Ronnie's eyes and consider only her narrow, fine-boned face and slim lips, she would seem somewhat plain, with a placid, indefinite expression; but the problem was that her less obvious features rendered her eyes remarkably unavoidable. They struck me as irresistible, but in a subtle, non-disruptive way. She said good-naturedly, "You blush too much." I blushed, shifting my gaze out the window. She asked, sounding surprised, "Do I make you uncomfortable?" I answered offhandedly, still gazing out the window. "Mmm, No." She said, "Sometimes I think there's something about me that makes some people a little...uneasy, I guess." I said, "I don't see how that would be possible. I mean, you're bright, you're friendly..." She said, "So are you." "Well, you don't make *me* feel uneasy." She chuckled and insisted, with playful impatience, "Then why do you blush so much?" I looked at her, shrugging, and straightened in my chair so that I faced her fully again across the table and said, "It's just something I do, I guess. You don't make me uncomfortable." She gave me a teasing little grin. "Well, it's cute." Then she straightened her face and said, leveling her eyes at me with mock seriousness, "You just blushed again," and then she chuckled, and when I covered my face bashfully with one hand she laughed aloud, and said, "Well, it *is* cute. And you do it so well!" She settled down after a moment and I let my hand drop from my face and just shook my head ruefully. She said calmly, "Well, I'm glad you're not uneasy with me, because your Martha's buddy from Memphis and I'll probably be in your hair all the time while you're here. So I'm glad you're comfortable." She sipped from her glass and folded her hands on the table. Then her eyes gave me that steady, studying gaze again. She said, "Say, I lost my longtime lunch buddy a few months ago. She transferred to Denver. We didn't have lunch every day, that would have made it boring. You know, just a couple of times a week." I said, "Yeah? Well, uh, you in the market for a new lunch buddy?" I was surprised that I made the offer, and I tried to keep from blushing. But she didn't answer me; she gazed at me steadily, and I gazed back at her, waiting, and she gazed back, and then I saw that she was playing with me with her gaze, and I finally gave up and turned my face away and blushed, and she started laughing again, saying, "See? I knew you would. I knew it." We both worked on suppressing our laughter and we calmed down again. I watched her looking down absently at her hands folded on the table. She paused, and then she said, "Well, Steven, I'm glad you'd like to be lunch buddies. That'll make my lunch hour fun again. And it's okay if you blush, it really is." She looked up at me, calm again. She said, "Anyway, it's so cute it's kinda sexy." I gazed at her steadily for a second, and then I arched my eyebrows at her meaningfully and said, "Yeah? Sexy?" She gazed back at me, refusing to respond, and while we gazed momentarily we waited to see who would give up first, and her steady gaze suddenly dissolved into a blush. She turned her face away, toward the window, putting one wrist over her mouth and suppressing her laughter, and she muttered with her mouth against her wrist, "Now you've got me doing it." I had to suppress my own laughter, her response getting me really tickled. She continued looking out the window and her torso spasmed mildly as she choked down her laugh. She muttered sarcastically against her wrist, "It's a virus. Steven, we really have to stop meeting like this. It can't go on." Then the hidden giggling started again, and she held it back, her trim shoulders shaking, and I thought her shoulders and arms and slender wrists seemed delicately feminine and attractive. She sighed again, and looked back at me with a smirk, and said, "C'mon, let's pick up the tab and get outta here." We paid the bill and left the place and I walked her to the end of the block. After leaving another peck on my cheek, she left for work. I watched her until she waved at me and turned a corner and went out of sight. I got to thinking that being with her left me unusually com- fortable with myself; the only skittish part of it was that I was not accustomed to people, especially women, who moved so easily into friendly familiarity. In Memphis my reference point when relating to others had usually been a sense of conflict between me and them. With Ronnie, that sense of conflict seemed to progressively erode at each meeting. It was nice, but vaguely disturbing; I wasn't accustomed to feeling that way with others. I walked back to Martha's, thinking again that I'd have little trouble mustering the effort to survive in a town where people talked with me instead of at me. That evening Martha took me to a delicatessen on Sixth Avenue where I stuffed myself with more new, mouth-watering goodies: matzo ball soup, and cheese blintzes with sour cream and strawberry jam. I attacked it so voraciously I was almost embarrassed in front of Martha, who sat smoking a cigarette and watching me enviously. She said, "You act as if you haven't eaten for a year. If I ate like that, my nineteen-inch waist would be fifty inches before I walked out of here. If I *could* walk." Later we went to a concert hall somewhere on the West Side, where Artur Rubenstein perfomed Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." In the dark we held hands, an act that seemed as natural as eating or talking. It was unlike the giddy, conniving hand groping of teenagers that I observed in movie houses and at dances back home. It was simple, comfortable, expected, accepted. When the lights lowered, our hands coupled automatically, immediately finding the correct angle and pressure. It was not a long concert -- chosen deliberately by Martha so that we could return home early, she said, to prepare for our trip to Fire Island. I complained, "But that's not for another couple of weeks." She said we were going to be pretty busy between now and then, and she told me, "One of the things you learn in this town is to do something when you can. Things always interfere at the last minute." I had a list of things to prepare and was packing them into a shopping bag while Martha sat in her pajamas on the sofa, sewing a small tear in the seam of her yellow swimsuit. She worked wearing her reading glasses. She explained that Fire Island was a long, narrow lick of land off the south shore of Long Island that stretched from Brooklyn eastward to Montauk Point. The island was only a few blocks wide. It was dotted with small villages. The well off built homes there, but it was fast becoming a mecca for tourists during the summer. No vehicles were allowed; people moved on foot or bicycle. The villages were not connected by roads or sidewalks, although there were wood plank walkways within most of the towns. I asked, "You sure it's okay if I just wear shorts? They're cutoffs I made myself from old Levi's. I outgrew my swim suit in Memphis and I don't want to waste money buying one." "It's fine," she said, drawing her sewing needle into the air. "No one worries, Steven. It's very casual out there. We're going on a weekday, when it isn't such a hassle. There aren't any bath houses for changing, but some of the villages have showers to get the sand off you. People wear their swimsuit under their clothes and change on the beach. Anyway, you probably won't even need your shorts." "People swim in their clothes?" Martha smiled slyly as she searched the seam she worked on. "Some of them swim with no clothes. That's the way they swim where we're going." I gulped. She asked, "What's the matter?" "Fire Island's a nudist colony?" She gave a low chuckle. "Hon. I'm surprised at you. We're going to a part of Fire Island that's Federal land, about four or five blocks along the beach. It's secluded, and sometimes it's even guarded. And most of the people you'll find there are fat old lawyers and their tubby wives who wouldn't be worth looking at anyway." She winked. "Think you can handle it?" I shrugged. My face felt hot. "I won't mind if you and Ronnie don't mind." "Ronnie and I go there all the time. But when we went in June, the Christians had closed the place down. They do that every once in a while, but it doesn't last long because the local township has no jurisdiction out there. Just in case they're up in arms again, though, bring your shorts." "I will," I said nervously, hoping the Christians were active. "You've never seen the ocean. You'll love it. It's nothing like Rainbow Lake swimming pool in Memphis. Nothing like it at all." She looked at me as I sat on the floor folding beach towels and shoving them into the bag. "Is all this pagan New York stuff giving you the heebie-jeebies?" I shrugged. "I'm holding up." "How about the date I told you about for Saturday? You never told me what you want to do, and I really ought to tell Marilyn now if you want to call it off." "No. I'll go." "Hm. You don't seem ready to explode with enthusiasm." "I still say Marilyn might not think I'm all that great." "Well, the opposite might be true. She might like you but you won't like her. Although I doubt that either will be the case." She cut the thread and held up her swimsuit to check the work. "Marilyn's a very sweet, very bright young lady. I'll introduce you to her at lunch, and hang around a while, and then you two can go to the Metro- politan Museum together for the afternoon, and then Marilyn will go home. It's that simple. No crisis, no hysteria." "Well...okay." "It's just somebody who wants to meet you," she said easily. "Every time you meet someone, it doesn't have to be a major event." She glanced at me from the corner of her eye as she removed her glasses. "Maybe you'd like something a little more familiar." She grinned. "Want me to fix you up with Ronnie?" "Of course not." "Come on. You two get along pretty well." She walked to the re- finished corner desk and put her glasses in a drawer, wearing the same teasing smile on her face. "No. She's too old." "Oh, re-e-eally? At twenty two? Now I've heard everything." I rose, blushing, and settled onto a chair on the other side of the living room. "I just wouldn't want to." I watched, sulking a little, as she returned to her swimsuit on the sofa. "What is this, a test to see if I can fly on my own?" Martha smirked. "Well, I'm teasing. Oh, look at you. Don't be so defensive. You've wanted other girls, haven't you?" "No," I lied. "Oh, come on!", she exclaimed skeptically. She folded her swim- suit. "You can't tell me you don't think about other girls." "Sometimes." "Well...At least I've opened you up enough to admit it." I sighed wearily. "Okay, Ronnie is cute. She's a lot like you, too." "It's very convenient. We wear a lot of each other's clothes." "But I still wouldn't." I grinned and added, "Even if she wore your clothes." "Well...but you have tried, haven't you? You've been with other girls?" My eyes kept shifting to avoid hers. "Yeah, well..." "Well what?" "Have you?" "...Eh. Yeah." "And?" "It didn't work so well." "What does that mean?" "I mean it didn't work." "Steven, what do you mean, it didn't work?" "I mean it didn't work." "...Well, that happens. But I'm glad you were honest with me. And I'm glad you tried. I tried, too, hon, and you know I did. Everybody tries. I didn't try often, but I did and it didn't work so well for me, either. But that's the way it goes, Steven. Stop thinking it's always your fault." "Okay," I pouted, sighing. She came over to me and leaned against the chair, her arm around my shoulder as she stood beside me. "Want to tell me about it?" I shook my head no. She knelt down beside me. "Don't think you were doing something behind my back," she said, gentle but frank. "You were lonely and you needed somebody, and you're young and healthy, and neither of us knew what was going to happen next. We still don't. And I don't think you needed it just because you wanted to get laid. I know you, Steven, you're too sensitive. You need more than that. Don't be ashamed of your needs, hon. Please. You're allowed to be yourself and you're allowed to be selfish once in a while if no one's giving back to you." I sighed, avoiding her gaze. "Okay." "Look at me." "No." "Steven. Look at me." I looked at her. "You're quiet, but you're so intense. I know you are. I feel it in you, it's there all the time.. Take my word for it, buster, nobody ever made love to me the way you do, because you always think of my pleasure, you get your pleasure from mine. Don't you think I know that? There aren't many men who have sex that way, and I don't ever want you to be ashamed of it. Remember, not everyone's like your mom. A lot of women are, but not me. And there are others who aren't like her, either." She rose and walked to the dining table, where she started packing cosmetics and sun lotion into the shopping bag. "And whether you ever knew me or not, whether you ever had real parents or not, hon, you'd still have to know how to fly on your own. Not under their power, under your own." I looked away, and then back her. I wiped my sleepy face. "Well ...before I leave New York, would you write me an official letter of recommendation?" She smiled. "Sure. Want it notarized?" "Hmp. You need more than that in Memphis." "You won't be in Memphis forever. And you're not in Memphis now, except maybe in your cute little your head." She stood up and went about the room, turning off the lights. "All I'm saying about Ronnie is that she'd spend time with you. Stop thinking everyone's going to put you down. Plenty of people will, but Ronnie isn't one of them. She really likes you. Maybe not sexually, but she likes you. She might not go romping in the hay, but that's something else. Too bad ...I can imagine the orgasm you'd give her. All those sorry charac- ters she ends up with, so many dates, and always the same results. Anyway, don't avoid the few people you can connect with, hon. There aren't many around like that, not for any of us. And for most of us, having something like we do is very rare. Very rare indeed." Later, I lay in bed while Martha placed a small fan in the bedroom window to help cool the room. It was a hot July night. She donned her pajamas, giving me another peak at her luscious body before sliding into bed and giving me a hug. Then she curled into sleeping position facing me and closing her eyes. We lay quietly for only a couple of minutes before I rose and removed my t-shirt and then slid off my underwear. She opened her eyes. She said, "I thought you said I'd worn you out." I said, "You did. It's just too hot for underwear." I got back into bed naked and pulled the sheet over my hips. Then Martha got up and started removing her pajamas, saying, "I was sleeping in my jammies out of pure modesty and habit. But you're right. It's too hot for modesty." She got into bed and curled up, the sheet over her hips, facing me again. She kidded me, "Think we'll be able to control ourselves?" I yawned. "Yes." We settled for another brief moment. I opened my eyes and looked at her lovely face. Her eyes were closed. I went to sleep thinking that I never thought I'd see the day when I'd get into bed nude with a warm, beautiful, stark naked, adult woman and just fall to sleep... PART 11D: Thursday I was on my own all day. After Martha left for work I went back to sleep. I woke up so late that I knew I could never make it to Fiore's on time, so I called the health club and cancelled for the day, playing sick. I managed to meet Ronnie for lunch, but I sat feeling like a truant. My guilt piled up as I listened to Ronnie talk about how hard she had worked to get through college. I could hardly speak, and soon I was almost too ashamed to look her in the eye. For the rest of the day I wandered around the city, careful to avoid the streets and neighborhoods that Martha had warned me about. Martha came home for dinner and had more papers to work on. As we ate she casually asked, "And how'd it go with Fiore today?" Of course I lied and said it went well, and she asked me about the kinds of work- outs he had set for me, and I made up an encouraging, partly fictional report. She said, "Good. Don't you feel better about yourself now that you've found someone who can really help you?" I said yes. And for the rest of the night I evaded her, feeling like a real slacker. I got into bed before she did, dozing off as she worked late into the night, and woke up only briefly when she got into bed beside me. She looked bushed, and closed her eyes immediately. Friday morning I awoke to find Martha bleary-eyed and rushing to get ready for work. I dressed quickly and hurried into the kitchen to make a breakfast of toast and juice. When she finished dressing she wolfed down the toast and quickly packed her briefcase and reminded me that I had Fiore at ten and then I would meet her uptown near Columbia for lunch. She hastily scribbled the address and handed it to me. I asked, "The subway goes there, right?" She drank her juice in one gulp and grabbed her briefcase. "Do *not* take the subway by yourself, not to this neighborhood. Take a taxi, hon. Please. Make the driver leave you right in front of the building." Clattering in her high heels, she headed for the front door. "I gotta go." I rushed to close the door behind her and she gave me a quick peck on her way out. I showered and dressed. I had a listless, depressed feeling that made me dread the upcoming session with Fiore. I just wanted to relax for a change; my first New York week left me exhaust- ed. On my way downstairs I paused at Ronnie's door but heard nothing from inside. I thought that if she were awake I could schedule some- thing for the morning, maybe meet her for a coffee break and skip the session with Fiore again. There was no sound from Ronnie's, so I went onto the street. On the way to Fiore's I stopped at a bank to cash more traveler's cheques. I still had money to spare, but the bank calendar reminded me that time would be getting short sooner or later. Then I walked onto the street again, and it was the intimidating rush of the city itself, hurling itself into my face, that had me feeling guilty at my laziness. If I were going to win, to keep my promises to Martha about growing up, skipping out on Fiore wouldn't help. The city was a challenge, and as I watched people and traffic hustling around me I felt the grip of ambition creep over me and gradually take control. I remember saying adamantly to myself as I walked: You guys can't beat *me* so easily. My own words had an unexpected effect on me; I broke into a run toward the health club. Fiore gave me hell again for an hour. But I was set on attaining the level of others who worked out in his club. "No, no! Concentrate!" he grumbled at me as I lifted dumbbells over my head. "Watch your form! Take more time if you need it! Concentrate! Mind and body together, my friend! Together!" I worked arduously. I kept thinking that I had less than two months in New York, less than sixty days to be more than I was when I left Memphis. I knew I had lost some baby fat and that the pimples I brought to New York were fading and I could run in place almost twice as long as I could a few days before. But I felt compelled to do more. I worked at the exercise bike until I couldn't breathe. While I rested, slumping on the handlebars and huffing and sweating, Fiore strode to me, his hands on his hips. He wore his perpetual, taunting grin. "At first you couldn't do enough," he said. "Now you try to do too much! You can't make up for missing yesterday by overworking today! You can't go back, my friend. Only ahead. Never try to go back. Now, rest. And begin again!" I rested. But then I worked myself to exhaustion again, feeling time rush at me. Finally, near the end of the session, Fiore walked to me and laid a hand on my arm. "Stop," he said quietly, unusually subdued. "Stop, my friend. You are working too hard. I want you to stop for today." I said, panting, "I have to make up for yesterday." He shook his head no. "Not possible, my friend." I continued, averting his eyes. "It's my fault, anyway. I wasn't sick. I was just...busy." He paused, eyeing me knowingly, and said evenly, "Your friend Martha would be proud of you. Because you are honest, I will tell you a secret. You can't build a good body by punishing it for your mis- takes. My friend, never, never punish your body." He held up a warning finger. "Tomorrow, light work. Light. Understand?" I nodded, breathing heavily. "Understand?" he repeated. His eyes scolded me. "Light tomorrow." "Okay," I said. I got off the bike and went to the showers. On my way out I glanced again at the dancers and others in the room. I envied their physical perfection and their grace and ease. I felt like a laggard. Outside on Lexington Avenue, I responded to my urge to work harder by jogging, determined to make my way on foot all the way uptown to meet Martha. But at 59th Street I was running out of steam. Angry with myself, I caught a taxi to Martha's and changed into nicer clothes for lunch. Fiore was right, I thought as I knotted my necktie in the mirror: I still had a lot to learn and a long way to go. But I saw my skin was clear. At least I was getting somewhere, if not far enough. In the kitchen I gulped down the vitamins and the yeast, taking an extra full serving of yeast. I told myself that at lunch I'd be meeting adults, experts. I had to look sharp. The taxi let me out in front of a block long, dilapidated office building in the West 130's. As soon as I was on the sidewalk again I knew I was in a slum. It was unlike the shanty towns and working- class neighborhoods I'd seen in Memphis. The street stank strongly of garbage and grease. Trash was everywhere. I found myself surrounded by tough looking, disheveled Hispanics and blacks on the busy side- walk, interspersed with a few Orientals, Eurasians, and some students carrying books. A bearded man sat on a pile of paper wrappings in a doorway, mosquitoes swarming around him. I looked up and down the busy street; Broadway stretched for miles in both directions, downtown toward Manhattan where the scenery looked cleaner and brighter, and then uptown toward Riverside, the George Washington Bridge looming in the distance. I knew that the entire neighborhood wasn't as squalid as the block where I stood, for I'd seen cleaner areas in the taxi on my way there. Quickly I made my way through the creaking entrance of the building and found myself in a clean but aging, yellow-walled lobby where I followed a swept but dank hallway around several corners to a small office with "109" on the front door. I knocked. "Come in," I heard Martha say from inside. Before I could open the door, Martha opened it and stood in her suit in a room with several massive, metal desks and filing cabinets. She smiled. "Welcome to the Northern District Special Education Worksite," she said, her greeting colored with a little irony. "I'll be right with you. Like it? I share this place with six other people. They're in a meeting now, but it's almost over. Two of them are waiting across the street. Come on, I'll introduce you." She was businesslike and matter-of-fact. It was a serious, pro- fessional Martha I saw now. She gathered her briefcase and a printed list and led me down the hallway toward the lobby, explaining tersely the various offices and cubicles we passed, and then led me across the street toward a small diner. "This is a New York you haven't seen yet," she said somberly. "It's the working part. The tough part." She paused and added, "The heartbreaking part." I asked as we crossed the hot, teeming street, "The people at Columbia sent you here?" "No. Worse than that. I volunteered. Come on, they're waiting in this little diner. Watch out for the coffee, it'll keep you awake for a week." In the diner Martha smiled tiredly and greeted two men who sat at a four-seat table near the foggy front window. One of them was a tall, virile looking man in his thirties. The other was a slight, younger man in black-rimmed glasses and a wrinkled gray suit. The taller man spoke readily and directly and reminded me of the laconic, rangy cowboys I'd seen in many westerns. The younger one was more reticent and seemed bored and annoyed as he examined a spiral bound, one-inch thick report. The taller one greeted me with, "Hello, nice to meet you, Steven," and a hefty handshake. The other one smiled weakly, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigarette. Martha, too, lit a cigarette and we ordered coffee and sandwiches. "Welcome to New York," said the tall one, whose name was Mark. Martha told them I was an old friend from Memphis and that she brought me along to prove she wasn't kidding when she told people back home that she really had a paying job. I found, again, that I was no expert at initiating conversation. I felt tense and self-conscious, even when Mark said jokingly, "People from down South always seem so laid back and casual. But I know better. Martha, here, came to us with her sweet Southern smile and her sweet Southern manner. Then she turns out to be a taskmaster." The younger guy smiled sardonically and added, "That's post-graduate slang for ball-buster," and punctuated the remark with an amiable, "Speaking figuratively, of course." They asked what I'd been doing in New York When they discovered I attended a school taught by the Christian Brothers they wanted to know all about the teachers of whom they'd heard a great deal and what kinds of teaching methods they used. "The Brothers have schools up here, too," Mark said, "but not in neighborhoods like this. It's enough to make me consider joining their order, but I'd like to stay married." When I told them that the Christian Brothers was one of the few religious orders that allowed marriage, Mark said, "Hey, doesn't sound bad." He grinned and asked, "Have their address on you?" Martha asked the younger man about the list he paged through. "Are those the assignments?" she asked, and the young man said dryly, "Yes, wanna see?" Martha held out her hand and said, "Let's see what they're doing to us," and the young man handed the papers to her with a dry remark, "You won't like it, Martha." Martha looked over the first page for a second and muttered "You're right, I don't," and the young man shrugged and said resignedly, "What can I say? We don't make the decisions, we just tote the barge." Within a few minutes the diner was more crowded for the lunch hour. Another man and a woman entered wearing business clothes and headed for our table. Martha noticed them and asked me, "Hon, would you mind terribly if you sat at another table for a minute while we talk something over with those people? They're from the meeting and we just have to review something. It'll only take a minute. Really. Do you mind? There's not enough room here for all of us." I said, "Of course not!", feeling I was being very adult about it, and found a seat a few yards away at the lunch counter where I finished my sandwich while the others talked. The two newcomers pulled an extra chair to the table. Everyone fell into an earnest discussion over the assignment list Martha was reading. Through the mirror in front of me, I watched Martha and the group. I envied them. They seemed to fit together intimately, readily voicing their opinions about the teaching assignments that had apparently been decided upon at the meeting. Martha openly objected to many decisions and gave what sounded like very competent, well-considered reasons for her opinions. This was not the indulgent, forgiving friend I'd seen so far; she was insistent, often adamant, and sometimes passionately vocal. At one point she glared hotly at Mark, saying "Oh, you're kidding! Honestly! What do they think they're doing?" Mark began grudgingly, "Now, Martha, you know how the system works--" and Martha grumbled, "The system hardly works, Mark, come on!" And Mark said, "Well, it's allocated by ability," and Martha flicked her cigarette and said angrily, "It's allocated by race, and we know it!" And the newer guy shrugged and said, "Well, that's the way it is." Martha sighed and then simmered quietly for a moment, flicking her cigarette on the ash tray, and then she sighed again and said, "Oh, all right, there's nothing I can do about it." The young woman smirked and said, "Martha, I know it's unfair but at least we'll be able to--" and Martha interrupted, "I don't care if it's unfair to us. It's unfair to the kids, that's the point," and the other woman waved her hand and said, "Okay, okay, we know that," and Martha asked vehemently "Well, if we know it, why do we let them do this again and again?" The debate went on for several minutes. Soon Martha reluctantly agreed to whatever had been arranged at the meeting and the others seemed relieved. Martha asked the guy with the list to make a copy for her. She rose and walked to me. "Come on, hon, let's go," she said cheerlessly. I waved goodbye to the others and they smiled and waved back, and Martha led me across the street to the building where we met. "Come with me to the third floor. I want to show you something." We stepped into an elevator that lurched violently when it started up. "My god!" I breathed, looking around in alarm. "It's just another New York elevator," Martha griped, looking at the list she'd written. "They'll fix it immediately, as soon as a pile of people get killed in it. Management by disaster, it's called." The third floor lobby was crowded with people sitting in several rows of gray, aluminum folding chairs. Kids squalled and whined. Martha led me into a small office a few doors down a nearby corridor, telling me that she had to meet with one of her students for about an hour. "I don't know what you'll think of this, but I wanted you to see what goes on here." She pulled a file folder from her briefcase and placed it on the single desk in the little room. "This is a social services department. Most of the people out there are waiting for a welfare counselor, or a case worker, or a therapist. I was lucky enough to get this tiny room for some of my students. In fact, Marilyn often meets me here. I'm meeting one of the others now. One of the less fortunate ones." She walked around the desk and stood in front of me. "Do you want to wait for me? You can wait outside in the lobby. Or if you want, you can wait in that diner across the street. But I want you to see another part of the world." She paused and said, "Not everything is the way it's been all week. So little of this has any glamour. I hope that...you'll feel differently about yourself if you see the mess others get themselves into. Are you up to it?" I eyed her directly and nodded. "Okay. Forget all that romantic 'West Side Story' fluff you saw the other night. The real West Side is in that waiting room. Come on." She led me back to the waiting area and straight to a chair near the rear of the room where a Hispanic woman sat with a young boy who appeared to be eleven or twelve years old. He was a handsome youth, but I thought he might have been more handsome had it not been for the vacant, unfocussed look in his big, dark eyes. His mother sat list- lessly beside him, looking bored and uninterested. Martha smiled and greeted them in Spanish, and introduced me. The mother acknowledged me with a drowsy glance and a slight movement of the hand at her cheek. The child simply stared at me. I saw the rem- nants of a bruise on his nose. Martha said something in broken Spanish to the woman, and the woman indifferently and tiredly replied "Si" a few times. Martha extended her hand to the boy and smiled sweetly and said "Carlos? Come with me?". The child stared at her for a few seconds and, unsmiling, stood and took her hand. Martha whispered, "Good," and gently led the child by the hand. On her way past me, Martha glanced at me and whispered, "Welcome to New York, hon." She led the boy to the corridor, speaking to him maternally, and the child nodded but never smiled. They disappeared into the small office. The door closed. Around me, children screamed and yelped. I looked down at the boy's mother and smiled politely. She responded only with a slow blink and looked down at the magazine in her lap, absently rubbing an earlobe. For most of the hour I sat watching the people in the room. Some of them stared at me emptily for several minutes. The room was redolent with the odor of their ill fitting, often filthy clothing. One older man wore shoes whose soles were peeling off. Infants whined and bawled. Some mothers whined back helplessly, others scolded and warned, and still others sat unresponsively. One boy kept up a con- tinuous, rambling conversation with his mother, who completely ignored him. Some men and women sat staring at the floor, some dozed; one man read a newspaper, pointing slowly at each word and pronouncing them quietly and carefully to himself. Now and then a man or woman in a suit would greet one of the people and lead them into an office. After a while I wandered through the corridor and noticed how ill- kept the building was, although it looked recently swept and mopped. The faded walls were peeling in many places, some windows were cracked and a few were boarded up, and every surface of every wall and doorway seemed chipped, scarred, or damaged in some way. At the end of the hour I returned to the waiting room. Martha emerged from the office, smiling to the boy and talking to him as she led him to his mother. She spoke with them briefly, the mother ap- pearing interested only in gathering her things and leaving. They said goodbye and Martha watched them walk to the elevator. When they had gone, Martha said limply, "I'll get my things. Let's go somewhere." On the street as we walked to the subway I had nothing to say. Or, rather, I could think of nothing to say, which had me feeling crushingly incompetent and stupid. The image that stuck in my mind was that of the mother in the waiting room who sat chewing gum and filing her nails, completely and, it seemed, purposely oblivious to her talking, questioning son. I glanced at Martha as we walked. Unsmiling, she winced in the hot sun and pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. I asked myself if I would ever be able to sit at a table with a group of peers and handle myself with Martha's apparent effectiveness. I asked myself why I had not spoken to her as completely and as intimately as I wanted. I asked myself if sex were the only intimate contact I would allow. I asked myself if hiding out from my family had rendered me hopelessly unable to communicate with others, except on the most superficial level. "That boy," Martha said after a while, her voice edgy, "is very talented. His mother wants him to learn English and math as quickly as he can so he can be a bookkeeper and support her and the babies she keeps having. I find it hard to believe that I keep praying for the day when a counselor will take him away from his mother. Every time he slows down or makes a mistake, she beats the hell out of him." That was all she said. She looked straight ahead, her eyes dark and brooding. She led me into the Lexington Avenue subway. The rush hour had not started yet, but the train was crowded and there were no seats. We stood together in the aisle and held onto a center post while the train sped and swerved underground along Broadway. Martha remained moody and silent. I looked at her. Her auburn hair was combed and pinned back, smooth and almost glossy at her temples, with blonde highlights and a bob in back. Her elegant, pretty, pug nosed face had a sad frown, nearly a girlish pout, that made me want to kiss and cuddle her. I wondered why I didn't. She saw me watching her. "Well," she said, "did you learn any- thing?" I nodded. "Yeah?" I kept my eyes on her. "You're back in the Lauderdale Courts," I said drearily. She smirked, and leaned on the post. "Yes. Right back where I came from. Worse than ever." She looked at me again. "Anything else?" I sighed and said, "Will I ever get to be really good at anything?" "You will if you work at it. You will if your family will let you be." "Not much I can do about that right now." "I know. But someday..." She kept looking at me and I kept looking at her and we swayed as the train swung into a fast turn, but her eyes didn't move from mine. I wondered what she saw when she looked at me so inexplicably with no clue whatever on her face to tell me what she was thinking. I wanted to tell her I loved her. Did she know what I was thinking as she studied my eyes? Would she feel intimidated or feel I were being possessive if I told her? Was I really in love, or was it a childish infatuation, a crush, a movie- like fantasy inspired by just being in freewheeling New York? Was it her pretty face, her incandescent hazel eyes, her musical voice? Was it her talent, her brains, her outspokenness...? "What else?" she asked, still watching me. I blinked awake. "I learned how good you are at what you do." "Oh, I'm not good," she said scornfully, breaking her gaze and looking away. "I'm totally unqualified for this. I'm not a psycholo- gist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not even a case worker. I'm a teacher. And a beginner, at that. A mere, everyday, generic begin- ner. I want to do some great work, some great endeavor. I want to stop the wars and stop the abuse and stop the beating. But it doesn't stop. It never stops. I'm helpless. There's nothing I can do." She frowned, and winced, and sighed tearfully as she leaned into the post, her voice straining. "There's not a damn thing I can do." She wiped one eye with a finger. She sighed heavily and sniffled and then quickly straightened up and tightened her jaws. She muttered angrily, "Crap." I offered, "Well, you're doing a great job on me." She looked at me. I gave her my handkerchief and she honked her nose into it weakly and looked at me again. "If only I could convince you to be yourself and believe in it. You feel inferior because you're trying to be like someone else, not you, and...Well, your pimples are gone, anyway...and you're wearing your glasses for a change. The frames are very nice, just right for you. You look nice." "Well, that's something. Isn't it? A dozen tubes of Clearasil is no match for a couple of days with you, lady." She continued watching me and lurched as the train entered a station. She frowned, mildly, impatiently, "Why are you so nice all the time? You're always so nice, you've never get critical or lose your temper with anyone, anyone, not even with me, as long as you've known me. Never. Why?" "Because you're beautiful and brilliant and perfect," I said as the train slowed. "How hopelessly romantic," she huffed, "How silly. How ingrati- ating." Then she said, conceding, "And sweet." She glanced at me again, her eyes searching briefly, and she looked away and said, "I let myself down all day. All the time. I hope I don't let you down, too..." The trained banged and screeched and jerked to a stop. PART 11E: We dropped by Martha's place, changed clothes, and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the Staten Island Ferry. Martha showed me what she called the "expected tourist attractions" -- the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, City Hall. As dusk was underway we walked uptown toward Greenwich Village, where she took me to a hairdresser for a very expensive haircut. Gradually, Martha cheered up. Gradually, I became more sullen. The city was dark. We strolled through New York University and Washington Square Park as the night-time culture took over. Yet so many stores and shops remained open, with no sign of closing! We stopped in a couple of book emporiums on Broadway. In the Strand Bookstore, I stopped to examine the title page of a volume from a pile of books on a small table against a wall. Martha asked, "Wanna get anything?" I pointed at one book on the table. "An out of print copy of 'Gregory the Great'," I said. "Brother Martin back home would give his eye teeth for this." "Why don't you buy it and take it back home for him?" "I'd want it for myself. Brother Martin lent me that book from the school library as a special project. He said he didn't want to waste my time in basic English, so he gave me extra credit for writing a report on this book. It's great. Whoever thought a biography of the first great Pope of the Church could be so good? Wouldn't it be great if I could--?" I stopped and sighed. "If you could what, hon?" "If...if I could absorb all this. Just stay here and go through every one of these things. There are books and ideas here that go back hundreds of years." I shook my head. "I'd never be able to do it all." "Nobody can do it all." "But I want to." "Nobody can, hon." "The problem is, I couldn't even get started. Why start with one, when there are thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thou- sands, of books in here? I wouldn't finish Chapter One before I'd have to get on a plane back to Memphis." She smirked. "So that's what you've been thinking about. I thought so." I sighed again, and shoved my hands into my pockets. "Yeah." "Come on," she said, "Let's go find dinner." We had dinner at a small place in Greenwich Village and then took the bus home. At her place I lounged on the sofa. Martha plopped into the fluffy old easy chair beside her small fireplace, an un- usable, thickly whitewashed relic of what her neighborhood used to be. "What'll we do tonight? It's not even eight o'clock and I didn't make plans for tonight because I wanted you to have a night to call the shots. You know your way around the city a little now, so I thought you'd like to set it up yourself for a change." "You plan real good, Miss Martha." "That's not an answer. Just tell me what you want to do." I yawned. "Oh, I dunno." "Steven...I've been leading you around town for a week now. In fact, I've been leading you around all your life. I didn't bring you to New York to lead you on a leash. I brought you here to open you up. I brought you here to show you that the whole world isn't Memphis and you don't always get punished for saying and doing what you want." I smiled gratefully, and shrugged. "Oh, c'mon. Talk to me." "What do you want me to say?" She sighed impatiently. "It's not what I want you to say, it's what YOU want to say. It's what you want to do." "I don't know what I want to do." "You wanna just sit here and mope about going back to Memphis? You're not back in Memphis yet. You're still in Manhattan. With me. You're here. Now. Stop going over the past and stop worrying about the future. You see what that sort of thing did to me this afternoon at work. I said what I had to say about it, and then I moved on." "Okay, well...First of all, I'm a little tired." "All right. Sounds reasonable. I am too, actually." I paused. She waited. "Steven" she said quietly. "Talk to me. Wanna just talk? A nice, restful Friday evening, talking my head off would be very nice. I've got you to do a lot of things, but I still can't get you to talk without dragging everything out of you. I haven't forgotten who you are. I know you're still young and unsure. I know that New York is intimidating, and it was for me when I came here. But you still have feelings and ideas. I wish I could figure them all out on my own, but I can't." I thought for a moment. She waited. I sat up straight. "Come one, let's take a shower." She laughed. "That's what you want to do, take a shower?" I walked to her and took her hand and gave a little tug. "Come on." We showered together. "How exciting," Martha said sarcastically as she soaped her hands. "This is a prelude to what's next," I said mysteriously, swabbing my shoulders and arms. "Hon, everything's a prelude to what's next, and this gives me a pretty good idea what it will probably be. But do you have to shower to talk?" "You'll see," I said. At the end of our shower I asked her to re-soap her hands and make the suds thick and slippery. "Now," I said, holding my cock, "Get me hard. Come on. Get me really hard." She smiled at me quizzically as she worked on my cock. "Steven... what are you up to? This is how you start a conversation?" "You'll see. Come on." When I was fully erect I asked Martha, "Are you wet?" She said, "Of course I am, what do you think?" "Okay," I said, and I rinsed the soap away quickly and I turned off the shower spigots and then I led her by the hand out of the stall, across the living room, toward the bedroom. "Steven, we're still wet from the shower." "I don't care," I said, and I lifted her onto the bed, surprised at my own strength. She looked at me wonderingly as I turned out the bedroom light and then stretched her out on her back and opened her legs and lay on her, and she looked at me with an incredulous smile. I looked down to aim my cock and then slowly entered her, sighing and enjoying the long slide inward. Her eyes widened and she whispered, "Oh, my. Steven. I have to thank Fiore for more than just my nineteen inch waist. Mm." I slid in and out a few times. I muttered a little breathlessly, watching her hips adjust to my length, "I love your nineteen-inch waist. I love getting big and hard and going into you." When I felt thoroughly lubricated and comfortable I slid all the way in and held myself there and embraced her closely, one arm around her waist and the other around her neck, and hugged her and nestled my face against her neck. I lay motionless, my cock deep and snug and hard and wet inside her. "Now," I said, "we can talk." She laughed quietly, hugging me. "And I thought you said you weren't a good conversationalist." She kissed my cheek. "Well. Very sexy way to have a talk." I kissed her neck. "Listen. I don't know how to tell you what I'm thinking because I'm -- I'm tired of thinking. I think myself to death, just like you say I do. Right now I'm feeling. I'm feeling you holding me. I'm feeling how good it is to walk in Central Park with you and go to a deli and eat matzo ball soup. I don't like to spend a lot of time talking about how I feel, I have to do something about it. I have to put my feelings to work. Every time I start analyzing and thinking, everything goes wrong. I just want to do something about my feelings, and I don't...I don't want to just look at books and look at movies and read plays. I want to do them. I want to make them real, I want to make them into something I can... touch and see, hear and taste." I hugged her. "I don't want to just think about going back home, I want to go back home and do something. I don't want to look at New York and think about New York, I want to do New York. I don't want to think about being here, I want to be here. I don't want..." I paused, hearing myself go in all directions, and I took a breath and slowed down. I said with difficulty, "I don't want later, I want now. It won't do any good later. Sometimes...sometimes I think I've never done anything I wanted, and I want to do it all at once, everything at once. And I end up not doing anything." I had to stop myself. I was on the verge of telling her I wanted her, Martha, and Martha Jane, now, always, and I wanted to be older now and successful now and out of Memphis now. But I couldn't go that far. I kissed her neck. I whispered, "Your neck feels good. And it feels so good with me in your -- inside you. I feel so --" I stopped. I was suddenly overcome with the strangest, most nonsensical, most idiotic fear I'd known in years. I had a sudden, flashing vision of family, nuns, aunts, rules, frowns, gasps of horror. And mom. If I started talking, where was it going, except to go where it had always gone: nowhere? I didn't know how to say it, how to say anything in the right way without spending hours on it, reworking every word. She hugged my face to hers and said softly, "Say it, hon. You almost said it, what you really mean. Go ahead. You can say what you mean to me. Don't be afraid to use the words. You started and then you stopped, you stopped and changed it. Don't be afraid of me, Steven. Not me. Inside me where?" She waited and then whispered, her lips near my ear, "Say it." "...Inside your pussy." "Yes." "Your cunt." "Yes." "When I go inside your pussy, I put all of me in you. I put my body and my thoughts and my feelings, my past, my present, my future inside you..." But I didn't say that all there was when I was inside her was her, just her, and I wanted nothing, nothing but her. She whispered, "Baby." Inside her, she hugged me. "Maybe you should try to tell me one thing at a time. I know you've held your- self back for a long time. But you don't have to do everything at once, sweetheart. You can't." We talked for several minutes, with Martha patiently holding and encouraging me. And again, Martha did most of the talking, drawing a thought, a sentence from me at a time. Now and then when I softened inside her she would squeeze me internally, or I would move inside her a little, until I was hard again. I worked up enough courage to admit to her that I feared I'd never be able to do anything I really wanted, that I'd never be everything I wanted to be. She said caringly, "I'm afraid too, hon. Everyone is." I stopped talking and we fucked for a few minutes, slowly and lovingly, and it was one of the few times that I fucked Martha while not watching her; nestling my face into her neck while I moved, I listened to her breathing. When the pleasure mounted beyond more than lazy, affectionate probing, I would stop. She would ask a question or make a comment and I would start talking again. She asked me what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. I told her there were so many things I wanted to do, I didn't know where to s tart. She asked me to describe the person I yearned to be. I expended so much time and so many words trying to explain it that she asked me to give a name, the name of someone I knew who mirrored what I thought I wanted to be. I mentioned Gregory Peck. She laughed aloud and said, "But, hon, don't you see? You were describing someone else, not yourself." She raised my head and looked at me, laughing, "Tell me about *you*. You inside. Forget what other people are!" She wanted me to tell her what my plans were, precisely, when I returned home. I told her I'd keep working. She asked why I was so willing to sacrifice the things I really wanted by wearing myself out with a paper route. I told her I wanted a car, I wanted freedom to move around, I wanted the clothes, friends, and independence others had. She said, "But having what others have isn't the same as being yourself, finding out who you really are." She said I should be in the theater, and I had better opportunities for a future in college if I spent more time in activities at Christian Brothers. I told her I didn't want to be in high school, I wanted to be in any other place. She was amused and somewhat awed by my willingness to risk everything I had for everything I didn't have. She said I should work with what was available. She told me I was trying too hard to be everyone but myself. "I'd like to be," I said earnestly, "like you." She laughed gently and said, "Like me?" and then she frowned and stroked my hair and said, "I don't want you to be like me. Steven, I -- There are things about me you don't know, failings I have that I don't reveal, not even to you or Ronnie. So I know, I know how you feel about areas where you fall short. But don't think I'm perfect. No one is perfect, they can't be. They won't ever be. And just because your folks want you to be someone else -- Hon, don't let them keep doing that to you. I'm so afraid you'll spend the rest of your life trying to please them, instead of being who you really are and could be. I want you to be you. I like what you're becoming. Ronnie likes you, too. She told me you have lunch with her and she's so fond of you, the way you are. And I don't want you to work yourself to death the way I did. Oh, sure, you have to work hard, but I gave up everything to get through Memphis State in three years instead of four, and kept weekend jobs on top of it. And you know what it got me? It got me worn out. Not quite twenty-four years old yet, and I'm all worn out and frustrated with work. It got me used to not taking my time, it got me to wanting everything and wanting it to be perfect. Take my word for it, the world isn't going to pay attention to you just because you work yourself to death to please them. If you're going to work that hard, work for something you want." I said, "But you got out of Memphis." "Yes. And so will you. But it was part work, part nerve, and part luck. I could just as well have been picked by another school, but it happened the way it did. The same way we just happened. And some things, Steven, don't happen. You can't make things happen, you can only make yourself available." She stroked my hair again, and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "You seem so easygoing on the outside -- but you're very aggressive. And it's locked inside. And when you do that to yourself, it becomes fear. And anger. And self destruction. And you deprive others of the person you really are." We got out of bed for a few minutes and had a snack. Then we embraced in bed again and Martha sucked me to an erection and I got inside her and we hugged and lay still for a while. She asked me about the one girl I'd been with in Memphis, and I hesitatingly told her about Karen. I didn't go into great detail. Martha said that disappointment was the norm when it came to intimacy. "Not everyone's a perfect partner," she said, "and some are lousy. It all depends on who you're with." I asked her, wary of the answers I might get, "The same thing happened to you?" "Yes. A few times. But it was far from what I wanted. So very far." I looked at her when she gave that answer, and I thought about Martha fucking another man and a chill crept up my back. Martha looked at my eyes and her voice fell to a low murmur. She said, "Remember what I said about being able to fly on your own, Steven. You don't always have someone around to show you the way or to validate yourself. That's why you have to be you and work with what you have, not be someone else and have what someone else has. Yes, Steven I knew a few. Very few. And none of them could give me anything like the pleasure we share. And sometimes it was just a lie. A rotten lie. You must believe that. And believe that you can please others, too. Not just this way. But in every way." I said, "But I didn't want other women." "But you will. I know you will. You have." I fell silent. I couldn't argue with her statement. I couldn't start blaming, pointing. I couldn't take the chain off myself and make her wear it, and I started to say so, but I couldn't. She gave a long sigh, her eyes painfully searching mine, and she said, "Lord, I wish you'd believe in yourself." She put a hand to her forehead, rubbing her brow and frowning. "I wish your folks would give you just a little break, a little recognition. But they won't, Steven, not any more than Mr. Buchanan or Evelyn would give it to me." She sighed again, looking at me, her hands resting on my shoulders. "I don't want you to base your life on pleasing people who can't love what you are. Don't think you can win someone's love by letting them think you're someone else. Hon, most women my age are married, or on their way to be. And you'll learn one day that marriage involves some very serious compromises. But I could never be with someone who can't love me for who I am, married or not. Friend, or not. If they can't love the real you, you don't need them. Neither of us needs that." The thought of Martha being with someone else was frightening. The subject had now occurred more than once during this interlude. It threw me completely off track. Her level of frankness was beyond my years, and I knew it. I started moving in her, and my movements interrupted the talking. Soon I felt driven to lift onto my arms and start fucking her stead- ily for a moment. Then I stopped to let my cock luxuriate in her. She whispered, "Don't keep stopping, Steven, it's feeling good." "Did I talk your head off?" She smiled. "Now I want you to fuck our brains out." I watched her as I moved and she put her arms around my neck and looked down at me pumping in her. "Hon, it's nice." She looked up at me and saw the pleasure in my face. She smiled softly and churned her hips under me, and I felt her inner muscles writhe and suck. When I moaned she smiled happily and whispered, "Know what I want you to be? I want you to be who you are right now. I want you to be fifteen and strong and full of cum. I have to tell you a secret. It's so wicked of me, but I have to tell you." Her voice dropped to a low whisper and her eyes seemed to light up and she said, "Thinking about you with that other girl was so... exciting. Thinking about you pleasing someone else, some young, pretty girl...and you so strong and naked and hard, the way you are now. Pleasing her, and your dick so long and so hard, going inside her." I kept fucking, sliding out to my tip and rubbing it between her outer lips and sliding in, two strokes and three and four inside her. Martha started whispering passionately, her words broken by frequent gasps. "I don't want you to get old and mean and moody, Steven. I want you to always be new and honest and giving. You're so sensual, so intense, and you really do know how to give pleasure. I want you to -- Ah. Ah, baby -- to be yourself and enjoy me, and not worry about what was, or what might be. Mmm. Uhmm! Stay young for me! I feel so young and free when you fuck me like this! It's so good, it's always so good! Like the first time, the very first time." I gasped brokenly, trembling, "Martha, you're...gonna make me cum." "I want you to. I want you to cum. C'mon, just cum. Don't cum because I do, cum just because you want to." She kept tightening her cunt on me, smiling into my eyes, and I stopped suddenly, and fought for breath. She asked, "What's the matter?" I moaned uncontrollably, "It feels so good!" She grinned. "It's supposed to, Steven!" She began moving her hips gently under me, up and down, sliding her cunt along my shaft, cunt-milking. The suction she created was overpowering. "Come on," she taunted. "Come on, I want you to be selfish for a change. There's nothing wrong with it." My head snapped back and I groaned again. She kept up the rhythm and began seriously milking me as she moved. "Come on," she whispered. "Ahh, hon. Ahhh. Come on." "Oh! Oh, that's -- Mmm!"" "I'm not your mother, hon. You won't lose me if you don't always please me first, don't you know that? Let me just give to you. You're allowed to, you know. Oh. Ohhh. Mmmm. I'll let you because I know you'd do the same for me." I gasped and closed my eyes and raised high on my arms and began pumping earnestly into her. She ceased her undulations and held her pelvis against me and closed tightly on my cock. "Yes," she whispered, "Yes, hon. Take it. Take it." I began to stroke deeper and harder, my pelvis seeking her deeply on the instroke, relishing the tickle of her cervix as it grabbed at my tip. Then her whispers got hotter and hotter, her voice more ugent, her eyes darkening. "I'm those other girls. I want to be them! Fuck me the way you'd fuck them! I'm everyone you ever wanted. I'm all the others. I'm Josephine Louise. I'm Karen and you don't have a rubber with me. You can feel your dick inside me with nothing on it! I want you the way you want to be with them. And I like it! Oh, I like it, Steven! I want it!" She was exciting me beyond my control, and quickly. I burrowed more deeply into her than I had ever gone before. Bigger and stiffer and more seeking than ever. I fucked, fucked her the way other men would fuck her if they had any damned sense, and very soon the grip of her inner warmth changed and became less rhythmic and less purposeful and became more erratic. She became slicker and hotter, and I saw her eyes close, and her smile vanished. She squinted in surprise and con- centration. Now I had control. Now I could use my flaming excitement the way I wanted. "God," she breathed suddenly, "you're so big." I whispered "Fuck" and she hissed back "Fuck," and I shifted on my arms and raised on my toes and my toes dug into the bed and then I had the balance and the leverage that I wanted. I started stroking, smoothly and strongly, as deep as I could go and as far back as I could go, and I made certain, certain, that I kept my shaft against her clit, overpowering her with pleasure. I became a fucking machine. All I wanted to do was fuck. I was near orgasm, but I wouldn't let it happen. I clung to the edge of the primal itch and wanted to stay there, right there. I just wanted to fuck and fuck as long as I could. Her sighs and gasps were indeed those of Josephine Louise and everyone else I'd lusted after; her seductive crooning had implanted them clearly in my mind. I forgot about everything except cunt, ex- cept pelvic muscle straining and quivering against mine. She wasn't Martha, she was the primeval cunt my leering, slurping beast wanted to fuck. My beast demanded the delicious, licking pleasure. Vaguely I heard Martha's amazed gasp, "God, you're hard!" Then I heard her hoarse moan, and I felt her cumming. Her hot, slithery, woman-cunt spasmed with it and my cock felt it and rejoiced and grew and plunged. I wanted to keep fucking like this forever. I felt her relax a little and I fucked and pushed and my bursting shaft sought more, more pleasure, more luscious power. I fucked and fucked and soon she stiffened again and I heard her gasp "Steven!" I wanted more and I fucked deeper for it, and she jerked and then she came again. Then there was a strange, sure knowing, a mystical flash of revelation, and my cock became my brain and I knew that Martha was all of them, that I had a Martha inside me, and then the poem I had written her made more sense to me. I knew from whence my own words had sprung. I grit my teeth. The pleasure nipped at my cock and I knew I could hold it back long enough to let my dick drink the pleasure of feeling her pussy cum and cum, tighter and tighter. As her second climax waned I wanted it now now now and then I grunted and felt my face smiling as my cock leapt upward against the roof of Martha's curling, writhing nether-mouth. My tip pulsed and the slit grinned against her womb and the cum poured out and then gushed out and then exploded out, and in my gut my happy beast leered and said Yeah, yeah, and my tip twitched and more heat gushed. Then I heard Martha's scream, her muffled, high-pitched scream, and my victorious hips slowed my cock so that I could ruthlessly prolong and enjoy and own and remember the long moment. Her mouth pressed against my neck and she moaned a quick, low scream again and her nails dug into my shoulders, her fingers hot and trembling, and the satisfaction and the sweet release washed around my dick and through me. Then the blinding tickle peaked and I ceased to exist for a long, liquid instant; my cock throbbed, bloated with pleasure, purged of all need, slick with her nectar and my cum. Martha lurched under me and ended her orgasm with a coarse groan and a frantic churn of her cunt against my root. My whole body sighed and slowed and relaxed, my balls aching with a pleasing emptiness. I opened my eyes and saw her face flushed, her eyes squinted shut, her mouth gasping for air. It felt exhilarating to see her completely worn out, trembling, limp, clutching me as if terrified. I gave a loud groan of relief, of victory, of belly- filling gratification. Lying on her I embraced her again and cuddled her against me. I gave her mouth a long, consuming kiss, fucking her mouth, possessing her face. When it was over she gasped loudly and her head fell against me, and I pulled my cock out of her and looked down, seeing it glisten and drip with us. I pushed in again and enjoyed entering her once more. Then I did it again and marveled at how good it was. And then I did it a third and a fourth time, going deep and feeling her filled with me and letting my tip feel her warm fleshy cervix and watching her face mold itself to my chest in her pleasure and her whimpering. I let my dick have one more clinging drink of her. Then I lifted my hips and pulled out of her sticky hot joy, and settled onto my side so I could breath and see her and stroke her lovely, heaving, sweating body. And then she curled into a tight ball and she was whimpering, mewing, crying like a little girl, her knees pulled up against me, and she nestled into me and broke into a long fit of wrenching, whimpered sighs. I stroked her back softly and held her, one hand cradling the back of her neck and pressing her tear-wet face into me. She puffed and panted noisily, and she gasped, "Oh, that was good!" I nodded against her head. Gradually she relaxed, sniffling noisily at first. She rested her face and a palm against my chest, and her face was hot and the palm seemed to cling to me. After a long moment she whispered, her voice tense, "Steven. That was so good it scared me." In her voice I thought I could hear a terror not yet passed. But soon she softened against me and seemed tiny. Then she seemed rested, curled up and holding onto me, and the odor of semen and warm milk was strong in the room. I watched the curtain rustle lazily against the window frame, the white ruffles flipping gently in front of the little fan on the sill. I said, stroking her back, "You have to go into the bathroom." She groaned weakly, "No!" She groaned again, quieter, "No." A long moment passed. Then she sat up wearily on one elbow and sighed. "Yes. I guess so." While she was in the bathroom I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I grabbed the quart bottle of milk. Martha didn't like it when I drank right out of the bottle. So I took a long, long, man-sized swig of it. It was good, cool, filling. I felt resolute about something, determined, vaguely irate. I took another swig and put the bottle back. As I crossed the living room, the light from the window lighted me and I saw that Fiore's training was starting to work. I was getting more tight and toned. I would need a body, a good body, to get more of what I'd just got and given. And I would have more of it, I would. In the long run, the long term, the next day, next year, for the rest of my life, I would. I lay face up in bed and waited, feeling Martha's sweat and flesh on me, the milk of her drying on my cock. I would fuck her, I thought, better than anyone could. I couldn't do much for now, but I could do that. In a moment she stumbled out of the bathroom. I saw her coming to the bed, saw her long neck and round, glistening shoulders and the tight waist and the graceful flare of hip and the trim, smoothly muscled thighs. She slid into bed and curled against me in one mo- tion, her head on my chest. She lay like a youngster on me, breathing deeply. I put my arms around her and she hugged my arms tighter on her. I asked, "Everything okay?" She nodded against my chest. She whispered, "Just hold me." She hugged my arms again. In a few moments she was fast asleep. I pulled the sheet higher on us. I lay awake for a long time, listening to the steady whir of the fan on the window, the little ten-inch, gray fan that couldn't do all that much but just kept going anyway, going, going, refusing to give up, unable to give up until someone else pulled the plug. And I wondered what the fan would do, what it would do, if it had enough life in it to be able to pull the plug on its own. My first week in New York disappeared forever behind me. I felt I'd somehow changed more in a week than in the previous fifteen-plus years. PART 11F: Saturday. By six A.M. I was awake. My first thought was that a date was only a few hours away. I gave sleeping Martha a kiss, got out of bed, and took my vitamins. I needed to move. To run. I dressed in my gym clothes and went downstairs and jogged toward Central Park. The early sun was already hot and beaming. Halfway to Central Park I stopped, waiting at Park Avenue for the traffic light. Cars swished by and I found myself watching everything, taking it in, wondering what it would be like to do this every morning in Manhattan. I wanted to memorize it; there was nothing in Memphis to remind me of this street, this town, this feeling, these sights. I wanted New York burned into my mind, wanted to hold onto it and take back as much as I could. The traffic light changed. I broke into a run to the park. I was burned out by the time I got there. I limped into a sloping field and rested on a park bench. As far as I could see, only one or two dist- ant people were there. I rubbed my aching ankles and burning shins. I was short of breath. Fiore was right, I thought: work within your limits. All right, I conceded, within my limits. I accepted it, but ached knowing it was not good enough. My limit at that point was my body. My limit was two months. My limit was time. My limit was Martha. I could do nothing about any of it. My body told me what would happen if I pushed too far, too hard. Something in my heart and head told me what might happen if I pushed too hard with Martha. I walked around and stretched my legs, trying to coax more work from them. But they, too, had reached their limit. Around me lay the serene park, dis- turbed only by skittering squirrels and robins, chirping sparrows, cooing pigeons. Not even a breeze came through to wake the trees. Inside, I simmered. Tired, I walked back to Martha's. I looked at everything twice, memorizing. She was showering. I undressed and joined her in the stall. "Well," she asked, "Were you out conquering the world?" "Sure," I said. "Who won?" "The world." "I said it once, honey, and I'll say it again. Welcome to New York." She me a hug, kissing my neck. She said, "Uh-oh, I'll have to soap up again, but you feel good. You're sweaty. Is that from running or from me?" I held her. Wet and slim, she felt like a fawn in my hands. I answered, "Both." She chuckled, tightening her hug, and both of us finished our shower. As we dried and dressed, she went over the schedule. Fiore at ten. Marilyn at one. Then Marilyn and the Museum of Modern Art or whatever Marilyn wanted, then meet Martha at a deli we'd seen before, and then to Little Italy. She invited Ronnie to dinner with us, but Ronnie said she had a date that night. At my workout, Fiore watched me for a while and seemed satisfied that I wasn't going to try to accomplish in one hour what had taken his students months or years to do. Inside, I was fighting the limits; I just didn't know how to do it, so I went through the movements and stretches Fiore prescribed. I still felt it wasn't enough. I changed into a sport coat and tie at Martha's and she and I walked to a spacious, busy restaurant on Madison Avenue near the American Museum. We ordered tea to occupy us while we awaited Marilyn. I tugged at my tie and tried to keep it from eating into my neck. "I feel like I'm a fifteen year old being taken by his parents to the prom." Martha said, "Steven, you are fifteen." "I know, I just...don't enjoy feeling like it." "Enjoy it while you can, it only happens once." "Thank god. Why am I doing this?" "Because Marilyn wants to meet you. Let's not go through all that again. It's too late to back out. Anyway, here she comes." Marilyn was slightly taller than I. She wore black, thick-framed glasses and had long brown hair past her shoulders and she was, as Martha said, cute. She looked younger than sixteen. She was high- waisted, a little thick in the legs, and was freckled and had a sweet, wide smile at all times. Her voice was rather husky, but soft, and she talked easily and slowly. Above all, she was almost irritatingly polite. At first it seemed like a pose, but as the lunch wore on I saw that she was so steadily proper and soft-spoken that it had to be genuine. We had no problem making conversation. Marilyn wanted to know all about the South. When she heard that Christian Brothers High School had just built a new, multi-million-dollar theater and assembly hall, the talk swerved into theater and the arts and stayed there for most of the day. Pleased that we weren't at each other's throats, Martha left after an hour and walked with us to the museum, where she would leave me with Marilyn for the afternoon. Martha told me, "Meet me at the restaurant at seven," and then she gave Marilyn a little kiss and told her, "Don't let Steven get lost, now." It was an eerie exercise in relating to someone who was pretty, friendly, bright, incurably sweet, and someone for whom I had no strong feelings at all. The interval between two-thirty and six- fifteen was the longest I'd spent in the company of a young woman whose presence left me vaguely lonely and horny for something else. But I learned; I learned to keep talking, and I learned how uneasy I felt with someone who endlessly asked about me. I found it difficult to get her to talk more about Marilyn. I wondered if it were my fault or hers. Marilyn had no qualms about touching me, placing her hand on my arm to point something out to me, or grabbing my hand and leading me down a corridor to another exhibit, and at one point simply holding my hand casually and unselfconsciously for a few minutes as we sat together during a brief rest. And then, when we decided to take a walk in nearby Central Park and sat on a bench talking, she touched my knee, apparently without noticing. If she was turned on by any of this, she revealed nothing. I tried touching her myself, on the hand or on the arm, with no reaction from her. I kept wanting something else, someone else. Being with her did little to make me stop thinking that one week had already burnt itself out in New York. She said she would take the subway home, and when I made remarks about it she said, "No, no, that's the way it's done here, unless you're going steady or something. But, oh, I do like that Southern politeness. It's refreshing, really. Listen, would you like to keep in touch? I think you're very interesting, and we have theater conventions up here, so if you ever attend one I could help show you around." We exchanged addresses as I walked her to the subway at 86th and Lexington. She gave my hand a squeeze, blew me a little goodbye kiss and left with a sweet, polite little smile. I decided to walk downtown to meet Martha at 57th Street. I thought: Not bad, really. Not bad at all. I knew of no one my age in Memphis who would have been as pleasant. And then I thought: I knew of no one in Memphis, period. It was a few minutes after seven when I entered the restaurant on 57th Street. As my gaze swept the room I caught sight of two pairs of arms waving at me over the heads of the customers. Now, I wondered, I knew who one pair of hands belonged to, but who owned the other pair of hands? As I neared the corner, Martha and Ronnie stood at their table and grinned and yelled "Yaaay!" and applauded and waved. Martha said, "Good show!" Ronnie cheered, "Bravo! Bravo, Senior Stephano! Bravissimo!" Amazingly, few people turned to look. I strode to the table calmly, holding up a cautioning hand and nodding casual thank-you's, and when they continued cheering I gave them the palms-down, index- finger-up football signal for time-out, saying, "Okay, okay, have a seat. I survived." Ronnie joked, "Didja get laid?". "Yeah, twice." "Bravo, Senior Stephano." "So," Martha asked, "How was it?" I told her it was pleasant, very pleasant, and that we exchanged addresses and that Marilyn had me very confused with her touching. "Yes," Martha said, "she does that. She's always touching your hand or arm. And she's sweet. Isn't she just nice to know, hon?" "You're right. As usual." Ronnie said, "Isn't it sickening? She's always right. Even when she's wrong." Martha announced, "Ronnie was stood up." I said, "What? Ronnie! I don't believe it! Who would stand you up?" "Eh!" Ronnie said. "Ain't the first time." "I don't believe it! Why would anyone stand *you* up? I mean, they just left you standing in the street or something?" "No, I was waiting in my building." She fiddled with the straw in her iced tea and shrugged. "I pick 'em, don't I? Just as well, I wasn't so hot to go out tonight, anyway. I probably tried to fake enthusiasm and I tried too hard and they caught on, and...what the heck." Martha said placatingly, "Ronnie, I told you, it's just a New York thing. It happens all the time, it just seems to happen more in this town." I asked, appalled, "But why would they do something like that?" Ronnie said flippantly, "They change their minds." "They don't call you or anything?" Ronnie shrugged. "Hey, if they change their minds and don't show up, they figure you know." For a long moment I sat looking at Ronnie while she and Martha talked and made jokes about the situation. Finally I cleared my throat and asked as casually as I could, "Come out with me and Martha, then." Ronnie waved me away. "Ah, c'mon, you two have plans." "No," I said. "Come on. I'm buying anyway. Let me take you to dinner." Martha's eyes widened in surprise, and she looked at Ronnie and then at me. "Steven!" she breathed in mock dismay. "Are you asking Ronnie for a date? Oh, Ronnie, sit up and take notice. This is a major milestone for him." Ronnie batted her eyelashes at me. "Li'l ole me, y'all?" She blinked at me. "Did I do that right?" I said, "Nah, but you can come along anyway." Martha watched, smirking while I talked Ronnie into it. As we rose to leave for Little Italy, Martha whispered to me, "Good going, cowboy. The afternoon with Marilyn must have taught you something, after all. "At last she's pleased," I mumbled, raising my eyes to heaven, and Martha elbowed my ribs. We visited three restaurants in Little Italy. Again, it was another amazing New York adventure for me. In my excitement I ordered everything in sight, until Martha and Ronnie warned me that the prices were moderate, but not cheap, and the servings were large. Laughing and joking, we sampled each other's plates and sang an Italian song when a violinist came to our table in the Grotto Azura. "Honey," Ronnie said on the street later, "I love you for this. My date wouldn't have been this nice. C'mon, Martha, I'll take him to Ferrara's and really fatten him up." Martha said, "Careful, Ron, Steven's a sucker for the goodies in Ferrara's." I told Ronnie, "Lead the way." In Ferrara's Bakery, Ronnie bought me cannoli and a baba-a-rum that had my mouth watering and my tummy bloated. The only thing preventing me from ordering second rounds was the utter impossibility of shoving more food into my stomach. "Take you a week to work this off," Ronnie said, grinning at me with her cigarette held in the air. "Oh, Ronnie," I breathed, wiping my mouth and downing the last of the cannoli, "this is just...I never tasted anything like this. Thank you for corrupting me and bringing me to this place." "I don't get it," Ronnie said, "don't Italians in Memphis eat this stuff?" Martha said, "There's a lot you can't get in Memphis. You can't even buy a bagel. Strictly barbecue and grits down there, Ronnie." Ronnie said, "No bagels? Sounds like Michigan." Ronnie winked at me. "It's good stuff, huh?" "Decadent," I groaned, sighing with an overfull stomach. Ronnie smiled as she crushed out her cigarette. "Yeah. It's a good feeling, isn't it? It's the only thing keeping me in New York. It's my dark side. My yin. My yang, too. Now I'm gonna order one for myself." Martha warned, "The waistline, Ronnie. Remember?" "To hell with it," Ronnie said, waving for a waiter. "I want." Afterwards, we walked uptown through Greenwich Village, up Fifth Avenue to Union Square, where the city grew darker with the setting sun; then up Broadway to Times Square, then up Sixth Avenue into Rock- efeller Center, then up 6th Avenue farther into Central Park. By that time we were worn out. We sat on a bench near the lake at 59th Street, resting and calculating how many blocks there were between the park and their building. Martha asked, "Should we take a taxi?" I growled, "Nah, let's walk." Martha said, "You walk, hon. It's about twenty more blocks." She looked at Ronnie, who sat gazing into the moonlit pond before us and seemed sad and lost in thought. "What's on your twisted little mind, Ron?" She sighed and looked into the lake. "Oh, just...I don't know." "Are you still worried about what happened tonight?" Martha asked. "C'mon, Ronnie, it's happened to all of us. Steven, too, once in Memphis. And he took it pretty hard." "No," Ronnie said, still gazing. "No, it's not that. It's just...I had a nice time, really. But you always keep thinking, y'know, why people do that. And how many of them there are out there. And how they manage to find me." "Ronnie," Martha commanded gently, "Forget about it. Come on." "Well, I was just wondering," Ronnie said. She leaned back and then looked down for a moment and said to the ground, "Steven, did you just do all this because you felt sorry for me?" Martha said, "Ronnie, we had a nice time, didn't we?" "That's not what I asked," Ronnie said. "It was very nice, Steven. Really. Even if you were just being nice and felt sorry." I said, "I did a little, sure. Because it was you, but the main thing was, I just wanted you with us. I wish I knew people in Memphis like you." I did not find this easy to say, and I spoke nervously. Ronnie looked at Martha skeptically. "Hey, Martha, is Steven just a sweet guy, or is he the best bullshit artist in Memphis?" Martha smiled. "Choice A, Ron. But don't tell him to his face, or he'll blush and disappear." Ronnie laughed quietly, and smiled, and blushed. She reached for a twig from the sidewalk near her shoes and picked at it and looked into the lake with a thoughtful smile. "Hey, uh...look, folks...You two wanna come over to my place?" She raised her eyebrows at me suggestively and joked, "I'll show you my...etchings." We took a taxi to Ronnie's. In Ronnie's apartment, Martha made tea while Ronnie showed me her design worktable and an airbrush setup in the corner of her living room. Ronnie told us to sit in a circle on the living room floor. For over an hour she laid before us one after another of her artwork and drawings. Though her place was neat, frames and tablets of pictures seemed to come from nowhere; she pulled them from under the sofa, from the closets, from behind bookshelves. Soon the floor was covered with her work. "This isn't what I do at the office," she explained diffidently. "This is on my own. I've been doing these for years. Martha's the only person who's seen most of it. George destroyed a lot of them, but I did many of them over again." Her art was either very darkly or very brightly colored, all of it meticulously detailed. "The darker ones are my darker nature," she told me, showing several watercolors of a fetus surrounded by black and crimson smoke that she had popu- lated with the faces of strange and frightening animals. She had a large canvas that pictured what seemed to be thousands of palm-sized, bright, multi-colored flowers, each petal carefully rendered and detailed. The title of the picture was "Passion." She said, "This one's the most difficult for me to explain. I was just thinking that word, and spent weeks drawing the flowers." Ronnie closed the book of flower drawings and said shyly, "I have a special group, too, a very special group, but...well, not now." But Martha interrupted her, asking, "Ron, what's that drawing underneath?" Ronnie said deviously, "Oh, that's...that's one from my first darkness book. You've seen that one, and--" she nudged her head toward me and said to her, "You know..." Martha persisted, "I've seen it? Which drawing is it from the dark book?" "Well, it's...'Distance'." Martha teased her, "Ronnie, you're selling Steven short." Ronnie said, "Think so?" Martha insisted, teasing her, "Which drawing is it?" She pulled the paper drawing from the bottom of the pile. She unfolded it to reveal several smaller pictures inside. They were darkly penciled drawings of nude couples in various sexual positions, mostly shapes and shadows with little detail. They were far from pornographic; they had an intensely romantic quality, with heavily swirling, convoluted lines of figures joined or nearly joined in dark shadow. She said, "I spent very little time on their bodies, but their faces are complete even though you can't identify them." With one hand she indicated a couple of the pictures and asked me, "Notice anything about how the lines fall together?" I focused on the shapes of the swirling, often stormy lines. I said, "Mmm, they...the lines never coincide. I mean, they never form the impression that both people are in the same space." Her eyes brightened and she whispered, "Wow. Very good." She glanced at Martha and said, "You were right," and Martha gave me a nod of approval. Ronnie said, "You see, the man never quite enters the woman. They never quite kiss, either. It's always the moment before, because I...the next moment is something I had such difficulty connecting with when I made the drawings. And only their faces have any detail, because I wanted to picture them as people, not as bodies. I mean, their sex organs are secondary. The faces say that this is a woman, a person, and another person is about to merge with her. Not a sex organ, a person. But they never quite get together." She closed the book and stood up and stretched sleepily. "Mm, you guys want some wine and crackers?" I said offhandedly, "Sure," but then I saw Martha eyeing both of us ominously, and Martha said, "Ronnie..." Ronnie said, heading into the kitchen, "Oh, it's just dinner wine, Martha. You know I don't keep the hard stuff around here. Anyway, Steven can have wine, can't he? He's Italian, they have wine for dinner all the time." Martha said grudgingly, "Well, sometimes. Not very often." "It's just white dinner wine," Ronnie insisted, pulling the bottle and some glasses from an overhead cabinet. "It's already been opened, and it's gonna go bad if I don't use it. She held the bottle up in the air for Martha to see. "See? It's more than half empty. Not enough to do any damage." Martha seemed nervous and said, "Well..." Ronnie said brightly, pulling out the cork, "Ah, c'mon. Steven's a big, bad New Yorker now. C'mon, Martha, I had a bad week, and Steven deserves a treat." She poured wine into the glasses. "All right," Martha said quietly, sighing. She leaned close to me on the sofa where we sat. She whispered, "Be careful." I asked her back, in a whisper, "What?" Martha said, "Just be careful, that's all." Ronnie opened crackers and brought the stuff to us on a tray and set it on the coffee table. I took a cracker and Martha and I took a little sip of wine. Ronnie sat across from us in a chair and swigged down half of her wine in one gulp. Martha watched her warily. Ronnie talked about working her way through art school, and praised Martha for working so hard through Memphis State. Within a few minutes she was talking slowly, more randomly, and she finished the wine with another gulp. She sat looking at us with a mischievous look on her face and finally said, "Steven, thank you for dinner." I said, "Hey. Anything for a lunch buddy." Ronnie said to Martha, "Steven's my lunch buddy. Did I tell you?" "Yes," Martha said, watching her, "you did." Ronnie said, bashfully, "Oh, that's right. I forgot." She thought for a moment and then she said to Martha, "There are some other drawings. My little girls. Here. I want to show Steven." She got up and went into the bedroom, and while she was gone Martha said quietly to me, "You might want to be ready to leave in a minute, Steven," I said, "Yeah, it's getting late. Wine makes me sleepy." "All right," she said quietly, her mouth set firm and an im- patient frown on her face. "But the little girl pictures are very good. I want you to see the really good work that she can do. But then we'd better go." Ronnie returned with a large cardboard-covered portfolio that she laid tenderly on the coffee table and opened for us. It contained a series of 11-by-14 oil paintings of a young, dark-eyed, long-haired girl in her early teens wearing pastel gowns and dresses. The girl sat on a swing in a garden, or cuddled a cat, stared sweetly at the viewer, or sewed a doll's dress. In all the paintings the girl seemed serene, happy, sometimes pensive, sometimes playful. Ronnie said, "That's not me. That was a girl I used to know in Michigan. I always wanted to be her. I don't know if she was really as happy as I show her...but she seemed to be, when I knew her." For a long time after showing the girl to us, Ronnie stared at the pictures silently. During this long moment, Martha looked at me cau- tiously and then said to Ronnie, "C'mon, Ronnie put those away. Let's see something else." "No" Ronnie said absently. "Let me look at her. I haven't seen these in a while. I usually hide them from myself." She bent down to one of the pictures and ran her finger along the girl's face. "Isn't she pretty? I always wonder what it was like for her, to have someone make you feel like her, make you smile peacefully the way she always did...Maybe someone would give a special phone call sometime. Or bring a flower. Or just kiss, without trying to invade. Y'know, just a little kiss that says, 'Hi, Veronica. How are you? Glad to just be here'." "Ronnie," Martha began more strongly. Ronnie said quietly, "All right. I'll put them away." She closed the drawing tablet, and Martha talked about something else for a moment while Ronnie put the tablet away, and then Ronnie sat with us on the floor and gazed at her hands in her lap. "It wasn't supposed to be much. I imagined a quiet night, you know? A little restaurant, where you don't have to worry about what you look like or what every- one else is doing. We'd talk. We wouldn't use words we didn't mean, and I'd believe him..." Her voice fell to a whisper. "Oh, look at me. Look at big ol' Ronnie. Oh, I'm sorry, Steven, I--" She hung her head and cried silently. She put one hand over her eyes. "It's just a date. Right? It's just a date. I even know him that well." Then her breath wobbled, "But I was beginning to like the son of a bitch." She rose quickly and walked briskly with the book into her bedroom. She quietly closed the door behind her, not shutting it completely. "Damn," Martha said under her breath and rising to her feet, "I'm sorry, Steven, she's so unpredictable." As Martha started for the bedroom I rose and held her arm. "Look, you go in there, you know her better than I do. I'll go out for a minute so you two can be alone." Martha apologized again, but I said it was okay. I left, leaving Ronnie's door unlocked so I could get back in. I walked quickly to an all-night deli that I remembered seeing a block away on East 86th. In small wooden baskets along the front of the store were some flowers. I stood looking at them for a moment, thinking: Too presumptuous? Too sappy? I decided to buy a single yellow rose, which the cashier wrapped in thin green floral paper, and I walked hurriedly back to Ronnie's place. When I entered, Martha came out of the bedroom and said, "She's all right. Come on, let's go home. She's going to sleep." She saw the flower I held. "Where'd you get that?" "86th Street. For Ronnie" I looked at it. "A little too much?" "No, it's nice," she said, tiptoing to the kitchen. "I'll put it in a glass on her desk. Don't worry, she'll see it." Upstairs in Martha's apartment, Martha told me, "I didn't tell you everything. I didn't want you to accidentally make any reference to it. I think you can guess, hon, she can't handle alcohol. Thank god she never had a drug habit or anything, but...she tries so hard, but sometimes she's just miserable. That was a very nice thing you did. It means you heard what she said, and you paid attention to her." I lay in bed as Martha unfolded her pajamas. She asked me, "Did you think something kinky would happen downstairs?" I looked at her, unbuttoning my shirt. "Kinky?" "Be honest. I want to know. I saw the look on your face when she showed you those drawings from the dark book." I blushed. "Yeah...Well. Those drawings are something else." "Were you disappointed?" "About what? I just gave her that rose because I thought she needed somebody to treat her special a little bit." She smiled to herself, buttoning her pajama top. "I'm glad you realize that Ronnie doesn't need sex, she needs affection. Unfor- tunately, despite what she thinks of herself, she's a very sexy young woman and she has that vulnerable look and manner about her. Too many overly strong men see her as prey. And Ronnie makes it too easy sometimes." She slid into bed beside me and leaned over me. She said, "I'm glad you did it just because you wanted to do it, not because you expected something back." "Yes. I did my Good Scout deed for today." I put my hands behind my head and rested on my pillow, my eyes closed, and I relaxed and breathed a loud, "Whew!" Martha leaned on her elbow, looking at me. "Tired?" "What a week! One week in town. There may not be anything left for me to bring back home." Martha yawned and lay on her back. "I'm tired, too. I'm glad nothing much happened at Ronnie's." "Why? Was something supposed to happen?" Martha thought a moment and she turned onto her side, facing me, and she snuggled into her pillow, muttering absently, "No. Nothing was supposed to happen. Glad she cut it short, actually." I yawned again, and smiled at her. "I like going to sleep with you." She smiled, her eyes warm and soft. She whispered, "I'm going to miss you." It was unexpected but sweet thing to hear. Moved by an attack of affection, I rolled near her and gave her neck a long kiss. I nestled against her, limp, tired, and I relaxed. She put an arm over my hip and closed her eyes. As I drifted off to sleep with her arm on me I thought: This part of being us is nice, too. Just as nice as anything else. PART 11G: Sunday. I woke at seven. I left Martha sleeping and donned my new-made cutoff shorts and my new running shoes and I jogged to the newsstand on 86th Street. But I was too rested and energized to stop for the Times. Something got into me; I kept jogging, picking up the pace and heading for Central Park. I zoomed into the park and across the small meadow beside the Metropolitan Museum. The few people who were about ignored me, and I chided myself for worrying in the first place that people in New York would notice me, remembering Memphis and how I used to shy away from seeking a seat in front of a church at Mass because I was afraid that the eyes of the congregation would be upon me, analyz- ing every fault. Soon I was winded. I slowed to a walk, angry with myself. When I got my wind again I did some chin-ups from a tree limb, only to have leaves and debris bombard me. I dropped to the ground and lay down, resting but getting angrier. Then I got up and broke into another jog. I heeded Fiore's warn- ing and kept the pace moderate, determined to make it all the way to Martha's. I stopped at the newsstand for a Sunday paper. It was too cumbersome to jog with, and I was getting out of breath again. I waited on the corner of 86th Street and 2nd Avenue for the traffic light. I looked around: not yet eight in the morning, and traffic and people were everywhere. I thought: What a life, what a city! Surely there must be something I could take back with me to Memphis to see me through, to see me out of that one horse town and back to... Back to what? I realized that I was just a breathless kid on the street, with no firm goals and little with which to attain them. On my way to Martha's a shadow floated down the street. I looked up; heavy overcast was moving over the city. Sunshine disappeared from the block as I entered Martha's building. On my way upstairs I heard Ronnie's door open as I passed. She called quietly behind me, "Hey, you." I stopped and turned. She stood in her apartment doorway, eyes narrowed and lips pursed, mildly accusing. She said, one hand on her hip, "Full of surprises, aren't you?" I frowned questioningly, and she said, "That rose." I grinned. "You don't have to say anything." She winked at me. "Listen, I owe you one." I winked back. "No you don't." As she drew her door closed, she peered out and winked at me again. Upstairs, Martha still slept. In the kitchen I took off my sweaty clothes and had a quick, rinsing shower while the coffee brewed. While I dried myself in the kitchen I said grumpily to myself: Right, you're already supercharged and pissed off, so have some coffee and make it worse! Still drying with the towel, I went to the bedroom. Martha was on her tummy in bed. She glanced at me as I crossed to the small chest near my side of the bed by bedroom window. She rolled over, propped on one elbow, and sleepily watched me. With my back to her I dried my crotch and legs, glum and word- less. Then I reached into one of the drawers and pulled out fresh jocks. Behind me, Martha asked with a slurry whisper, "Done your running for the day?" "Yep." I pitched the towel onto the top of the chest. "You're a good boy." I gave a small, dry laugh and said ruefully, "Yeah I'm a good boy who still has a long, long way to go!" "Looks like your getting there." I didn't reply. I turned toward her and slipped my feet into my jocks and pulled them up. I stepped to the side of the bed, one arm rubbing the back of my neck, and I asked, "You want some breakfast?" "Yes," she said. She leaned toward me and grabbed my arm and pulled me into bed on top of her and put her arms around me. She said with huskily seductive exaggeration, "Yes, I want some breakfast. Some slow, filling breakfast." She slid a hand down my back and under my jocks and raked her nails down my butt, and then under my jocks her hand swept around to my front and cradled my balls. "Mmmm," she groaned pleasantly. "Steak and eggs." She may have been kidding, but I got serious. I opened her pajama top. While I sucked her nipples I moved a palm to the inside of a thigh, and her flesh was hot, soft with sleep. My hand moved upward and her thighs parted and my fingers found simmering cream. For several minutes she lay drowsily enjoying my cock in her and then she had a lazy, sultry climax. I considered making her cum again and getting her worn out, but she felt too good under me; after another minute of slow screwing I shot off, and we lay together silently for a while before she went into the bathroom. I rested in bed, listening to the drone of steeple bells from the Catholic church two blocks behind Martha's street. After we took a soapy shower together, the drizzle started outside. That was the kickoff for my second workweek in New York. It rained all day Sunday and into Monday, and the sun remained hidden most of the week. But Martha kept up the pace. We went to an off- Broadway play Monday and Wednesday, to a lecture by Ray Bradbury on Tuesday. She scheduled something to do every night and kept us up late until, by Thursday, Martha could hardly wake in the mornings. And neither could I. Thursday morning at breakfast I mentioned that I was getting into heavier workouts at Fiore's and I would be needing a little more sleep. Martha said, buttering her toast, "I hope you didn't come to New York to put so much effort into just working out." "No," I said casually, chewing, "but I only have about six weeks left. I want to learn all I can from Fiore." "Well, don't spend six weeks wearing yourself out. I am glad that you picked up on Fiore, Steven. You need more men in your life. Strong men, like him. But let's compromise. Let's don't get to sleep *too* early." "So what's a good hour to set for beddy-bye?" She looked at me, her eyes playing with mine, her smile a sly little curl, and she sipped from her coffee and said, "Not only am I naturally wicked, hon, I'm now even more decadent because having you here has spoiled me. Spoiled me rotten. I do want you to build yourself into what you want to be. It would be very good for your self esteem." She propped her arms on her elbows and brought her cup to her lips, her eyes on me. "But now I'm spoiled and I'm getting selfish about it. So I'm all for getting into bed as early as we can." It drizzled on and off all week, making me drowsy all the time and making it sloppy for me to get around in the city during the day. Yet I was amazed that, unlike Memphis, weather made the city more irritat- ing and slow but couldn't stop it. There seemed to be no end of things to see and do; there were more than sixty museums and no way to see them all in a lifetime, much less a few weeks. And the more I saw, the more I wanted to see and absorb. Lunch with Ronnie on Tuesday and Thursday was but a prelude to a full day of looking and finding and wanting more. At first I was less shy with Ronnie. But her easy mannered ways at lunch had me thinking of her frequently, to the point of my fantasizing about her at times. Yet this was Martha's bosom buddy, and I began to feel guilty about my feelings. Thursday at lunch, Ronnie and I ate a quick, light snack and she walked around with me for a short while, leading me a few blocks from her office to Willoughby's giant camera store near Macy's. When we walked inside, my mouth fell open; here was all the gear, the heavy professional stuff I'd read about but had never seen. Ronnie laughed at me. "What's the matter? You look as if you got struck by lightning." "I did," I breathed. "Look at it. Look at all his stuff!" She said, "Really? I didn't know you were interested in this, too. My, my, is there no end?" I walked to a counter that was stacked with displays of several new Japanese cameras. I touched the sleek machines, actually touched them and found what they really felt like. And then I went to another counter. I said, gulping in awe, "Look. These are Exakta's. Just like the camera and lenses Jimmy Stewart used in 'Rear Window'." Ronnie said, "You mean you know all about this?" "Yes. that's the problem. I do know about it." I looked at the price tags on the equipment and said downheartedly, "And I know how much it costs, too. Beyond my means. Way beyond. She said, "Oh, I don't know. You can have this one of these days." "One of these days," I mused aloud, unconvinced. Ronnie reminded me, as we left the store so she could get back to work, "One of these days doesn't mean never." I hung around that street. It was an entire block of camera shops, many of them famous advertisers in major magazines. I stayed for hours that afternoon, picking up so many photographic brochures and catalogs that I needed a hefty shopping bag to carry them. The literature listed thousands of bargains and demonstrated endless creative and technical possibilities. I toured the camera stores several times over the following weeks, compiling a pocket size spiral book of notes. This was only the beginning of weeks of touring stores and shopping districts in Manhattan. I collected catalogs for cameras, book stores, audio shops, colleges, drama and film schools. It was all terrifically energizing. Yet I soon began to feel like Tantalus tormented in the garden, feeling more and more inadequate. I knew that when I returned home this environment of creativity and accomp- lishment and opportunity would no longer exit. The exact opposite was what I would find at home. And in Memphis, Martha would be missing as well. In a way I tried not getting too used to her, knowing she would disappear in a few weeks. But Martha was far too sensual and overpowering for me to be- gin thinking of myself as independent of her. Martha's effect on me was far from limited to sex, but that was the area of greatest immediacy. Compared with my first week in New York, Martha and I had sex only three times during the second week, our schedules being so hectic and demanding in their own way. Being in bed with her was becoming a contest within myself, with me trying to convince myself that I could do without when the time came, and me doing such a good job on her that she'd have second thoughts about not having me. On our first night early in the week I learned to orally give her multiple orgasms before having intercourse. Later in the week I had her suck me first, and then stayed hard inside her long enough to learn to give her mul- tiple, consecutive orgasms again. But by the end of the week we were both so sexually exhausted that on Friday evening we fell asleep shortly after dinner, without touching one another. Saturday morning we had to wake up early to catch a train to upstate New York so that she could take me to West Point. All we had time for was a wrenching morning blowjob that had me napping on the train all the way to Poughkeepsie. By the start of the third week certain activities became standard fare during my vacation. Tuesday and Thursday were lunch buddy days with Ronnie. Friday night was dinner with the three of us. Sunday night was a triple date at the movies, with Martha sitting on one side and Ronnie on my other, all three of us holding hands. I did get a stare or two about the hand holding from a guy seated in front of us one night; I just grinned back at him. During the movie I sat absorbing the different feel of each woman's hand. Martha's held me snugly, now and then flirting with a nail on my palm. Her hand was warm, rather strong, her fingers shorter than Ronnie's. The hand of Ronnie was longer, slender, more casual, physically warmer but less provocative than Martha's. And as we walked from a dinner or a movie, we become more of a close knit trio. I grew more comfy with Ronnie and more attached to our harmless banter, but I was careful to maintain that harmlessness. Through Ronnie I began to realize something about myself sexually and emotionally; I was fond of very, very few girls or women, but when I did develop sincere affection, I found myself wanting to protect and nurture, to touch and hug. The impulse was often physical, but not always sexual. But the more I liked Ronnie, the more I began drawing away. And the more I became involved on a daily basis with Martha, the more I did the same with her. Sunday it rained so hard it wasn't worth traveling around town. Martha and I got soaked on our trip to the Guggenheim, prompting her to suggest that we stay in for the day to see if the weather settled later. We got into bed for an afternoon nap. When I woke up a couple of hours later it was still pouring outside. We ended up snuggling and, of course, that led to the expected. I licked her and she came once, but when I started to mount her she stopped me. She said with uncharacteristic nervousness, "Really, I'm...I'm a little scared right now." I asked, "What's wrong?" She held my head to her breast and said, "I'm a little...danger- ous now, hon. It's a very fertile time of the month. Too fertile. And when it's really good, you cum so much. But I do want to make it good for you, really good..." She had me sit up with my legs under me and she sucked me with such salacious skill that I was ready to scream as the orgasm mounted. Then she worked quickly on me and brought me over the edge, her mouth always surprising and satisfying. But as soon as her mouth left me, she rose and looked at me. Her face seemed calm, but her eyes and voice had that crazed look in them again. Her hand on my shoulder was trembling. An anxiety seemed to come upon her abruptly, with me still gasping weakly after my own orgasm. She lay down beside me and whispered, her voice low but filled with tension, "Steven. Lick me. Lick me. Please. Now." I leaned toward her and she spread her legs and her hands were on my arms and shoulders, urging me gently, yet her hands were nervous, hesitant, and she seemed possessed by sudden need and weak with it, frightened with it. I settled between her legs and began with slow licks on her thighs, but she put her hand on the back of my neck and urged me upward, her fingers gripping my hair, and she whispered "No, lick me. Please, hon." I put my tongue on her pussy and her head went back and she gave a quick, anguished sigh and I began to lick. Her breath began quickening right away, and she said with a quivering whisper, "Slow. Let it build up. Slow and filthy, Steven. I need it. Please, you know how. Make it nasty for me." I did. But it took some experimentation, because my own need had been well satisfied by her mouth earlier. I was tired, torpid, and I couldn't get up the same craziness that seemed to possess her. At first she seemed easily flustered while I tried to find the right touch and pace for her. But within a few moments she was panting and whispering joyfully, sometimes deliriously. And I thought my tongue would fall off before she had her fourth climax, and she had it with her hips suspended off the bed and holding herself back until she seemed ready to cry, and then her hands in my hair clinched violently and she moaned, "Oh Steven! Oh god! Oh it's so good!" and then she froze and came for the last time. And near the end she screamed, that low moaned screamed of hers, and I knew damn well the neighbors could hear through the open window and even through the noise of the rain. I thought there was a good chance that Ronnie on the next floor, with her bedroom window directly under Martha's, could probably hear as well. For a moment after she came she lay limp, gasping, and then she curled against me again, as she had done a few nights earlier, shiver- ing and whimpering. She whispered hoarsely, "Steven! I'm so sorry!" I asked, stroking her hair and almost feeling as if I were consoling an intemperate child, "Sorry for what? Hm?" She moaned, "I've taught you so well, too well." I didn't understand much of that. She rested for a minute and said, "I don't know what gets into me. Sometimes it's so --" She stopped and swallowed hard. She lifted her head and rested with her chin on my chest, looking toward the bedroom window, and I saw her eyelids open and close, open and close, and she seemed to be thinking, fearful. "I want it to be so impossibly good with you sometimes. And then it is. It scares me." I said, "I want it to be the way you want it. You made me feel that way before, too." She was silent for a long moment, still, her eyes on the window. On my chest, her fingers moved slightly, slowly, absently. She seemed afraid, but her warm body was soft and relaxed on me. I said, "It was that way for me, the first time. I was scared to death." Several seconds passed. She didn't move or change her gaze, but with her face nearly in profile to me I thought I could see her eyeballs moving, as if she were observing a scene and people moving in front of her in the room. She whispered softly, "Yes. You were so frightened. But I wanted you to." She was quiet again, and she whispered, "I could have gotten pregnant. I could have ruined every- thing. But you were so scared. And you needed it so much," and her whisper trailed off with "So much..." I said, "Well...it was wonderful." She smiled. She whispered, "Yes. I know. I saw your eyes." She lifted her face and she gave me a soft kiss on my chest, and she rested her chin on me again, her eyes on the window. And I wondered if she were just thinking, or remembering. I stroked her hair. After another long moment she seemed to relax with a small sigh, and she turned her face to let her cheek rest flat on my chest, looking away from me. She stayed that way, lying on my right and using my chest for a pillow, her knees folded over my hip. She fell asleep. I was amazed at how the roles had been reversed from years ago, when I used to cuddle against her the way she did now with me. Thinking about that, I kissed her hair. I wondered if it were true that the smarter a woman was the crazier she was. I was tired. But intruding thoughts of Memphis and worrying about Martha kept me awake for over an hour again. Monday arrived with a blast of sunshine. When I ran in the morn- ing I could feel improvement. At Fiore's I told him so and asked for heavier work. He sent me to a young assistant in his early twenties who trained high school athletes and who showed me some bulk building routines. They were punishing, but simple. I made up my mind that I would have a body, in two months, that Martha would dearly miss. That night after Martha turned out the lights I lay on my side facing her, and she lay on her side facing me. I was still amazed at how we had settled into this and other routines automatically, with no discussion whatever. She said good night and closed her eyes, her hand on my hip, my hand on her hand. I looked at her. She had taken to sleeping semi-nude, wearing only her top because she tended to chill at night, and I usually slept nude. I had been living in her home, seeing her every day, and I still could not get over how lovely she was. I let my vision have its fill of her, and I was just about ready to close my eyes when she opened hers and looked at me. She smiled. "You have a smile on your face." "Oh. I do?" "Yes. What were you smiling at?" I paused. "Is this what it's like being married?" "Is what like it?" "This. Like this in the bedroom." "I don't know, I've never been married. I've never lived with anybody, either." "Oh." She bit her lip and raised her eyebrows, pretending to be shocked. "Oh, Steven, we're shacking up." She grinned. "Lord, we just break every rule there is, don't we?" "Oh. Shacking up, that's what they call it?" She waited again. "You were very sweet to me last night, putting up with my moods." I shrugged. I blushed. She said, "I don't know if you realize it, but you're growing up. You've already changed a lot." "I am?" "Mm-hm." "Am I ahead of schedule, or behind?" "No one's ever ahead." "Oh. Does that mean I'm behind?" She whispered, "Don't worry about it." "Okay." I shrugged. "I thought maybe if I was ahead, I could take a day off or something." She grinned, her eyes laughing. She paused. She said, "I'm sorry about being in the dangerous time of month, but...it's only a short time." "It's not a problem." "It isn't?" "No." She paused again. "Do you want to cum?" I blushed. She waited. I said, "Yes." Her mouth was soft, wet, adept, easily and quickly siphoning all I had. I went right off to sleep. Tuesday Fiore had to again order me to maintain a moderate pace, and even his assistant kept holding me back, prompting me to make the movements with strict form and not worry about speed or greater weight until later. And they were right: the weight movements left me sore, and the stretching and aerobics had me sweating, but I could see new muscles bulging with the effort. Fiore congratulated me on three weeks of good effort and said, "Don't worry, my friend! You will see that my way is right!. Fiore's way is always right! Because if Fiore is not right, the customer gets his money back!" He shook his head and wagged his finger at me, "And Fiore doesn't like to lose money!" Before I left I told him I wouldn't be around on Wednesday. The day at Fire Island was coming up. Fiore said, "Good! At last you listen to me! You will continue to take a free day during the week. This may make you impatient, but you will return Thursday, ready for more! But You will see, once again, that Fiore is right!" Then he grinned at me, his hand on his hips. "Iss enough to make you sick, hah? That I am always right?" When I met Ronnie for lunch I had on my mind only the fact that Fire Island was a magical place of sea and sand and that I was going there with Martha. But with Ronnie sitting at the table before me, looking fresh and slim and pretty in a dark blue dress that matched her eyes, it suddenly hit me that this attractive young woman would be at the beach as well. She said excitedly, "I'm so glad I could take off with Martha. I haven't been to the beach since early June. I have to warn you, though, the Atlantic Ocean can be chilly. But the weather forecast is great, so we'll have the sun on our side." I tightened up in my chair, gazing out the window. Oh, hell, I thought: the nude beach with Martha was one thing. The nude beach with both of them was something else. Ronnie said, "What's the matter? You aren't excited?" I tried to hide my concern by taking a huge bite of my sandwich and asking with my mouth full, "Is this beach some sort of protected area? You know, like, away from the water and off in the woods somewhere?" "It's a public beach. Federal land." "So you mean...public? Like...public?" "Oh, people walk down the beach from the beginning of Fire Island and sometimes walk down the beach for miles. And, yeah, they walk right past Kismet, which is where we'll be." I paused. "You mean...people with their clothes on?" She gaped at me, surprised and amused, and gave me a dismissive wave of her hand and squeezed lemon juice on her tuna salad. "Oh, Steven! So keep your clothes on, what the heck. But it would be a waste of good beach." She took a bite and chewed and watched me, and I gazed out the window, wondering what my reaction would be at seeing both women naked. Ronnie took a sip of her soda and teased me, "You don't mean to tell me that you're afraid somebody might see you naked!" I shrugged. "Probably won't be anybody there. That's why we like to go in the middle of the week." After lunch when I said goodbye at the corner she said earnestly, "You'll love Fire Island. It's like a fairy tale." That night Martha and I toured a few coffee houses in Greenwich Village and I got my first look at the beatnik crowd. Some of them looked a little strange, but most looked like everyone else on the streets of New York. But the result of our outing was that we arrived home a little late, as usual. Martha didn't do any paperwork for a change because she had Wednesday free, one of her infrequent days off. We got into bed, with Martha yawning and complaining, "Oh, hon, we stayed up too late again. I shouldn't have scheduled anything for to- night. Five thirty in the morning gets here pretty early." "Five thirty? Do New Yorkers always go through this just to get out of town?" "Always. It's all they think about. And once they get away they spend the whole time complaining about all the New York things they miss. It's simple to explain and simple to understand: New Yorkers are nuts." She curled up beside me. I blew her a goodnight smooch. She blew one back. I settled onto my side, gazing out the window, listening to the whir of the little fan. All I could think was: What the hell was I going to do on that beach with two naked women if I had a hard-on? These women just didn't understand, they didn't get erections. How would I hide it? I didn't see any problem handling myself around Martha, but even Ronnie was beginning to look irresistible. Then a- gain, I could stay in my cutoffs. But that would be pointless; why go in the first place? But why avoid it? I'd been fucking Martha like an animal for weeks, yet seeing myself naked and sticking out eight or nine inches under the sun at Fire Island was unsettling. Was I growing up fast enough to handle this? PART 11H: Each day in New York introduced me to a different and fascinating experience that I hadn't imagined in Memphis. Wednesday was no excep- tion. The Long Island Railroad was a world of its own. We rose at five thirty and Martha and Ronnie and I had a quick, greasy breakfast in Pennsylvania Station before boarding a commuter train bound for eastern Long Island. We shuttled through Jamaica Station just as the westbound rush hour mounted; for miles and miles as we headed east toward Bay Shore, we were passed by one after another packed, speeding rush hour trains headed for Manhattan. I was flabbergasted at finding it true, as I had heard rumored, that people on the rush hour trains really were so packed together that their shoulders and backs, and in some cases their faces, were pressed against the glass doors of the commuter cars. Martha and Ronnie, in jeans and printed shirts, sat smoking and reading as westbound trains roared and clanged past our window. "God," Ronnie said, shaking her head as yet another crowded train blasted by, "I could never *DO* that. I'd die first! If I knew I had to go through that when I got up in the morning, the first thing I'd do is put my head in the oven." By eight thirty we arrived at the seaside town of Bay Shore and took a taxi to the ferries that waited to shuttle small crowds of people to various landings on Fire Island. Martha and Ronnie carried shopping bags. I toted the aluminum deck chairs we rented at a clam shop near the ferry. Soon we boarded a boat and found seats on the upper level, the deck's stark white benches gleaming under the brilliant sun. Martha put on her sunglasses. Ronnie sat next to her, combing back her fluffy black hair that fluttered in the brisk ocean breeze. "Don't look now," Ronnie said to Martha as she primped herself, "but you're getting the eye again, Martha." "Right," Martha said, unaffected, her chin in her hand as she sat bored and waiting for the trip to get underway. "One of them's giving you the eye, too." "Which one? The fat sweaty guy in the sombrero and the ammo belt around his chest?" I smirked at Ronnie, wagging my head. I lounged against the bench, inhaling sea air for the first time in my life. "Ronnie, it's true. Two guys right behind you are mesmerized by your beauty." "It's not mesmerized, kiddo, it's heatstroke," she said, stuffing her comb into the shopping bag at her feet. "No. Really. The whole deck's giving you the eye." She leaned toward me and wrinkled her face and squeezed my jaw, pushing my cheeks together. "Aw, you're sweet. Keep talkin' to me, honey. Mmm-MM!" With several growls of the big engines and a cloud of steam, the ferry got underway. The boat cruised slowly down a half mile, narrow inlet. Soon I saw the channel open into a wide, endless expanse of sea. Sea gulls were everywhere, following in the roiling wake as the boat opened its engines and sped into the wind. It was exhilarating. I couldn't resist standing up and leaning on the railing to survey it all, my hair billowing in a blast of sea air. The sky was a clear wash of cerulean blue. It seemed the whole world opened around us. I beamed at Martha. She asked, squinting up at me, her eyes hidden behind the dark sunglasses, "Isn't it beautiful? I told you you'd love it." "I do," I said. "This is marvelous. This is really great." The ride to the island lasted fifteen minutes. I spent the whole time marveling at the screeching gulls that accompanied us. More birds greeted us at the village pier. Sea gulls and swallows swooped and glided everywhere. The port lay at the foot of a small village only three or four city blocks wide, dotted with wooden homes painted in bright pastels. The crowd of beachgoers alighted onto the wooden pier with their bags and umbrellas and chairs and headed down a wooden path that led slightly upward toward the horizon a few hundred yards away. "The beach is straight ahead," Ronnie said. "Keep going. You can't miss it. When you start sinking, you're there." We strolled down the wooden walkway, Martha and Ronnie chatting animatedly. I was oblivious to what they said. As I did when first walking along the streets of Manhattan, I gaped at everything in sight. Wood frame houses lined the path, set back in small lawns crammed with lacy shrubbery and short, thin cherry and holly and dogwood trees. Each house had its garden of wildflowers or cultivated plants, each front porch the home of rubber balls and rubber rafts and beach blankets hung out to dry. It was serene, painterly, mirage- like. We reached the top of a gentle rise of land, which I found was a dune of soft tan sand. Before us lay the blue ocean, small waves lapping briskly into the shore. Martha said, "Let's get our jeans off and look like beach people." I thought: Uh-oh, this is where we get nekkid. But Martha and Ronnie stripped down only to their swimsuits, Martha's a bright yellow one piece and Ronnie's a one piece, dark indigo with a pink slash across one hip. I stripped to my shorts. We gathered our bags and walked in the sand to the water, then followed the waterline down the beach. "Our place is just a mile or so down," Martha said. "Steven, walk out here by the water. Walking in soft sand will wear you out." Dark sandpipers hopped and flitted around us. Small waves swooshed in loudly and then hissed away, gurgling as they coiled back. We walked toward a blazing sun. The beach was sparsely populated, as Martha said it would be, with several long, empty stretches. Martha and Ronnie talked as they walked, their feet sinking slightly into the wet, packed sand. Walking behind them, I couldn't hear their conver- sation over the sound of the waves and the simmering ocean. I had never seen Martha in a swimsuit. I had seen her either dressed or nude. She walked gracefully, poised and smooth, almost as if she had trained herself to do so. Ronnie was more flippant, kicking up little spoons of sand behind her. Whereas Martha had a toned, firm, baller- ina's body, Ronnie was sinuous, her limbs longer and softer. She had a slim, compact torso and delicate shoulders. She was the same five and a half feet as Martha, but Ronnie looked taller with long, slender limbs and hands, a sparse but firm tush, her long legs less muscular but smooth and gently tapering into lean calves and ankles. As they walked and talked, Martha hugged her shopping bag to her chest; Ronnie carried hers in one hand at her side, her other arm poised carelessly in the air while she flipped her hand loosely as she talked. I was too spellbound to do anything more than watch and listen to the Atlantic. After a while Ronnie turned to me, pointing ahead. "There it is!" "Come on!" Martha yelled, moving ahead. "It's open! Come on!" I caught up with them. Ahead, a few older couples and a younger one sat on beach towels, separated by wide stretches of beige sand. Some on their sides, some on their backs, some on their tummies. All nude. Martha and Ronnie found a spot, spread the towels, and slipped off their shoulder straps. "Oh, it's so NICE out here today!" Ronnie squealed as she peeled her swimsuit downward. "Oh, Martha, it's heaven! We picked a perfect day!" I'm certain my eyes tripled in size as Ronnie's soft, jiggling, dark nippled breasts came quickly into view. A couple of her ribs stuck out. Her tummy was flat; Martha's was so tight it seemed sucked in. Both women were the same size, but slim Ronnie looked alluringly long legged. Martha's mound stood out prominently under her auburn bush; Ronnie's tummy sloped gently to a smallish black whorl, simple and feathery, and her pelvis curled inward immediately beneath it, showing only a hint of a slit. Now I had seen three nudes in my life: Martha, and a brief and incomplete glimpse of Karen, and now Ronnie. I found Ronnie surprisingly pleasing to look at; she seemed almost teen-like, looking younger naked than she did dressed. Nude, they sat on their beach towels, knees bent, and fished for their bottles of Coppertone. I stood fiddling with my shirt, shuffling around nervously and kicking off my shoes. "Come on!" Ronnie called to me. I picked up my shoes and walked to them, and dropped the chairs on the ground. I started to unfold them, but Martha said, "Put the lotion on first, Steven! Hurry! You can get sunburned out here before you know it!" Ronnie smirked and kidded, "Get undressed. Come on, it's so perfect out. Here, use up my lotion first." She handed me her bottle of Coppertone. I looked at it, and looked down at my clothed body. The moment of truth had arrived. Courageously, I removed my shirt and then unzipped and removed my shorts, looking around casually and trying to pretend that Ronnie and Martha weren't there. There I was: naked. Not nude -- naked. I knelt into the sand, facing toward the water and slightly away from the others, the better not to let either of them notice I was half erect. I squirted lotion on my arms and chest, gasping as the cool stuff hit my skin. I rubbed it in, adding more to my legs and face. Martha reclined face up on her beach towel, saying, "Come on, Steven, finish up and get comfy. You're never gonna get a tan like this in Memphis." Ronnie asked, "They don't have water in Memphis?" "Of course not, Ronnie, it's five hundred miles inland from the Gulf." "Jeez, I couldn't live in a place that didn't have an ocean. I'd dry up and die. Steven, sweetheart, can you do our backs? I promise to do yours." "Sure," I said, kneeling down and holding the bottle firmly so they wouldn't see my hands shaking. I thanked my stars that both of them turned over and had their backs to me: perhaps my organ would have time to settle down. I rubbed lotion onto Martha, whose sleek back I knew only too well. And then onto Ronnie, whose unfamiliar, softer skin had a comfortably warm and melty feel to it. Ronnie moaned "Mmmm" as I rubbed, which didn't do much to calm me. "Steven, what a nice touch. Martha, does he give you back rubs?" "No," Martha said. "Women who are always badgering somebody for free back rubs are a pain." "God, I haven't had a complete back rub since my last time at Fiore's. Martha, you don't know what you're missing here." "Ronnie, he just did my back." "Wasn't it wonderful?" "Steven always had a nice touch." "Oh, Martha, why didn't you *tell* me earlier?" "Oh, Ron, shut up. Steven, finish her back. She's just teasing you." "Steven, I'm not. You're a miracle man. Really. Oh, I was so tense. I'm always so tense in the city. It's so nice to come out here and relax, isn't it?" "It's nice," I said, rubbing quickly to get it over with. Martha sang out, "Don't forget the tusheeee." And I thought: oh for gods sake, will it never end? I squirted the cream on my hands, plenty of it, and massaged it into Ronnie's gently rounded, compact gluts, noticing a glimpse of her slit and turning away before my cock hardened enough to hit her leg. I slathered the stuff onto her even more quickly than onto her back. "Okay," Ronnie said. "Now you. Come on, sit." I lay down on the blanket beside her, quickly aligning myself face down. I also appreciated the fact that my half-hard was completely hidden in that position. She said, "Here, this is how you do it. I'll spread it on my hands first, so you don't get a heart attack from a cold splash. There. Therrrre we go, nice and gooey, huh? Wonder what they put in this junk to make it so icky? Mmm, Martha, look at this guy's figure. Can you believe this?" "Believe what?" Martha said, shuffling and making herself more comfortable as she gazed skyward. "Look at this body! Steven, where did you get a body like this? Martha, look at him. Did you know Steven looked like this?" "I know, Ronnie. He's very lucky. He has perfect proportions. Broad shoulders, slim hips. Hey, I'll unfold the chairs. Our towels are already full of sand. Ronnie, stop gushing over him! Poor Steven is so shy. He's from Memphis, y'know, he's not used to this." "Oh...Steven, am I bothering you? Gee, Martha, it's only suntan lotion...God, I'd die for a tush like this." It may have been only tanning lotion, but it was on Ronnie's long, slithery, not very strong, slender fingers, her hands much wider and her fingers longer than Martha's. I even found myself wishing that Ronnie were more vigorous; her hands had a sensuous, lingering quality that was not quite like Martha's more direct touch. Blessedly, she was soon finished and rose to help Martha with the chairs. "Ah," Martha said, settling into the plastic straps of the lounge chair. "MUCH better!" "Steven," Ronnie said above me as she sat in another chair, "you don't want a chair?" "No," I murmured from the ground as I rested face down, hiding my hard-on. "I like it just like this for a while." "Whatever," Ronnie said. Martha and Ronnie rested for a while. I lay with my eyes closed, feeling free and clean with my back and buttocks and heels facing the baking sun, the breeze rippling over my flesh. The new sensations were pleasantly calming. My erection soon dwindled as the sound of rustling waves lulled me into drowsiness. After a while Ronnie and Martha began chatting about a restaurant they had tried and about a sale coming up at one of the big department stores and about the clothes at Sak's being grossly overpriced, and I closed my eyes and relaxed. Before I knew it, I dozed. "Hey," Martha said, stroking my back. I blinked awake. Martha was kneeling over me. My eyes moved. The pair of feet standing near my head belonged to Ronnie. "Turn over," Martha said, "You'll get baked on one side." "Oh," I said. I directed my mind to my penis to make certain all was safe. It was. Martha chuckled, "Ronnie, Steven isn't used to a real beach. It's a good thing we're with him. He'd be fried by now." I turned over and looked up. Ronnie grinned at me from above, her hands on her hips, her slit plainly visible below her tummy, which rose upward to her sloping breasts. They were a little smaller than Martha's, with dark brown aureoles and darker nipples. Ronnie said they were getting up their courage to try a dip in the surf. I rose and watched them walk toward the waves, Martha's round globes glistening in the sun and Ronnie's softer, smaller tush contracting nimbly. Martha dipped a foot into the water and jumped back, squeaking and laughing. Ronnie said, "Aw, it can't be that cold." Then she screeched and jumped when she tried it. The water looked inviting. I was anxious to feel what swimming in an ocean was like. I rose and walked to the water, where the two women tittered and squealed and hesitated about venturing more than ankle deep into the waves. "Steven, it's cold!" Martha warned me. The water chilled my toes, but it was bearable. I walked slowly, water licking at my ankles and then at my calves. I told Martha and Ronnie to step out gradually and pause to let their skin adjust to the water before proceeding. All three of us tried it, and soon we were waist deep in the water. I splashed my chest and face, discovering that sea water really did taste salty. I squinted up, into the sun. It was pleasant, new, comforting, exactly what a genteel character I once saw in E.M.Forester would have called "an excellent adventure." The sloshing waves pulled at my hips, insistently nudging me to and fro. I reveled in the simple, calm exhilaration of everything around me. But always, there was that little tug from within, tempering every pleasure: Memphis had nothing like this. Memphis was still ahead, somewhere. Damn, I thought, why wouldn't it go away? I felt a hand touch my back, and stiff nipples against me. Under the water, blood warmed my cock. I turned. Martha smiled at me. "It's nice, huh?" I looked back at the sea. "It's wonderful. I don't want to leave. Can I build a shack back there on the island?" "A shack? Sure," she said, laughing. "For about fifty thousand dollars and up." Far ahead of us, a motor boat crossed our path on its way toward the city. It roared past merrily, stirring up a wake behind it. "Jeez," I heard Ronnie say, "I don't usually go out this far." She appeared to my right and walked out just ahead of us. Martha strode to her, her body nodding lightly in the water. "It's not so bad once you get into it," Martha said. I watched the two of them bob as water crept toward their shoul- ders. Martha slid into the water, floating, and turned onto her back, her feet kicking and pushing her toward shore. I took another step forward, feeling the water rise to my chest. I was enjoying the unique sensation of unseen currents snaking around my waist and chest when I looked up and saw the choppy results of the boat's wake arcing toward us. I yelled at the others to move back. Martha squinted at me, ques- tioning, and I pointed to the approaching waves. She cautioned Ronnie to pull back to shore, but Ronnie grinned and stood where she was. "Come 'n get me!" she yelled playfully ahead of her, but a few seconds later the height of the spreading wave, which would have been slightly above our shoulders, became apparent. She moved backward, laughing, chanting, "Here it comes, here it comes!", and even though I tried to move aside, she changed direction unexpectedly and backed directly into me, the furrow between her buttocks directly against my cock, her soft, warm, wet flesh seeming to cling to my shaft and generating a sudden and electric jolt in my groin. She jerked violently, rising out of the water and turning around to face me, her mouth an 'O' of shock. "Steven! God, I thought something was sneaking up on me, I didn't know who you WERE!" As the first wave hit us, her eyes shot open and the force shoved her into me, her forehead bumping my chin. I grabbed her shoulders to hold her up. She squealed, the cold water rushing over our shoulders, and my cock grew at the feel of her slim, delicate shoulders and her nipples brushing my chest. She shrieked again, "God, that's cold!", and moved away, and then shrieked again as the next wave pushed her into me again, this time pushing both of us backward, and her slim thighs embraced my left leg, leaving clearly in my brain an impression of the exact size, shape, and texture of her cunt on my upper thigh. She shrieked again, wiggling free, and wiped her face and waved her arms in the water. "Oh, I'm sorry! Damn, I didn't expect that! Did I bump you in the face?" "It's okay," I said, holding up my hands. "It's okay, don't worry." I laughed, my cock suddenly the size of a corncob. "Are you okay? I didn't hurt you?" "No, no," I insisted. "Really!" "Gee, that wave was COLD! Lemme outta here, I gotta warm up!" She struggled back to shore as quickly as she could, but I lagged behind. I stopped when the water fell to my navel. Dimly through the dark swirling sea water, I could see my organ at top mast. I would have to wait in that spot until things calmed down. "Come on!" Martha called from the shore, "it's too chilly to stay in there! Come on, Steven, let's get some lunch and walk around." I held up a finger to suggest one minute. The waves stirred up by the boat were receding, the water level threatening to bare me below my navel, so I moved backward. "Aw, c'mon," Ronnie said, "I'm getting hungry anyway." I grinned sheepishly, bobbing in the water and flexing my arms at my sides to keep from being pulled shoreward. "Steven," Martha called, "Come on out, what's the matter?" I raised my finger again. Two nude nymphs jumping and cavorting before me did little to stem the tide, as it were. I remained as hard as ever. Martha alone would have been enough, but the feel of slim Ronnie's soft, fleshy cunt on my thigh was still too fresh in my mind. I waited, the water suddenly receding so swiftly that I dropped to my knees, grinning and wobbling in the choppy water. "What's the matter?" Martha yelled, impatient. I grinned back. I held my finger high again. Ronnie stood with her hands on her hips, smirking sarcastically. "Martha..." She indicated me with her thumb over her shoulder. "I think Steven's stuck out there with a big kielbasa." Martha squinted. "A what?" Then she covered her mouth and her eyes shot open. She twirled on her toes once, laughing. "Oh, Steven! Oh, you poor thing!" Ronnie called out dryly, "Sorry, Steven." I grinned back foolishly. Ronnie wagged her head, shrugged, and gave me an apologetic palms-up. Martha yelled, "Do you want your shorts? I can throw them out there." I shook my head no. Their humor and Ronnie's frank acceptance of my condition created an intimacy between me and the two girls that enlarged and enhanced my erection. I turned from them and strode further into the sea, my wobbling cock out of sight of the beach and just above the water, and I leapt into the air, feeling pleased, sexy, daring, vigorous. I stood on my toes, stretched my arms, arched my cock, and howled at the sea and the sky. No Mom to flinch in disgust, no aunt to screech in alarm, no nun to pummel me with guilt. I had no idea what the others thought I was doing, but I was enjoying my hard- on and the day and the sun and I closed my eyes and saw the image of Martha, naked and laughing on the sand, and remembered how incredibly good Ronnie felt against me, without wanting to do anything about it except enjoy it. Continued. . . <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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