Message-ID: <22711asstr$950083801@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Original-Message-ID: <00bb01bf7259$e4921d20$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/FF,teen) MJANE19.TXT Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 03:10:01 -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, "MJANE19.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 19A: Monday. Monday of my last week in New York. I awoke with Martha and her alarm. While she was in the bathroom I was in the kitchen with a big towel wrapped around my waist, getting the coffee started and filling a sink with soapy water to clean up last night's coffee and cake dishes. While I stood waiting for the sink to fill, I thought: What the hell should I do today, find some- thing interesting or just go crazy waiting for the week to pass? While I had my forearms sunk into the soapsuds, Martha drifted toward the kitchen with half-closed eyes, wearing her thin bathrobe. She set her handful of cosmetics on the dining table, floated drowsily across the kitchen to me at the sink, put her arms around me from behind and leaned limply against me for a moment. I said, up to my elbows in the suds, "Good morning." She said, "Umph." She gave me a kiss on the neck then stepped to the shower stall and started the water going. I heard water for a long moment and twisted my head around to look behind me. Martha stood outside the shower stall, looking sleepily down at herself as she struggled with the tangled cloth rope of her bathrobe. I offered, "Need help getting into the shower?" She shook her head no, her blonde and auburn curls wagging over her eyes. She smiled. She joked primly, "No. And no watching. We're not married." She opened the robe and eyed me seductively while she dropped it to the floor, then she slipped naked into the shower and drew the plastic shower cloth closed, deliberately slow, peeking at me with a teasing smirk. I returned to dishwashing. I thought: she's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, she's...she's going to be a thousand miles away in seven days. After finishing the dishes I donned my running shorts and shoes in the bedroom. I had taken to not wearing my glasses on my run; they kept sliding downward on my sweaty face. On my way out Martha was drying in the kitchen, so I detoured to her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Going for my run. Be right back." "Okay." Outside, I broke into a trot that became faster with my rising anger and frustration. By the time I hit Central Park I was running faster and harder. I dashed across the meadow beside the Metropolitan and then across the clearing behind it, and into a meadow, and I ran harder and harder, getting out of breath but still running. And when my lungs and ankles and legs began to burn, I slowed gradually. In a small clearing I stopped moving and got onto my hands and knees, hang- ing my head down and letting blood flow back into my head, panting and coughing. It was a greater distance and faster pace than I'd yet attained. But I was truly tired and overheated. Sweat poured from me, my lungs hurt. I grunted and wheezed. Finally, I sat in the grass. I had to talk to myself aloud. I chanted, "Take it easy. Take it easy, goddammit. Take it easy." Once rested, I got to my feet and kept up a moderate pace on my way out of the park. Nearing Martha's street again, I felt the up- lifting effect of the controlled run kicking in; I was still anxious, but now I felt like doing something more constructive about it. By the time I returned to Martha's I recovered, at least physically, but I dripped sweat. Martha stood by the dining table drinking her coffee and buttoning up. She looked trim and fresh and dangerously pretty in a starched white blouse and a charcoal gray, straight, calf-length skirt with a glossy black belt. Her hair was pinned back neatly. She was radiant, from her sexy head to her sexy toes. She gave me a sympathetic look as I closed the front door and walked toward her. She said, "Oh, you look so hot and tired!" "Who, me?" She picked up her coffee cup and sipped. "Ran too hard again, hm?" I stepped to the shower stall and yanked my sweaty t-shirt over my head. "Nope. Just ran longer." She finished her coffee and looked down to step into her glossy black heels. "Let's not overdo anything, now." "Who, me?" I breathed hard, continuing to undress for my shower. She gave me a wry smile as she walked across the kitchen to me. "You have plans for yourself today? I want you to keep yourself busy, don't just sit around and get into a bad mood." She kissed me on the cheek. "Hear me?" I nodded and gave her a little smile. "All right," she said, looking at me with sisterly concern. Then she headed for her briefcase by the door. "Call me today. Let me know how you're doing." "Okay." She stopped at the front door and beamed at me. "I can hardly wait for winter, just so I can wear that beautiful coat." She blew me a kiss on her way out. I showered quickly, stayed wrapped in a bath towel while I made my super protein drink, quickly, and drank it while I put the leftover birthday cakes in their paper boxes. I knew I should avoid coffee, but I wanted more of a lift; I poured myself a cup and sipped at it while I searched through yesterday's Sunday Times. An article about a new book on parent-child relationships in the Book Review caught my eye. Then there was a minimum-charge lecture series on the Beat movement at the CCNY Center near Times Square. For weeks I'd been exploring New York's bookstores and lecture series. But now, for my last week, I'd spend less time shopping around and more time getting into the details of all the new thought and information that I could get my hands on. I didn't have much cash for toys or gadgets that I could take home with me, but I was de- termined to bring back to Memphis all of the new information I could get my hands on. In my spiral notebook I jotted down places to go, books to look for, bookstores to visit. I dressed hurriedly, ready for the fray. I put one of the birth- day cakes in a shopping bag, and on my way downstairs I stopped to knock at Ronnie's door. She answered, looking fresh and edible in her blue-gray business suit. I said, "Here's your cake." "Wow, I'll never eat that whole thing. I'll bring it to the office. It'll disappear in five minutes." I left her with the bag and started to leave. "Hey," she said. "Didn't you forget something?" I dashed back to give her a kiss on the cheek. She said, "Wanna meet for lunch?" "Well, I'm -- I have so much I was going to do." "That's okay. Tomorrow then, our regular Tuesday." I insisted, jumpy and ready to go. "Ronnie, I hate to turn you down, but -- " "Hey, hey! Stop all that, it's okay. I can see you're ready for the big race, or whatever. God, you're so apologetic. Just gimme one more..." She stuck out her head for another kiss, and I gave her one. She grinned at me. "Tomorrow, hot stuff. Get goin'." As I hurried down the stairs she called to me, "And slow down. You're already breaking out in a sweat!" The lecture on Albert Camus was at ten at CCNY. For three bucks I sat in on a fascinating ninety minute presentation of the man whose ideas were completely new to me. But they were a revelation. I hung onto the speaker's every word, taking copious notes in the binder I'd bought in the center's book store. I left the lecture in a state of shock. Camus wasn't the happiest thinker around in those days, but he made a lot more sense than the heroic optimism being forced down my throat by parents and the likes of Boy's Life magazine. The speaker frequently referred to existen- tialism as "depressing", but I found it energizing because it made sense, it addressed what I was rapidly coming to recognize as my own loss of innocence, my own inability (refusal?) to accept snake oil from the pulpits of Memphis. I dashed from CCNY to the subway and then to a row of psychology bookstores in the West Village. I had little money for the books I found there, and I was dismayed to find that the cost of the books I found listed in the Times would have wrecked my budget. But I saw that browsing was allowed, so I browsed for more than two hours, skimming tables of contents rapidly and racing over the pages as fast as I could, soaking it up. My head raced from one revelation to another, gulping down paragraphs at a glance. I found references to child-parent bonding, child-parent separation anxieties, and on and on and on. Something I'd never crossed in Memphis libraries were brief references to incest. For some reason I found myself scouring this material hungrily and searching for more. The subject was both arousing and disturbing. But instead of images of my mother, I kept associating the subject with Martha and Ronnie and myself. In all the books, one subject that was always missing: how guys grew up without a father. Apparently, no kid in 1957 had lost a dad during a war; all families had two kids, two parents in 1957 -- according to the literature. In the late afternoon I was so lost in thought that I found myself at my subway stop at East 86th Street without remembering how I got there. In Martha's apartment I somehow fixed a salad for dinner and set it up on the dining room table while remaining oblivious to what I was doing. When I heard Martha trudging up the stairs, I was amazed that the day had passed so quickly. It seemed that my brain had absorbed years of startling, energizing, explosive revelations in only five minutes! Martha entered looking dispirited as usual after a day at work, but she gave me a little smile. She set her briefcase down by the door. "Hello. You didn't call. What happened?" I walked to her. "Sorry, I -- I got all wrapped up in a couple of bookstores, and had to hurry home at the last minute." I gave her a little kiss. "Well, you shouldn't promise you'll call and then not do it. You know I get worried." "It won't happen again." She gave me a mild frown. "Uh-huh." She unbuttoned her blouse and headed for the bedroom. "I guess you'll never stop doing it." "Yes, ma'am." She stopped near the bedroom door, unbuttoning her blouse. "And Howard called me. I'm going out there Wednesday. But only for a little while." She looked at me. "A little while, understand? I made him promise, I told him I can't just leave you here alone until two A.M. again. But once the school year starts in a few days, I probably won't see him again for months. He keeps three teaching jobs to afford that house in Kew Gardens." "Okay," I said. She glanced at me, frowning. "Is that all right?" "Yes, ma'am," I lied. Then I clamped my mouth and my brain shut about the matter. I sat at the dining table waiting for her. I'd said "Yes ma'am," "Yes, ma'am," as if I were talking to my put-upon mother in Memphis, or an aunt. The patterns were becoming clearer in my mind. As Martha sat across from me and ate her salad I found myself staring at her, at Martha, at mother, father, teacher, staring less as Steven but more as Speedy the dependent, obedient boy. At Martha, the anima, at Carl Jung's Terrible Mother; at her devastating erotic power. At... She said, "Why are you staring at me like that?" I blinked. "Sorry." "You have such a look on your face." She chewed and then wiped her lips. "So what kept you busy today? Bookstores?" "Yeah. Down in the Village." "Really? Well, tell me about it. What are you getting your cute little head into?" "I don't know yet." She looked at me and breathed a surprised, curious laugh. "Don't know? Hon, what are you up to this time?" "Learning everything I can. A week to take everything I can back to Memphis with me. Ammunition for Memphis." "Well...That's not a bad idea, I suppose. Learning about what?" She took a bite. "Everything." Her eyes widened, and she gulped quickly. "Oh, my. Good luck." She stopped to swallow again. "Hon, don't try to take on so much. You always push so hard." "I don't have much time." "No, not now, not this week, not *that* much time. But in gen- eral, you do. You never have time when you try to do everything at once." I looked down at my plate. There were a least five thousand things I wanted to say, to ask, and all of them stuck in my throat. They were all too big, all too vast and incomprehensible now. She said gently, "Look, we didn't plan anything tonight. I have some work to do, but we really need to just rest. And we can talk." Later, she sat up in bed in her thin, light blue bathrobe with a small stack of papers in her lap, browsing and marking them. I slid into bed naked, fresh from a cooling shower. I said, "Why are you still grading papers? Isn't this the summer recess?" "This is one of my many extra jobs, hon. I don't earn enough from teaching during the school year to afford a summer off. But this project is almost wrapped up. Then the regular year gets under way." I lay on my side facing her, my eyelids getting heavy. She glanced at me. "Here, I'll get rid of these. I can't do any more tonight, anyway." She brought the papers into the living room and came back to turn off the light, and she slid into bed and sat up against the headboard. She reached out and put an arm around my head, resting her hand on my shoulder. She said, "So what's all this you did today?" "Went through a lot of books." "About what?" "Oh...went to a lecture on Camus." "Mm," she said, impressed. "Yes, I know about Camus. And did you get anything out of it?" I thought for a moment. "There's only us. Me. Everything's up to me." She said quietly, "Yes." She stroked my shoulder. "You spent all day on existentialism?" I shook my head no. "What else, then?" "Went to a book store." "And?" "Looked through a dozen books." "On what?" "...Growing up. Parent-child. Parent-teacher." "Oh, my. Steven, what's all that about? Why are you -- ?" She stopped. She said softly, "Oh. I see." I glanced up at her. She was smiling gently. She said again, "I see." I moved closer to her and laid my face between her breasts. Her nipples stood out against the thin fabric. I asked her, "Do you still see me as Speedy?" "Sometimes." I was quiet. She said, "There will always be that Speedy in you, hon. And I'm glad it will be. I hope it never goes away." I said, "But I'm not Speedy any more." She whispered, "I know." I didn't say anything. I thought. I thought and thought. She said, "Do you still see me as Martha Jane? Martha Jane of 246-D Exchange Street, in the Lauderdale Courts?" I thought about that, too. I said, "Sometimes. I guess." "But I'm Martha now. I'm still Martha Jane, too. And you're Steven, and you're Speedy. It all runs together. But when it comes to whom we've grown into, whom we have to be, I have to be and act as Martha from now on. And you have to be and act as Steven." She idly stroked my shoulder again. She said, "I loved Speedy. If there hadn't been a Speedy, there wouldn't be a Steven here now. I wouldn't have a Steven to make coffee, to give me a beautiful coat. To put his mouth on my breasts. To say he loves me." My head was swimming. I made a quiet sigh; it felt as if it were all taking my breath away. I said, "Camus said that when you lose that innocence you were born with, you never go back. We waste our lives and our minds trying to hold onto it." "Yes. What he doesn't say is that you start all over again, and starting all over is a new innocence. It's being innocent again. And again. Over and over again." She snuggled lower, pulling me closer to her and hugging my head to her breast, and she stroked my hair. For a long moment we were both quiet. Then she said wistfully, "We've crossed many lines, you and I. Most of the time, I've led you by the hand. I brought you with me. I was frightened, you were frightened. But you came along anyway. You were always there with me, because there was something in both of us that was alike, that needed to rebel. And I've wondered, sometime, if I robbed you of that inno- cence along the way. I rebelled against everything, everyone, and I felt wicked, always so wicked. I still do. But we were so much alike, Steven. We could never have done anything that we've done, if we weren't so much alike. Everything we've done, and learned, and looked for, we left one state of innocence behind and looked for the next one. And the next one. And the next. I don't know where the next one will take us. I don't know what will change. But something will change. There will be a new line. We'll be as innocent as we were when we started." She hugged me again. "I have felt wicked. But not guilty. I know what you've been reading, what you've been looking at. I think I know where you're going with it. And I know it will help you understand me -- us. I can't just explain it to you, who we are. Or why. I can tell you something Camus said. He said, 'Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence.' And so we keep going back to it. Always going back, whatever we do." I lay on her breast, absorbed in her words, listening. I felt her turn her face to look toward the window. Her hand moved from my shoulder to the back of my neck. She asked, softly, "Do you regret any of it, Steven?" I said, "No." She whispered, "I do hope you mean that." For a long time we lay resting with each other, she seeming to let the heat of my neck flow into her hand, me letting the warmth of her breast flow into my cheek. She whispered, "I'm so glad you're talking to me. Talking from some place deep inside you. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're not afraid of telling me. Just telling me." I said, "It's all your fault. You and your basic training." She breathed a small, small laugh, and whispered with a smile in her voice. "Yes. Wasn't easy for either of us, hm?" I shook my head no. She hugged my head to her. "Not easy for me, either. But I'm glad. I'm glad for all of it." I lifted my face and looked at hers, at her lovely face. She gazed back at me, her eyes wandering over my face and chest, and she put a palm on my chest and looked at it, looked at her hand feeling my chest, and her fingers played with the young hair. I looked down at her body and gently opened the slit in her robe below her waist. Her thighs rested flat, slightly parted. I slid my hand down her tummy and laid my palm on her tuft, her light, fuzzy tuft. My palm rested there a while. Then my fingers stroked her pelvis, back and forth, slowly, back and forth, and she watched my hand. She whispered, "It's getting late. But we can, if you want." I said, "I wasn't thinking about that." "Oh. What were you thinking?" I laid my head on her breast again, my hand wandering lightly over her hips and tummy. I said, "I wasn't thinking." "Oh. What, then?" My fingers moved along her inner thigh. "Memorizing." She seemed to soften everywhere. She opened her legs a little wider and she quietly let my hands explore, learn. As I touched her everywhere, removing her robe and touching, harmlessly, undemandingly touching, neither of us spoke. Then she spent several minutes silent- ly doing the same to me. And naked, innocently, our hands moved on each other until they moved slower and slower, and we fell asleep. I woke up Tuesday morning a few minutes before her alarm was set to go off. I looked at her naked body curled near mine. I figured I wouldn't return to sleep, so I got out of bed and turned off the alarm. Martha stirred in the dim glow from the first light of dawn through the window. She muttered, "Hon? What are you doing?" "I'm awake anyway. The clock wouldn't go off for fifteen minutes. I was going to wake you up with kisses. She smiled, her sleepy eyes closed. "Mm. How nice. Much better than a mean old alarm clock." I got into bed on my side and she turned onto her back and extend- ed an arm for me, so I settled on top of her sleepy warmth and she wrapped her arms and legs around me and sighed pleasantly with her face against mine. She asked, "How long before I wake up?" "About fifteen minutes." My early morning hard-on was long and very, very stiff against her tummy. She nudged her pelvis against me. "Mmm." I whispered, "I'm very hard." She nodded against my face. I put my lips closer to her ear. "Wanna fuck?" I felt her smiling against my cheek. She nodded yes. She whisp- ered, "Mm-hm." I licked her and got her wet and hot and my morning hard-on arched with itchy pleasure as I slid inside. I nestled my face against hers and fucked deep and slow and she came wincing, hard, her head jerking forward and her mouth gaping and her nails in my back, and she sighed hotly "Ah! Ah! Ah!" Then I came, gushing lazily within her snug heat, grunting and sighing, grinning against her face, happy with love and lust, the climax blinding me for a moment when I felt her gently bite my shoulder. Then we lay silently holding each other, and I was desperate for it not to end. When she left for work later, I sat at the dining room table aware of the emptiness of the place without her. I looked at the clock on the small table beside the front door. An electric clock. I knew if I pulled the plug, ruthless time would churn on. And on. And on through next Monday. This time, I ran at a steadier, manageable pace. I let Fiore's teaching guide me. I ran all the way to the other side of Central Park, without stopping. I rested, and jogged all the way back, resisting the urge to push it. I had control, at least, over that. I was in the bookstores near Ronnie's office as soon as they opened their doors. I searched more, I found more. The books were filled, as Ronnie said, with clues. Not answers. I collected clues and more clues, and more. My lunch date with Ronnie forced me to take a break, or I would have just kept searching. At lunch, Ronnie sprinkled salt on her sausage and peppers and smiled at me. "All right. Stop sitting over there like a silent sphinx, and tell me what you've been doing. I can't stand the silent treatment anymore." I said cryptically, "Camus." She reared her head back a little. "Camus? God. So when are you gonna slash your wrists?" "Why does everybody say that about him? I think he's exciting." "Mm-hm. The death of Franklin Roosevelt was exciting, too." She jabbed her fork into her lunch. "What other serendipitous stuff have you been sticking your nose into?" I frowned, getting a statement together in my head. I looked away from her and chewed and swallowed. I said, "Suppose...that the son's desired relationship with the mother came true, and they married. Everything would change so much, that their feelings would be entirely altered. So many strange things would happen. The son would have started out loving the mother, but wouldn't be able to maintain that relationship as a marriage. Right?" She gaped at me. "Oh my god." "I mean...the forbidden quality would be missing then. Right?" She smirked. "The answer wouldn't be found in an episode of Ozzie and Harriet." She swallowed, and she headed for her tea, and she eyed me with a curious wince. "I thought you'd be soaking up all the theater stuff in this town, and art. I had no idea you were looking at such dark stuff." I leaned on my elbows on the table. "That's dark, huh?" "Dark as hell." I mused aloud, looking down at my plate. "What happens, I wonder, when the forbidden, the mystery, goes away? Can it ever go away? Wouldn't it always be forbidden? Always?" She prodded her food again, astonished and grinning. "How in the world did you latch onto this stuff, all of a sudden?" "Looking for answers." "Yeah? Wahddya gonna do when you find 'em?" I considered that. "I don't know." "Yeah, right. Find the answers, honey, and the thrill is gone. Analyze it to death, it's no fun anymore. It's not dark anymore, it's just yesterday's news." She took a bite, and looked at me and chewed. She watched me gaze out the window for a second, and she swallowed. "So what else have you been looking into in your quest for the depths of suicidal depression? Next thing you know, you'll be wearing black sweaters and a beret and reading incoherent poetry to a bunch of drunks down in the Village, broke, unemployed, pissed off, and you won't be able to have orgasms anymore." "Oh, I dunno. Seems like the more you know, the more understand- ing you have. More control." "You can't control everything. And if you've been delving into Camus, you oughtta know that you can't control *anything*." She shook her head, and said with a small, incredulous laugh, "My god, how did you come to this?" I replied casually, "You and Martha." Her head reared back again. "Whaaat?" She gazed out the window. "So that's it!" She turned to me and set down her fork, and leaned toward me. Her gaze softened into an indulgent smile. "Listen, hon. Listen to me, I'm talking like Martha again. Listen, hon, that de- licious, juicy, forbidden quality about me and you and Martha is pure love and pleasure. Like nothing I ever thought possible. You let yourself go, but as soon as you do you try to control it again and put it in a box. Just like Martha and her darkness. Why don't you stop trying to figure it out, and just enjoy it?" "Well...because I'm trying to, you know -- I'm trying to --" She said consolingly, "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to change it. You're trying to justify it. You're not just rationalizing, you're moralizing. You're trying to stand across the room from it and observe it, measure it. Regulate it." I looked at her. Now I was confused again. "Think so?" "Oh, sure." She picked up her fork and jabbed at her food again. She said cajolingly, "Hey, why don't you take it as it is? A really wonderful, pleasurable experience? And let it have a life of its own? And stop worrying about Martha as mother, me as incestuous sister, and all that, and just --" She frowned, "What's the matter, does it still scare you or something?" I didn't answer. I blushed. This was not the same reaction I'd gotten from Martha. But it was just as thought-provoking. I said, "No. Not scared. Puzzled." She sighed a laugh, and chewed and swallowed quickly. "Steven, you poor thing. I'm sorry. I understand. Really. It's so far away from Memphis, isn't it? You're so far away from home. So far away from what you learned." She stopped eating and propped her arms on the table and smiled at me affectionately. "We do cling to what we knew, don't we? We try to explain everything so it'll fit real nice with what we already know. But you are trying, aren't you? Trying everything new. That's one of the first things you learn in art school, learning to see in a different way. And you're right, you do need to look, you do need to understand. But get to knowing yourself before knowing everything else. And, honey, don't spoil this for yourself. The feelings are too beautiful." I looked down, letting her words sink it. "Yeah. They are. You're right." She shrugged, "Eh, I'm not always right. I'm wrong, I'm wrong plenty. But if it's any help, just let me throw out one little idea for you. One little thought, that helped keep me straight when I was following that crowd around in the Village and listening to all their expert advice. Can I?" "Okay. Hit me with it." She paused and took a breath. She said gently, "A little know- ledge can be a dangerous thing, for those who talk knowledge but don't live it. Take your time with this. Live it a little. Discover. Don't come to any sudden conclusions." I smiled at her, and blushed again. "Okay. You're sweet." "Awww." She picked up her fork. "Hey, come over tomorrow on my half day off. Want to? Just drop by, I'll show you some books and stuff you'll really like." For the rest of the day I continued searching. I hit more book shops, even some newsstands. And all I found were clues, more clues, snippets, fragments. By the time it was too late for me to get back to Martha's, I realized that my search had grown into an obsession that had me in despair. It seemed simple at first: the answers would be in the books, so find the books and you find the answers. But the clues led to more questions, and most of the questions led to dead ends. I called Martha at work, but she had just left her office. I hurried into the subway and then into a deli on 86th Street. I picked up some soup and some potato salad and brought it home. I was just setting it up when Martha arrived. She took a look at the dining room table and asked, "You bought at the deli instead of making it?" I answered glumly, feeling a tiredness creep over me. "Yeah. I didn't have time to make it." "Oh? What kept you so busy?" "Searching." She eyed me curiously and started toward the bedroom. "Searching for what?" I said flatly, noisily sliding open a drawer in the kitchen and rummaging for forks and spoons, "Answers." "Answers?" I slammed the drawer shut. "To questions." She looked toward the bedroom and unbuttoned her cuffs and sighed. "Oh, dear. I think we're in a bad mood again." She strode into the bedroom to change clothes. I didn't speak much as we ate. Martha said, "Tell me, or I'll bother you all night until you do." I said irritably, "All throughout this country and most of the world, there are doctors and scientists and professors, tens of thousands of them, millions of them, and tens of thousands of book publishers, and they're all working overtime to put out so many studies and so many reports that I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting through any of it." I resumed eating, not talking and not looking at her. She said, "If you don't get to the point, I'm going to spank you." I said sullenly, "And that's one of my problems. I'm too old to be spanked." She said slowly, "Don't be too sure." I sulked. She fumed for a moment. She set her fork down. "All right. I'll call Howard and tell him I won't be there." I glowered at her. "No." She started to get up. "I think I'd better." I said angrily, feeling my eyes narrow, "No!" She settled into her chair and glared at me. She said stiffly, "Then what do you want, Steven?" I blushed, embarrassed at my angry response. I glanced up at her sheepishly and scoffed, "You wouldn't spank me." Her eyebrows rose. "No?" I set my mouth firmly, trying not to smile. "Your hands are too small." "They're not." I stood up slowly, eyeing her, starting to smile. "Yes they are." She said firmly, "They're not! What are you doing?" I stalked around the table toward her. "Let me see those hands." She held back a smile, too, and hid her hands under the table. "They're not. Steven, what's the matter with you?" I stood beside her. "Let me see those hands." "No." I grabbed her arm. "Let me see." "No." I pulled her arm up. She resisted. I pulled harder, and she let me lift her arm, her hand dangling. She eyed me with a guarded smile. "All right, what are you up to?" I held her hand gently and gave it a soft kiss. I said, "I don't want to go back to Memphis." She turned toward me in her chair. She held my hand in both of hers. She began helplessly, "Hon..." She looked at my hand and squeezed it hard, and brought it to her cheek. "Hon, I don't know what to --". I said, "No. Don't do anything. Do what you were doing. I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll cheer up, and I'll have a nice little dinner with you. And I won't mention it again. Not again, not like this. It's my fault. I'm sorry." She hugged my hand against her cheek. She whispered, "Okay." I bent and kissed her forehead, then I let go of her hands and walked back to my chair and sat. I grabbed my fork. I gave her a big smile. She said, pouting, "Well, I do wish I could make it all --" I raised a finger and gave her a warning smile. "Ah-ah. No no." She gave me a big smirk and reached for her fork. She said dryly, "Imagine you wagging your finger at me. That's not the first time you've done that. My, have you changed!" Thus I began to learn the secret of just letting go, dropping it when it couldn't be helped, and moving on with what was at hand. It was a beginning; I was still determined to change the course of hist- ory, but at least I knew to keep my mouth shut about it. I was so tired that I dozed off while Martha was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. I felt her snuggle up to me after she turned out the light. PART 19B: Wednesday morning. My last Wednesday in New York. While Martha showered that morning in the kitchen I finished making coffee and toast and I put on my running clothes. Then I remembered that I was supposed to take a day off from working-out. Martha hurried into the living room to gulp down her coffee and toast. She saw me lounging at the table. "You didn't run yet?" "Takin' a day off." "Good!" She bent down to me, then she sat on my lap with an arm around my shoulder. "Good. You take a day off. I'm meeting Howard this afternoon, and I'll be back early for a change. And Ronnie will be around, and I want you two to have a good time together and do something. Don't just sit around getting depressed about...you know what. Hear me?" "Yes ma'am." "Oh, don't say yes ma'am like that. Please. Say okay, or say something besides that." I smiled at her. "Your butt feels good." She grinned. She gave me a kiss. She whispered, "That'll have me home very, very early tonight." She kissed me again and rose and got her briefcase and left. I sat at the dining table listening to her heels clatter down the stairs. I said to myself: Yes, ma'am, I'll take the day off. The whole day. Your little boy Steven will take a day off from all of it, from everything, from the questions and from Howard and from New York and from all the things I can't do anything about. You've all worn the hell out of me. Instead of roaming the book stores looking for answers, I roamed some book stores and just looked, period. I spent hours completely wasting my time. The most serious book I browsed was 'Bartlet's Familiar Quotations', and an illustrated book on stress-relieving massage. After boring myself with that for a while I kicked around the East Side in Martha's neighborhood, getting horny going through nudist magazines at a newsstand until the proprietor shooed me away. I took a subway all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge and took another one back to where I started at 86th Street. Just before noon, I called Ronnie at work. She answered the phone, sounding tired and cranky. "Hello, this is Veronica." "Hello, this is Steven." "Well, you sound in a decent mood. Very non-existential. What morbid secrets did you find in the book shops today?" "Bartlet's Familiar Quotations, and a couple of nudist magazines." She gave a half-hearted laugh. "Well, at least you could have raised your sights a bit and gone to the museum to look at the nekkid pictures." "When do you want me to come over today?" There was a pause. "Sure you wanna come over?" "Of course! We having a change in plans?" "Uh, no, it's...I'll be prepared to receive visitors at one. Okay?" "Prepared?" "Eh, I, uh, stayed up late. Very late. Drawing. Drawing, drawing, drawing. Didn't clean up my mess yet, but gimme time to take a quickie shower so I won't be all clammy. The air conditioner's on the fritz in the office today. So let's make it at one-fifteen." "Okay, see you at one-fifteen." "Good. Best tranquilizer I've had all day." I hung up. I strolled up one street and down the other, waiting for one-fifteen. I remembered what one of the nuns used to say to the class: "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." I remembered the sight of Martha and Ronnie frolicking naked on the beach. I considered that Martha and Howard might be together later -- but I considered that only briefly, only for a split second, until I happened to look down Third Avenue and saw a church steeple rising above the smaller apart- ment buildings. I remembered reciting the Latin when I served at Mass; I remembered sitting up for many nights memorizing it. I remem- bered the sounds Martha made when she climaxed. I saw Ronnie's eyes glitter in the candlelight. I looked at the church steeple and muttered under my breath, "Fuck you." Ronnie let me into her apartment. She wore the oversized shirt and the full, print skirt she often wore when she was drawing. She had a tired smile on her face, which looked tense and a little sweaty. "You're here on time again. Uh...oh, come in. I'm cleaning up." I entered. There was little room to walk. The floor was littered with charcoal and pencil drawings strewn everywhere. There were two ash trays filled with cigarettes on the floor. She hurried to snatch drawings off the sofa. "I was hoping you'd be late. Here, lemme clear a place for you to sit. I glanced around. "What'd you do? You did all this last night?" She straightened up, a batch of drawings in her hand. She wiped wet hair from her face. "Yeah. Until two or something. A mess, huh?" She motioned toward the sofa. "Come on, sit. I'll get this up." "Well...want me to help?" She grabbed papers hurriedly, piling them face down on the coffee table, which was also covered with drawings. "No, it's okay. Have a seat." I lifted my feet high and stepped carefully into whatever open patch I could find, making my way to the sofa. I said, "Sure you don't want some help?" "No, no, I have them in order. Doesn't look like it, but they're in a certain order." I made it to the sofa and sat in the middle of it. I watched her stooping and bending as fast as she could. She said, "Want me to get you anything?" "I'll wait." "Okay. Good. Just a second." At my right on the sofa were a couple of stray drawings. I picked them up and held them out to her. "Here, what about these?" "No!" She rushed to me, her footsteps shaking the windows, and she swiped the drawings from me. I said, "I'm sorry." "No, it's okay." She brushed hair from her face, her eyes averted from mine. She smiled quickly. "It's just...unfinished. I don't like people to see them...unfinished." She got onto her knees and started shoving the drawings together into a spot on the floor. "I'm sorry." "No, I'm sorry. I'm the one who's sorry. I overreacted." I watched her for a moment. "Hey, I feel stupid sitting here while you work yourself to death. You're getting overheated. Got your big window fan working?" "No, it's...just the little one in the window, there. The big one hasn't worked for a couple of days. It's slow, it hardly moves." "Let me take a look at it." "Okay. In the kitchen." I took a look at the window fan in her kitchen window. It was coated with dust, the leading edge of the blades were thick with fuzzy, greasy residue, and black lint and soot blocked the motor housing. I had previously cleaned Martha's fan. Ronnie's was just like it. I searched through her kitchen drawers for some tools. I called out, "You got a screwdriver? Pliers? Anything in here?" "I don't know. Somewhere." I found some old pliers. I had to use a kitchen knife as a screw- driver. I removed the window guard and the fan's rear grill. It was a mess. I ran hot soapy water in the sink and dipped a rag in it to clean the blades and major parts. The water was dark brown by the time I was almost finished. Ronnie walked into the kitchen and pressed her hands into her lower back. "Oh! I finally got most of it up. Almost broke my back." "You okay in there?" "Yeah. Finally. I'm sorry. I couldn't get a subway up here fast enough, I got here too late to clean up." "That's all right." I swished the rag around the big fan blades to soak up the final, thin layer of black soot. "There's so much soot in the air in this town, with all the traffic and those oil-burning water heaters." She said, "Steven, you're wonderful." "That's all right. The blades were weighed down with garbage." I turned to her. "You have a vacuum cleaner?" She looked at me. There was that same hint of nervousness in her eyes that was there when I showed up. "I borrow Martha's." "Oh. Uh, got some tweezers?" "Yeah. I'll get 'em." She hopped out of the kitchen. I rinsed the rag in the soapy water, and started to drain and clean the sink. The sooty stuff stuck to the old porcelain. I had to wash it off. Ronnie came back with tweezers and handed them to me. I took them and walked to the fan, looking at her. She seemed flustered and edgy. "You all right?" She looked at me, hands on her hips. She gave me an almost-smile. "Yeah. Tired. Hot." "Yeah, it's pretty warm in here." I worked with the tweezers to pick small gobs of sooty hair out of the motor housing, one at a time. I said, "You look worse than tired." She didn't reply. I turned my head to look at her. She blushed and ran a hand over her eyes. "Well, I...subways don't run, air conditioners don't work, people at the office go nuts, the fan...too many things break down, and I break down. Sort of. I don't know about these things. Folks used to yell at me. You know, the whole thing." I worked away at the hairy soot. "Well, I'm not yellin' at you." Behind me, she went on, rambling. "I wasn't smart about this. My brothers were the smart ones. I was the dumb one." "Yeah? Can your brothers draw?" "My brothers can't even spell." "Well, they're pretty useless in this town, then." "And I wasn't pretty. You had to be pretty, you know? 'As seen on TV'." "You're pretty now. You're very attractive. You sure fooled them, huh?" For a moment she was silent behind me. Then she said, "It's hard to forget all that sometimes. Creeps up on me. Not easy sometimes." I turned to her and joked gently, "Next time you start workin' on my inhibitions, you remember what you just said." She nodded and grinned. "Yeah. Right." I looked the fan over. There was not much left to do in the cleaning department. I asked her, "You have any lubricant? You know, oil? There's a little spout here for lubrication." "Mm. Got some three-in-one." "No, no. Not for a fan. Something like engine oil. Thick." "The super left some up here one time. I think." She knelt down to look into one of the lower kitchen cabinet doors. "In here, maybe?" She got on her hands and knees to reach inside. She had such cute legs. I was horny. I wanted to fuck her. Every time I saw slender, feminine, dark-eyed Ronnie she made me horny and I wanted to hug her and then fuck her. But it wasn't like wanting Martha. Want- ing Martha was maddening. Wanting Ronnie was friendly, affectionate. She lifted out a small, dirty, discolored glass jar. I took it from her and removed the top. Motor oil. "Great. You have an eye dropper, or something?" "Medicine dropper?" "That'll do." She left the kitchen again. I replaced the metal grille over the rear of the fan. I was peering into the slots of the motor housing to see if there were more than one lubrication point, when Ronnie re- turned. At my shoulder her hand appeared, with a thick glass, rubber- bulbed medicine dropper. "Thanks." She leaned against me, her head on my shoulder, and she watched what I was doing. I could feel her soft hair against mine. I used the glass dropper to draw oil from the jar, then peered through the grill, twisted my hand through an opening, and squeezed oil into the spout of the illusive little pipe on the edge of the motor housing. The stuff drooled right in. I needed more. I got another draw of oil and worked my way through the grill opening. Just as I was ready to squeeze the dropper, I felt Ronnie's lips on my neck, barely brushing. It took me by surprise. What also took me by surprise was the vividness of her lips on me, with only the slightest contact. She said softly, girlishly, "Thank you for this." I said with the utmost casualness as I aimed for the little spout again, "That's okay. You rubbed my back, I'm rubbin' yours." She kidded me, "I didn't fix your fan, though." "You can fix mine next time." I leaned back, and she moved away a little. I turned on the power switch. The old fan groaned a bit and the heavy blades circled slowly. I grit my teeth, waiting. I hoped it worked; it was hot in Ronnie's place. The engine picked up speed and built to a muted roar. I turned the speed control all the way up. Ronnie sighed, "Ooooh, wonderful! I feel it already." I turned around to her. She was standing with her eyes closed. I wiped the sweat from my eyebrows, and right away I knew I'd made a mistake. I had oil and soot all over my hands and arms. She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Oh, we're a mess." "I'll be okay." I walked to the kitchen sink and closed the jar and ran hot water to clean up. She said, "But I got you all sweaty and everything. You were a nice, clean Catholic boy when you got here." "Never you fear." "Here, lemme get you some soda or something. Want a coke? Water? I can make coffee." "Water's fine." She opened the refrigerator. "Got some ice water here." She grabbed an orange juice container filled with water and then stepped to the kitchen counter beside me while I cleaned my arms with soap in the sink. She opened an overhead cabinet. She looked less tired, and cooler, but she still seemed tense and touchy. She took a glass from the overhead cabinet and poured water for me. I said, "Thanks. I'll have my hands dry in a minute." She gazed into the top cabinet. "Want a little wine?" I tensed at that, remembering the last time. "No, thanks." "Oh, c'mon." She brought down the wine bottle. There was about a cup of dark wine left in it. "Ronnie, no." "Not even enough for a full glass here." She got a small glass and uncorked the wine. She gave me a quick smile as she poured. "You sure?" I eyed her sternly. "I'm sure. How about you?" "Oh. Won't hurt anything." "Ronnie." "Well, I'm --" She put the bottle away and reached for the glass. She said, suddenly intense, "I had the creeps all night. All night." I turned off the sink water and dried my hands with the dish towel, shaking my head slowly. I couldn't just grab the glass from her. I knew from family experience that the results could be volatile. I also knew to remain calm. "I wish you wouldn't. You don't really need that." Her eyes darkened as she looked into the glass. For a brief, eerie moment, she seemed different, seemed hard like the women I'd seen in the streets. She muttered, "How do *you* know what I need?" "Ronnie. Please." "So join me if you want." "You know I won't." She looked down into the glass. She said dryly, "Here's to the great state of Michigan." She stepped closer to the counter, lifting the glass a few inches. She looked deeper into the glass. Then she closed her eyes. Her hand lowered a few inches. She whispered plaintively, "Please stop me." "How? You won't listen to me." She moved the glass toward me. "Take this away from me. Take it." I gently put my hand around the glass and took it from her. Her eyes still closed, she put a hand across her face. She said, "Get rid of it." I poured the glass of wine down the sink and put the glass on the counter. She looked down at my hand and took it in hers and held it tight- ly. She relaxed a little. "I've embarrassed you. I'm so sorry, Steven. You didn't need this." She gave my cheek a kiss and backed away from me, nervously rubbing her arm at her side. "Look, you got messy fixing my fan. You can take a shower in here if you want to. I'll take one after you." She started toward the living room. I said, "Ronnie. Don't go hiding out on me, now." She paused in the kitchen doorway. "I'm just going to get some clean towels." "Oh. Okay." I stood by the shower stall, unbuttoning my shirt, making up my mind about leaving or staying. She returned quickly with two big bath towels, and she at least had the makings of a smile on her face. She handed me one of the towels, saying "Here's yours," and she hung the other on a hook outside the stall. She started out of the kitchen again. "I promise not to look, okay? I know how shy you are when you're alone with your Aunt Ronnie." I said, "Hey. Where you goin'?" She turned around and faced me, surprised. "Just in here. I can clean up a little more while you rinse off." I beckoned her with a nod of my head, and I pulled off my glasses and put them on the kitchen counter and started unbuttoning my shirt again. "Come on, take a shower with me. Didn't you say you wanted to cool off with a shower?" She stared at me. I said, "Come on. You've been in a sweat all day." I pulled my shirt off and lifted a leg to start on my shoes. She walked toward me slowly, frowning but pleased. "In there with you?" "Sure! We've been nekkid together. We even showered together, three of us in one of these." I shrugged and added, "And we've shared a few other things." She smiled at me, and her eyes smiled at me, and she hesitantly undid a button on her shirt. I unbuckled my belt. "Want me to help?" "You go in first." I scoffed, "You're kidding!" She went to the next button on her shirt. "There's something different about you today." "Like what?" "You're not even blushing." I pulled down my pants and kicked them off. "Martha's been giving me classes in blush prevention." "Martha blushes worse than you do. She even blushes so bad some- times, she breaks into tears." I reached for my jocks. "Come on, no fair. I'm almost nekkid and you haven't even started." She watched my jocks go down and she watched me kick them away. I stepped toward her. She said, "I can do it." "I can help." I undid the last button on her shirt, and she watched me open her shirt and take it off. I ran my hand around her waist looking for the zipper of her skirt. "This thing have a zipper?" "It's just an elastic waistband." I tucked my fingers under the skirt's waistband, but she stopped me, smiling. She said, "You go ahead and start the water. I'll finish." She pushed her skirt down, and I stepped into the stall and started the water going, adjusting hot and cold, and she kept looking at me with mild disbelief as she took off her loafers and her bra and then her panties. I held out a hand to her. "C'mon. Lemme know if the water's right for you." She stepped to the stall, still looking somewhat taken aback, and I took her hand and she stood naked next to me and stuck her other hand inside. She said, "It's fine." I held her hand and with my other hand I led the way into the stall. "Step right in. I'll show you something I learned at Fiore's." She eyed me askance. "Will this hurt?" "Nope. A little stress reliever I've tried myself, many times. Until the warm water ran out." She muttered, getting inside, "Doesn't take long in this building, I guess you know." She stepped inside and turned to face me, the spray bouncing off her back. I stepped inside, and she moved inward a little, her eyes still watching my face. "What are you up to?" "Me? About five-foot-eight." "That's not what I --" I held her gently by the shoulders. "Do you have an aversion to water running over your face?" "What?" "Does it drive you crazy if water runs over your face for a minute?" "No." "Okay. Turn around, now." "Not much room to turn ar--" I took a small step back, my butt sticking out of the stall. "I'll make room, now. Come on, turn around." I held her shoulders as she turned to face the shower. I said, "Now lower your head and step under the spray. Go ahead." The water soaked her hair flat and ran over her shoulders and flooded off her face. I kept my hands on her soft little shoulders. I said, "Now, just stand there. Relax. Let the water run down Just let water run down over your head and face. Okay? Feel okay?" She spit water off her lips. "Okay." "You want it colder? Warmer?" "It's fine!" "Okay, just relax a minute. We're gonna have you all calmed down in a minute, okay?" "I hope so." I got soap off the little metal bar on the side wall. "You still feel creepy?" "Yes." She wiped the cascading water from her face. "Are your eyes open?" "Yes." "Close your eyes. Close your eyes and relax." "Okay." "That better?" "...Yeah." "You just enjoy that for a minute. I'm gonna wash your back, okay?" "You're gonna what?" "Wash your back." "Steven? What are you up to?" I slid the bar of soap back and forth across her back. "Why do you think I'm up to something?" "I'm not used to you like this." "Like what?" "Like THIS!" I started swishing the lather over her shoulders. "Nobody ever washed your back before?" "No!" "Not hurting am I?" "...No." "Trust me?" "...Trust you about what?" I began to gently massage the back of her neck with my soapy thumbs. I said, "I'm not gonna hurt you, Ronnie." She didn't say anything. I massaged slowly. "Hm? Okay?" "That feels so good." "Good. You just let me know if anything makes you uncomfortable, or creepy, or anything. Okay?" "Okay." I massaged her shoulders and then her shoulder blades and then her back and the small of her back with lots of bubbly soap, gently, and spoke to her. "We're gonna do this just for a minute, now, until you're relaxed...and all soapy clean in back. And nice and warm and comfy, okay? Whatever you wanna do...whatever you want...that's what we'll do. We'll stop, we'll start again. Whatever you want." I finished with her tush and the tops of her thighs, and I placed my hands on her shoulders again and kneaded them gently but deeply. She moaned pleasantly. I crooned into her ear, "Okay, now, I'm gonna get a little closer to you, okay? Don't worry, now, I'll just lean my chest forward a little bit. Now let your head fall back against me, just lift your head, let it lean back. Let the water run onto your face. Okay? Is that okay?" She nodded yes, her eyes squinting in the spray. The back of her head was against my chin. I swept the spray from her neck and shoul- ders across her back, rinsing soap away. Then I let her head rest on my shoulder while I put my chin on her shoulder and I soaped my hands again. "Now we'll soap the front, okay? Step back just a little, now, just a little, keep the water off your face and relax. Relax." I rubbed soap on her throat, her chest. "Nice and easy, Ronnie, just soap. Just warm and easy." I skimmed her breasts quickly. "Okay?" She nodded, eyes closed restfully, the spray on her arms and chest. She raised her arms and draped her hands limply over my fore- arms as I washed her quickly, down her arms, down her tummy. I could see her face, her head leaning back slightly onto my shoulder. I felt her tense briefly, and her lower lip trembled a bit and then firmed, and her hands hugged my arms, not stopping me. "You okay?" She nodded yes, biting her lip. She sniffled. I soaped her tummy and her silky patch and moved down to her thighs, but she took one of my hands and put it over her pussy and said, "Here. Here, too." I let my soapy hand caress the silken slit and she smiled and moaned a soft, "Mmm." Then I let my hands sweep clear water from her neck and chest downward. "Let's rinse, now. All that soap. C'mon." She used one hand to rinse her crotch. And when she was clean of soap I put my arms around her and hugged her to me gently. "Just relax a minute. Just let the water run down, just feel the water on you, focus on that. Okay?" She nodded yes. I said, "You act as if nobody ever did this with you." She hugged me back, hard. And I felt a single heave go through her, a single pulse of crying, and she relaxed again. She let the little sob out of her mouth, and she said tearfully, "The creepy thing just comes. It just comes to me. I never let anybody see." "Shh." "You don't need to be involved with this." "Shhhh." She sniffled and calmed down. "I promised Martha I wouldn't do this while you were here. When you called it was almost gone..." "Sshhhhh." With one arm around her bosom from behind I held her close to me, and I caressed her cheek, her neck, her forehead. I whispered, "Easy, Ronnie. Shh. Easy. It's okay. You'll be okay. Shh. I know what it is. I know." She hugged my arms again. A lot of air left her and she suddenly relaxed. She took a few deep breaths. When she spoke again her voice was weak, but normal. "I'm okay. I'm okay now." "Sure?" "Yeah." She gave my arms a quick pat. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before we run out of water." I let her go and I edged past her in the little stall, and we squeezed past each other butt to butt, smiling as we got our limbs untangled, and then I was under the spray facing the shower and she was behind me. I let the water run over my head for a moment, then I reached for the soap and found the soap tray empty. "I have it," Ronnie said behind me, sounding calm, sounding like her usual, relaxed self. I felt her soapy hands on my shoulders. "Let me get you, now. Okay?" "Fine with me. That's nice." For a moment she worked silently on me, moving from my shoulders and across and down my back, then down to my globes, where she seemed to linger a moment, and then her head was against my shoulder and her hand slid down my butt and a finger went along the crack, and she ran her hand underneath and pressed near my balls. I said, "Sneaky." She gave a soft laugh at my shoulder, and her hands rubbed my soapy back again for a minute. She said calmly, "The guy from NYU I've been dating doesn't know about this...problem. We're just not that close yet. I'm afraid for that. And I keep saving up, so I can go to see somebody about it. But it's so expensive. And you have to shop around before you find somebody you can really work with." She gave my shoulders a pat. "Turn around. Let's rinse you off." I turned to face her and let the water run down by back. Her face was placid again, her normal, relaxed expression. But as usual her dark eyes spoke for her, and they still looked tense. She soaped up her hands again and she watched her hands on my chest as they moved wetly across and then down. Her eyes followed her hands down to my balls, where her hand slowed and squeezed and caressed, and my dick bobbed once in the air and she washed my pubic curls and then gave my dick a pull that made me sigh a quiet "Oh," and then she moved the palms of her hands up my chest and placed them over my nipples. I gave her a peck on the cheek. I said, "Hey, let's get me rinsed so we can turn off the water in case some other tenant needs it." She said, "You folks from the South. In New York they don't give a damn." "Then they can't complain. This is a world they created them- selves." "Nobody created this town. It's the work of the devil." I shut down the water and turned to face her. She was pushing her wet hair back from her narrow, small-mouthed face, and her eyes were right on mine. For the past several minutes they seemed to be wide with surprise, bigger and darker than usual. She said, pressing her hair backward to wring the water from it. "Now this time, honey, let's make some plans for the evening so that you don't end up bored and depressed again." I said, wiping water from my face, "I don't need a baby sitter, y'know." "Martha didn't tell me I was to be your baby-sitter tonight, she asked me to be your date." "Date? She *asked* you?" "Yeah. She knew you wouldn't have the nerve to ask me yourself. You'd rather sit at home by yourself than take a chance." "Yeah? She told you that?" "Yeah." I touched her shoulder. Her eyes glanced to that side, and then I put my other hand on her other shoulder, and her eyes glanced that way, and then I pulled her toward me and her eyes widened, looking at mine, and then I embraced her and hugged her to me gently. I kissed her neck, and she took in a soft breath of surprise, but her arms began sliding around my back. I spoke near her ear, "Still feeling creepy?" "It's going away." "Good." I snuggled her closer to me, and she felt lithe and tiny and warm, and with one hand I pulled her to me by her soft tush and with the other hand by her shoulders and my lips went up her neck and her neck stretched for my mouth. I pulled my face back and I looked at her mouth, and her mouth parted. She whispered, "I'm not used to all this from you. From anybody." But even as she spoke, her lips moved toward my neck and a hand moved to the back of my neck, and she hugged me to her. I held her, wanting to keep her safe and loved, and she curled into me, all flesh and sinew and need, and somehow she had a way of blending her form into mine that made it seem as if she'd simply allowed herself to be absorbed. In her bedroom she lay with her face turned to one side, panting feverishly, exhausted from her orgasm under my mouth, her eyes closed as she reached down to guide my tip into her. She was still snug inside from her climax, but she was wet, heated, her thighs spread wide, her pelvis reaching up for me. There was always her momentary frown as I nudged into her entrance, and she held her breath and tilted her pussy upward. Then she gave a long breath outward and her eyelids relaxed as she was filled. Her clit was swollen and extended and her outer lips were open wide from her orgasm, and as I started fucking, my shaft easily found her clit. She writhed against me, getting my dick deep into her. She whispered "Oh god" to the ceiling and then "Oh god" again as she lay gasping enjoyably while her cunt sucked at me. The little bedroom echoed with moans and sighs and whimpers and the muted creak of the bed. I stroked in and out greedily, my brain and hips and gut drugged with the affectionate lust that licked my spine whenever I fucked Ronnie. I watched her approach a second orgasm, watched her eyelids closing tighter, heard her holding her breath again and again and again, head arching farther back, chin high, neck straining. The flesh of her throat and upper chest again turned pinkish-red as her excitement mounted. I had felt my own completion building for several strokes, but I tightened my belly and kept the fucking steady, moving only an inch or two back and forth, my dick about three-quarters of the way inside her and close against her clit. Her little mouth opened and her head starting nudging upward and she began to wince and I humped more tightly against her tummy. The room seemed filled with our tension. I whispered while I led her into it, "C'mon, I'll wait. C'mon." She whimpered briefly, and she struggled for a long moment but I kept firmly massaging my root a- gainst her clit. I kept on, and kept on. I shoved to one side of my mind the sensation of the warm, delicately textured weave of her cunt around my cock; I listened to the traffic outside her bedroom window. A car honked outside while we fucked. Ronnie's closed eyes and deep- ening frown told me she wanted to cum, wanted it badly, and she was working for it. Her nails dug into my flexing butt. My cock swelled and itched. She breathed fretfully, "Soon. Oh soon. Oh honey. Oh honey good." I watched her and fucked patiently, on my elbows, my face near hers, and I gave her hot lips several soft kisses. Someone in high heels walked past the building. The bed creaked faintly. Ronnie stiffened, her face tilting forward, and I slowed the fucking a little, and she gasped and then held her breath. I fucked, waiting, my cock starting to throb. Her cunt began to tighten. Her pelvis churned. The world outside began to disappear. Then with her eyes closed she smiled, and she whispered, happily, throatily, "Mmmm. Good. Oh good." Then she gasped again, wincing, her mouth opening wider. From deep inside her she sucked at my tip, and I murmured, "Good, Ronnie. Uh-huh. Good." Then she gave a small cry and her belly sunk in and her pelvis nudged up and I felt the wrenching contraction around my dick. I slowed a little more, loosening my tummy and letting my own cum start its flow. I murmured, "Yeah, Ronnie. Cum." She trembled, holding her breath. My tip lunged toward the deep sucking place inside her. The slit belched cum. With a little whimper she froze, her head striving forward, and I moved my dick in longer strokes, hearing my own loud sigh as the rapid spurts flooded her while she came, and she was a slender centipede of quivering flesh with a hundred enfolding arms and legs and a tight pussy. Her mouth opened wider and her eyebrows bunched toward each other, and she gave a soft, quick, salacious "Ah!" and her cervix unclamped and clamped and my peak load gushed while the rapturous she- beast inside her wrung my cock. I hissed a primitive "Yeaahh." Then it was an easy sweetness slowing me and she whimpered and the tension left her with little jerks. My hips rocked with the concluding strokes. I stopped, panting above her, and sighed wearily, sated. She drew me down to her with a hand on the back of my neck and I pressed my mouth against the sweaty throat. She whispered with each long breath, "Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh..." I leaned back into the soft old sofa in my jeans, shirtless, and Ronnie sat on the living room floor in her bathrobe, legs crossed. She leafed through the New York Times spread on the floor before her. She pointed at a movie ad. She said, "Here it is. Bridge Over the River Kwai. Didn't you see that?" "Yeah." She looked up at me. "You wanna see it again? Didn't you already see it twice?" "Yeah." I held up my hand and raised a finger as I counted. "So this time will make one, two...three. Three times." I held up three fingers and grinned at her. "Smart alec." She glanced back at the newspaper. "You're not so smart, you used your fingers." She smiled to herself. "I notice you like encores, don't you?" I watched her and smiled, contented. "Okay, the movie's down the street, in the sixties. Starts at six thirty. So we'll be back by nine or so." "What time is it?" "Nearly three." "Okay, then we have time for a nap." I stood up and crossed around the coffee table and stood over her, and she looked up at me. I kneeled down and scooped her into my arms, and her eyes popped open. She said, "God, now what are you up to?" I rose with her cradled in my arms, breathing hard. She draped her arms loosely around my shoulders and gave me an amused smirk. She said skeptically, "You can't lift me." "I just did." I started for the bedroom. She said, "You'll never make it." "Yes." In the bedroom I stood near the bed for a second. She said, "Okay, now what? You can't just drop me, that old bed will pull the walls down." I knelt to my knees again, and let her roll onto the bed. She said, "Very clever." I climbed over her into the bed. She said, "You know, I have work to do." "This is just a nap," I said, putting my arms around her. "Don't worry." I gathered her to me and she settled against my side, folding her legs over mine. She said, "A nap? That's all?" "Yep. If it's okay." She looked at my lips, and my face, and she smiled and said softly, "That'll be nice, then." She laid her face against my chest. "I guess I can do some work later, while we wait for Martha." "And you were going to show me a couple of books." "Mm-hm. We can do that, too." She relaxed, cuddling into me. She snuggled her cheek against my chest, resting a palm on my tummy. She gave a long, soft sigh. I rested, an arm around her shoulders, and in her thin robe she felt like a silken kitten curling against me. Her long black curls fell over my arm and onto my chest. I let my head fall back into the pillow and I looked at the white lace at the window swelling with the breeze the fan was bringing in. I closed my eyes. The last thing I would be conscious of for a couple of hours was Ronnie's little mouth sucking one of my nipples. Ronnie wore a loose silk black blouse and black pleated slacks as we walked to the movie down Second Avenue, her arm draped loosely through mine. With one hand she fluffed out her hair and she wore that easy, placid smile of hers. She leaned closer to me and teased, "So what's happened to you?" I smiled back at her. "So what's happened to *you*?" She gave me a smirk and looked ahead. "Steven, what are you going to do with two neurotic, over-emotional, sexually compulsive women on your hands?" I shrugged. "I'll think of something. Probably I'll be neurotic, over-emotional and sexually compulsive right along with them." She shook the hair from her face and muttered, "God. Meltdown." At the movie house we bought tickets and waited for a few minutes in the lobby for the next showing to begin. Ronnie bought popcorn for us and she munched on it, standing with that slightly lax droop of her torso and looking around at the other people in the lobby and seeming utterly content, and I was damn proud of myself. Then we got seated and she held the popcorn in her lap with one leg tucked under her, leaning against my arm, popping a kernel into her mouth as the credits began rolling on the screen, and she swallowed and said, "Mm. I love Alec Guiness," and she popped another kernel in and chewed and said, "Mm. I love William Holden," and she wiped her hand on the paper napkin and reached for my hand and held it, and she picked at the popcorn with her other hand, and we sat that way during the entire movie. Ronnie sat at her dining room table touching up some sketches for bowties. I sat on her living room floor looking over a book of essays she had given me by Jacob Brokowski and several celebrated humanists. It was around ten thirty at night. We heard the front door slam downstairs, and high heels clicked quickly up the stairs. Ronnie said, sing-song, "Here comes Mama." I got to my feet and closed the book. I waved the book at Ronnie. "Hey, thanks for this. I can really use it." She beamed at me. "You'll like those essays. Not as suicidal as Camus." There was a quick knock on the door. I threw the locks and opened it. Martha stood there with her briefcase, smiling but impatient. She said, "I know. I'm an hour late." "It's okay. Hi." I leaned out the door and puckered up and Martha puckered and I gave her a kiss. Then I leaned inside and said, "Thanks, Ronnie. Wonderful day." Ronnie was walking toward the door. "Me too. And thank god you got that fan fixed." I stepped into the hall and reached down for Martha's briefcase. "Hey. Lemme carry that." She handed it to me. Standing in the door, Ronnie told Martha, "Sorry I can't make it Saturday, Martha, I have a date. But Friday and Sunday as usual, okay?" Martha said "Fine, hon." She gave Ronnie a smirk. "You have a silly look on your face." Ronnie grinned at her. "Go to your room." They traded their secret smiles and Ronnie closed the door. I indicated with my hand for Martha to go ahead of me. "The trains," she murmured, heading upstairs. "Yeah, they're a pain in the neck sometimes," I said, following her. I watched her calves and derriere flexing as she climbed the stairs. She was more muscular than Ronnie, more perfectly propor- tioned and graceful. Her keys clinked and jingled as she pulled them out of her purse, not talking. In her bedroom I saw her eyes avoiding mine again. She seemed distracted, a little brooding. She removed her blouse and unzipped her skirt. She asked me, "Nice with Ronnie today?" I smiled, and I picked up her blouse off the chair. "Yeah. Very Nice." "You two go somewhere?" "Yep. Bridge Over the River Kwai." I opened the closet and put her blouse on a hangar. She glanced at me, pulling her skirt down. "You don't have to do that. I can put up my own clothes." I said "Okay" agreeably, and I walked to her as she stepped out of her skirt and I put a hand on her shoulder. "Howard okay?" "Yes." Standing in her slip, she folded her skirt, not looking at me. "Fine." I kissed her on the cheek. "Good," I said cheerily. I walked around to the other side of the bed and I caught her staring at me curiously for a second and then she frowned as she removed her heels. She lifted a foot onto the bed to pull down her hose. I undressed quickly and hopped onto the bed with the book Ronnie gave me. "She gave me this great book. Stuff in here by a guy named Brokowski. Heard of him?" She said absently, "Yes. I heard him speak, too." "Yeah? Wonder if he ever speaks in Memphis." "Nobody speaks in Memphis. They'd say he was a communist." "Then I'll have to keep up with him in print." She glanced at me again, a little nonplussed, and she threw her wadded hosiery onto the dresser. She murmured, "Be back in a minute." She headed for the bathroom. While she was away I went to the kitchen and made a quick super- drink with a lot of yeast and took a couple of vitamins. Then I went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed naked, looking at my smooth, strong legs with the young hair on it and my toned chest and my cock and feeling proud of the work I'd done on myself. I had taken a day off. I had refused to worry about a damn thing. I did what Fiore taught me and took it a bit at a time and worked with what I had. Martha came into the bedroom in her panties and bra, carrying her slip and garters, and I stood up and turned out the light. She looked at me, surprised, frowning mildly, and I walked to her in the dark and put my hands around her back and unhooked her bra. A small smile crept across her face. She said, "I thought you'd be tired." I said, "I thought you'd be tired, too." She leaned her forehead against my chin. She said softly, "Not that tired." I put my fingers in the waistband of her panties and pulled down, and she used one hand to get them down farther and stepped out of them and she stood naked in front of me, looking down at my chest, hiding her eyes from me for some reason, and I lifted her chin and kissed her. She kissed back softly, and our lips nipped at each other. I pulled her tightly against me by her waist and she wrapped her arms around me and I kissed the hell out of her. Then I held her close and I sucked her ear and I slid a hand down her tummy and pressed a finger into her slit and she softened in my arms and sighed against my ear. She said, sounded a little heated. "I thought you'd been with Ronnie." "I was." "Was she good to you?" "Yes." I kissed her neck. She swallowed. "Were you good to her?" "Yes." "Make her cum?" Then her whisper was more intense, urgent. "Did you make her cum, did you make it good?" I whispered into her ear, teasing, "That gets you excited?" Her nails gripped my butt. "Yes." I sucked her earlobe. "I made her cum. With my mouth. Then I made her cum again." I moved my hand to her tush and slid a finger down her crack. She gasped. Her breath wobbled near my ear. Instantly, she tensed everywhere. "With my cock in her. I shot off while she was cummin'" I heard her gasp again, and she pressed into me. Her knee wedged its way into my crotch. I whispered, "I came a lot. While she did. I squirted hard. Squirted for a long time." She whimpered, and I pressed a finger against her anus and she moaned and I lifted my head and her face was flushed and hot and her eyes were fuming. I kissed the hell out of her again and she clung and clung and couldn't get close enough to me, and she trembled wildly and her breath shook and she was excited as hell. Then on the bed there was half an hour of the madness with Martha, the insane pleasure and the emotional blitz. As she climaxed under my tongue she hissed frantically, "Fuck me the way you fucked her!" As my dick slid into her she bit my shoulder and she hissed against my ear, "The way you fucked Ronnie! Fuck me like that!" I rose onto my elbows and I watched her wild-eyed face and fucked her the way I fucked Ronnie, relaxed, deep, whispering to her, asking how it was, encouraging. Her eyes became wilder and wilder. She came with my cock in her, screaming. And soon after that, only a minute later, she came again, her nails digging into my butt, and I whispered in her ear, "Your pussy's cummin'. I feel your pussy cummin' around my dick. It's delicious. I love filling you and making you cum. Cum." And she screamed again and I hissed, "Yes! Enjoy it! Cum!" and she groaned helplessly, "Oh god! Steven!" And when I finally came, spurting all I had left, I lunged deeply into her, making the bed thud and the windows tremble. And again she screamed, against my shoulder. I knew Ronnie could hear it through the open windows. I knew people in the street could hear. The whole fucking city could have heard us, for all I cared. PART 19C: Thursday morning her alarm beeped away and she shut it off roughly and flopped onto me naked, her arms sleepy and hot and her lips on my neck. After a couple of minutes I said, "You have to go to work." She groaned. She hugged me. She lay still. I kissed her shoulder. "Hey." She sighed and raised her head and looked at me, her eyes think- ing, thinking, and she swept her hair back on both sides. Then her eyes looked at mine and she whispered, "All right." I started the coffee. I had a long jog in Central Park. When I returned she was in the bedroom, dressed, finishing her makeup. I gave her a kiss and whispered, "That was good last night." She blushed, and screwed on an earring. I stroked her shoulders. I said, "There's nobody like you." She hugged one of my hands to her face. She stood up, fastening her other earring, smiling dryly. "Now, listen. I'm not going to be able to work all day." "Bring it home. Work here." "I can't." She started for the living room. "And you know what would happen if I could." "What?" She stood at the dining table drinking her coffee. I leaned in the doorway and teased her, "What would happen?" She gave me a sweet, brief grin, and she sipped again and she took a quick bite of toast. She asked as she chewed quickly, "What are you going to do with yourself today?" "Learn." She took another bite of toast. "You've already done some of that." "Learn more." She breathed a little laugh and swallowed fast and took another sip of coffee. "I have to go." She hurried to the door and reached for her briefcase and I walked to her and gave her a little kiss. She looked at me, one hand on my cheek, and she started to say something, but she made a little smooch with her lips and opened the door. I said, "You were gonna say something." "It can wait." She left. All day, I was back to searching, learning. But now I was open to whatever I found. I had five days left to scour every idea in New York. Adolescent development textbooks fed more clues into me. I hooked into the incest thread again, finding little on it in the books of 1957, but finding enough to give me more insight into my feelings about Martha. And about Ronnie. At noon I was waiting for Ronnie when she unboarded the elevator in her building and walked to me. She craned her head to give me a kiss, but I pulled her to me gently and kissed her neck. I had one arm around her waist and the other stroking her hair. She whispered, "Hey. What's this?" "Just a brotherly hug." She laughed. "Not exactly." I said, "Well, you gave me a hug. Remember?" "Honey, not like this." She relaxed against me. People in a hurry scurried all around us. I said, "Well, think of it as a hug for my dear Aunt Veronica." She breathed a laugh against me again and pulled her face back. She wore a dry little smirk. "Yeah? Auntie? That has to wait for the weekend." "Okay." "You sure?" I shrugged. "Will it hurt?" "No. But, mister, are you gonna blush!" On our way down the street she announced, "Today you get a treat. We're going to do a great, cheap New York City thing and go to an automat. Ever been to one?" "I've seen them around." "Oh, they're great. Even better than real food." Ronnie led me through the details of finding and buying food from the wall of mechanized food bins in an automat on Sixth Avenue. I sat at the table with her, taking a taste from my tray of what Ronnie called "pre-fab food". I winced. "Ronnie, do people actually live on this stuff?" "For brief periods. But this is the romance of New York, Steven. the ambiance. This is where Marlon Brando and so many movie stars stayed alive while they struggled for stardom. Doesn't it get your blood up and make you ready to charge right into it? Doesn't it make you want to spend the rest of your life in New York, living just like this? Where else can you get rice pudding that you can also use to fill potholes?" "Okay, I get your point." "Just giving you a little preview, sweetheart." She sprinkled salt and pepper on her pre-fab cheeseburger. "So what earth shaking discoveries have you made today?" I finished chewing and swallowed. "Well, it's very interesting, the role that narcissism plays in these mother-son relationships." Ronnie put her hands over her eyes. "Oh, Steven. God. When will this stop?" She frowned. "Don't they have anything out about nephews and aunts?" Shortly after I arrived home to fix up a dinner for Martha, she called me from work. She'd been invited to a retirement dinner being held for someone in her department, and decided we should go. I was to meet her at the subway ticket window at the Columbus Circle subway station. "And dress nice," she said, "you need a coat and tie to get into the place." Ah, New York. Nothing like last-minute, crisis-level planning. Columbus Circle was on the other side of town, and I was short on taxi money. I hadn't yet showered or shaved -- not that I had that much of a beard in those days, but I did have one. I showered quickly, curs- ing the distance between the shower stall and the bathroom, and rushed into the bathroom to shave. In my rush I managed to inflict a quarter inch razor cut on my chin that refused to stop bleeding. I left the apartment with a pocket full of tissues for blotting the cut. Constantly checking my wrist watch, I had to walk faster and faster to get all the way across Central Park and then drop twenty blocks south. And I knew that the faster I walked, the longer it would take the cut to coagulate. Eventually I had to take off my sport jacket and start jogging along a diagonal path in park -- not easy, because few paths of any kind led all the way across Central Park to the West Side. In the meantime I stuck a small patch of tissue on the cut. By the time I reached Columbus Avenue and 72nd Street, I felt the patch was still wet. I dabbed it with a clean tissue and the bloody little patch came off. Darn it, this was the kind of trivial crap that used to infuri- ate me in Memphis. As I trudged down junky Columbus Avenue I became aware of how fragile my New York euphoria could be. It became a major battle for me to maintain the frame of mind it had taken me two months to achieve. I made it to the Columbus Avenue station five minutes early. I paced back and forth in the crowded subway mezzanine, dabbing at my chin. Eventually, the tissue came away from my face clean. Then, at five fifteen, Martha was late. I wondered if I were in the right location. My white shirt collar and underarms were getting sweat- soaked. I paced back and forth in the muggy station, dodging people and getting liberally cursed in hot headed New York style. Finally, finally, Martha appeared at five twenty, trying her best to run in her heels and straight skirt. It was amazing: I was hot, sweaty, tired, and flustered, and the sight of her had me instantly in love and horny. I thought I could be half dead, my arms and legs cut off, and I'd still get horny looking at her. She walked in a rush and grabbed me by the arm. "C'mon!" "Do we have to be in a hurry like this?" "Maybe we can get a seat on the train. The D train just pulled in." We hopped down a short flight of stairs, Martha pulling me by the hand all the way, and we scooted into the subway car just as the doors were slamming shut. The car was packed. No seats. "Well," Martha said, hanging onto a center post, "we tried." "It's the five o'clock rush. What do you expect?" "I guess so." "Where are we going?" "Greenwich Village. MacDougal Street. What's wrong with your chin?"" "Razor cut." "It's bleeding a little." She started searching through her purse. I quickly reached into my pocket for a tissue and I dabbed it at my chin, and Martha saw me and said, "Here, gimme that." "I can do it." "Gimme. You can't see what you're doing." She snatched the tissue and dabbed at my chin. I winced, pulling back angrily. "Stop mothering me." She didn't move for a moment, staring at me as if shocked, or hurt, or insulted. I shrugged and pointed my finger at my chin. "Okay, c'mon. Do it. Go ahead, you do it." "You sounded so mean." "Oh, I'm just in a big rush. C'mon, help clean this off." I stuck my chin out. "C'mon. I'm okay." She dabbed at me gently, examining me closely, and I looked at her eyes, her big captivating eyes and the lashes and her little nose and her soft, lipsticked mouth. She was just unbelievably pretty. I felt like an idiot for snapping at her. A tall, lean black guy with a goatee and a crushed old hat stood just behind and beside her, and looked down at her with a big grin. "Mmm, Mama! Dat is one fine woman!" Martha's eyes rolled in her head, and she ignored him. "Really fine!" I looked up at him, steadfast. "She sure is. She's the best around." Martha glowered at me, forming a shh! with her lips. The big black guy beamed at me. "Dat's what I says, man! She is fine, fine, FINE!" The train jerked violently to a stop at 47th Street. The black guy turned to get out. "I mean fine, baby!" On his way out the door he exclaimed, "REAL fine! Whooo!" As soon as the guy left, Martha glared at me and said below the noise of the crowd, "Steven, don't ever argue with hecklers in New York. Ever!" "Sorry." The train started again. She fumed quietly, lurching against the center post and turning to eye someone behind her who bumped her. She looked up and saw me staring at her. She chided me, "It's dangerous to do that. Don't do that." "Okay." I looked at her for a moment. "Sorry I snapped at you back here." "You had such a mean look in your eyes. I was just trying to help. I never saw you look like that." I sighed. "I'm just adapting to the local mannerisms. So they won't think I'm from out of town." She settled down, not speaking. I said, "This morning you were going to tell me something. You said it could wait." "It's still waiting." I kept my eyes on her patiently. Finally she looked at me. "Why did it take you nine years to get so hot and excited with me? And then you give us only five days to enjoy it." I smiled. I said, "I guess I'm slow to arouse." She wagged her head a couple of times and said, "I was just cranky, I guess." I moved my head slowly to and fro. I said softly, "Fine, fine, fine." She smirked and made a little fist and gave me a tap on the arm. After the dinner we returned home too late for any lovemaking. We crawled into bed naked and embraced each other and, as we had done earlier that week, we fell asleep touching and caressing. Friday night in Ronnie's candlelit bedroom, Martha lay beside Ronnie watching wild eyed as I neared an orgasm inside Ronnie's cunt. Martha grinned at me as I trembled on my arms, my hips starting to slow for the long slide into a climax that Ronnie had been building up in me for several minutes. Martha's fingers pressed enticingly into the muscles behind my sack as I labored. I huffed and puffed and was as taut as a cable, on the very edge of cumming. I had held my breath for so long I couldn't talk. Martha teased me, "You close? Hon?" They were both driving me out of my mind. I wondered if my brain would burst before my balls did. The preliminary, stiffening surges started in my dick. I slid in and out of Ronnie's cunt between the two soft fingers that held my root and looked for signals. Ronnie leered up at me while I fucked her, her eyes taunting. "Little Steven's a-a-almost there, aren't ya baby? Yeah, Aunt Ronnie can feel him pulsing in there. Cummin', baby? Gonna cum in Aunt Ronnie?" She lowered her voice to a tempting whisper. "Gonna fill up Aunt Ronnie's pussy? Hm? Gonna feel good, huh? Gonna feel sooo gooood." Ronnie started writhing her hips gently, the mouth of her cervix slithering around my tip. I grit my teeth and yelped "Uh!" Ronnie hissed salaciously, her eyes sparkling, "Yeah, he likes that. Stevie-boy likes that, likes to feel Aunt Ronnie's pussy movin' on 'im. Likes it nasty like that. Likes fuckin' Aunt Ronnie. Likes to fuck. Ffffuck." I grunted, cumming deliriously, and my dick went insane, spewing cum. I went blind. Her eyes narrowed. She whispered excitedly, lewdly. "Yyyeahhh, baby. Yeah! Cum in Aunt Ronnie. Ahhh. OH! Oh, YEAH! Oh, Stevie, baby, that was -- Oh! Mmmm. Honey! Ohhh, sweetheart! Mmm. Mmmmmm. Slo-o-ow down, now. Yeah, nice and slow, get it all in, a-a-all in there. Yyeeahh. All in Aunt Ronnie's pussy. Thaaat's right. Ah. Ah. Get in deep, honey. Mmm, deep. Whew! God, we wore us both out, huh? Hm? Yeah, settle in deep, sweetheart. Take a little rest, now. Whhh! A little rest, baby." I relaxed and Ronnie relaxed, and she sighed wearily, "Oh! Good lord." I had to drop to my elbows. I couldn't move any more. During the winding down, Martha chuckled near me, her hand massaging the aching, weakly throbbing muscles under my balls, and Ronnie's pussy churned and milked gently, contentedly. Ronnie whispered, "Mmm, he liked fuckin' Aunt Ronnie. He likes it naughty. Hm? Didja like it naughty like that?" I groaned, "Yes!" Not only was I drained, I felt like a thorough- ly drained savage. Ronnie stroked my neck and back. She said in her normal voice, "Martha, you puritanical Southerners can get so dirty! I've never done it like that. God, I've *never*. Didn't know I could." Martha stopped rubbing my muscle and started caressing my butt. "Ronnie, I always knew you had it in you." "Oh, I've got it in me, I've got it all in me!" She chuckled. "I learned from watching you." She kissed my neck. "Mmmm." Martha blushed. She kissed my shoulder. She smiled at me. "Hon, I thought you were going to faint. I won't bother to ask if you liked it." I couldn't have answered her anyway. In every respect, I was done in. Ronnie used one hand to brush sweaty hair from her face. She grinned and laughed. "Whew! I was really sounding filthy. I can't believe it. I even embarrassed myself! Good lord! So surreal!" While I lay like a corpse they went into the bathroom. I strug- gled to my feet and stumbled into the kitchen shower. I kept it on the cold side, but it didn't help that much. I got back into bed. The two women returned from the bathroom and sat up smoking cigarettes, saying I looked as if I needed a long break. When they finally got to work on me again they spent more than half an hour trying to get me up, but even Martha's wonderful mouth couldn't get a strong boner going. I was just too damn contented and sapped. Finally I put my arms around Martha and rolled her onto her back and cradled an arm around her head and spoke softly to her, "Let's don't leave Mama Martha unattended. Let's be nice to her." I stroked the back of my hand across her cheek and looked into her eyes. I said, "Let's be nice to Mama Martha's wicked little girl." As soon as I said it I saw a sweltering dampness glaze her eyes. I let my fingers glide across her breasts and down her tummy and down her thighs and then back up to her pussy. I kissed her lips, and with my mouth hovering near hers I teased, "Want to make Mama's wicked girl feel good?" She whispered a soft but excited, "Yes." I lifted my face and looked into her eyes. They were like hazel turned liquid. I smiled at her. I brushed hair away from her forehead. I teased gently, "Are you a wicked little girl?" Her eyes smoldered. "Yes!" "Does our wicked little girl want her wicked boy to make her feel nasty?" Her eyes closed. She had the look of a deep, dizzying swoon on her face. Her hand gripped my shoulder. "Oh, Steven. Oh." I gave her a soft kiss while my hand cruised over her breasts and I let a finger trail around and around a jutting nipple. I raised my head and looked down at Martha's naked, spread body. Her right arm gripped my shoulder and her left hand lay beside her head. I rolled her nipple between my fingers, and my eyes glanced up at Ronnie lying on her tummy beside Martha, and Ronnie grinned at me, then she watched Martha's face. For several minutes I licked and caressed Martha's torso, reaching down now and then to fondle her pussy briefly, but never letting her get very far along, not fingering her, finding something she enjoyed immensely and then leaving it for something else before returning. Ronnie watched me, watched everything I did, and then she did the same thing behind me. When I sucked Martha's breast and then moved my mouth elsewhere, Ronnie took the same breast and nursed and licked and sucked. Then both of us were sucking a nipple and Martha arched her head back and seemed to float far, far away, leaving us back on earth with her nipples jutting up for more pleasure, and she shivered a little and seemed to have a kind of quiet, pleasurable internal climax, her open mouth uttering a long, long, almost inaudible ahh, and then she relaxed, and we kept sucking and licking. She whispered, "So nice. So wicked. So nice." I loosed her nipple and kissed her shoulders, and then I started downward along her waist. Ronnie lifted her head and brought her face near Martha's. She kissed Martha's closed eyes. She held a palm against Martha's cheek and whispered, "Martha. My little girl's so excited. So dark. I want to make it wicked and dark for you. Very dark." Martha whispered distantly "Yes" and Ronnie gave Martha's cheek a soft, lingering kiss, and then another on Martha's neck, and another on Martha's shoulder, and she moved slowly toward Martha's breast. I kissed Martha's tummy and then lifted my head to watch her as my hand crept downward to her tuft, and my fingers played there. Martha's legs moved apart a little. I watched her closed eyes and her blissful face. Her lips parted a little, giving a constant stream of soft ah's while she breathed, and I moved my palm down the soft but taut flesh of her smoothly muscled left thigh, slowly, and then slowly up, and I repeated that caress along the inside of her thigh, creeping toward her pelvis. Ronnie watched my hands on Martha, and then she leaned up on one elbow and she watched Martha's face and she let her hand repeat my motion, caressing downward along Martha's tummy to her tuft and toying with the short auburn curls there, and then she watched her hand glide softly down the top of Martha's other thigh. Then she watched Martha's face while her hand stroked inside Martha's thigh as mine did. As we caressed Martha's thighs Ronnie glanced at me, and she smiled intimately, naughtily. I thought they both looked and behaved as if slightly possessed; I wondered if I looked the same way. Martha's breathing gradually became deeper, more irregular. My fingers crept up her thigh and then I stroked her wet cuntlips, and she gave a soft sigh, and Ronnie kept watching my hand. I let my hand cup Martha's pussy and I made slow circles on her. Her hips rose briefly and I felt her wetness smear across my palm. I bent two fingers and found her clit and began to circle, slowly, and Martha sighed "Mmm. Yes." I circled and circled and her pussy was soon drippy, so I slid my finger inside. Martha's legs slid wider apart. The tendons spreading from her center pulsed in time with my slow fingerfucking. Then I paused. Inside her, I let my middle finger massage the secret, internal spot, the rough bundle on her upper wall, and she moaned and turned her face to its other side and she winced a little. She smiled and breathed loudly, and after a minute she had the little internal orgasm that she liked to have, clinching her jaw for a few seconds and then relaxing, panting. I let my finger stay in her a moment and I bent to kiss her neck. Her hand on my shoulder squeezed. Then Ronnie's fingers were on my hand, and she looked at me, her eyes steady, waiting, I pulled my finger out of Martha and let my moist palm rest on Martha's thigh. My finger glistened with her. Then Ronnie's fingernails stroked up and down Martha's inner thigh and she watched Martha's face, her own face tense and her eyes concentrat- ing on Martha, and while my palm stroked Martha's thigh, Ronnie's fingers trailed upward and then touched Martha's pussy. Martha's breath held for a moment, and she seemed nervous, and Ronnie's hand cupped her pussy, and Martha sighed. And watching Martha's face, Ronnie's palm made slow circles on Martha's cunt as mine had done, and a small smile crept over Ronnie's little mouth and her eyes seemed to open wider as she watched Martha. Ronnie whispered, "Is it dark? Is it getting dark for you?" Martha whispered nervously, "Yes," and Martha's hand lying near her head began to clinch, and Martha breathed faster. Then Ronnie's hand stopped. She looked down at Martha's pussy and she used her index and pinkie fingers to cautiously spread Martha's cuntlips, and Martha held her breath again, and Ronnie bent two fingers and the two fingers started slowly circling Martha's clit. Martha shivered and whimpered. Ronnie looked up at her and whispered, "Good?" And Martha sighed, and she gave a breathy chuckle and a smile, and she whispered, "Yes. Yes, it's good." And Ronnie smiled, pleased, and she circled Martha's clit for a few seconds. Then she looked down at Martha's pussy again and I saw her wet middle finger search for Martha opening, and Ronnie tucked her lower lip under her teeth and watched carefully, and she slid her middle finger into Martha, and Martha's hips rose a little, accepting it, and Martha let out a long breath. Then Ronnie glanced at me from the bottom of her eyes, her tucked lower lip making her look girlishly sinful, and she watched Martha's face as she slid her middle finger in and out. Martha stiffened slightly with a little "Mm!" and her mouth opened a little wider. Ronnie fingerfucked Martha for a short time and I motioned my head and she looked at me. I held up my hand and made my middle finger make the inner stroking motion I used on Martha's secret internal place. Ronnie's eyes questioned, watching my finger, and then she understood. She watched Martha's face again and inserted her middle finger all the way, her tongue licking her lips as she seemed to search inside Martha's pussy, and I saw a little muscle move in Ronnie's palm and I knew she was stroking inside Martha. Then Martha murmured, "Back it out a little, hon. A little." And Ronnie adjusted her finger inside and the muscles in her palm moved again and Martha whispered, "Yes. Yes" and the tendons in Martha's crotch and thighs flexed subtly, briefly. Ronnie smiled, captivated, and as Martha's breath became more irregular Ronnie whispered softly, "Wicked. Wicked." I bent to suck one of Martha's nipples and soon she had her little climax inside, stiffening and gulping hard, and ending with a tired "Ohhh" as she relaxed again. I lifted my head from Martha's breast and gave her a kiss on the neck. Her neck was warm and sweaty. She panted, resting. I sat up. Ronnie stilled her finger inside Martha, smiling as if pleased with her work, and she pulled her finger out and rested her palm on Martha's tuft. She whispered, "She's so strong inside." And Martha smiled and opened her eyes and she reached down and held Ronnie's shoulder. Ronnie joked softly, "You do internal exercises or some- thing? You're so strong." Martha nodded and said, "Yes, actually. I do." Ronnie breathed an amazed little laugh and shook her head, and she looked at me and asked, "Did you know that?" I lifted a hand, palms up, and I truly never knew it. Martha said lazily, "No, he doesn't know. It's one of my secrets." Ronnie scoffed mildly, "You and your secrets." Ronnie looked at me. "No wonder you cum so hard with her." I said, "I cum hard with you, too." She smiled and said, "Not the way I see you cum with her." I said, "It's a tie." Ronnie winked at me. She had a conspiratorial smile on her face that told me Ronnie had something dark on her mind. I leaned toward Martha's face and whispered, "Did you like that?" "Yes." Her eyes closed, she had a big smile on her face. Except for the thin sheen of sweat on her, she looked disarmingly young and innocent. I touched a finger to her lips. "Feeling really wicked?" "Yes." "Nasty boy's gonna do some more." She smirked lewdly. "Good." I trailed kisses down her chest and her tummy and I licked her tuft. Martha's eyes winced as I licked lower and lower, and I moved down and kissed and nipped at the soft skin over the tendons of her inner thighs and then the soft skin in the corner between her thighs and her pussy, and slowly I licked closer to her cunt. Then I lifted my hips and moved over her legs and settled between them. She raised her knees and drew in her feet and spread her legs wide. I caressed her hips as I laid my tongue on her slit and held it there for a moment, then I lifted my head and stuck out my tongue and licked slowly upward. She moaned and arched her hips, and I raised my eyes to see Ronnie sucking Martha's nipple. I gave Martha several slow licks straight up along her greasy-wet slit, and her breathing quick- ened more. Then I laved wetly around the edges of her, opening her, spreading the soft elastic lips just within her rim, and I licked the slightly gnarled swell of her protruding clit. She jerked, and she gave a small laugh, and then I nipped at her clit with my inner lips, pulling a little, and then I held her clit inside them and licked. She gasped. I raised my head and began the slow slicks upward again, and I watched Ronnie start kissing downward, down to Martha's hip, and Ronnie's hand stroked Martha's thigh. Then Ronnie's mouth was kissing Martha's tummy near my head. Then Ronnie raised her head and put her hand on the back of my neck. I looked up at her, and her eyes and head motioned for me to move. I sat up on my heels. Ronnie sat up and brushed the hair from her face. She lifted a knee over Martha's leg, and I scooted back on the bed. Ronnie moved onto her knees between Martha's legs, and I shifted to Martha's side to give Ronnie room, and I settled beside Martha. Watching Martha closely, Ronnie took my place between Martha's legs. Martha lifted her head slightly and looked down, and for a second her eyes and Ronnie's watched one another's, and with their secret smile Ronnie carefully propped onto her elbows between Martha's knees. Martha let her head drift backward again, smiling and whispering "Oh, my." I watched Ronnie settle slowly onto her tummy, her face hovering over Martha's tuft, and Martha breathed very softly, her voice tight with tension, "Ronnie." For a moment Ronnie seemed to just scan Martha's pelvis, and with her eyes intently studying she bent her head and softly kissed Martha's tuft. I rested on an elbow at Martha's side and placed a hand on Martha's left breast. My heart was pounding; yet, at this point in my sexual career, little that these two women devised could surprise me. Ronnie's lips toyed in Martha's tuft, and Martha's tummy contracted, and Martha's eyes closed and she swallowed audibly and lay as if waiting suspensefully. Ronnie slipped her arms under Martha's legs and wrapped them around and held Martha by the hips, exactly the way I usually held either women when I licked them. Faintly, Martha whispered "Ronnie," and she reached down and placed a hand on Ronnie's head. Watching Martha's face and closed eyes, Ronnie lowered her head and kissed Martha's tuft again, and licked it, and her tongue's tip played in the fuzz for a moment. Then she licked down, her eyes raised toward Martha's face. I watched Ronnie's long, slender tongue lick down and then she stuck her tongue out and she licked high on Martha's thigh, near her slit. Martha held her breath; her lips moved slightly, soundlessly forming Ronnie's name. Again, Ronnie's slender tongue licked the corner beside Martha's slit, and again, closer to Martha's center. Then Ronnie did exactly as I had done, and she gave Martha's slit a slow lick upward, her tongue tip disappearing slightly into the rim of the thick outer lips, and Martha slowly let out the breath she'd been holding and whispered a muted, "Oh, my." Ronnie performed the same delicate lick again. Then Ronnie began a slow cycle of tranquil, upward tongue-tip strokes, and I heard a faint crackle of spit as Ronnie's tongue worked. Martha's hips churned briefly and she breathed a soft sigh. While Ronnie licked her I kissed Martha's neck and held her cheek with my palm and I kissed her lips softly, and she kissed back. I whispered near her ear, "Do you like that?" Martha whispered, so softly I could barely hear, "Yes." She drew her breath inward again, holding it. I whispered, "Like the way Ronnie licks your pussy?" She whispered "Yes" again. I kissed her neck and her throat and her collarbone and breast and I sucked her nipple for a minute, and I felt her getting tense and hot all over. She whispered "Oh god" and I looked down to see Ronnie, her nose buried in Martha's tuft, and her jaws moved while she sucked Martha's clit, her eyes wide open while she watched Martha. She lifted her face and licked her lips a little and then stuck out her long tongue and began to circle Martha's clit slowly, and Martha breathed "Ahhh" and her hips rose briefly, and she sighed "Ahh" again and her eyes closed tighter. I watched Ronnie for a moment and I returned my gaze to Martha's rapt face. Her eyes seemed closed in deep concentration. I rolled one of her nipples between my fingers and planted soft kisses everywhere on her face and neck and shoulders and breast, and for several moments Martha seemed to hypnotically drift. Except for an occasional soft gasp or pleasurable sigh, she appeared not to be breathing for long periods while Ronnie sucked and licked and pampered Martha's pussy. But Martha was indeed breathing; when I kissed her throat my ear passed near her lips and I could faintly hear air moving in and out through her parted lips. After a long moment of kissing and caressing Martha I let my fingertips toy with one of her nipples, while I looked down at Ronnie. She paused in her full mouthed sucking and lifted her face a little and licked her lips, her eyes studying Martha's cunt. Then I saw her do what she had apparently seen me do so often; she used her tongue to press flatly against Martha's slit and then carefully nudged her lips into the gash, sweeping her lips gently up and down, spreading Martha's inner labia, and she pressed her mouth into Martha, and the slit widened to accept her lips, baring Martha's prominent clit, and then Ronnie pressed her lips more snugly into Martha's opening and let her lips close around the clit. Almost always, when Martha felt my lips totally enclose her nub, she would arch her neck slightly and let out a breath of pleasure, and she would smile, knowing that clit-sucking would begin. And that's what Martha did as Ronnie closed her lips around the jewel. Ronnie sucked a little noisily at first, but removed her mouth briefly and started again, and she seemed to have got it right; Martha sighed and smiled, and she breathed softly, "Ah, yes." Then I saw the small muscles in Ronnie jaws moving, and I knew Martha was enjoying having her clit sucked within Ronnie's unusually soft lips, the same soft lips that had kissed my body and sucked my cock. An electric charge shot through me; I watched Martha's closed eyes as she sank into a deeper state of pleasure, and I felt I knew what she was feeling under Ronnie's mouth. Then Martha did something she'd never done when I ate her, nor had she ever done it during sex with me. She drifted into another uni- verse, which was not a new response for her, but she began to speak faintly, her voice barely audible. And her lips barely moved. She seemed to be entranced, hypnotized. I bent closer to her, planting gentle inner-lip kisses on her throat and face, and I heard her muted whispers: "Oh good. Oh. It's good. It's good. It's good. Yes. Yes there. Ah. Ah there. There. Ah. Ronnie. Ah. Ah good." I was flabbergasted. It was the sort of talk I'd expected to hear from Ronnie, not Martha. This went on for a long moment while Ronnie sucked. But soon Martha's voice rose, her mystical chant interrupted by sharp gasps. She whispered, "Ah suck. Ahhh. Ronnie. Oh Ronnie suck it." And then her whispers became louder and faster. "Ronnie! Baby, suck a little harder. Tighter, honey." Then Martha whimpered and her face turned to one side and she gasped, "Yes!" And then Martha's face turned upward again and her head went back a little farther and she sighed a long, eerily happy, breathy, "Ahhhhhhhh". Then Martha's voice suddenly lowered, and she said clearly, "Ronnie, slower." A couple of seconds later she said, "Yes. Yes." I looked down at Ronnie, and her mouth was firmly attached to Martha's cunt, and I smiled down at her. I said, "You're making it so good for her. I've never seen her like this." And Ronnie winked, sucking, her eyes moving back to Martha's face, mesmerized. I bent to Martha and whis- pered, "She doing it right for you?" Martha smiled, and she opened her eyes, and they looked strange and glassy as they looked at mine. And then weirdly, they slowly closed. I wondered if her eyes had even seen me. But as she smiled that odd, soft smile she whispered, "Steven, this is so wicked. We're being sooo wicked." And she sighed inward, a little wave of pleasure passing through her, and she held her breath and uttered, "God. Oh god." I looked down at Ronnie, and she had lifted her mouth from Martha's cunt and then started licking, her narrow tongue coddling and stroking the clit that was now red-pink and swollen and protruding prominently from Martha's slit. No longer finely wrinkled, it was smooth, glossy with spit. Ronnie licked several times, then she lifted her face and licked her lips, and she glanced at me, smiling, and took a breath and put her tongue back onto Martha's clit again. Martha whispered more anxiously now. Her fingers tightened in Ronnie's hair and she gasped, "Lick. And suck, honey. Oh! Oh, suck! Ah! Suck and lick, Ron. Oh, yes! Yes!" Then she grit her teeth suddenly and she seemed to go abruptly into another cycle, another cosmos, her closed eyes wincing. She whimp- ered, then she uttered a single little phrase that sounded like a soft sob, "Ronnie. Oh Ronnie." Then her head fell back. And her mouth opened more. And her tense, trembling body seemed to sink into the bed. She stiffened even more, and she moaned. I bent to lick her left nipple, then chewed and sucked it gently. Martha's body began to jerk, her pelvis lurching erratically. She gasped, "Oh yes so close! So close!" Then Martha started holding her breath. Then she let it out and gasped "Slower!" Then she held it for a shorter time and gasped "Yes!" Then she trembled. She hissed, "Ronnie, yes! Don't stop! Just like that, don't stop!" Then Martha had a kind of orgasm I'd never seen her have. Martha's head rose off the pillow a couple of inches, but rather than tense painfully her head seemed to float, and her eyes were closed more restfully, as if the rapture coming over her were gentle, less wrenching. Her lips parted with a silent ah and her pelvis nudged upward, and her hand clenched in Ronnie's hair. Her knees trembled. Martha whispered, "Slow. Slow." And Ronnie's head slowed. And Martha kept cumming. From her neck down I could literal- ly feel a current flow through her. Then she was still and silent for a few seconds, and then she seemed to smile happily to herself, her head lifting a little more, and she whispered, a little string of oddly quiet, airy, almost melodic sighs: "Ah. Ahhh. Good. Oh good. Ahh. Ahh. Ahh." Suddenly she grit her teeth and gave a raspy, sizzling, "Ahhhh!" Then she was smiling again and her pelvis jerked and she gave a softly grunted "Mmp!" She jerked twice more. Then she began to relax, whispering, "Stop, honey. Oh god." Ronnie raised her head, giving Martha's slit a gentle lick, and Martha jerked again with a small "Mm!" I stroked Martha's sweaty breasts and chest and kissed her shoulders. Ronnie kissed Martha's pussy and tuft with a sweet little purse of her lips on each, and she sat up on her heels, pushing hair from her forehead. She asked Martha, "Did I do it right?" Panting, Martha gushed, "Oh yes!" I watched Martha relax, thinking that it was one of the most peaceful, and strangest, orgasms I'd ever seen her enjoy. Ronnie smiled at me, licking her mouth and wiping it with her hand. She whispered, "Jesus. Jesus, I don't believe it." She lifted a leg and moved to Martha's side, licking her lips and touching her fingers to her mouth again, murmuring "She made my mouth feel so soft. It's so soft." She glanced at me and said, "So that's what you feel. That's what your cock feels," and I nodded yes, and she smiled back and said, "Now I know." She settled on her tummy and put her arms around Martha's head and kissed her cheeks and her neck. She looked into Martha's face and stroked her hair. She whispered, "That was so dark." Martha nodded yes, taking in a long, deep breath. Ronnie gave Martha's lips a soft kiss. I straightened up, leaning back on my heels, and there before me were Martha's spread thighs and open pussy and panting body. I moved over Martha, lying between her legs. I raised onto my arms, aiming my dick at her. I was so hard I could have fallen over it. I slid in slowly, all the way, and Martha groaned happily, and she was still hot and tight from cumming. I held still in her for a moment and looked at her face and she opened her eyes. She gazed at me with a small smile while I started fucking, and soon I was grinning at her and I whispered, "Close. Close." Martha held my face in her hands and her eyes were crazy and I fucked slower and grit my teeth. I whispered, "Wicked?" and she nodded yes slowly, watching me intently and waiting for my cum to start. I felt Ronnie's fingers slip down my behind and hold my balls. Then while I fucked, Ronnie's lips were on my back, then on my bottom, and she started licking. And below my face was Martha's, and she looked as if she were still in that other, dreamy universe of a few moments ago. She smiled a strangely sweet, waiting smile, her eyes searching mine. My cock surged and stiffened inside her. My balls contracted. A throb went through my cock. I said, "Soon." She whispered warmly, "I know." While her eyes watched mine I felt her palm slide slowly down my tummy and then her fingers spread and they formed a V around the root of my sliding cock, and again she whispered, "I know." Then it started. Ronnie's tongue tickled my crack. I was done for. Below me, Martha whispered softly, "Fuck." And the joy shot through me like the proverbial lighting bolt. My vision went hazy. Martha grinned at me. Her cunt sucked. She pulled my face closer to hers by the back of my neck, and she whispered with her lips close to mine, "Fuck." Then she pressed my face down to hers and she kissed me, locking her lips onto mine. The peak spurts began and I whimpered "Mmp!" against her mouth, and while she kissed me she moaned against my mouth a very, very pleased, "Mmmmm!" The orgasm's peak slammed through me so violently that I heard myself thinking oh Martha good god! It was so good it hurt. I felt my balls had been sucked into me. Then I was out of breath, out of everything. I had to relinquish her soft, wet mouth to open mine for air. I collapsed on her, and both of the women stroked my heaving back and shoulders. I thought I would weep with pleasure. But I was too damn tired and drained, even for that. PART 19D: Saturday. Rain. Saturday morning Martha and I took a shower together. When she shut off the water I put my arms around her and we stood hugging in the shower stall. She said, "We can't start anything right now. I have to see my gynecologist at ten." "I'm not starting anything. Just hugging." She snuggled closer. "What are you going to do today?" "Pack some. I guess." "Sounds depressing. Why don't you wait, and let me help you?" "I have to get used to the idea." She pressed her cheek against mine and her hand on the back of my neck hugged my head closer. "I have to get used to it, too." Sullenly, while she was gone, I gathered clothing and articles that I knew I wouldn't need before Monday, and I packed them in the two suitcases. I realized as I went through my possessions that I was taking few new belongings back to Memphis. Anything new that I might bring back home was all in my head, and in the toned body Fiore had helped me build. While I packed, the phone rang. It was Ronnie. "Hi. Martha there?" "She went to the gynecologist." "Mm. Almost as much fun as the dentist. You gonna be up there for a minute?" "Sure." "Be right up." Within a moment she knocked on the door, and I let her in. She wore a white blouse and a black pleated skirt and loafers. Even in casual, almost girlish dress, she looked very womanly. She always looked so damn appealing and womanly. When I first met her she seemed younger, almost girlish. But now my eyes and my body knew the woman in her. She handed me a big, tan kraft envelope. "I won't be around much today, but I want to give you these before I forget. This is your chart. And Martha's. And mine." "Oh, thanks. Ronnie, thanks so much." "Know any astrologers in Memphis?" "I'll find one." "If you can't find any of the books in Memphis, I gave you the addresses for a couple of mail-order places. And...I guess the best way for you learn is to do charts yourself. I'd tell you more myself, but...I'm an interested party, you might say." I looked at the envelope, and then at her. "I'm gonna miss having a lunch buddy." She looked back at me. "Me too." I looked down. There was a lump in my throat. I thought: you just control that damn lump, dammit. She smiled. "I'll be out most of the day, and I have a date tonight. But I'll see you and Martha tomorrow." "Good." We were quiet for a brief moment. She said, "Think you'll have time to watch birds tomorrow morning?" "I'd love to." "Call ya, then." "I'll be bright and bushy-tailed." "That's the ticket." She bit her lip, looking at me. "Steven, you're not the same person you were when you came here." I winked at her. "You mean it shows?" She grinned. "Shows all over you." "Thanks." "Well..." She started for the door. "I gotta get goin'. See you guys tomorrow." I said, "Hey, didn't you forget something?" "Huh?" I walked to her, my lips puckered. She smiled. "Oh." She puckered up and gave me a kiss. Then she gave me a big hug, and she left. I stood in the middle of the living room, listening to the silence in the place. I looked around, my eyes scanning the room, then the dining room and the kitchen, and the door to the small hallway leading to the bathroom and the bedroom, and I memorized everything. One of the walls in the living room, crooked seams where it joined the next wall. The steam heat pipes under the right-hand living room window. Ronnie's Fire Island drawing in a frame on the wall near the kitchen door. The yellowing, glossy white on the bare kitchen wall, the shower stall. The GE refrigerator, scratches in the white paint on the door, a shelf missing inside, the tiny freezer compartment with the door nearly falling off. I memorized all of it. When my eyes fell on the telephone I remembered that I had to call home, as I did every week, twice a week, for the past several weeks. I sat on the sofa. I remembered when Martha and I screwed on that sofa after we came back from a play one night. I took in a deep, deep breath, and I dialed the long distance operator. Later in the morning, the drizzle continued. The apartment was muggy. I turned up the window fan. I looked at the two suitcases sitting against the wall near the living room window. I went into the bedroom and put on my workout clothes and started a calisthenics routine in the living room. Within a few moments I knew I was overworked. I rested, lying on my back on the floor, listening to my mother's voice over the telephone, over and over. I had talked about the weather. I told her I had gone here in New York, there in New York. Nothing about the ideas, the fucking, the emotional changes. Mom mentioned the weather, who was sick, who got married, who had a baby. Nothing down there had changed. Mom still called me Speedy. I put one of the small Hunter fans on the window sill and aimed it at myself on the floor. I took my glasses off and I resumed the work- out. I said aloud, "Just take it in moderation, the way you were taught. Do it right. Do it right. Don't push so hard. Let it work." When I finished it was still drizzling outside. I went out anyway, in my jogging clothes. I kept telling myself, "Do it right. Do it right." It turned out to be a good run. I felt much better when I returned. I was dripping wet. My shoes squished noisily as I entered the living room with a smile on my face. Martha was sitting at the dining table. Her eyes popped open. She exclaimed, "You ran anyway?" "Yep." I pulled my sopping t-shirt over my head. She rose and hurried toward me, glaring, her jaw set. She pointed at the floor. "You're dripping all the over the floor! Get in the kitchen to do that!" I smiled, but said obediently, "Yes, ma'am," and I started for the kitchen, my shoes squishing all the way. Martha kept after me. "You're soaking wet!" "Yes, ma'am." I dropped my wet t-shirt into the sink. "Are you crazy?" "Yes, ma'am." She put her hands on her hips, frowning at me. "Get out of those clothes and dry off." I pushed my shoes off with my wet feet, and started pulling off my socks. Martha walked to me and stood by, huffing away. "Don't you dare come down with a cold. We're going to a concert tonight, and we're going to have a nice time, and I don't want to hear any sniffing and coughing." I said sweetly, "Yes, ma'am." I pulled down my shorts. "Come on, get those off and we'll hang them in the laundry room." I pulled down my jocks, still smiling. "Yes, ma'am." "Stop that!" I stood naked and smiled. She shook her head impatiently and walked to me and put her arms around me and hugged me tight. I said, "Watch out, I'm all wet." She said softly, "Be quiet." She hugged me tighter. "If you promise to stop saying yes-ma'am like that to me, I promise I'll try to stop acting like a cranky mom." There were some things, I figured, that wouldn't change. One was the Martha Jane in Martha that kept seeing the Speedy in me, and ano- ther was the Speedy in me that saw a mother in Martha. After I dried off and got dressed and hung my wet clothing in the laundry room downstairs, I went back to Martha's and relaxed in bed with the book Ronnie gave me. Martha had been talking briefly on the telephone with Ronnie. In the living room she hung up the phone and came into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed in her jeans and checkered shirt and loafers. She said, "You're going to do nothing all day?" "Sure. It's raining outside. I did some packing, I called home, I had a workout in the living room, I ran. And I'm gonna finish this book so I can give it back to Ronnie. And I'm gonna take a nap. And then go to dinner with you, and then go to the concert." I closed the book and set it on the bed beside me. "Doesn't sound like 'nothing' to me." I yawned, and I stretched, and I smiled at her. "Wanna take a nap with me?" "Now?" "You and Ronnie wore me out last night." She smiled. "You and Ronnie wore *me* out." She slipped her loafers off. They plopped to the floor. "I guess I should rest a bit." "You never rest." "No. Not never. Seldom." She took off her shirt and lay next to me in her bra and jeans, and she put her head on my chest. She said, "I guess you better get some rest while you can. Ronnie and I are gonna wear you out again tomorrow night." "Mm. I might not be able to get on that airplane." "Yes, you'll get on it. You'll get on it and go back and do what you have to do. And you'll be good, you'll do well, you'll be able to do things you never thought you'd be able to. You'll know how to learn for yourself and build your skills. You'll know how to keep yourself up and look good and how to find people you'll like, people who'll like you." She sighed. "And New York and places like New York will be a lot easier, next time." "Next time." She nodded against my chest. She yawned and relaxed. I whispered, "I love you." It was so easy. It was so easy to say now. She hugged me. After a moment she asked, "When does your plane leave Monday? Two thirty?" "Yes." "I have the day off, for Labor Day. And Ronnie does." "Good." "Ronnie loves you, Steven." "I know." "A lot of women will love you. If you let them. If you don't hide." "Two's enough." I kissed her hair. I said, "One's enough." She rubbed my arm. "You've been a wonderful student, hon. All summer. Stubborn. But wonderful." I gazed toward the window. The day was moving along, Monday getting closer. "Class is just about over, though." Against my chest she shook her head no. "You still have a little time. A little. And a long way to go." I stroked her hair. "A long way to go? Still?" "You'll always have a long way to go." In the darkened concert hall Martha held my hand in her lap. I let the orchestra's music flood over me. I kept thinking there was nothing like this in Memphis. I did have a long way to go; all the way to Memphis, and back again. Fingers gently caressed my hand. I glanced at Martha. She gazed down at my hand in her lap, and for a long, long moment her eyes didn't leave her fingers caressing me. I saw her swallow, and her eyelids blinked, and she continued to watch my hand. Then she noticed me and she glanced up, and her eyes met mine, and she smiled. She squeezed my hand, and she looked out at the orchestra. I wondered what she was thinking. After the concert we walked aimlessly through the teeming, brashly lighted streets of midtown Manhattan. Martha conducted an impromptu class, a class of one: how to handle my mother and step-father, how to handle my aunts and uncles. How to study for the best grades at Christian Brothers, how to make contacts at Memphis State, how to work with counselors, how to keep my spirits up, how to meet people, how to talk to them, how to manage my time. And more about dating and more about fucking and more about fitting in with my peers while maintain- ing my independence. How to get money for school, how to save up for college, what to expect, what courses to take. And plans for graduate schools and new movements in thought and the arts, and where the good colleges were and how to contact them and plan for them. And more. And more. It was after midnight when we climbed the stairs in her building. She was still talking. We got undressed for bed and the teaching went on. I lay in bed naked and she turned out the light and climbed in beside me. She was still talking. Finally I leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, "Shh." "What's the matter?" "I have to get up early." "Early?" "I want to watch birds. I don't want to think for a while. I want to just watch birds." "You need to know all this." "I thought students learned better and faster when the information was broken up into smaller parcels." "Well...I guess you're right." I started unbuttoning her pajama top. She looked at my hands. "What are you doing?" "Making you nekkid." "I thought you wanted to go to sleep." "I do. But I want us to sleep nekkid." "All right," she said, and she removed her top and she lay back, nude. I settled on top of her, my body touching hers from head to knees. She said, "You lied. You said we were going to sleep." "We are. Like this." I kissed her neck. "Naked. Stark naked, like this." I kissed her temple. "I want to memorize what this feels like. Your neck. Your ears. Your hair. All of you. Every inch. Everything. I want my body to spend all night memorizing yours." I relaxed on her. She coiled her arms around me. She hugged me. She whispered, "I guess I don't have to teach you how to talk in bed." Sunday morning, walking back home from Central Park with Ronnie after our bird watch, I stopped at 86th Street and Lexington to buy the Sunday Times. I paid the vendor and put the heavy journal under my arm and rejoined Ronnie and headed for home. I said bleakly, "Well, that's my last time. My last time for the Times." Ronnie asked, "You can buy that in Memphis, can't you?" I shook my head. "It's not the same." I looked up at the build- ings, buildings on a crowded street that was nothing like any street in Memphis. Ronnie gave my arm a hug. "You'll do this again, Steven. Some day." She hugged my arm again. "You will." "Ronnie, I'm not gonna like going back." "Tell me something I haven't guessed." I walked beside her, my arm in hers. I felt my throat tighten. Anger this time, not tears. Ronnie smiled at me. "We'll make this a good day yet. We'll work on it. You'll see." In the apartment, Martha and I went over my packing one more time. We left a pair of slacks and my sport coat and a few things unpacked to wear on the plane. Everything else, except the clothes I was wearing, went into the suitcases. We buckled the straps on the luggage and set them against the wall in the living room. We stood looking at them. Martha said, "Well...that's that. All ready for tomorrow." I stood with my hands on my hips and said dully, "Seems like there ought to be more to it. This sort of thing is more dramatic in the movies." She said, "Yes. In the movies." I said, "Maybe the airlines will go on strike." Martha kissed me on the cheek. "Come on. Let me take you to lunch." We had a cheap lunch in a diner down the street. Reuben sand- wiches, a house salad. Martha was saying, "You realize that after years of living without a strong male figure in your household, your step-father Tony was an intruder. You saw him that way, of course, as any stepson would, but what was worse was that he acted like one. He was far too heavy handed, and he saw your sensitive nature as a great weakness. He treated it that way, and you saw yourself that way, as being weak and defective. You have to get over that, Steven. If nothing else, you have to do certain things to please him, if for no other reason than to keep him off your back. That's the only way you'll be able to maintain your independence and self respect. Not by always rebelling, because he'll try to make you see rebellion as stupid and weak. That's the way Mister Buchanan treated me..." She covered that subject at some length, then we ordered tea and Martha continued. "You don't see yourself as sexually attractive to others. I think you get this from your mother, hon. Or your aunts. Or somewhere, I'm not sure where. But that isn't true. You're very attractive sexually. You've put a lot of effort into your body, and you were fortunate enough to be born with natural good looks from your dad. Once you learn to accept that, which you're learning now -- I hope! -- you'll find that being attractive is not only a sexual asset, it's a social asset. Don't swallow the garbage you hear about how appearances don't matter. We live in a culture that worships appearance above all else. Learn to put your appearance to use for yourself..." Then we ordered fruit and cheese for dessert. And she went on. "Because you were raised by so many women, and because they're all so sexually repressed, you feel that women have all the sexual power. This has always been true, Steven, from time immemorial; women, espe- cially very beautiful women, are adored strictly for their sexuality, for their ability to arouse. All of this can work together to make you feel sexually powerless. Steven...never, never think of your- self as a slave to a woman's sexual power over you. Remember that you're very sexy yourself, and that kind of attraction can work both ways. I hope Ronnie has taught you that. I hope *I* have taught you that. It does work both ways, hon. Women just have a different way of responding to it..." The lessons went on. We strolled through Central Park. She said, "Your appearance, the way you handle yourself -- these are going to be double-edged swords. You're not quite sixteen. But you look older, you matured fast physically. But have you noticed that most people in your family grew up that way, and then ended up looking younger, later on? Right now you have a fine body that looks older, and a manner that looks older -- most of all, your manner has changed quite a bit since you came here. And I think that's wonderful, that makes you unique. You've always been unique in many ways. But don't start blaming yourself if you meet with confusion from people, even resist- ance, because you don't look or act like anything they expect. You're not what people are accustomed to. They will always expect you to be fifteen, or however old they *think* you're supposed to be. Or they'll be like your family and they'll expect you to be ten-year-old Speedy forever. You have to resist blaming yourself for something that's their problem. But you also have to learn to work around it..." Finally the path led home, and into Martha's dining room. No sooner did she close the front door than she started another lesson. I held up my hands and told Martha, with gentle insistence, "I'm going to relax in bed and finish that book Ronnie gave me, before we go to dinner." "You did that yesterday." I said irritably, "Martha, I want to think about something else for a while." She sat at the dining table across from me. "All right. You do need to have something less dire on your mind for a while. I'm sorry, hon." "No, no, no, don't be sorry." I smiled at her. "Just take a break." I got out of my chair and walked to her and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey, I'm grateful for all you're doing. I don't want you to forget that." I made a protein drink with extra yeast, drank it down, took my vitamins, and relaxed in bed with the Brokowski book. Martha worked on papers in the living room. But after an hour with the book, which I'd almost finished, I didn't want to think any more. I got up and went into the living room, and grabbed my Times off the dining room table. Martha looked up. "Finish that book?" "No. I want the paper. I don't want to think any more. About anything." I got back into bed. The Times kept me occupied for another half hour. I gathered the sections of the Times together and pitched them onto the floor, and I snuggled into a pillow and went to sleep. Then Martha was on the bed, kissing my forehead. I opened my eyes. She whispered, "Hi. You've been sleeping over an hour." I smacked my dry lips. "Wanna sleep more." "Ronnie'll be here in a bit to go to dinner." "Hmp." "Want to wake up with a shower?" "Hmp." "Come on. I'll make some coffee and we'll take a shower to- gether. It's been muggy in here all day. How's that?" "Hmp." "Come on. Get nekkid with me." We took a shower together. Seeing Martha naked and having her wash my cock had me awake quickly. We dried and got dressed. I made another protein drink and took more vitamins, and Martha made coffee. I was sitting at the dining table drinking coffee with Martha and reading the Times when Ronnie knocked at the door. Martha got up to answer. Ronnie entered in a tight skirt and a print shirt. "Hi, folks. Hi all. You guys dressed?" Martha said, "Yes, we're ready. We have some coffee left, want to finish it up with us?" "Sure." They walked to the dining table and Martha poured Ronnie some coffee. Ronnie took a seat across from me. I silently looked over the newspaper on the table, wondering how long it would be before I could walk a couple of blocks just after midnight and buy a copy of the New York Times on a Manhattan street corner. Martha sat at the table and she and Ronnie talked about something that I ignored while I looked at the ads for all the things that were happening in New York. Ronnie said to me, "Hi. Remember me? I came in a minute ago." I looked up. "Sorry." Martha said, "Ronnie, Steven's depressed." Ronnie said, "Awwww." I said, "Okay, okay." Ronnie sipped her coffee and said, "We'll soon put a stop to that." We decided to go to a little German place on Madison Avenue. Small, inexpensive, quiet. I kept up a good front. I smiled a lot, and I made a few jokes. Just as the sun lowered to the level of the buildings on the West Side, we strolled toward Martha's. As we waited for a traffic light I turned around and looked behind, and the orange ball of time hovered over the black rooftops beyond Central Park. I would stop the ball there, forever. The three of us, Martha and I and Ronnie holding hands, would remain in the yellow shaft of light that streamed down 86th Street, framed by the city's long shadows. I would utter the word and the big ball would never move. The night would begin again and again at that street corner, would always begin at that moment when I stifled the rage to stop the march of days. I would give the command and all nature would obey, and I would step aside and yield the keys of the universe to Martha, and the magic in Martha's eyes and the power of Martha herself would see Ronnie and me through the night, through endless variations of it. Only Martha would be able to set time on its course again. I would give the word, and that last night would truly be the last night of all nights. I would have spoken the word, if only I could. PART 19E: Martha and I undressed in the bedroom while Ronnie went into the bathroom for a minute. Outside, the sun had descended just below the height of the West Side buildings. Martha watched me with a little smile while she stepped out of her panties and I pushed down my jocks. Naked, she walked to the window and drew the thin Woolworth's curtains closed, blocking out the pink glow of dusk, dimming the room. Martha moved to her dresser, and I watched her hazel eyes and her nipples and her auburn tuft precede her in the dark to her dresser, where she bent to strike a match and light the candle. Naked, I moved to stand at her right in the hushed yellow of the room. She turned toward me and reached up to smooth her hair back on both sides. I moved closer to her and looked down at her body and reached out a hand and cupped the mystery of her, the heel of my palm on the bloom of fuzz, my fingers over the fount of pleasure and sorcery, the swell of flesh and the long, wide furrow inward. She looked down at my cock and took it in her hand. I pressed a finger along the length of her slit. We looked down at our hands as they fondled. She gave my dick a benevolent pull, and another. I touched her shoulder, and she touched mine, and our hands played below. Covering her pussy with my hand I moved a finger upward and nestled its length along her clit. She widened her legs a little and let out a slow breath. My cock answered her hand with a firming throb. She pulled on it slowly and gave the tip a little squeeze. For a moment we stood wordlessly masturbating one another, smiling down at our hands. She ran her tongue over her lips and moved a little closer to me, looking down as she brought her tuft closer to my dick. Guiding my cock with two fingers, she brought my tip to her auburn tuft and moved it up and down, and then she lowered my tip to her slit and I moved my palm from her pussy to her breast. She slowly wiped her slit with my tip, and her smile widened wickedly, and she opened her legs a little more and tucked my tip a little deeper into her slit and swept up and down, and I felt her getting wet, and my tip grazed her firming nub. I kissed her forehead. Ronnie opened the bathroom door and I heard her walking quickly toward us, then I heard her slow and then I heard her unsnap her bra and peel off her panties and heard them fall to the floor. I heard the rustle of her body moving closer. She stood still for a second behind me. Martha whispered, "Come on, Ronnie." She looked back down at my dick. "Don't be so shy." I looked down at Martha's hand working my tip up and down. My tip was moist with her. Behind me, Ronnie pressed into my back. She whispered, "What are you two up to this time?" Martha said, "Steven and I are being vulgar." "I see that." Ronnie's palm slid around my waist and over my tummy, and down to my pubic curls. She slowly scraped her fingernails across my tummy and I heard my breath falter. I bent my knees a little and pressed my cock against Martha's pussy, and she opened her legs farther and raised on her toes and had my tip immersed in her wet folds and kept sweeping it up and down. Martha said, "We fucked like this once." Ronnie said, "You can do it like that?" "Yes. Sort of." Ronnie breathed a little laugh. "You two have so many tricks." "Sure," Martha said. "We experiment." I told Martha, "You're getting wet." "Yes." "Feels good. I like feeling you sticky on my tip." "Mm, you like that, huh?" "Yes." While Martha massaged her slit with my tip, Ronnie put both palms against my butt and squeezed, and then she ran one palm under my crack and squeezed my balls. Looking down, I could see her fingertips and her painted nails as she caressed down there. Martha's breathing was becoming audible. She had my dick hard and my tip soaked with her. Her knees shook a little, and she steadied herself for a moment, then they shook again. She breathed a small laugh and settled onto her feet. "My toes are too tired to keep me up there." I said, "We have lots of time." "And lots of positions," she said, kissing my nose. Ronnie said, "Let me see what this is about." She moved around me and Martha backed up and Ronnie took my dick in her hand and stood in front of me, and she grinned at me and said, "Let's see what you two are talking about." She looked down at my dick. "This seems so exotic. I feel like a rank beginner." She watched herself swish my cock up and down her slit. "That way?" "Slower. Pull my tip up. Let it rub your clit." "Mm. Ssss. Yeah." "See?" "Yeah. Very sexy." Ronnie's pussy was higher on her body than Martha's, so I could straighten my legs and still keep my tip on her. Martha moved beside me and ran a hand over my hips and then down, and her warm fingers cradled my balls. I gave a little moan. Ronnie put a hand on my shoulder for balance, and she moved her pelvis closer to me and rubbed my tip around her little opening. "Mm. Will it go in like that?" I said, "You have to be really wet." "I'm getting there." "Feel good?" "Yeah." She swished my tip up and down, now and then nestling it into her fleshy little hole. She glanced at Martha, and she looked back down, smiling. She said, "You're right. It is vulgar. Dark." I said, "Gets me hot, though." She whispered, "Yeah. Exciting." She massaged her clit with my tip. My glans parted the moistening slush that hooded her diminutive gem, and the slit in my tip was like a tiny mouth nipping a little peanut, and through her nose a slow breath left her. She whispered, "So many ways. So many." Her narrow slit was getting wet, and I began to feel the unique pleasure of her thin outer lips sticking wetly to my glans. I felt an itch of pleasure go through my dick and felt precum ooze forward. Martha kissed my shoulder as she worked my balls. She pressed her damp pussy against my thigh. I twisted my neck to kiss her forehead, and her face lifted to mine and she kissed my lips. Our tongues played, and a giddiness flooded my brain. Her lips left mine, and I turned to look down, and I watched Ronnie's curly, slithery outer petals part, swabbing my tip Martha asked Ronnie, "Ever do it this way?" Ronnie said, "Of course not. There's lots of ways I never did it." "You can always try it." Ronnie looked at me. "Want to?" I nodded. She said, "Show me." I said, "You need to lean against something." I glanced around. "Here. Lean against the dresser. I guided Ronnie by her waist and turned her so that the dresser was behind her. Martha moved aside, and Ronnie leaned her tush against the dresser and leaned away from me a little, her arms around my neck. She looked up at me. "Now what?" I said, "Spread your legs a little." She spread her feet about eighteen inches apart, and I moved closer to her and set my tip into her slit. "Let's get you nice and wet, now." She looked down and used one hand to massage her slit with my tip again. "This could be tricky." Martha said, settling against my left side, "It is. But it's... very exciting, somehow. It's a nice way to start. Ronnie mused aloud, watching my dick get wet, "Because it's so lewd. That's why. Oh, I could draw this. This would make a very erotic drawing. Mmm." Looking down at Ronnie was heating me up. The affable lust rose in my spine and spread to my balls, which Martha teased with a finger- nail from under my butt while she licked my neck. My head sank back. For a moment I floated somewhere beyond the room. I opened my eyes and looked at Ronnie, at her slender face framed with dark waves of hair and her eyes simmering as they looked down, at her little breasts sloping into the dark aureoles and charcoal nipples, at her long, sinuous thighs spreading wider and the tendons pulsing when she nudged her pelvis forward pleasurably. An itchy aggression impelled my hips forward, but I held back the urge to plunge. I moved my hands around to her butt and gripped and squeezed, lust drawing a sigh from me and lust tightening my fingers in the soft, round flesh and muscle of her hips and tush. Ronnie looked at me. "Ready?" "Soon. Open your legs more. Spread your knees a bit." She bent her knees, her thighs spreading lewdly, and I pumped my hips gently, my cock pointing downward and sliding along her gash, and I aimed my tip at her clit and moved my cock downward, sliding down the length of her slit and wetting the upper side of my shaft. I moved back and forth for a moment, feeling her wet, slippery labia embrace and cling. I whispered, "Let's try." I let my tip lower until it found her entrance, but I was pointing slightly downward, so I bent my knees and had my cock directed upward, and I nudged inside, half an inch, an inch. The narrowing portal resisted. I whispered, "Relax, now. Try to relax inside." Ronnie used one hand to grip the dresser table, and she let out a breath and breathed in again and looked down at my dick and whispered, "Okay. Okay, try." I pushed, pushed again. I drew back a little. I said, getting a little breathless, "You need to be wetter." Martha said, "Here. Hold still, Steven." She knelt on one knee and reached for my dick, and I moved back a little and she put her mouth around me. I gasped. I said, "Careful." She held her head still on me and swathed me with her tongue, and I felt she wasn't sucking, she was spreading spit everywhere. I looked at Ronnie. She smiled at me and then looked down and watched Martha and brushed hair from her face. She whispered, "Good. Get him really wet." After a moment Martha let me go and I was shiny wet. She gave my tip another wet nip, and then she turned her face to Ronnie. She reached up and put her fingertips on Ronnie's slit and whispered, "Hold still, Ron." She looked up at Ronnie. "Okay?" Ronnie gazed at her, and they traded their secret signals with their eyes, and then Martha bent her head toward Ronnie's pussy and her fingers spread Ronnie's slit a little and bared Ronnie's clit, and then Martha stuck out her tongue. Ronnie looked down and her eyes narrowed and she licked her lips nervously, and then Martha licked, licked, licked, slowly, and Ronnie placed her hand on Martha's head. She whispered, "Martha." She closed her eyes. She clenched her teeth, making a soft "Ssss." She whispered, "Oh." She opened her eyes and watched Martha, her face tense. She whispered, "Yeah." I heard Martha's tongue spreading spit on her. Then Martha stood up, wiping hair from her forehead. The room was getting warmer. She said, "Now." I moved between Ronnie's thighs and she bent her knees a little and I bent mine and aimed my cock at her, and she watched my face and held onto my shoulders. I nudged into her slit and churned my hips a little, working myself into her opening, and I watched her eyes feel me going in, in and past the snug portal, and her lips parted, and her eyes narrowed more as I slid in, ahhh in, and she sighed outward. She whispered, pleased, "There." She brushed hair from her temples and smiled at me and breathed more softly, "There." Martha watched us. "Better?" I said, "Yeah," and I held still inside Ronnie, committing to memory the feel of her, and she was snug and narrow and wet. Ronnie whispered, "Yeah, he's in there." Her cunt gripped and she let her pelvis move once, her pussy sliding on me a little, the snug, textured channel massaging greasily for a moment. I gave a small gasp and smiled at her. Martha leaned against my side again, her hand gliding down my back. I shifted my feet a little, balancing with my knees bent, and I watched Ronnie's eyes and started a slow fuck. Ronnie whispered, "Yeah." Her cunt hugged, loosened, relaxed so my dick could glide easily. I teased her, "Good?" "Yeah." I moved slowly, only an inch or two in and out of the soft wet fleshy cunt. The outer petals followed my cock. Inside, my slit gently scrubbed against enclosing walls. Martha kissed my ear. She whispered, "Fuck." Her fingers crept under my butt and touched my balls. I sighed, "Mmm." I slid in and out, in and out. I watched Ronnie's eyes. She smiled, one side of her little mouth curling mischievously, and she whispered, "Hard dick. Nice hard dick." I felt my breath leave me, my eyes closed, my dick throbbed in her. Ronnie breathed a sly laugh. "God, talking dirty like that makes you so hot." "Yeah." "I could feel it. It was like a big lump, it went right through you." "Yeah." I panted, and let out a soft whoosh. Martha kidded, "Careful, Ronnie, you'll have him there in no time." I opened my eyes and I slid in and out and watched Ronnie's eyes watching mine. I slowed down. I said, "Wait." I shoved in all the way and stopped moving. Ronnie said, "Got ya pretty hot, huh?" "Yeah." I wiped sweat off one eyebrow and Ronnie swept hair away from her face again and we both gave soft, knowing laughs. She said, "I don't know if I can cum this way, but it feels good." She held me by the shoulders again and watched my eyes, and her cunt hugged. She said, "Feel that?" "Yeah." I twitched inside her. "Feel that?" "Mm." I glanced at Martha and said, "This is gettin' very wicked." Martha stroked under my balls. She whispered, "Yes." I looked at Ronnie again and I moved one of my hands from her hips and put my palm on her silky patch. I rubbed her clit with my thumb. Her eyes narrowed. I said, "Okay?" "Yeah." "Think you can cum that way?" She licked her lips nervously and swallowed. "Think I could. Yeah." I grinned at her, thumbing her clit a little faster, steadily, and her gaze softened, growing distant. She breathed out softly, "Yeah. Yeah, I could." I kept my thumb going. Her cunt sucked. Her mouth opened a little. She whispered, "Yeah." She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating, her breath deepening. Martha whispered in my ear, "Make her cum." I whispered, "Yes," watching Ronnie. "Gonna make her cum." I grinned at Ronnie. "Gonna make Aunt Ronnie cum. Make Aunt Ronnie cum." Ronnie blinked, whispering, "Oh god." I whispered, "Give Aunt Ronnie's pussy a good cum." Her eyes closed. "Oh, Steven. Oh." Against my neck, Martha grinned. She whispered, "Get her hot, Steven. Get Ronnie hot. I love seeing her get hot." "I am. Gonna make it dark for Aunt Ronnie. Very dark." Ronnie gasped, wincing. She whispered, "Oh. Oh jesus." After a moment she gave a small, feeble "Hm!" and her face looked feverish. I whispered, "Open your eyes," and her eyes opened and they were dimly glassy. I whispered, "I want to watch you cum," and her shoulders slumped and she gasped outward a little and she whispered "Yeah" and then "Yeah" again. I felt her clit hardening under my thumb and I drew my dick out a little and went back in and her cunt clinched and her eyes fumed. She breathed a shaky ahhh and I felt a tremble go through her thighs. My thumb circled and her jaw clenched and her breathing would catch briefly, and catch again, and she said with her jaw clenched, "Faster." I moved my thumb a little faster and she whispered, "Yeah." And a few seconds later she whispered, "Ah, yeah. Yes." I whispered, "Close?" She nodded slowly a couple of times and her eyelids looked heavy, lowering and opening again but hanging lower and lower, and she whispered "God" and her eyes closed again and her cunt tightened, and I whispered, "Cum," and her eyelids rose slightly but her eyes seemed unfocussed and her mouth opened a little wider. Her fingers tightened on my shoulders. Then her legs trembled and she whispered anxiously, "My legs. My legs." I whispered, "Put your legs around me. Around mine" I gripped her butt with my hands and I moved her a little, and her butt rested on the dressing table and I widened my knees, standing lower for her, and her legs wrapped around my calves. I stroked in and out of her again, three times, and her eye- lids rose weakly. I whispered, "Okay?" She nodded yes slowly, staring, and her fingers tightened more on my shoulders again. I whispered, "Cum." She nodded yes again and breathed, "Soon. Very soon." She licked her lips once more, her tongue sounding sticky, and she swallowed, and she held her breath and then let it go and then breathed in again and held it again. I let my circling speed up a little on her clit. Ronnie gasped. Martha's fingers squeezed my balls and I felt the tubes under my sack yield precum and my cock throbbed. I started twitching my cock inside Ronnie and her torso stiffened. I watched her eyes. "Getting' good for Aunt Ronnie?" Her lips barely moved. Her whisper fluttered. "Yes...Oh yes." "Aunt Ronnie like it dirty like this?" "Yes...Yes." Over the next few minutes her eyelids fell lower and lower and then closed. Martha's hand moved from my balls to one of Ronnie's nipples. Martha toyed with it, then slowly started pulling, squeez- ing, stretching the nipple outward. Soon Ronnie whimpered several times, and her clit throbbed under my thumb and the wet flowed from her. Then she winced, and the corners of her mouth drew back and her head drifted forward. She whimpered, "Oh cum. Cum." I whispered, inspired by a storm of wickedness raging in my brain and gut, "It's okay. Let the little terror take you, Ronnie. Deep, deep, dark pleasure. Pleasure filling your pussy. Filling you. Getting so tight inside. Dark. Deep. Cum. Ah, cum. Let the dark cum." She whined limply, breathless, "Oh. Steven. Oh god." And Martha caressed Ronnie's other nipple and then squeezed hard with her fingers and pulled, and Ronnie's mouth fell open, and the look on Martha's face made me wonder who was more excited, me or Martha. Ronnie's chin scrunched down and her hands gripped my shoulders, her arms tightening and her neck and collarbones stiffening. She whispered painfully, "Sweet. So sweet. Oh sweet cum." She was absolutely still for a second, her head lowered, her mop of tousled hair at my chin. I kissed her hair, my lips memorizing the soft odor and the textures of Ronnie's hair. Then she whimpered shakily, "Oh-h-h!" and then her cunt tightened and held the clinch firmly and her forehead pressed furiously into my chest and her torso froze stiffly. I whispered "Yesss." Ronnie's shoulders shrunk inward and her cunt nudged upward and she came and came. I flexed my dick inside her and she cried a tiny "Unh!" against my chest and came more, and Martha squeezed the nipple and whispered, "Yes, honey," and Ronnie kept cumming. Then her arms slackened suddenly and her pelvis jerked, her cervix opening and clamping again near my tip, and she gasped with a quick "Uh!" and her pelvis jerked and her cervix clamped again, and she gasped "Uh!" again, and then did it again, and then she tightened everywhere all over again and her forehead jerked lower, her chin almost touching her chest, and I felt her little clit go hard like a tiny stone and she gulped loudly with a pained whimper, and she stayed incredibly taut for another few seconds. Her cunt clinched hard and her thighs quivered. Abruptly she started to relax. She panted madly, one hand hurriedly grasping my forearm, and I stopped moving my thumb on her. She heaved a loud "Ahh!" and slumped against me, her legs drifting off my calves. I pulled her body against me, holding her by her bottom and embracing her and kissing her neck, and her hot face rested a- gainst my shoulder while she panted and whimpered. I let my dick slide in and out of her snug slush once or twice, and she moaned. Martha moved to Ronnie's side and put an arm around her friend's shoulders and kissed her temples and cheek. Ronnie whimpered, "Oh my god. Left me so shaky." I held her atop the dresser, kissing her neck, and gave her a love bite. Gradually, her pussy loosened around my dick. I leaned my head back and sighed, my head filling with excitement. I gasped, "I can't stand up any more." Martha said, "Let's get in bed. C'mon." I pulled my dick out of Ronnie, and I glistened with her, and she gave a little "Mmm" as I came out of her. I moved away from her and held her hand and she staggered a little, wiping sweat from her forehead, and I wiped sweat from my upper lip. She crawled onto the bed and lay tiredly on her back, her eyes closed and one arm flung over her face. She still gasped a little from her orgasm. Then Martha got onto the foot of the bed on her hands and knees, crawling toward a place beside Ronnie. I couldn't stand it any more, Martha's round tush and pussy looking so ready for me, and in the candlelight I saw under her tush the swell of her pussy and the glistening moisture on the lips of her thick slit. She sat up beside Ronnie on her haunches, sweeping a hand across her forehead. Quickly I settled a knee on the bed and reached out and touched Martha's shoulder. I said, "Stay like that. Don't move." She turned her head toward me. "What is it?" I moved toward her on my knees, smiling. "Just stay there." Kneeling behind her, I put my hands on her shoulders and nudged her forward. She smiled, bending forward onto her hands. She whispered, "This way? That's what you want?" "Yeah." She settled on her forearms and raised her butt and opened her legs. She turned her face to watch me. "Okay." She nodded her head, beckoning and grinning. "Come on, hon." I snuggled up to her on my knees, holding her gently by her firm hips and nestling my tummy against her warm tush, nuzzling closer against the hot crack, my tip poking at her slit, and she was wet, very wet, and a liquid lust flowed into my gut. I nudged my dick ahead, meeting resistance. She lowered her head and whispered "Wait," and then her fingers were on my tip, rubbing me in the warm, loose flesh, and she said, "Okay. Now, hon." Then the long glide into her, always so easy going into her, into the smooth, creamy glove, all the way, and I sighed "Ahhh" and she said a loud "Ahhh!" and her head arched back, and then down, and I was in all the way, and her cunt hugged. Slick, wrinkly walls of flesh clasped my dick. I held myself motionless in her, savoring, and I leaned forward, reaching under her, cupping her tits in my hands. I whispered ex- citedly, "Wait. Just wait like this a minute." She shifted on her hands and knees a bit, her head lowered, and her hand reached back between her legs and held my balls. I stayed still in her, listened to her breath pleasurably for a moment. She carefully stroked my nuts. Her pussy gripped my dick again. In answer I leaned forward as far as I could, near her head. I whispered, "Ah, your pussy. Your pussy feels so good." She gave me another affectionate clinch, and I sighed "Ahh" and she craned her head around and grinned and she clinched again. My dick arched in her. I grit my teeth. "Mm! So tight." She whispered, "Yes. You feel so big this way." "Yeah." Leaning over her the way I was, I had slipped out of her perhaps an inch or so. I straightened up and looked down at my dick passing under crack. I nudged all the way in. I got a new, loose grip on her hips again, and I pulled out slowly and pushed back in. I started slowly fucking, hearing my breath wobble, and the fucking in and out of her was slow and slick. She lowered her head and whispered a soft, seething, "Ah. Ahhhh. So nasty like this." I said, "Mmm. Yeah." "So nasty." Another stroke, another. The crazy itch threatened in my balls. It was too, too soon. I stopped. I panted. I said, "Wait." She relaxed around me, and lowered her head. "Okay, hon." I said, "This feels so good." She chuckled softly. "Yes." Ronnie opened her eyes and looked at us. She said, "Let me guess. You two have done this one before, too." Martha grinned. "Yes. You never did?"" "I did, but he was a little rough." Martha said, "I like it. He feels so big in me this way." I wiped a bead of sweat off my eyebrow. "But you can't come this way." Martha said, "That's all right, it's still good." Then I remembered what Anita had shown me in that position, and I bent toward Martha's back a little and I snaked a hand around her hip to her belly, then played with her tuft. I said, "No, wait a minute," and I trailed my hand down and I settled a finger onto her clit. She tensed with a little gasp. I said slyly, "I'll bet you can." She breathed, "Yes. Mm. Yes, I can." I started circling her clit slowly. Her head rose a little. She whispered "Ah. Yes. Ohhhh." With my finger I made a wide circle around her firming clit, caressing along its side and avoiding the tip for now, and her head lowered again and she started breathing faster. I orbited around and around, over and over, and Ronnie leaned up on an elbow and smiled at me and then watched Martha. She said, "Well, the guy who fucked me that way didn't do that. He was just back there all by himself." Martha sighed, "Oh, this is good!" I arched my dick in her. She moaned "Mmm" and tightened on me. I circled her clit more slowly and she whispered, "That's it, hon. Slow." "Yes." "Ahhhh." It was getting so luscious it was disorienting. I restrained my finger's motion, keeping the circles wide around her clit and then massaging the tip now and then, ever so lightly, and Martha's breath- ing grew more uneven, long breaths in and out, and a few quick ones in and out, then longer breaths. She would gasp when I touched the tip of her clit, and gasp when I occasionally arched my cock in her. I was hard as hell, thinking I could almost feel myself expanding impos- sibly inside her. Soon she would more frequently grip with her cunt, holding her breath, then loosening and letting out a low stream of air, and I knew the finish was creeping up closer to her each time she did it. I began arching my cock in her more frequently, but she gasped quickly, "No, hon. Slower. Slower." So I slowed the twitch- ing and I slowed my finger, and she whispered, "Yes. Yes. Let it get filthy." Ronnie gave me a smirk and sat up on her haunches, saying, "You really love to torture each other." Martha chuckled, and Ronnie moved closer to me, settling against me and putting her arm around my back. She whispered teasingly, "You get so dirty you both go crazy." "Yes," Martha said, and her arms trembled and she lowered to her elbows, turning her face to one side and resting her face on the sheet, and I saw her grin, her eyes closed. She whispered tensely, "Oh. I'm so close." I teased her, "I can tell. I can feel it." "Oh it's good!" Martha's pussy was tightening more frequently, she was holding the grip longer. It felt erratic now, involuntary. Ronnie kissed my neck. It made my cock lurch and the lurch made Martha tense up and whimper. Then Martha groaned softly, "Oh, baby." I made smaller circles on her, letting my finger glide firmly over the tip, and her tip was getting firm. She groaned more slowly, "Oh, baaaby." She was holding her breath. She squinted, her mouth falling open. I asked sweetly, "Almost?" She nodded slowly against the mattress. I slowed my finger, and I started rhythmically arching my dick. She winced hard. She whimpered, "Ah!" And Ronnie beside me looked down at Martha and she leaned forward, and she slid a palm along Martha's side and underneath, and she took Martha's breast in her hand and squeezed, and then I saw Ronnie grin as she gently tweaked Martha's nipple between her fingers, and Martha winced harder and breathed, "Oh. Oh." Then Martha's cunt tightened, tightened and stayed tight, and her hips rose a little and her shoulders slumped and her hands clinched into fists, and Martha turned her face forward and her forehead pressed into the mattress, and she gushed a quick, loud whisper, "OhSteven!" And above her I whispered, "Cum, Martha." The clit throbbed, yearned, hardened quickly. Then she was there, para- lyzed with it, her body unmoving, taut. I felt the bliss vibrate in her tummy and hips. I whispered hotly, "Ah, cum. Good, hard cum. So filthy," and Martha whimpered loudly and gasped "Yes!" Beside me Ronnie's eyes watched and seemed to expand and glitter while she squeezed Martha's nipple. And I saw that Martha was still into it, still in her sea of pleasure, and I crooned, "Yes, Martha. It's so good. It's sooo goood." And she yelped, "Yes!" and then seemed to loosen immediately, but her cervix sucked hard and she stiffened all over again, and I whispered, "Mmmm, yes!" She held still for a few more seconds. Then her hips jerked so forcefully my finger almost lost her clit, and quickly I found it, and her juice was flowing down my finger into my palm as I slowed and eased the circles, and finally she began to relax, gasping and wheezing and whimpering. Her neck relaxed and she raised her head a little, and then rose onto her hands, her head hanging down while she panted erratically, and I stopped my finger on her. I pressed against her clit, not moving, and I let her settle down. The bloated bud began to soften. She gasped, "Oh, honey. God! Oh god!" I whispered, "Good?" "Oh baby, yes! Perfect!" Ronnie stopped squeezing Martha's nipple and let the breast rest in her cupped hand. "Martha, your nipple was like a rock." Martha turned her head toward us, her face flushed and blushing happily. "Yes. Oh, that was good!" She glanced back at me from the corners of her eyes, still catching her breath, and she gave me a taunting smile. She moved her hips forward and back, sliding her cunt along my dick, and I closed my eyes and groaned. She whispered, "You still there?" "Yes!" She breathed a little laugh. She started moving on me steadily. She whispered devilishly, "Come on. After that, I want to feel some cum in me. Give me some cum." My hands gripped her hips. "Slower. Slow." She slowed down. "That better?" "Yeah. Yeah, make it good." She whispered, "Give me some cum, Steven." "Yes. Soon." "Lots of cum, honey." "Yes." "Lots of cum." She moved on my dick with long, slow, strokes. I let my eyes open and I took a long breath, steadying my whole body. Beside me, Ronnie gaped at both of us and then shook her head ruefully, muttering, "God. You two. I could fill a whole dark book with you." Slowly fucking, Martha gave Ronnie one of their intimate grins. "You have my permission to do that, Ron. We don't have a copyright on this." Ronnie smirked, her arm going around my back again. "The way *you* two do it, you do." She rose onto her knees and leaned against me, a nipple against my arm, and she very softly let her lips rest against my neck. She whispered, "We're gonna drive you crazy." I gasped, "I'm already crazy," and she whispered, "Just wait. I'll drive you crazy." She kissed lower on my neck and whispered, "Really crazy." I closed my eyes and sighed, my head so full I thought my brains would start squirting out of my ears. And Martha moved even slower on me, her cunt milking me as she drew away from me, then taking me in again with an oily smoothness and then gripping and milking outward again, and my head went back stiffly and I grit my teeth and whimpered. Then Ronnie's soft cheek was caressing mine, her palm sliding down my butt. I whispered, "Your face feels good against mine like that." She whispered, "Yeah?" I gasped, "yes!" and she caressed my cheek with hers again, and I felt her long soft curls against me and I whispered feverishly, "Mmmm, your hair. Your skin's so nice." She let her cheek and hair caress me again, and then her lips were on my temple. And below me Martha said, "Make it good for him, Ronnie," and her pussy gave my throbbing dick a slow, tight, slithery pull outward. Then her cuntlips toyed with my tip for a moment, and I moaned almost hysterically. And Ronnie whispered "Gonna make it really good," and her finger crept down my crack and she found my hole and she pressed her fingertip into it and she whispered, "Really good," and while I panted like a maniac she fingered my hole gently and she breathed a soft "Ahhh" into my ear, and then her fingers trailed farther underneath and she scraped her nails across the tightening muscle down there and then her fingernails scraped just behind my sack and I whimpered and my head dropped forward. I held my breath. The wildness started in my balls. My dick throbbed elatedly in Martha. She breathed a delicious "Mmmm," and Ronnie said through her teeth near my ear, "Give it to us. Get your nuts off, honey. C'mon. We're gonna make it a good cum. Really dirty, Steven. Good, dirty fuckin'." She chuckled, "Nice and close. huh? Close, baby?" And I gasped from another planet, "Oh god! Oh damn!" Then the coiled tubes and the muscles under Ronnie's fingers started going crazy and in my ear Ronnie breathed a heated "Yeah!" and my taut neck trembled and the cum gushed violently into Martha. And gushed. And jetted. I whimpered "Oh!" and Martha sighed, "Mmmm. Baby." Ronnie chuckled again and breathed a pleased "Yeeaahh, empty all that cum. Mmmmmm," and Martha milked it all out of me, all of it. My dick tried to leap into the sky. Martha's pussy wrung a violent squirt from me, and a another like a huge lump hurling through my shaft, leaving me blind and breathless. With the last big splash my shoulders slumped. I trembled on my knees. I gave a long shivering breath outward and Ronnie hugged herself against me, her hand stroking my shoulders, and Martha's pussy slowed to soothing, finishing sucks on me. Soon Martha stopped and gave a relaxing whoosh. I wanted to sit back on my heels and rest, but I stayed where I was, my tummy leaning against Martha's warm tush, so that I could enjoy the feeling of my cock making its waning throbs inside Martha's cum-filled pussy. I wanted to remember it forever. On the plane back to Memphis I wanted to remember every detail of kneeling there with my eyes closed and letting my dick soften in that hot pussy while Ronnie kissed my neck with a gentle love bite and hugged her tits against my back. Martha whispered, "Okay now?" I panted, "Yes. Shh. I'm in heaven." Her cunt squeezed me. "Mm. That's sweet." My head leaned back, my eyes closed. I whispered to the ceiling, dreamily, hardly believing I spoke the words, "Martha. You took cum from a deep place. So deep." My fingers tightened on her hips. "Only you and Ronnie can reach that place." She whispered, "Oh, honey. Oh." Her cunt hugged me. She whispered again, "Oh, hon." Ronnie kissed my shoulder, hugging me. She kissed my neck. After a long minute I let my softened cock leave Martha, and I rested back on my heels. I felt drunk. Martha rolled onto her back and snatched a kleenex off the bedside table. "Another big one. Mmm." I slumped onto her bosom while she held the kleenex between her legs. I kissed her breasts and her neck and I held her close for a long moment. Then, of course, the two of them had to hurry into the bathroom. I lay in bed memorizing the room, memorizing every detail that the candlelight touched. I got up and walked into the hall and knocked on the bathroom door. I called softly, "Hey. Anybody care for some tea?" We sat around the dining room table, the women in bathrobes, me wrapped in a beach towel, sipping tea. Ronnie announced shyly that she and the guy she'd met from NYU had finally gone to bed last night. She said, blushing, "It just sort of developed, you know? Seems like it took him forever to get this far." Martha said, "Only a few weeks. Well? How was it?" Ronnie blushed again. "Nice, but...you know, he's just not the let's-get-to-it type. A little old fashioned in that respect, but... You know, I've learned so much from you two. He didn't last twenty seconds." She took a drag off her cigarette. "He even apologized. I couldn't believe it. Apologized." Martha said, "What's wrong with that?" "I was so surprised!" Ronnie said seriously, "Really, I'm being unkind. I shouldn't talk about him that way, I don't mean to make fun of the guy. Really. He's so sweet. He's not that shy, he's just really careful. But I guess I overdid it, he must not be used to all this stuff I've picked up from you. I thought that condom was going to explode in me." Martha said, "You used one?" Ronnie nodded emphatically. "I don't trust him that much. Yet. But you never know, he's so different from what I'm used to. So nice." Martha smiled at her. "The nice ones take longer, Ronnie." "Yeah. Yeah, I guess. But I'm giving it a chance. He's sweet. It might turn out. It just might." She looked at me and saw me watching her. I said, "Good, Ronnie. That's good. It could end up being some- thing good for you." "Yes." She looked down at her teacup. "But that's for later. Much later." She crushed her cigarette. She sat looking into her teacup for a long moment. She had a distant look in her eyes. Martha said, "What's the matter?" Ronnie said, "Thinking." Martha said, "Uh-oh." Ronnie gave a wry smile. She continued gazing into her cup. "No, I was just...You two are so exciting to watch. A lot will change in this place tomorrow. It won't be three of us. And I wanted..." She grinned, and she leaned against the back of her chair and stretched her head backward and stretched her arms up and over her head, and she relaxed and looked into her cup again. She said, "I think the old Catholic in me wants to sin. Something I've never done before. Just once. Something gentle. Submissive. But dark." She lifted her head and her face seemed tense, and she swept the hair away from one side her face, and she looked at Martha. Martha said, drawing on her cigarette. "Oh, dear. Ronnie's darkness again." "Mm-hm." "Like what, then?" She said, "Like..." She shrugged. She pulled on a string of her hair. She smiled timidly. "When Steven was watching? Remember?" Martha gave her their secret smile. She flicked her cigarette in the ashtray. "Just for tonight?" Ronnie pulled on the hair again, absently, looking at Martha. Martha said, "Let's finish our tea, then." Ronnie lifted her teacup to her lips. "I never thought I'd want that. But this combination, the three of us..." She glanced at me. She murmured into her coffee cup, "Camus said that true debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations, except to oneself." I said, "This isn't going to require special tools or anything, is it?" The bedroom was dark. Ronnie wanted the candle out. She said she wanted it very dark. I sat back on my heels with Ronnie lying on her back in front of me, her head nestled face-up against my knees, and I looked down at her and stroked her breasts and squeezed her nipples. Martha lay on her tummy with her face between Ronnie's legs. She moved her lips up Ronnie's inner thigh with lingering, delicate kisses. Eyes closed, Ronnie seemed to be floating in the sea of her own darkness, groggy with pleasure. She whispered, "Your mouth is so soft. Softer than Steven's." Martha placed a kiss high on Ronnie's thigh, near her pussy. I bent down and kissed Ronnie's nipple. I whispered, "You like her mouth?" "Mmm. Nothing like what I thought it would be." I looked into Ronnie's face. "You don't seem to be as embarrassed about it as you said you'd be. You look as if you're enjoying it." "Oh, I am. I'm finding out what it was like...when I did this to her. Always wanted to know..." She swallowed, her eyelids tightening and then relaxing. She began again in a breathy, distant whisper, "Always wondered what this would be like." I watched her face. I kissed her cheek, her nose. I tweaked her nipple with my fingers. Down below, I heard Martha's lips part in a soft kiss. Then while I watched Ronnie's face, Ronnie swallowed hard again, and her neck tensed. I lifted my head and looked down. Martha had extended her tongue and was giving Ronnie's pussy a long slow lick upward. I had done the same to Martha many, many times; she insisted on it so regularly. Ronnie let out a slow breath. Martha peered up at her as she gave Ronnie's pussy some small licks along one side of her slit and then the other. Ronnie breathed, "That tongue," and she smiled, eyes still closed, and gave a little chuckle. "Now I know where Steven learned this." Martha lifted her head and licked her lips. "He figures out a lot on his own, you know." Ronnie lifted her head and glanced at Martha with a wry smile. "You can't fool me." She lay her head back and closed her eyes again. "I know. I know who taught him this." Martha kept her eyes on Ronnie and licked slowly again. Ronnie breathed, "Ahh." Then Martha pressed her mouth into Ronnie and after a few seconds Ronnie put her hand on Martha's head and whispered, "Don't suck yet. Not yet. Just before I cum. I'll tell you. Lust lick. Mmm, yes. Lick. Mmmmm." She let her face drift to one side, and she smiled and she caressed Martha's hair while Martha's tongue began a slow rhythm on her. She whispered, "That tongue. Oh, that tongue. Steven, what does that tongue feel like on your cock?" I stroked her hair. I whispered, "A lot like the way it feels on you now." "Oh god. How do you keep from cumming?" I whispered, "Practice." She breathed a small laugh. "Martha, your tongue feels so good. MMmm, just like that. Don't change that." Her eyes closed tighter and her voice drifted off. "Don't change it." I kissed Ronnie's breasts and licked her neck, and I tantalized her nipples with long pulls of my lips and tongue, licking while I pulled, and Martha licked tirelessly while Ronnie instructed her with whispers that grew more tense and urgent. Soon Ronnie's breath was leaving her in anxious little huffs and she hissed, "Faster. Faster, Martha, just a little. Ahh. Ah, just a little. Ohhhh, Yeah. Yeah." But after a few minutes Ronnie's hips were undulating and writhing spasmodically, her spread-out knees jerking, and Martha had to ask her gently, "Ronnie. Hon, don't move so much. I keep losing you." Then Ronnie settled down a bit, her breath heaving uncontrollably, and she gasped, "Sorry. Oh, I'm -- Martha, you're just too good at this!" I lifted my mouth from Ronnie's nipples and told Martha, "Hold her hips, the way I do," and I smiled at her and added, "The way I hold yours?" She gave me a little smirk and asked, "You mean, I do that too?" I nodded and said, "When you start getting close." Martha blushed and said, "Oh," and she slid her arms under Ronnie's legs and wrapped her forearms around her thighs and held her hips with her hands and said, "Oh. I see." Then she surrounded Ronnie's pussy with her mouth and started licking again, and after a few seconds Ronnie sighed passion- ately, "Oh! Much better much better much better." And Ronnie's hips tried to tilt and cant, as they usually did when she was getting close, but Martha had her arms snugly around her. Martha varied the licking with small inner-lip slathers, using her lips to tug gently at Ronnie's delicate, curly petals while Ronnie groaned ecstatically. Then she covered Ronnie's cunt with her mouth and continued the licking. Within a couple of minutes I sensed the heat and the odor rising from Ronnie, and her trembling started, and she whimpered painfully, "Oh Martha! Oh!" Her hips jerked against Martha's con- straining arms and shoulders, but Martha's mouth stayed on her, and I bent to give Ronnie's nipple a good hard suck. She went a little crazy, suddenly gritting her teeth and gasping, "Oh fuck! Good! Good! Fuck!" Then she began to stiffen, and I knew it wouldn't be long. I bent down to lick Ronnie's neck, and I whispered, "Getting dark?" and she sighed hotly, "Oh, Yeah!" and I teased her, "Her mouth is nice, isn't it?" and Ronnie said "Yes!" and I asked, "She makin' you cum?" She nodded quickly, her chest rising with her long gasp inward, and I whispered, "Makin' it cum good?" and Ronnie said "Yes!" and then groaned "Yes!" and then she seemed to writhe from within, tightening all over, and her fists clinched. She gasped, "Suck it! Martha suck it!" Then I heard a slurp and then the muted sounds of Martha sucking at Ronnie's clit. Ronnie gasped with a whimper, her neck tightening, "Faster! Suck it lick it! Lick! Yes!" Then Ronnie stiffened. Then her head drifted forward, and she began to yammer, her voice a low, heated murmur, "You taught him to lick you. Young Steven eating your pussy, your young little girl's pussy. Oh Martha so exciting! God it's driving me crazy! It's so exciting! Oh god!" Then, all of a sudden, she just seemed to dissolve into the bed, absolutely still, her mouth gaping open, and she breathed softly, rapturously, "Oh my god. Ah. Ah Martha. Martha." Then her head jerked forward and she gushed "NNNnnn, YES!" and she stiffened again, her hips high off the bed for a few seconds while I gave her neck a love bite. And then quickly her hips lowered and her head swooned back, and she gave a long sigh and then gasped, "Stop! Ohstop! Stop. Ahhh, stop. Stop." She lay panting and sweating, limp as a wet rag, and Martha gave her pussy and pelvis several gentle licks and kisses. Martha and I held her, kissing, caressing, and for a moment Ronnie seemed spellbound, unaware of us. But then Martha cradled Ronnie's face in her hands and they shared a deep kiss, their mouths and tongues writhing hungrily at first, then more amiably. When the kiss ended Ronnie smiled drunkenly and panted, "Taste Me?" Martha smiled back at her and stroked Ronnie's cheek and said, "Ronnie, you're so strange." Ronnie ran a finger across her eyebrows and muttered, "Kleenex." Martha got her a tissue from the bed table and Ronnie wiped her face and neck. Ronnie blushed. She sighed tiredly, "Damn. I was crazy." Martha said, "I didn't know thinking about Steven and me made you so excited." Ronnie grinned at her. "One of *my* dark little secrets." She heaved air in and out, fanning herself with the used kleenex. "But either both of you have the same tongue, or...it's a universal skill." Martha smiled, glancing at me and not saying anything. Ronnie spent several minutes recovering her breath. Both women lit cigarettes. The three of us gradually slipped into a subdued mood, speaking quietly and infrequently, trading glances and an occa- sional kiss or hug. I glanced at the clock on Martha's bed table. Five after ten. The sound of the city through the window was a far- away, unchanging rumble. I glanced at the clock again. Ten fifteen. Martha saw me look at the clock. She said gently, "Only a little after ten, hon." I smiled weakly, and I sat up on my heels looking toward the window, able to see a corner of one of the buildings across the street, wondering what it must be like to be able to live in that New York City building and not have to go back to Memphis. Ronnie and Martha talked about the presents I'd given them, wondering what they could send to me in Memphis for my birthday. I was sitting in the middle of the bed on my folded legs, near the pillows. Ronnie reclined on my left, smoking, and Martha reclined on my right, on her side, legs curled. I looked at the clock. Ten twenty-five. Ronnie's arm reached up, and she gently turned my cheek away from the clock. She said, "Don't do that." She took a drag off her cigarette and she sat up, her hand on my cheek. She said, "Stop doing that." Martha said, "What's he doing?" Ronnie said, "Looking at the time." Martha rolled onto her back and took my hand and pleaded sweetly, "Sweetheart, don't. C'mere." She pulled me down to her and put her arms around me, and I stretched out beside her and she gave me an affectionate kiss, her hands stroking my cheek. She drew her face back and looked into my eyes. She whispered, "We have all night for so many other things." I buried my face into her shoulder, and she embraced me warmly and stroked my back. I held her, counting to ten. I counted to twenty. I counted to fifty. I kissed her neck. Her shoulder. I kissed toward her breast. I licked a nipple. I opened my mouth and filled my mouth with soft, warm, spongy tit, tonguing her nipple. Beside me, Ronnie put out her cigarette and put the ashtray on the table and snuggled against my back. I was surrounded by flesh. Through the window I heard the distant sound of an airplane, headed for or leaving LaGuardia. I wanted only flesh and love and pleasure. I kissed Martha's body downward, I scooted lower and I kissed her tuft and put my mouth over it, and I started licking her thighs, and Ronnie's hand rubbed my butt and slid around my hips and held my cock. I ached. I suffered. I wanted licking and fucking and the sounds of women cumming. That's all I wanted. And Martha. Martha. I licked Martha for a few minutes, then I licked Ronnie. The two women lay side by side and I brought my mouth back and forth to each of them, memorizing every texture and odor and taste of their most intimate flesh. I licked Martha again until she almost came. Then I licked Ronnie again, licked her until she was getting nervous with pleasure, then I licked Martha. When I felt Martha's clit getting firm I mounted her, my dick probing deeply, trying to find something far inside her I may have missed before. I raised on my arms and watched her enjoy some slow, deep fucking for a while. Then I pulled out of her and I licked Ronnie for another few moments, and then I mounted her and entered her. She smiled at me, stroking my hair, watching my eyes while we fucked. They were both getting hotter, and the hotter they became the hotter I became. I was pumped up with adrenaline and lust and need. Then I did it again; I licked Martha and fucked her for a moment, and licked Ronnie and fucked her again, fucked both of them sighing and grunting like a horny bear. I hoped I could keep doing that all night. But it was Martha who approached orgasm first, as usual, and I stopped fucking and left my dick deep inside her for a moment, not moving, and I held her tightly, my face against hers. Then I would fuck her a little, until she was on the edge, and I'd stop. Soon her cunt was tightening and I knew she would cum. I pulled away. I was getting hotter and hotter, my dick soaked with both of them, and I went inside Ronnie and fucked her with long, deep, rough strokes, and she was verging on the incendiary. And then back to Martha. She opened her arms for me, hissing through her teeth, "Fuck, honey. Oh, fuck." I started fucking her and I watched her eyes until they started to squint shut and her hips began the churning that told me her cum was starting. I hid my face in her neck, and I held her as tight as I could and fucked her, fucked her good and deep, tight against her clit, and she stiffened and she froze under me, her cervix gnawing at my tip, and I whispered in her ear, "I'm listening to your breath while you cum. Feeling your pussy cum. Feeling you cum. I love you." Her arms tightened around me in a death grip. She screamed a low moan against my shoulder, and I rasped, "Cum for me. Cum!" She screamed again and then she whimpered, her arms around me loosening, relaxing, and her face hugged mine tightly, and with a small, impassioned breath that sounded nearly like a sob she whispered, "Steven! My Steven!" I let my cock rest inside her for a moment, holding her so tightly she couldn't move. I started fucking again. She gripped me with her cunt and kissed my neck and shoulders. She stroked my neck and cheek lovingly, and I kept fucking. Then I stopped. I wanted to cum, but I was afraid that it would end the night. I huffed against her, horni- ness and desperation mounting in me. I pulled away from her and turned to Ronnie, moving to her with a passionate gaze that was so hot she looked surprised, but her eyes glowed warmly and she opened her arms and spread her legs for me, and she wrapped her limbs around me and I slid inside, sliding easily now that my raging erection had stretched her with so much fucking. I hid my face in her neck and fucked, fucked hard against her and deep, my pubic thatch scraping hers, and she whispered breathlessly , "Ah, baby! Yeah, honey, fuck me good. Fuck, you're so hot! Good, hot fuck, good -- Ah! Ah! Oh goddamn, Steven. Oh. Oh Fuck." She was making me explosive, her cunt clinching. I paused. Ahh, to just lie inside a pussy, resting, throbbing, my dick stewing in hot, female flesh. I wanted it to last longer, longer. I left Ronnie and moved to Martha. She looked at me with darkly crazed eyes and lay back and spread her legs, and her arms went around me and I slid into her, and I fucked harder, grazing her clit, my wet pelvis starting to lightly smack in our mingled sweat. She whispered, "Ahh. Ahh," and I whispered, "I love your cunt. I love it. I love fuckin' your cunt," and she whispered, "Yes. Yes, honey," and she chuckled a little madly and she hissed, "Your dick! Your dick's getting so big! You're so close! So big and so close. Enjoy it, baby. Let it get good for you, let it get good!" And I whispered again, "Your cunt. Ahh! Ahh, your pussy." My lips roamed over her wildly, my hot whispers naming every part they touched, "Your nipples. Your neck. Your face. Your hair. Your mouth." I kissed her lips, hard, my hips lunging deep. "Mmm, your mouth!" I felt myself going beyond the edge. I rested again, panting. And I moved to Ronnie. Ronnie opened her arms, her eyes heated and wanting, and she wrapped her legs around me again. I was getting tired. Too tired to hump tightly against her and make her cum. My tip was swollen, dripping, ready. I grabbed her butt and pulled her against me and started fucking, and the wet slaps against her belly were getting loud and sticky. She whispered softly, "Yeah, Steven. C'mon. C'mon. C'mon, yeah. C'mon." And then Martha's lips were near me, her voice sweet, urging, "Let it go, hon. Let it go. We'll have each other all night. Let it go." Her fingers reached under my butt and held my balls. I fucked harder, but slowed down, and I wanted that hungry sucking that was way inside Ronnie's cunt; and so, not caring how tired I was, I started humping hard against her, any- getting my tip way up there, burrowing far into her. She started gasping hysterically. I could feel her clit swell against my shaft with the new angle, and I told myself silently Hold out Hold out Hold out for that sweet Ronnie, for pussy cumming around my dick, Hold out. I gasped air, fucking slower, and Martha played with my balls. I hugged my face against Ronnie's shoulder and felt her stiffening under me, her nails digging into the back of my neck again, and I thought good, good, make her cum, make her cum, I want to cum in a tight, cumming cunt. My hands gripped her little butt and I scrubbed a- gainst her pelvis, my stomach cramped and burning, my tip swelling, oozing precum deep inside the snug, upward curl of her pussy. I kept thinking Hold out Hold out. Then Ronnie's cunt tightened and Ronnie went crazy, whispering madly against my ear, "Steven! Oh my god. Oh my GOD! Oh baby baby hot so big and hot and hard and hot! Oh! Oh god honey yes! Yes! Yes! YES! Oh YES honey, Fuck!" Her cheek mashed against mine. Her arms around my neck tightened in a death grip. She clinched her teeth, hissing, demanding, "Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me." And then she made a rough, grunting sound I'd never heard her make, a low "NNnnnguhh!" And she came. With my face against her neck I grit my teeth and let out a low hiss of pure, lusty pleasure. I grunted roughly, exhilarated, feeling my tip rub walls of sucking flesh, my slit spitting cum into Ronnie's gripping climax. Slowing, I rose quickly on my arms, looking down at her. Our torsos parted with a wet suck of sweat, and she was hanging from her arms around my neck, her mouth open, eyes shut tight. I opened my mouth wide for air, watching her climax end while I finished in her. My balls squirmed with the big mid-peak load on its way and I jammed deep into Ronnie and groaned and let her have it. Then everything seemed to slacken in me, and I realized how painfully tired I was. I slid loosely in and out of the cum that filled her, the last of me bleeding weakly from my slit. She fell away from me, her head back, her mouth gulping air. My hips slowed to a weary stop. I glanced at Martha beside me. She smiled at me, her eyes looking into mine, understanding, and she caressed my back. She whispered, "I know, baby." I found one of Martha's hands and clasped, leaning on my other arm and looking down at Ronnie. She was exhausted. I had never fucked her so thoroughly. I'd fucked Martha that way a few times. One day, one day, I would fuck Martha like that again. I hadn't fucked her that well often enough. I would one day again, many times. One day. One day I'd fuck the hell out of Martha again and again, the way I fucked her tonight. But I'd given Ronnie her first good, hot fuck from me, I'd gushed everything into her, and I'd fucked Martha and given her my cum and a screaming orgasm. I'd leave them both with something to think about. I looked at Martha again, and I panted looking at her, filling my eyes with her face. She leaned against me, her nipple warm against my arm. She whispered, "Sweetheart." She leaned forward and kissed my lips. Then I couldn't lean on my arm any more. I pulled my dick out of the swooning Ronnie and I rested beside her. Gulping air, I rolled onto my back, and with my right arm I cradled the gasping Ronnie to me, and with my other I pulled Martha onto me. I knew I was getting Martha wet with my sweat. I didn't care. I held Ronnie to me with one arm, Martha with the other, and Martha cuddled her hot softness all around me, and she looked into my eyes and she put her mouth on mine. Her mouth sucked mine into her, sucked my tongue into her. She kissed me, and kissed, and kissed. She raised her face to breathe and she held my face tightly in both hands, and then she kissed me again. When Ronnie could move, which was several minutes later, she gave me a loving kiss and then staggered noisily into the bathroom. Martha stayed with me, her face on my chest. PART 19F: I blinked. The room was black. The candle was out. Vaguely, I heard distant sparrows. Vaguely, I felt a warm, small, still hand resting on my cheek, barely touching my skin. I saw lips near my face, and a face so close to mine that my sleepy eyes couldn't focus on it. Before I saw any features or sensed any other signals, I knew the face and hand were Martha's. I was on my back but leaning slightly to my right, my right arm slung across the bed toward the night table at the right of the bed. I glanced to my left; Ronnie slept on her side, curled up like a little girl toward me. The only thing I could see clearly in the black room was the luminous dial on the clock. It was five minutes after five. Silently, Martha lay on her side close to me, one soft, relaxed nipple on my right shoulder. I closed my eyes again, drifting in and out of sleep as my drowsy brain tried to put the room back together. Her left arm cradled my head into her shoulder. Her length lay snuggled along my right side, her tuft warm and crinkly against my right hip, her right leg draped around my right thigh. I settled fully onto my back and her face turned and looked into mine. She said nothing. Her only movement was the slow grazing of a finger across my forehead. She repeated the motion over and over. I felt her eyes gazing at my face, then felt her head move as she looked toward the window when a small gust ruffled the curtains, and then she looked into my face again. I opened my eyes briefly and found her gazing at me: a warm, calm, caring, sisterly gaze. I closed my eyes again and wondered if this part of the long night were a dream. The lust that earlier drenched the room had evaporated. The room was still, silent, peaceful. I floated, feeling only Martha's heat against me and her leg over mine and her finger on my forehead. Time passed. Her right hand that had stroked my forehead now cradled my cheek, her thumb softly rubbing my left eyebrow. My eyes closed. I felt the warmth of her face close to mine and felt her eyes watching me. Her thumb made love to my eyebrow, carefully, soothingly. Then her thumb stilled and her hand pressed my cheek almost imperceptibly, and her very warm, moist, soft lips fit themselves perfectly to mine -- a strangely unsexual, unwanting kiss, a simple touching. She did this several times, lifting her head and then matching her lips to mine. And then her lips stayed, pressing lightly. A genuine, easy, affectionate kiss. She lifted her face again and touched her lips to my cheek, nose, eyelids, and then down my other cheek and across my jawline and then around my neck. No demands. No urgency. Only a touch of her lips. And this, too, she repeated, all around my face, and then again. There was a pause and I felt her gazing and heard her breathing calmly and she seemed to be not just looking, but studying, waiting. And then her lips on mine again, but this time more wetly, more warmly, and it was more a kiss than a touch, her own lips parted and wetter now, and she pressed her lips to mine but, at the same time, she didn't press; she grazed her inner lips across my lips. And for a long time that way she made gentle love to my mouth with hers. And then her mouth met mine and the nipping and light, puffy kisses began, trailing down my neck and onto my right shoulder, then across my throat and onto my left shoulder, her lips opening and her tongue touching my flesh but not moving, remaining there, tasting, giving, and I let my head fall to the right and blinked. The clock said five twenty-nine. She withdrew her tongue, lifting her head, and with her fingers she stroked the spot on my shoulder that her tongue had warmed, and then her tongue returned, and the small, soft kisses returned, across my nipples, pinching ever so benignly. Then her shoulders moved and her right hand stroked my left waist and her lips moved downward, her head dipping gently and sweetly, and she kissed so lightly and so quietly that I heard nothing but her breathing. She made wide circles of kisses on me, circles that became slowly smaller, a mouth that became slowly wetter, and the circle started above my navel and swung around my left hip and across the top of my right thigh and then across the left thigh and then around my left hip and back to the spot above my navel. And the kisses never changed but the circles became smaller and smaller. After a long time the circle was only a few inches around my softened cock. I blinked again and the clock said five-fifty-one. Inexplicably, her mouth seemed listless, angelic, motherly, innocent. She merely touched, and loved. And then the circle was smaller and the slow, infrequent kisses moved into my pubic curls and then to my cock, and a few seconds passed between each kiss as she touched them to my sleeping shaft, from the bottom and slowly to the top, then down. And then she stopped, and nestled closer, bringing her head over my loins, and I looked down and saw her gazing at my cock, the fingers of her left hand encircling and then holding it with only an inch of the awakening tip above her thumb, and she seemed to study this sight with a gentle, girlish pout. And then she lowered her head and licked my tip. She gazed at my cock again, the same way as before, and still holding me she made a little 'o' with her lips and circled my tip with her inner lips and gently tongued the slit, and she did this for several seconds. Then she removed her hand and her lips and started all over again, above my navel, in a wide circle. And she closed the circle slowly, and kissed up and down my gradually responding shaft, which ached from its earlier striving. And then the lick, and then her wet lips gently mothering my tip. All the while, there was no demand, no hurry, no hunger. Only a learning, a knowing, a loving. I looked at the clock. Six twelve. I thought: only Martha could do this. Only Martha would think of this. Only Martha could love in a way that was flaming lust and, later, angelic nurturing. Now her lips at my tip opened. Slowly, not inch by inch but millimeter by millimeter, her lips sunk down and her mouth enclosed me. The only sound in the room was her breathing through her nose. After, it seems, two minutes, she engulfed my half-hardness com- pletely. And then it was another two minutes, it seemed, while her mouth and tongue rose back to the top, and then her inner lips and her tongue swabbed me gently, and her mouth let me go. And she continued to hold me and she gazed at me while she swallowed and she settled closer. And then she did the same thing all over again. And after she had gone through the same, unhurried enclosing for the fourth time, I was rigid and hard and good as new, saying hello to the roof of her mouth with a feeble pulse now and then, especially on the downstroke. The rest of me was torpid and slow, but my cock reached skyward. Now I was slick with her, and after she removed her mouth her cupping hand enclosed me and stroked me easily, loosely, slowly, and she watched, calm, unhurried, serenely pleased as my young, stiff cock stretched and pulsed in her hand. And then the soft, subtle sucking began. One suck, two, three, and then her lips would gently enclose and wetly swathe the sensitized tip, circling slowly. And never a hurry, never seeking more, never a thought of the next moment, but always a slow, moist lingering in the present. Then I surmised what she was doing. As I had done in the streets and earlier with her body, she was memorizing. She seemed to nurse, protect, savor, and record each moment, each sensation, each response. Her eyes never left my cock. And as she saw my hardened shaft pulse, the glimmerings of a satisfied smile crossed her face. She lifted her body and put her hands astride my head and her knees astride my chest, and she raised onto her arms and looked down between us and centered her middle over mine and, carefully, she lowered herself and pressed my cock against my stomach and settled on me with the top half of my cock nestled in her tuft and the lower half cradled in her humid slit. Then she settled onto her elbows and arranged her nipples on mine, and she hugged her body against me, and hugged her elbows into me, and hugged her knees into me, and held my face. Her lips hovered over mine briefly. Her eyes fluttered and closed and she whispered with a soft, almost religious hush, "Baby. My baby." And then she kissed my mouth. Fully, her lips pressing and gliding, her tongue slithering. Without hunger, without yearning. But with patient relish. Her lips left mine. Rising again, she looked down the length of us and I looked down and watched and she watched as she carefully raised her belly and allowed my cock to stand. She lifted a little higher, and her slick outer lips found my tip, and circled it, and she let her sticky outer ring caress and then enfold my tip, as the lips of her mouth had done, she raised and lowered her pussy, minutely, barely visibly, and her outer lips kissed and bathed my tip. My cock throbbed and yawed and greeted her, and nestled to her. I heard her steady, absorbed breathing, and my own broken sighs. I rested my hands on her circling hips and let my head fall back, and enjoyed not the lust but the love, the pleasure of being learned, intimately mothered, friended and pleased. Each movement, each pleasure, each moment was its own. There seemed to be no impatience for whatever was next. Her cunt caressed my tip for a while, and she lifted, her breath mildly irregular as her slit relinquished me, and I felt a thin, warm drop from inside her, whose source could only have been her mouth and her own fluids, that trickled onto my tip and teared down- ward and then tumbled onto my tummy. And then with a quiver in her breath she contacted my tip again, this time letting the outer lips along her slit ride the length of my dick, and I felt the tip of her firming clit slide along my shaft. She nudged my tip and, still looking down, massaged my slit with her clit, around, up and down, and her breath quickened. She wetted and pleasured her clit on me for a moment, and then she raised again, and her slit clung to my tip and my cock was lifted straight up. And with a long sigh through her nose and a serious, intent pout, she lowered and then engulfed me fully, and ground her belly benignly on me. Relaxing onto her elbows, she brought her face close to mine again, and tenderly held my face between her palms, and kissed me. Then, her breathing broken only by small, occasional gasps of pleasure, she started fucking languidly. Or, I should say, made love to me and paused just long enough to memorize every move, every response, every sensation. Her eyes closed, her mouth calmly set, she rose and fell on me with apparent relish and care and concentration. When my breath quickened and my cock lurched in her, she stopped, paused, and raised her tummy and looked down again. And started over, from the first loving swab with her outer lips, and then to the nudging and sliding of her clit, and then to enfoldment, and then fucking. And again she did that, and again. And on the fifth effort, I felt her back tense and curl, and she didn't pause in sliding her clit along my shaft. She gasped, and her face near mine breathed with a short, broken, quickening rhythm, and she closed her eyes and her lips tightened and she frowned as if deep in concentration, and her clit on me was as firm and taut as a sparrow's beak, and her juice flowed on me and she came, quietly, her breath held, and her hands tightened on my face, and her arms shook, and then she pressed her clit against my cock and paused, and quivered, and jerked with a small, low-pitched, clipped "Hm!" from deep in her throat, and then another pause and a long quiver and a jerk and then a lower-pitched "Hm!", and then again, and still another, and then she slumped with a long, wobbly exhalation. And then she raised on her hands again and swallowed hard and whimpered, and she rested for a brief interlude while her breathing slowed to soft, fluttering sighs. Beside us, Ronnie stirred, giving a low sigh and uncurling her fingers. Her hand near me moved, touching my arm. Her fingers uncurled and draped sleepily over my skin. Then she was still again. Then Martha looked down between us, aimed, enfolded me, relaxed on her elbows at my sides, and held my face tenderly. And began again. It was nearly seven before I found the strength to climax. Finally, the blissful agony began. I felt the first twitch in my tired balls. Martha looked down, and slowed, but kept going. Her inner cunt milked me on each languid upstroke. And I thought: How does she know? How does she know? I spouted. Near my ear I heard her exhale slowly. Then thin, watery squirts were all I could manage. But they were warm, eager, leaping high into her like salmon, and I heard her breathing brokenly, pleasurably, and it sounded like quiet, happy crying. I kept cumming after my weak, empty tubes had given their last, and I heaved and panted and my shaft continued to pulse. I think I made a loud noise but I couldn't hear myself. The long orgasm was poignant and tight and came from deep within me. She milked me snugly, her cunt hot and slick, and she let me wander in my completion for as long as I could. Then she melted into me everywhere. She closed her elbows and her knees and her arms on me and her torso pressed into me and she became a mothering cocoon around me, and she kissed me passionately. She stroked my hair and kissed my face. She whispered, "Baby. Baby." After lunch and packing, we dressed and Martha put on a little makeup and made herself presentable for the airport. She combed her hair, the sides short and the blondish auburn curls fluffed on top, and she wore her loafers and a black pleated skirt and a light, form- fitting, white, short-sleeve, cotton knit shirt. She looked clean and bright and chic. She said, "We have time for one last lesson." On the sofa, I rose from tying my shoes, and I sighed. She gave me a sweet smile. "Just a short one. The last. But I really want to talk to you. As grownups, Steven." She looked out the living room window. "Let's go out on the promenade. We can have a little walk." We took a slow stroll along the East River near Gracie Mansion. I leaned on a railing and looked toward the city and down the line of the promenade into Manhattan. I asked, "Will I see this again?" "Oh, of course you will," she said. She stood behind me, her short hair rustling in the breeze. From behind me, she put her arms around me and folded them around my chest. She looked around and she said, "Let's sit over here on the steps, by the Gracie garden. You're older now. I want to talk to you that way." She sat on the low steps on the edge of the garden that overlooked the river. I sat on the edge of a limestone block that framed the steps, my legs hanging down near her side, and looked down at her. She set her small purse on the step beside her and she took out a cigarette. She lit up and leaned with her elbows on her knees, the cigarette held in the air. She said, "It's so nice out. A cool breeze for a change." "Yes." She looked at her cigarette for a moment, and then glanced down the promenade. There were two people walking several blocks away. I looked at her from the side; she had a well-sculpted profile, her nose small and gently sloped and then rounded, and relatively large eyes and long lashes, and a straight, graceful neck. She would have looked even younger than her twenty-four years, but her soft mouth had a slight droop downward at the edges, making her look older and more sophisticated and thoughtful. She said quietly, "I have to tell you something." I said calmly, "I'm listening." She looked out at the river. "Hon...When you came here, you had a nice body. A good, maturing, teenaged boy's body. But you had no confidence at all in what you had. You didn't know how to develop, or how to care for it. You were so self-conscious, you couldn't speak. You couldn't look anyone in the eye. You took every hurt and every fear, every setback so seriously that it made you look helpless." She took a drag and blew out. "Now you're hard as a rock. You have a body as fit and firm as a grown man's. Not a bloated body, not size. But a good, strong body and a glow about you. People will notice that. People will respond to it. Don't lose what you've built up. I know that you want want...you want more than what others want. More out of life, more from yourself. So you'll have to *be* more, you'll have to do more to get it." I said, "I understand." "I'm afraid that in many ways, hon, I'm not a good example. I haven't been to Fiore's all summer. I've gained a few pounds, I guess." I said, "I don't see any pounds." She smiled. She went on, "But I know that you somehow see me as perfect. But you...you must never see any woman as perfect, hon. Nor any man, nor anyone else." She took a breath. She looked down the river. She said, "This might hurt, Steven." She looked out at the river again, and she took a breath and swallowed. "Last year, before last summer, I was drinking too much at parties. It got me into trouble. I was so lonely. I was desperate. I...I, uh...Steven...I gave myself...to a man because he could give me a life. He said he could. He would. He had money. He was attractive, he was powerful, he was nice to me. And if my sister Evelyn could build an easy life for herself that way, then surely I could. And there...there were... others. A few. A couple of them. Hon, I'm not talking about sin. I'm not talking about...taking, not sharing. Not loving. God knows they knew so much about wealth but so little about pleasure. And nothing about love. Nothing." She sighed, looking down the promenade away from me. "I was...I mean...I mean, I gave up. I hit bottom. I didn't just lie, I opened my legs to lies. I am pretty, I am desir- able, but I gave it to that phony crowd. I gave something that a truly loving person would have thought of as not only desirable, but precious. For security. I wanted acceptance, I wanted a place. I wanted warmth and clean sheets. Children. A father. But I was so, so, so angry. I was enraged. Why should I have to act like Martha, live up to everyone's fantasies as Martha, but keep on living in a dump and being ignored like Martha Jane? So I gave up. It was just for a short time, but I gave up and I said what's the use? I was just so --" She choked up, and she looked away. "I was so lonely. So desperate. So miserable. And I lived in that...dump. Just another dumpy attic, another place no one wants. Every night for a couple of months, there, I would...cry all night, drink myself to sleep. Then Ronnie roomed with me. And I saw how she was living. I saw myself. And I straightened up." She took another drag, and she blew downward and looked at her cigarette. I simply watched her. I was a little numb, but I forgot about that and listened to the pain underlying her monotone. "Hon, don't put any pictures in your head of wild sex and warm, romantic scenes from the movies. There was no romance. It was cold and calculating, on both sides. It was phony. And no pleasure to it. It was economics. What frightened and enraged me so much, so much, was that they had taken me down so far. They made such a liar of me." She swallowed hard. Her voice dropped an octave. "They made me like they were. They finally brought me down to their level. They took my power, my ideals, my identity. They brought me down to nothing." She She looked out at the river. "Two months ago I couldn't have said this. You might hate me for telling you, but I have to tell you. But you're a big boy now. You're a man now, really. You'll have to be, from now on. You have to know. You have to know that I'm not per- fect. Pretty isn't perfect, hon. Not even close." She looked up at me, her eyes pleading. "Don't let them do that you, Steven. Don't ever let them make you into them. It's not worth it, thinking they love you, and hating yourself." I looked at her, at the beseeching, pained eyes. She was right; two months ago her story would have floored me. Now all I could feel was her own hurt. She smiled, her eyes warming. "Look at you. Do you know what I see in your eyes? I see love. Acceptance. Weeks ago I would have seen pain. Even anger. But now look at you. You've done so much hard work." Her eyes watered a little. She blushed, looking down again. "You're learning something I haven't learned that well yet. You're learning not to cry." I made a motion to get my hankie out of my hip pocket. She shook her head no. "No, hon." She wiped a finger across one eye. "No. I have to learn, too." She took a deep breath and looked outward again. "I guess I'm hitting you with the hardest stuff last. I could not pretend with you. I know you're young. I know you need, and need, and need. But I can't lie to you. I could never lie to you, hon, you're my..." She smiled to herself, broadly. "I started to say you're my boy, my little boy, but...you're way to big for me to keep thinking that way about you. I can't keep thinking that way about you forever. You're growing up too fast and too hard for that. You're my father, I think. I saw you making his mistakes, good man that he was, but he did make mistakes. I used to think, I'll never be like that, I'll never make those mistakes. No. Not me. Not me. I'll just invent new ones. Terrible new ones. I can be your teacher, your friend, your lover. But not your mother, Steven. I don't ever want to do to you what you're your mother did. Please don't think of me as your mother." I said gently, "Only sometimes. Just now and then. When you're angry with me." She took a last drag of her cigarette and she said quietly as she placed the butt under her shoe and stepped on it, "I know you do. I know." She took another long breath and she got to her feet, standing on the step at my level, and she did something she often did, a personal gesture of hers. She folded her arms across her bosom and she shrugged her shoulders loosely, and looked away, and she took a small breath before she spoke again. "You will love women who say no to you. I know you'll do it, be- cause anyone who grows up as you did will do it. Your mother said no, your relatives said no, and you'll repeat that scene many times, trying to win the love of someone who won't, or can't, love you. There will be Anita's. I don't know how I can stop you. You probably don't even believe me right now. But, Steven, learn to say no to a no. You have too much love in you, and too much talent in loving, to love on such unequal terms. Yet you will do it. I know you will. But don't." I said squarely, "All right. No more Anita's." She looked at me, smiling, her eyes narrowed against the sun. She brushed hair from her brow and folded her arms across her bosom again. She said, her eyes on mine, "You've given me everything. You've done all that I asked. You've done more." She looked out at the river again. "I wish there could be more for you than this, more than just me. I wish I could give you real freedom, hon. But there's no such thing. For everything, there's a price. Somewhere we'll pay the price for breaking so many rules. Do you realize how far we've gone as Martha Jane and Speedy? Who'd ever think of such a pair? I suppose it's happened often, more than we might imagine. Or maybe never. Maybe this is the very first time. The only time, as far as we know. And we've...certainly had our moments. Mmm, what moments! Not just in bed. But just...moments." She blinked and straightened up. "We'll have to move on, some day. Move ahead. We'll have to leave what we lost in the war, leave the Lauderdale Courts, leave the child- hood we never had. We can't go back to Martha Jane and Speedy. We have them inside us, they'll be there forever. But we're not them anymore. Not just because nothing lasts forever, but because...some things are just once in a lifetime. But, then...that's what makes it so wonderful." I said softly, looking at her. "Yes. It's always wonderful." She glanced at me again and blushed. "Listen to me talk about that. Us. Do you know that we spent most of our time crying, fretting, arguing? Do you realize that? Yet we don't remember that, do we? It's the others that we remember. We remember the part that's worth remembering, I guess." She sighed heavily, and she looked off with a darkness in her eyes. "I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's next." She swallowed, firming her lips. "Do you understand?" I shuffled on my feet, I folded my arms in front of me. I looked at her evenly. I said, "Whatever happens." She firmed her lips and smiled. She reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze, looking down at it. "Yes." She held my hand and she looked away and she sighed again. "I miss you already. I'll miss seeing you grow, day by day, down in Memphis. I'll miss seeing you learn and discover." "Oh, I'll be back." Yes. But, hon, be careful about that. You've built your whole life around me. You mustn't. Your life doesn't belong to me, it belongs to you. I couldn't live your life for you, any more than you could live mine." She gripped my hand hard, and she let it go and folded her arms before her again. "We can't be like Ronnie, poor Ronnie, always wondering what someone else's life is like, not knowing that she has a wonderful life of her own, gifts that are hers alone. Oh, but she's so sweet, Ronnie is." "She is." "Yes. And here you were, thinking only Martha Jane would pay attention to you. Well. Ronnie certainly proved how wrong you were." She looked down at her shoes. "Hon, don't drive yourself crazy just trying to get back up here for a weekend, a day. It isn't worth it. You'd be going back and forth forever, and end up cheating yourself out of a whole life. You'd end up with nothing but the G.I. bill for college, and that would get you stuck in Memphis State. I told you, nothing's free. You have a job to do down there. I didn't have you doing all that hard work for me. It was for you. Coming up here all the time and staying broke for me, would be cheating you. I don't want you to be fifteen forever, sixteen forever." She glanced around, far to her left toward her street. She said with a sigh, "Well, I guess we have to get back. And Ronnie'll be waiting." I said glumly, "Yeah. Guess so." I slid off the limestone slab onto my feet. She took my hand as we walked toward her street. She said, "Hon, you may be only five-foot-eight and wear glasses, and you have an innocent look about you, a sweetness. But you have a great power inside. You have an intensity that is...consuming, and almost frightening. I know you do, because I've seen it, I've felt it. And I know you do, Steven, because I have it in me, too. While you were here, I knew what I probably always knew...That intensity has bound us for a long time. I discovered that if I couldn't express it with you, I felt smothered. When we're smothered, that intensity controls us. It makes us do things we should never, never do. Being mean to each other in so many hidden ways. And being too nice for too long until one of us explodes. Taking, without knowing we're taking. Or...making promises we have no way of keeping. Steven, don't let them smother you back home. When you're smothered, your strength becomes rage. It can be so very cruel. But you're too outwardly kind, and you don't turn that rage onto others; you turn it against yourself. Don't smother yourself, hon. Understand yourself. Use it, the way you told me you want to. Don't go back to the way you were, or you're going to hate yourself. Your needs will turn against you. Or even against me. If nothing else, when I see you again I want you using that power you have to create, to learn, and to be you." I looked at her, and she walked holding my hand, smiling, looking down. I stopped. I leaned toward her, and she offered her lips, and I gave her a little kiss. We hugged. I started to say I wouldn't go, I'd find a way to stay. The words stuck in my throat. I told myself, None of that. None of that crap. I let go of her and gave her cheek another kiss. She returned it with a hug, a tight hug, then tighter. She let me go, looking down and squeezing my hand. Then we started walking again. For a moment she didn't speak. Then she said, "I have something for you. In my purse. I'm not -- I'm not a good writer. I write very standard, very regulation material. Not the kinds of nice things you wrote to me. But I did find something that someone else wrote. And I don't have the dramatic talent that you have." She looked into her purse and she drew out a small, white, personal stationery envel- ope and handed it to me. "Lord Byron." I took it from her, and she said, "Put it in your coat. Save it for the airplane. Wait until then. We've talked too much already for one day. But it's something I want you to keep." "All right." I put the envelope in my inside coat pocket, and we walked on. She said, "It says, I think, something reassuring for you. At least I hope it does. Anyway, it does say something in a much better way than I could. And it is something about me, and how I feel about you. Something that I want you to know. And remember." She sighed. "And right now, hon, it's the best I can do. For right now." We had the luggage and a small carry-on in the middle of the living room floor. Ronnie knocked on the door. Martha opened it, and Ronnie entered looking all prettied-up in a light blue, checkered silk blouse and navy skirt, and a big grin on her face. She said, "We ready, folks?" Martha said, "One more thing." She walked to me and put her arms around me, and she hugged, and we held each other gently for a moment. Behind Martha near the door, Ronnie looked down with a smile and waited. Then Martha stepped back and squeezed my hand, biting her lip. Ronnie rushed over to me. "Hey, that's not how you do it." She put her arms around me. "*Here's* how it's done!" She gave me a smothering hug and grunted a loud, "Unnnh! Uh!" And she gave me a loud smack on the lips. She grinned at me. "Let's go show Memphis a thing or two!" Martha and Ronnie and I in a taxi. Ronnie smiling and only half awake, even at one in the afternoon. Martha subdued. I pretended I didn't give a damn. But we all smiled and made small jokes. We all smoked. Martha and I and Ronnie in LaGuardia. Martha and Ronnie talked. I paced, looking out the viewing windows, and smoked. Time moved more quickly. Two months seemed like a few hours. The past week seemed like only a few seconds, a few, paltry seconds. Time rushed. It rushed into my face. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't slow it down. The more I thought about it, the faster the clock changed. "Announcing American Airlines flight 54 to Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Georgia. Nashville. Memphis. Dallas." "That's it," I said into the viewing window. I strode to the seats where Martha and Ronnie stood to hand me my carry-on bag and my copy of the Sunday Times. Ronnie said, "Watch those stewardesses. I hear they're very promiscuous." I shook my head, pleasantly. "Ronnie, you wore me out." She took a drag off her cigarette and grinned and exhaled. "Eh. You can make more, right? Takes you Southern guys a little longer, thank god." I slung my bag around my shoulder and walked to Ronnie and reached for a handshake. Ronnie took my hand, eyeing me accusingly, and then pulled me to her and held me tight. Into my neck she said, "Thank you, Steven. Thank you so much." She leaned back and beamed at me. "You comin' back soon? Right?" I said, "Nah, you'll be married." "Yeah. Right. Gimme a kiss. C'mon." I did, and she smiled and pinched my cheek and wiggled it. "Hmm, MMM!" I turned around and looked at Martha. My tongue froze in my head. She smiled calmly. Her hazel eyes watered. Martha threw Ronnie a glance, and Ronnie walked away, waving a small bye-bye and smooching at me. "Steven," Martha said. She firmed her lips and swallowed. "Damn, what happened to those two months we had a few days ago?" "Yeah, I know." I glanced behind me and saw the passengers filing slowly through the exit door. I said to Martha, "I have another minute, anyway." "Hon," she began. She sighed and bit her lip and held her hands behind her skirt. "Oh, there's never enough time." "I don't know," I said. "We seem to be pretty good at catch-up, don't we?" "Steven, I...Steven, I don't know what to say, except...I know you expected more..." I said gently, "I'm not expecting more." She looked down at the floor. "Steven, I'm letting you down. You're not saying it, but I know I am. But I can't say okay if I don't mean -- " "Hey, I thought the lectures were over for the semester." She blushed. "Damn, you sure know how to be nice about it, don't you? Thank you. I'm so afraid sometimes, that you're just saying it." She kept smiling, she had to wipe a corner of one eye. "Will you forgive me, Steven?" I frowned, in my best Cary Grant manner. "For what?" She said softly, "For not giving you everything." I sighed and glanced to see how short the line was. I said, "Well, let's see...You didn't lie, you didn't cheat. You helped me get rid of my pimples and you got me a great haircut. You fixed me up with a great date and you shared Ronnie with me. You took my ignor- ance and you gave me knowledge. You, uh... You were my friend, my teacher, my sister, even my dad and my brother. You were my mother, my confessor, my girlfriend, my lover, and my sweetheart. Let's see, you, uh...You gave me affection, passion, lust, and...you gave me love." I sighed and looked up at the ceiling, and then hung my head in mock sadness. "But I guess I still can't forgive you, Martha, for spending so much money on that typewriter you gave me for my last birthday." She moaned, "Stop it, Steven," and she held herself close to me and then she gripped me tightly and cried a little. She said, "Don't you dare make me cry in here, I'll slap your face." She put her arms around me as tightly as she could and we hugged and swayed for a minute. She whispered, "Goodbye, Speedy. Goodbye, now. Go on." She held herself from me. Her eyes were red, but she grinned. "Go on, get on your plane, before my landlord finds out about you and raises my rent." I stared at her. "You called me Speedy?" She blushed again, and pushed herself a little farther back. "Do you know, when you were with me early this morning, you called me Martha Jane?" She saw the surprise on my face, and she released her tension with a quick little laugh. "You did. Go on, Steven. Go on, you'll miss your plane!" I looked at her. She backed away. Just behind her, Ronnie waved and smiled. My eyes were on Martha. My eyes wouldn't leave her. "Steven," she insisted, crying. "Steven, go on!" She stopped backing away when I threw her a kiss. She waved at me, her other hand rubbing her forehead and wiping an eye, and I turned and started for the exit. The other passengers had gone ahead. At the door I stopped and looked at her again. She smiled, sadly, and she lifted a palm and waved weakly. "Go on!" Inside the door I showed a stewardess my tickets and receipts. She smiled and said thank you. I went down a short stairway and out another door. Into the sun. Onto the walkway. I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked. Ahead, more blazing sun and blinding concrete and another stewardess and the metal boarding ramp and the DC-4. Ahead, Memphis. Halfway to the plane I slowed. Why had she called me Speedy? Why would I have to forgive her? An unseen, ominous weight dragged me to a stop halfway down the walkway. I waited. Three of me waited: one of me behind, one of me ahead, one me watching the other two. Why did I have to go? Why couldn't I stay where I was? I turned around to scan the huge terminal and the dark, looming windows. I saw only the reflection of the airplanes and the airfield. Where was she? Why did I have to leave? The stewardess ahead called, "We're boarding, sir." I looked ahead, lost in the middle of the walkway. With a friend- ly smile we're taking you back. Back where you came from. Back where you started. Back to the home that isn't a home. Back to the stifling heat and the bleeding saints, the plastic christs, and the old women and old men lashing me down for a ride to a heaven that didn't exist. "Boarding, please," she insisted nicely. Not being myself, I took a step forward. One step farther away. A second step, a second step farther away. Then more steps, and far- ther away. One universe expanding, one universe contracting. Myself, growing and shrinking. One person moving forward, one moving back. Onto the ramp, my face a pale mask of the striving within. Up the ramp. Into the door. Down the aisle. Into my seat. I sat. I slumped, numb. I gazed out the window, my eyes unfocused. Soon the ground crept by, and then the ground soared by, and then New York disappeared below the window. I took the envelope from my jacket pocket and pulled out a small white slip of paper. Martha's handwriting. The quotation on the note was: In her first passion, a woman loves her lover. In all the others, all she loves is love. - Lord Byron One of me stayed on the ground, without provisions or hope or sight or legs, and refused to leave. Continued. . . <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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