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From: "S Jacobin" <jacobin_11111794@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Two for Texas (mf, mf, rom) repost
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 19:10:05 -0500
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   Two for Texas
   Jacobin
   jacobin_11111794@hotmail.com

   Standard disclaimers regarding sexually explicit material apply.
The good reader is reminded in particular that works of fiction often
neglect real-world risks and consequences which should be taken into
consideration in any re-creation or work-inspired acts.

   This was originally posted 6/2000. Since then I've corrected some
minor typos and random like errors. For more of my stuff, check out my
ASSTR site at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/jacobin/www/ and as usual, feedback is
appreciated at jacobin_11111794@hotmail.com

   This work is copyright (c) 2000-2002 by the author. You may download
and keep copies for your personal use as long as the author's byline,
disclaimer, e-mail address, and these four paragraphs remain on the
copies. Posting to newsgroups or on websites (with the specific
exception of www.asstr-mirror.org) is not permitted unless you have my
express written or email consent, and then only as long as no money
is charged for access and the author's byline, disclaimer, e-mail
address, and these four paragraphs remain on the story. Please
respect my work as much as I've tried to respect the reader.

   --

   I stepped off my flight to Dallas groggy and disoriented, but my
step-brother Nick was waiting for me at the gate, smiling his 'I stole
your Legos' grin, stroking the ugly soul patch under his lip, and I
snapped to. He was two years my junior at 22, and we didn't look like
each other at all -- I was the spitting image of my grand-father by
way of my dad, lean and strong-jawed, Nick of his mother, bigger,
oval-headed. He was taller than me by an inch at six-three, but was
bulkier and probably contained 25% more volume. We'd shared
personality and environment but not genes, which was enough for us.
   "Welcome back, Jeff" he said, shaking my hand. We hugged.
   "Good to be back," I said. "I think the air filter on my plane was
busted. I have this weird taste in my mouth, and I'm kind of woozy."
   Nick laughed.
   "What?" I asked, not in the mood.
   "You're going to be real happy when you get outside." We walked on
outside and I realized what he meant -- though it was just as flat as
I'd remembered, there was a weird gray haze between me and the
distance.
   "Holy crap."
   "I'm surprised you didn't know. Here and Houston, running up on
LA."
   "You're kidding. I remember when you could give people directions
by pointing to the buildings on the horizon... Things have changed."
   "Some things," Nick said. "You know who I keep running into? Amy."
I blinked as he stared at me for a reaction. "Heh, that's what I
thought. Keeps asking about you. When you're coming back. Why you
haven't come back yet." He paused for effect. "Do you mention her."
   Amy was my first, and only, serious girlfriend through high school,
a beautiful Italian-looking temper-prone drama student. We'd had a
long on-and-off relationship that had alternately felt like walking
barefoot through grass on the first hot day of summer and having a
broadsword stuck through my chest. We'd broken up finally over coffee
the week before I left for UCLA.
   "I got her number for you," Nick said. He leered at me. "Yeah, you
want it, don't you?"
   "Yeah, I do."
   "That girl's trouble, Jeff. Don't do it. I never liked her." He
searched his pocket for car keys. "You got any other plans while
you're in town?"
   "I'm going to hang out with Laura," I said. I threw my duffel bag
in the bed of Nick's skeleton-and-seats massive old Dodge Ram, and got
in the open door.
   "Laura? You're still talking to her?"
   "Yeah," I said.
   "Laura, the girl we toilet-papered six consecutive nights?"
   "Yeah," I said. "She's got an convention out here."
   Nick laughed. "Laura, huh? Forget what I said about Amy. Laura--
that's trouble."
   Laura was trouble. Laura had been my most bitter and capable rival
at once through our high school days, constantly tearing into each
other in classes over the smallest difference of opinion, my anarchist
streak against her liberalism, debate class, semester after semester,
our feud carrying over into a nasty two-year newspaper (me) versus
student government (her) feud that resulted in the paper's funding
being cut and an intricate set of libel lawsuits I barely managed to
weasel out of.
   But we had made each other better, faster, more sure of our
arguments, and when necessity had put us on the same team for the
state debate tournament, we had left a trail of broken, weeping
opponents wondering what had hit them, and walked away with the first-
place plaque. Which she kept, as I was not to be trusted.
   My entry in Laura's yearbook had read: "I may not like you, but I
have to respect you."
   Laura's entry in my yearbook had read: "You're starting to grow on
me, you bastard."
   We'd actually become better friends while at different colleges,
emailing, calling occasionally, as the pot-heads and drinkers and
morons I'd hung with for ease of geography dropped away.
   "You thinking about seeing Amy, huh?" Nick said, leaning over to
elbow me in the ribs. "I remember you two. How could I not? You made
enough fucking noise!" He leered at me again. "Fucking noise, get it?"
   "Christ, you're worse than ever. We always kept our clothes on. It
was all grinding and chafing."
   "Lie to me, your own brother, that's fine. Mom always liked me
better anyway."

   Amy was a mother, I knew. After leaving me and heading to Texas A&M
(well known for their internationally acclaimed drama program) with
her friends, she met up with some guy, started shacking up with him
all the time -- you can imagine what this news did for me -- had a kid
-- ditto -- and dropped out.

   She didn't look like she'd gone through all that. She still had her
long shiny light brown curls, bright green eyes, that sharp nose, the
round cheeks that came up into balls as she smiled at my entrance. She
was dressed modestly, but just from her neck I could see at some point
she'd become a little more sinewy, her skin not quite as clear. Nights
with the kid, I thought, motherhood. Huh. But she was still obviously
the same girl. I got myself something to drink and joined her.
   "How've you been?" I asked, sitting down across from her at the
same table I'd finally ended our long, drawn out breakups. I felt
guilty sitting down. Woman and emotional connotations - I can't
compete. "How's motherhood treating you?"
   She smiled at me and sighed. "It's great," she said. "Well, it's
great and it's not so great. I love Doug, but since we had him,
Scott's gotten sort of distant, we're working different shifts... I
feel like I'm raising my kid with someone I don't know."
   "That's too bad," I said.
   "I think about you a lot," Amy said. "I wonder how you're doing."
   "Doing good," I said. "I wish I was home under better
circumstances, but it's fun to be back."
   "I'm sorry about your grandfather," she said, leaning forward to
put her hand on my left, flat there on the dark wood table. Her hand
was cool. She'd always had cool hands. "Nick told me."
   "He had a long, happy, productive life," I said. "We're all more
proud of him than we are sad." I took a sip of my espresso. As I
brought it to mouth, it smelled exactly as the last one I'd had here
had smelled, the heady smell of coffee beans, and it tasted exactly as
I remembered it had. I had avoided espresso for years for that very
reason.
   "I miss you, Jeff," she said. Her hand hadn't moved. She was
looking at me for some reaction she wasn't seeing.
   "I miss you, too."
   "I feel bad at all the mistakes we made," she said. "If we'd both
been a little smarter, a little older. I think about what we missed
out on."
   "Yeah."
   "You know Scott's the only person I've ever been with? What would
we have been like together?"
   I blinked at her. Where had this come from? "Probably amazing," I
said. "I would have died of pleasure." I shrugged. "Oh well."
   She sipped her drink and a chunk of knowledge fell on me from the
clear, open Texas sky. I blinked.
   "What?" she said, curious again.
   "Are you thinking of leaving Scott?"
   Her head moved back a fraction of an inch in shock before she
caught herself.
   "Sometimes," she said slowly.
   I nodded. I drank my espresso. My pulse was pounding in my forehead
so hard I could hear it. I couldn't stop staring at Amy's eyes,
looking to me for some answer, some rescue. I took care to compose my
sentence carefully.
   "Are you thinking," I said, "of testing the water before you jump
in the pool?"
   "Yes." She looked away. We waited a long time then.
   "As much as I have always thought the world of you, Amy, there are
two things that are going to stop me from continuing down this path.
First, I think the way things ended was the right way for that whole
mess to wrap up. Second, I won't have anything to do with breaking
marriage vows. I know maybe you're thinking of me because of that one
time when you were going out with Glenn, but no, no."
   She looked at me, around the shop, back at me, and waited.
   "I'm sorry," I managed.
   "Well, come by, see the place," she said.
   "Is Scott going to be there? What's the little guy's name? I could
take a family photo."
   "I'm sorry for what happened, Jeff, but that's no reason to take it
out on me."
   I shook my head. "I'm sorry."
   "I know you were hurt with the way we were, the whole break-up and
get-together thing. I'm sorry. I didn't know what I wanted. But you
can help me now, and you're holding out on me because you want to hurt
me."
   "You took some psych classes at A&M, didn't you?" I asked.
   "Yes," Amy said. "I feel trapped, Jeff. I feel like I took a wrong
turn because I was young and didn't understand the future, and now I'm
stuck in a neighborhood I don't want to be in, living with a stranger,
taking care of my kid. I want to be free. I want to know what the
right turn was."
   "I'm not sure--"
   "It was," Amy said quickly. "We hurt each other so badly, so many
times. It wasn't the right thing to do, but that's high school for
you."
   "It was years ago," I said. "I'm over it."
   "You're not," she said. "I saw the way you looked when you saw me
again. I know what your expression was when word came to you I was
pregnant, married. I know you, Jeff, because I knew you when you were
becoming you."
   "I don't want to talk about this," I said. "Maybe, if you weren't
married, I'd think about dating you again."
   "Why?"
   I thought about it. "Because the one time you were over after
school, doing work with me, and when it was time to leave you stood in
the doorway of my parents' house, and kissed me so well I caught on
fire and I stood there, my clothes burning, and you said you loved me
and I believed you."
   Amy's expression was soft and warm, the smile I'd seen then
starting to crack across her face.
   "I love you," Amy said, and I believed her. We looked at each other
for minutes. People walked by the table on their way in, left with
their coffee. Staff cleared the tables near us.  "I have always loved
you," she continued. "I'm sorry."
   "It doesn't matter," I managed at last. "I will not be party to
cheating. I won't."
   "When did you get so scrupulous? I remember you stealing fire
extinguishers."
   "I grew into being gallant," I said. "I know how bad I'd feel if
someone broke up a relationship of mine. I'm not going to be that
guy."
   "My marriage is dead," Amy said, her voice even and emotionless.
"I'll be divorced in six months. I've slept with my husband once in
two months. I work late night shifts which means I never see my kid
except when I come home in the morning. What difference would it make
if you hung out with me while you're in town? It makes me feel good to
see you. I feel hopeful. Come see my place, meet the kid."
   "All right."
   Amy lit up. "Thanks."

   Her house was white, in a development of houses colored off-white,
eggshell, rose white, and on down that paint aisle. It was just a
house.

   Amy caught me with my guard down as the front door closed, mashing
her lips against me.
   Amy was the first girl I ever kissed with intent, if you know what
I mean, and was the best kisser I ever knew. The first time she pecked
me on the lips in the car when I dropped her off I was paralyzed with
pleasure. I sat there in the crappy 1980 Monte Carlo, the family
write-off for teenage drivers Jeff and Nick, aware only that I had
just discovered something I had to have more of, as soon as I could
manage it.
   She paralyzed me there, standing stupidly in her house, looking at
the table by the door, the stack of bills and junk mail, and she kept
kissing me until I couldn't take it and kissed her back. It was even
better that way. She told me she loved me. I pulled off her tank top
and took her heavy, sensuous breasts in my hands, and Amy kissed me
again, rubbing my summoned erection through my jeans, fumbling with
the fly. Her nipples were beautiful, a deep red, aroused and puffed to
my thumbs. She pulled my jeans open with both hands, jerked my
underwear down, let them both drop, and started to stroke the family-
issue seven with one hand.
   I felt like I was watching myself there, living out this scenario
I'd seen grow from that first fiery deep kiss, Amy half-naked in front
of me, her beautiful breasts in my hands, overflowing my palms, mouth
to mine. She jerked me roughly with one hand, kissing hard, and then
she broke off and gave me this conspiratorial smile, the same one
she'd shared when we were setting up elaborate locker traps for her
enemies, sneaking out late at night to neck on her patio.
   She led me down the hall by my dick, which was the first time that
happened quite so obviously, to the bedroom, where she laid down.
   "Give me some rubbing," she said, and I did, trying to use hip
control to switch each of her nipples back and forth with my crimson
head. She laughed.
   "Ah," Amy said. "That's nice. Now between." She pushed her plump
breasts up and together with her hands and smiled. "Come on now."
   I straddled her ribs and started to work my dick in the pressed
canyon, tight and warm around my shaft, head just out, awkward and
difficult. I moved short and slow.
   "Come on now," Amy said.
   I went faster, longer, and she leaned forward to put tongue to head
on my reaches. It chafed, like our old, frantic rubbing through denim,
but it felt so good it was only a minute until I came, putting semen
onto the pillows, her hair, droplets across her forehead in the
instant before she leaned up and put her lips around my head, bobbing
gently as my dick twitched over and over, reaching back all the years
for old, frustrated sperm.
   Amy took her hands off her breasts and they slid sideways, pulling
my eyes apart. She wiped a drop of semen across her forehead and then
licked her hand slowly, smiling at me.
   "Oh, that's nice," she said. "I so wish I'd known about this when
we were together. Now give it to me."
   "No," I said. "I'm sorry, I want to, but I don't want you to have
another kid by me, especially--"
   "That's fine," Amy said. She stood up, drops of my come streaking
down her cheek, strands of her hair. She opened a table drawer and
found me a condom.
   "Here," she said. She stroked my limp, leaking penis with her left
hand as she used her teeth and right hand to pull open the condom
package.
   "Come on, Jeff, aren't you hard for me? Haven't you always wanted
me? Don't you think about me when you're alone, in bed, with a hard-on
that just won't go away?"
   No, yes, and yes, and as she went on, she got the first one, too.
Amy smiled on me like the sun, warming my skin, the light hair on my
chest, and pushed the condom on with a practiced, erotic roll of the
hand. She laid back, and I lined up. Amy reached down, grabbed my
wrapped erection, and guided it in.
   "Oh yes," Amy gasped. "That's just what I've been wanting." I moved
in all the way slowly, until the ring at the base of my penis was
grabbing my pubic hairs and Amy was making the same low moans I'd
known from when I'd touched her on blankets in fields, on the bed at
her parent's house, moving against me.
   "Harder, come on," she commanded, and I sped up. I didn't feel much
-- the condom was a Trojan Extra-Thick, I think -- but Amy didn't need
much of my help. She grabbed both posts of the headboard and rocked
against my strokes until she came, abruptly coming forward to wrap her
arms around my butt and keep me drawn in as she yelled "Oh! Jeff! Oh!
Yeah!" while bucking on me.
   Amy let go of me and collapsed back on the bed, head to one side,
eyes closed. My semen was smeared, white on her deep tan skin of her
cheek. It reminded me, weirdly, of Laura, who would walk up to the
locker rooms from our track practices in the summer heat beaded with
white salt crystals from the evaporated sweat.
   "Oh, that was good," Amy said. "Oh, I've missed you."
   I sat against the wood baseboard and looked at her, naked, her
sharp curves, the lift of her breasts, my still-stiff erection still
flagpoling in my lap.
   "Oh," Amy said, faintly. "Oh ho ho."

   She showered without me, dressed quickly, and we said our goodbye
before we stepped out, feeling sheepish.

   I felt weird Friday, and spent the day with my respective parents
and Nick, catching up, and when Amy called that evening, I told her
I'd promised Nick I'd go out drinking with him and get into trouble.
We made plans to see each other the next day.

   I sat at the hotel bar in the Sheraton Laura was staying at, and
Nick wasn't there. I was nervous, tapping my fingers on the counter.
So I lied.
   "You have Anchor Steam?" I asked the bartender, a 40-ish man who
wore a helpful expression only on his smile.
   "What's in it?" he replied.
   I shook my head. Was that a joke? "It's not a mixed drink, it's a
beer. Redhook?"
   "No," he said, his forced smile starting to slide. This wasn't a
joke.
   "What's on tap?"
   "We have Lone Star, Bud, Bud Light, and Coors Light."
   I sighed. He took an order from someone next to me. I looked back
at the entrance.
   I was stunned seeing Laura. She'd gotten a wickedly good haircut
pinned back, one perfect jaw-length of black hair the color of crow's
feathers arcing down off her temple to mid-jaw, her grey eyes light
and flashing all the way across a room of light cigarette smoke. She'd
changed since I'd last seen her, and I realized that the difference
between high school and college is the difference between cute and
beautiful. She wore a deadly patterned green summer dress that made me
want to kick something, and it clung to her sly curves like it was
every bit as attracted as I was.
   Laura was shorter than I was by a quarter of a foot at five-ten,
but when she got fired up and argued with me she would rise until we
were nose-to-nose, chewing each other out in clipped, raised words. I
always thought she was cheating, using her toes. Witnesses disagreed.
   Laura's smile was thin, lopsided against her arched black eyebrow.
She stepped purposefully through the Covey conventioneers and the
lonely white business travelers, and I got off the stool.
   "It's good to see you, too, Jeff," she said. She stepped into my
space and we hugged.
   "You look amazing," I replied, back at arm's length. "How've you
been?"
   "Fine."
   "Your man?"
   "Dumped," she said. "I didn't like him. He seemed relieved, as if I
was some great burden. You want to get a table?"
   We sat at one of the small, round, black tables.
   "You really do look amazing," I said. It was all I could think of,
all I had to say in that moment.
   She smiled, and laugh lines showed. She liked to laugh. "If you
hadn't proved you were interested in my mind the last couple of years,
I'd think you were shallow."
   "I haven't seen you," I said, honestly. "I had no idea."
   "Do they come to us or do we have to go to the bar?"
   "We have to go to the bar," I said. "Not much in the way of service
here. What do you want?"
   "Rum and Coke," she said. I nodded and muscled through to the bar.
I motioned for the bartender and ordered two. I took my drinks and
worked back to my table.
   "Anyway," Laura said, "you look a lot better yourself. There's meat
on you." She grinned and took a sip.
   "You mean there wasn't before?"



   "Meat?" She was still smiling at me.
   "Whatever."
   "Not really. You looked more like a wharf rat, or one of Oliver
Twist's buddies." She rattled the ice cubes in her cup. "Like an
arrogant, malnourished thug." She took another swallow of her rum and
coke. "Which you were. But crew has served you well. You look good,
really good."
   "If I didn't know you were interested in my mind," I said.
   Laura laughed, her eyes glittering in the overhead lights. "This is
a terrible drink. I'm tired. Can we just go to my room and order room
service? Get out of this smoke?"
   I tried my drink. She was right, it was terrible. "Okay," I said.
   We sat out on the balcony of her room, backs against the glass
doors, and looked at Dallas two hours after sunset, the sky descending
from light blue to black in the magic hours. I sat close to Laura, our
shoulders just touching. Her sun dress was short, and with her knees
up I could glance at the descending line of hem and thigh. It was
still seventy degrees and humid out. I held Laura's hand.
   We sat in silence for a minute, and then Laura scooted sideways,
over my near leg and leaned her back into my chest. I wrapped my arms
around her, hands on her stomach, and she put her hands over mine. The
sky went from a dark blue to a blue-black as we sat.
   "I've missed you," I said. "I miss seeing the glares, and sometimes
that weird look on your face when I'd made some great point, or that
satisfied one when you'd trapped me. Of all the people I thought I'd
miss -- my friends, my family -- you're the surprise."
   She snorted, and I couldn't see if she was amused or contemptuous.
   "We should have gone out," I said.
   "We might have, if you hadn't been twisted around that bitch all
year," she said, spitting bitch off the balcony like a cherry pit. I
let it pass.
   "The fights would have been incredible," I said, squeezing her
stomach gently.
   "The sex would have been incredible," Laura replied.
   My heart raced suddenly, and I knew she knew, leaning up on me like
this.
   "Are you nervous," Laura said softly, "because I have said entirely
the right thing or entirely the wrong thing?"
   I looked out on Dallas. There were still too many people at work,
too many lights on in the skyscrapers.
   "The right thing," I said. She leaned against me, craning her neck
and looking back, and she wasn't smiling but expectant. I kissed her
softly and then again, feeling electricity arc out from my heart
across my chest, and we kept kissing, circling tongues, gasping
against each other as we came apart for the saturated air. It was
awkward and amazing. I moved my hands up to cup the underside of her
breasts and she arched her back as I did, moaning into my mouth. Her
breasts perfectly fit my hand, from chest to nipple the width of my
four fingers, wrapped. She squirmed, and I squirmed, and we kissed
harder. I reached down her side to pick up under the sundress at her
hip, then comeback under to slip under her panties. She was shaved,
totally, amazingly shear, and aroused, hot and slick. I rubbed her
quickly, and she stopped kissing me to move forward a little, into my
hand, trying to arrange her legs for some modicum of modesty. Then she
came back to kiss me again, and I started to brush her clit, moving my
hand from side to side. Her hips started to move, and she pushed into
my ribs with her shoulder blades. She came quickly, breaking our kiss,
jaw clenched, obviously straining not to cry out into the night and
attract attention. She shuddered against my hand and then again, and I
let off rubbing her as her spasms subsided, sneaking my hands back to
her stomach.
   Laura was breathing heavily, gasping in the evening air. She
reached back with an arm behind my neck.
   I leaned down to her ear. "You've got a naughty streak," I
whispered.
   "You've always brought out the worst in me," she replied, snuggling
closer. "I wonder if anyone saw."
   I scanned the face of the hotel and saw nothing. People below in
the pool weren't paying attention. Nobody in nearby buildings.
   "Probably," I said. Laura laughed.
   "Let's go inside."
   She got up, took my hand to help me to my feet - and as she pulled,
I noticed lines of her muscles come out. Inside the door and behind
curtains, she pulled her summer dress over her head and stood there
next to me, expectantly, her hips cocked to one side. She had thin
white underwear.

   If you're going to do something wrong, go all the way. If you're
going to risk a friendship you're just as well having a night of
unrivaled passion you'll remember forever as a single giveaway kiss.
If you read this and remember nothing else, take that with you.

   I took off my shirt. She gave me a mock-appraisal.
   "You have filled out nicely," Laura said.
   "As have you," I said. I stepped towards her.
   "Enh enh," she stopped me. "The pants."
   I took off my belt, unbuttoned my flight-suitable khakis, and
stepped out of them. Laura looked at my bacon-and-eggs boxers.
   "Classy," she said. She took out her hairpins and her bob fell
around her jaw like two short parenthesis. She tucked one side behind
her ear. A lock fell down, running from forehead to chin.
   "Classic," I corrected.
   "Fair enough."
   Laura reached behind her and unhooked her bra with an easy move,
then let it fall along her held-forward arms. Her chest was pale,
untanned, her breasts out and nervous, and she smiled at me, as if she
knew that I liked what I saw, her confidence a glow even in the
foreign hotel room. We stepped into each other, arms wrapping around
shoulders. Our mouths pressed, we fell into the comfy armchair, and
Laura stood, pulled off her panties in a quick, complicated set of
moves as she came onto the chair with me, and then rubbed her sheer
pussy along my stomach, a trail slick and warm on my skin.
   "When did you shave?"
   "Waxed," she corrected. "Last week. It came recommended."
   I put my hands under her and brought her pussy to my mouth like a
chalice. She moaned as I took my first taste of her, honey-sweet and
luscious, and I wanted more. I ran my tongue along both sides of her
labia, tracing the folds, and then went in for more. Laura was
becoming ever more moist and started to work her hips against my
tongue, and I put my snuck an index finger against her anus, and she
gasped and then relaxed, and took it in.
   "Up," she said, and I moved to kiss the little pink marble of her
clitoris, unhooding, and Laura pushed her thighs against my head,
moving her clit along my tongue and my finger in and out of her ass.
She came loudly, a long steady scream, and then she moved off my hands
to lower herself onto my open air erection, her entrance so wet I
slipped in fast with her weight on me. She was tight around my shaft,
and we quickly started into long strokes together, coming apart and
almost out and then I was back in that slick passage, each time
feeling the fire in my neck crackle along my spine. We kissed as we
screwed, faster and faster, until we couldn't keep lips together and
Laura was up in my lap, driving down and I came into her, long and
then as she rocked her hips against me, I kept coming, softly,
catching my breath each time, and Laura all the while was holding my
shoulder in her right hand, supporting her weight with her left arm on
chair arm, moving slowly until she couldn't take it and then twitching
against me, her muscles tightening around my dick, still warm, and
wet, and happy.
   "That," Laura said, "was what I'd always wanted that to be." She
blinked, let a breath come and go. "That was some good eating, too."
   "Thanks," I said, looking around guiltily. "I uh, I always wanted
to do that to you."
   Laura laughed and came forward to me, nipple to nipple, and kissed
me affectionately.
   "I know," she said. "We are such a good fit."
   I kissed her back, leaning off the chair into her.
   Then we kept kissing, our hands kept roaming, and I never got all
the way to limp, Laura never entirely stopped moving, and we tried
swapping positions, not well-practiced to each other's cues, almost
falling out of the chair, and after an awkward dropping-out I slipped
in her from behind, as she leaned spread-legged over the comfy arm of
the comfy armchair, pushing back at me.
   "Oh," Laura said. "This is nice."
   I felt her squeezing me inside, tighter around me than I could
nearly bear.
   "Where," I said, moving back out against her grip, "did you learn
that?"
   Laura looked over her shoulder, back arched. "Read a book," she
said, and grinned.
   "Good book," I said.
   I drove more steadily into her now, trying to keep in control of my
pace. Laura was panting in front of me, head down, and I ran my hands
along her back, across her breasts, and to her hips, around to touch
her clit, feeling it rise and fall as I moved in and out. "Oh," Laura
said, "that feels so good. Please, just..." she squeaked.
   Which was it for my self-restraint. I groaned and started to move
faster, keeping a hand on her shoulder and another against her bobbing
knob, my hips loudly smacking into her ass at the end of each stroke.
   "Yes, Jeff, yes!" she yelled, rocking the armchair as she braced
against the far arm. "Yes, please, yes, oh, yes!"
   I stopped and came inside her again, and she clamped down, milking
my last stroke, and Laura wailed with me, an up-and-down throaty cry
as I felt her muscles twitching around me.
   Our neighbors banged on the walls for mercy.
   Laura stood, my spent erection falling out, her back to my chest,
and leaned back to bring my head forward to her neck with one long
arm. She was breathing hard still, and I could see the flush across
her chest, the pokey, bumped nipples.
   "Do you think we've worked out those years of tension yet?" Laura
asked me.
   "No," I said. "No way."
   Laura turned around to face me, both of us naked, sweat following
our curves -- hers better than mine -- and she kissed me, smiling as
she did.
   "You want more then?" She kissed me again. "I'm impressed." Her
stomach growled. "Whoops."
   "Let's get some food first," I suggested.
   Laura nodded. "Good thinking, Jeff." She flopped down on the bed.
"That's what I'm paying you for."
   I called room service. "I get paid?"
   I ordered some pizza, soda, and then I called Nick's cellular. He
picked up on a noisy background.
   "Nick!" he yelled.
   "Jeff!" I yelled back.
   "Hang on," he yelled, and walked someplace quiet. "What's up?"
   "I'm going to be late home," I said. "If anyone asks--"
   Nick laughed. "I remember the drill."
   "Come back to bed, Jeff!" Laura yelled, and collapsed laughing into
the pillows.
   "Who was that?" Nick said, in his best nudge-nudge tone.
   "I'll talk to you later, Nick," I said.
   "Dude, fucking tell--"
   "Okay, Nick, later."
   "Take me now!" Laura yelled. "Now, dammit, now!" She had the
yelling voice of a baseball heckler.
   The next-door guy banged on the walls. Someone overhead stomped on
the ceiling.
   I glared at her, trying not to break up, and she started to laugh
uncontrollably.
   "You better tell me when you come back," Nick said. "If you come
back at all." He hung up on me. I dropped the receiver back into the
hotel phone cradle (surcharge for local calls: $1.00, local call
access fee, flat rate: $2.50/day).
   "What is your problem?" I said, laughing, walking to the edge of
the bed where Laura, naked, was sitting. She reached out to take my
limp dick in hand.
   "My problem?" she said, looking up at me and tugging gently.
"You're my problem. You going to sit up and beg here or what?"
   "Laura, I honestly don't know."
   "I know you want to," she said, her voice low and sultry. "I know
you're going to, for me, because you know that's what you want." Laura
smiled at me, looked down at her hand and the early success she was
finding. "And look, here it comes."
   "Not for a while," I said.
   Laura kept stroking my poor, sore dick, and it finally came all the
way up, and she laid back on the bed, knees up, legs spread. Her chest
moved gently with her breath. "We'll see about that," she said.
   I crawled up on the bed to kiss her, my hanging erection pressing
against her inner lips.
   "Come on," she whispered, "I don't have all day."
   I slid inside her, again tight, hot, and wet around me, and I
moaned into her ear.
   "Gently now," Laura said. "I'm a little sore."
   "Yeah, so am I," I said. I worked as far in as I could, gently
grinding the base of my penis against her clit, and she sighed, her
nipples up in the air conditioned cold, digging her nails into my
back.
   "Ah," she sighed. "Lean back a little."
   I did, and kept grinding against her softly.
   "Jeff," Laura whispered, "you feel so good."
   There was a knock at the door. I kept on.
   "Don't stop," Laura said.
   "Room service," the door said.
   "I'm so hungry," Laura said. "I'm sorry, can you get the door?"
   I pulled back out slowly, reluctantly, and with a wet pop flopped
out.
   "Aww," Laura said, and giggled. She burrowed under the cotton
sheets.
   I pulled on a hotel bathrobe, grabbed my wallet, and shuffled to
the door.
   There were two people there: a teenager with our food on a tray,
and a smiling handsome man my age in a nice black suit.
   "Good evening, sir," the suit said. "I'm Hal, the night manager
here at the Sheraton."
   The teenager started in and I stopped the cart with one hand. "Just
inside, please," I said, "the lady is sleeping."
   He nodded impassively and put the tray in just inside the door. I
overtipped, even for the Sheraton. He took it with grace. "My name's
James, sir, if you need anything else, or if your food's not
excellent, please just give me a call downstairs."
   James withdrew, leaving me in a hotel robe in the hotel doorway
talking to Hal, the hotel night manager.
   "How is everything?" he asked, genuinely interested. The room
smelled of sex. Lots of sex. This was certainly not the first time
he'd been in this situation.
   "I have a complaint," I said. His expression went from interested
to surprised. "I've had to put up with my neighbors banging on the
walls, ceiling and floors, and I can hear their muffled voices yelling
at me. I came to this Sheraton for the excellent service, which I have
been quite happy with, the fine facilities, which I'm also pleased
with, and for the privacy, of which I apparently have none."
   Hal blinked at me, his expression slowly tuning back up to smiling
good service. "I understand completely," he said. "Let me see if I
can't upgrade you to one of our more private suites."
   "That would be outstanding," I said. "Thank you very much for your
concern."
   Hal nodded. "I'm happy to be of service." He stuck out his hand to
shake.
   "Perhaps tomorrow, when I've washed up," I said, and smiled. Hal's
smile actually started to break with laughter, which he caught.
   "I'll leave instructions with the desk in the morning," Hal said.
"Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."
   "I will. Thank you, Hal." Hal turned to leave and I closed the door
on him. I brought the food to bed.
   "I wish I'd ordered something more playful," I said. "Strawberries
and cream, maybe."
   Laura looked flushed and tired as she leaned forward for the cheese
pizza. "There's time yet," she said. "I am so proud of you."
   "How's that?"
   "You're the only person I know who could turn ten noise complaints
into a room upgrade."
   "I'd have rather been finishing the job," I said. I ate some pizza.
It was tasty, wood-fired.
   "I, uh, took care of that while you were talking," she said,
blushing. "It's a good thing you kept the room service guy out of
here."
   I grinned at her. "You did." She nodded. "When did you get so
sexy?"
   She laughed. "I'm not like this," she said. "I mean, not except
now. I really do have a thing for you." She chewed on the crust, still
managing to smile around it.
   "I really have a thing for you," I said.
   We ate and talked, and set aside the box and the Sprite and fell
asleep in the soft bed, sticking together as we spooned, naked and
blissful.
   I woke slowly in the darkness later, distantly aware that we were
moving together, and as I came awake I was already on top of her,
thrusting into her gently, each stroke taking minutes, and Laura was
looking at me with the same half-asleep look, smiling. We went faster
as we caught up to our bodies, and I came inside Laura in minutes,
long, soft orgasms as she hugged me, pressing our chests together,
nipples sparking nerves.
   "Oh, that was nice," she said at last, and I moved to her side. The
alarm clock behind her head read 3:51. I couldn't recall the last time
I'd been up at 3:51, much less been up at 3:51. The sky was starting
to alight again.
   "I need to get home," I said. "I'm sorry."
   "I understand. Thanks for staying." Laura was looking at me, strong
but about to cry. "I was afraid you might get scared, and bolt.."
   I ran a hand along her cheek. "No," I said. "I'm not that guy
anymore."
   She nodded, brushed off a tear. "I'm so glad you stayed."
   "I have to wash up now," I said.
   Laura lit up. "Oh do you. By yourself?"
   The shower was fun, lots of playing, soap-dropping, tickling. I was
too spent to get up again, which was just as well. I kissed Laura a
long goodbye, and stepped into the hallway a new man.
   Twirling Nick's car keys on my finger as I crossed the expansive
lobby, I saw Hal at the counter.
   "How you doing, Hal?"
   "I'm fine, thanks. How was your night, sir?"
   "Amazing," I said. "Absolutely amazing."
   "Outstanding," Hal replied. "See you soon."
   I waved, walking by. "I certainly hope so."

   It was still quiet at my parent's house. I parked the pickup in the
driveway, let myself in. I found the guest room, where Nick had taken
the bed, the greedy bastard, and left me the floor or the couch in the
living room. I broke out the comforter and sheets and laid on the
floor. I preferred the Sheraton. Next to Laura. I was still skin-
tingling warm from the night, and grinning even in my sleep-deprived
shock.
   Nick stepped on my head when he got up. Light streamed into the
room even through the blinds.
   "Sorry," Nick said. He shuffled on out. I sat up and looked for a
clock. It was noon. I was sore. I hadn't been this sore since my last
week of crew. I had never been this sore, jimmy-wise. I got up and
found an open bathroom. I looked terrible. I showered and shaved. I
looked better. I walked into the kitchen in sweats. My dad was mowing
the dead lawn outside. It was touching. I found some bread to toast
and peanut butter to put on it.
   Nick came down the hall, his hair wet and spiky, grinning. "So," he
said, taking a stool at the kitchen counter. "You put some mileage on
the old pickup last night, I hear."
   "Do I ask you about your about your sexual misconduct?" I put two
more slices of bread in and ate my hot toast with gooey peanut butter
on it.
   "No, but I wish you would. I have some great stories you should
hear." He was grinning evilly.
   "I don't think I do," I said. I ate my toast. There was a knock at
the door. Nick looked at me expectantly.
   "I'd get that," Nick said, "but I'd have to get up."
   I got the door. It was Amy. I was suddenly acutely aware that I was
dressed only in my loose sleeping sweats, no underwear, no shirt. Amy
looked at me.
   "What happened to you?"
   "What?" I looked at my chest. I'd been scratched. There were a
series of Laura-hand-sized five-fingered scratches across my chest,
and another set on my stomach. " I got in a fight with Nick. Nothing
serious." It was a terrible answer. I knew it, Amy knew it.
   Nick, thankfully, was more cooperative than Laura had been, and
remained quiet. I could hear him noisily eating my toast, his price.
   "Can I come in?" Amy asked.
   "I guess."
   "Or did you want to come out?"
   "Can I get dressed?"
   "Sure. Let's get lunch," Amy said.
   "You want me to get my keys?"
   "I can drive," Amy said, sweetly.

   My lunch, of course, was Amy. It was weird, being back with Amy: I
felt doped, like I was only catching one second of ten. Before I
really knew what I was doing, Amy was quickly rubbing baby oil along
my condom-clad penis. I thought "isn't petroleum bad for latex
condoms?" and then I was rubbing my dripping cock head against her
puckered anus, and Amy was drawing short breaths. I pushed through her
tight, oiled passage and through her tense sphincter. It felt like I'd
penetrated a hot, humid corncob.
   I'd never imagined I'd have Amy this way, with her church youth-
group activities and the struggle we'd fought with even taking clothes
off.
   "Fuck me, Jeff, come on, fuck me up the ass!" she yelled. It took
me a second to make the connection -- that she could say that, that I
could do that, and she didn't wait. She pushed back, sliding along my
pole, then forward, trying to start me thrusting.
   "I want it," Amy yelled. She went down on her elbows, even, head
turned to look back, eyes greedy, trying to give me a better angle. I
worked slowly at first, not sure what I was doing, but I could feel
her muscles tighten around me through each push forward, and I started
to speed up, feeling the tightness on me like pressure building, and I
went quicker and harder.
   Amy started to swear loudly, just "fuck" over and over, and I felt
the boiling in my balls as they slapped against her wet, scratchy
pussy. Amy bit her lip and shuddered against me, trying to drive me in
just a little farther, and I came, feeling my penis jerk in the little
space it had, and I stood on the bed on my knees, my head reeling,
smelling our arousal with the strange tang of ass. I withdrew slowly
and reached under between Amy's legs. Her juice was dripping off her
lips, her pubic mat soaked through. I put three fingers in her and
pumped her fast as she yelled for me to go faster, and she came again
on my fingers, panting, yelling, and then fell to her side, looking at
me with a sweet grin.
   "That's my boy," she said. "I always knew you had a nasty side in
you."
   I smiled back, sat down next to her.
   "I love a good fucking," Amy said. "It's important, you know. Every
three thousand miles. Get a good lube job, oil change. Check the
filters. Rotate tires. Whatever."
   She sat up. "Okay. Well, let's get you home before you actually
meet my kid." She laughed, just once, and I was acutely aware that I
could see, across the hall, a kid's bed, little dump trucks,
bulldozers on the carpet. Amy got up and dressed, and after a minute I
did too.

   Amy kissed and paralyzed me before she dropped me off in front of
my parents' house. The dead grass had been mowed. I stood in the
afternoon sun, feeling sexed, smelling of oil and latex and the smell
of houses with kids in them.
   Nick was grinning at me from the stoop, a six pack of Lone Star
cans at his feet. I walked across the dead lawn to the house. He
stroked his soul patch as if he was trying to remember something.
   "That Amy?" Nick said.
   "Yes," I said. "Let me in, I need to shower and get some sleep
before tonight."
   "What's tonight?"
   "Laura."
   "Busy man." He opened a beer and offered it to me. "Laura know
you're hanging out with Amy?"
   "Not yet."
   Nick took a long drink from the can, still blocking the front door.
"We should talk about this," Nick said. "I think I need to speak my
mind."
   "I'm not interested," I said. Nick looked off across the street,
his expression almost the same but reading, to me, 'pissed' as a six-
foot neon sign. "Okay, later," I conceded.
   Nick nodded, his face returning to his feigned shock. "Don't
forget," Nick said. He stood up so I could open the screen door and
get on in. "And get some sleep before the services tomorrow."

   In fact, I showered twice. I showered when I got home, scrubbing
myself from head to toe with my dad's nasty, gritty bar, and then
after I napped, I did it again, soaping up with my own Gold Dial, the
soap of cool guys everywhere, ran a comb through my hair, and headed
out, traceless.

   I felt awkward when I met Laura, leaning up against the tailgate of
the family discard vehicle. Laura had driven up in her rental, a
beautiful white Volvo S80. It suited her. Laura stepped out in another
beautiful summer dress, this one a sky-blue that fluttered in the
slight breeze. She sat on the tailgate with me as I felt warmer, more
comfortable, and my awkwardness passed. I walked around the flat
campus of our still-standing high school with Laura, holding her hand,
swinging arms, talking about our fights, the infamous suspensions-for-
everyone argument in French, and we laughed and bumped into each other
intentionally.

   We ended up laying out on the field, my back up against a goalpost,
Laura lying with her head on my thigh. My fingertips disappeared in
the black as I ran my fingers through her short hair. My other hand
was on her stomach, cradled in both of her warm hands.
   "You're still wrong," she said.
   "About what?"
   "About everything. You're still wrong." She looked back at me. "But
you have good points."
   "I think we agree on some things," I said.
   Laura laughed. "Increasingly yes." She sighed. "I don't want you to
feel like a sex toy, Jeff, but can you do me a favor?"
   "Does it involve being a sex toy?"
   "Yes," Laura said.
   "What is it?"
   "When I was going to homecoming-"
   "With Tony."
   "-yes, with Tony. I was walking up to the gym in my dress and I
thought about how great it would be to make love on the field."
   "With Tony?"
   She turned over to sock me in the shoulder. It stung. "No, not with
Tony. Ew."
   "But you remember it."
   "Yes," she said. "You were in it."
   I smiled. "Was I?"
   She nodded.
   "How'd it start?" I asked.
   Laura laughed. She rolled over and crawled on top of me, head on my
shoulder.
   "It started with me lying on top like this," she said.
   "Just like this."
   "Uh huh." She grinned at me, and moved to kiss me softly. She
continued, her lips brushing against mine as she whispered. "And we
were kissing, like this."
   "And then what?"
   "And then," Laura said, moving down, "I would get your pants off."
She unbuttoned my shorts and pulled the zipper down easily.
   "I'm not wearing pants," I said.
   "That's not the point," she said. "Then I got your shorts off." She
pushed my boxers down to my thighs. The night air was the barest
degree of cool against my tense erection, resting against my waist.
Laura smiled.
   "I hope the mosquitoes don't see this," I said.
   "Don't ruin the moment," Laura said.
   "Sorry."
   "Then you would pull my underwear off," Laura said, raising her
hips up. I reached to her hips and slid them down. The thin, white
panties again. Conservative and sexy. She stepped out of them, still
keeping low to the ground.
   "This is more exciting than I thought it'd be," she said. She
giggled in my ear. "That's not part of what happens."
   "I'm glad to hear it."
   "Then I'd come down here, and you'd move up --" I pushed up with my
hips and entered her softly. "Yes," Laura said, "and it would feel
good like that." She laid flat with me, kissing my neck. "You feel so
wonderful inside me," she whispered. We made love slowly, trying to
keep our movements restrained, each move into her driving a cool
electricity from my erection into my hips, and as we patiently worked
together, it grew, spreading through my legs and my chest. I was
drawing all the way out, teasing her with my swollen head, and then I
would come up and Laura would press down, and we would stop, panting,
kiss, and repeat. My teeth started to ache. Laura began to breathe
into my ear as she exhaled when we would come together, and I lost it
without warning, coming inside her, stuttering my moans, and Laura
smiled.
   "You like that one?"
   "Very much," I said.
   She moved up and then off, and rolled to lie next to me. "Will you
help me out?"
   "Course." I reached over and drew my fingertips across her shorn
labia, and Laura snuggled into my shoulder and moaned. She reached
down and pushed my hand so the base of my palm pushed up against the
underside of her clitoris. Her thighs were hot against my fingertips.
She moved my hand in a short circular motion and then let go, bringing
her arm across my chest. I continued the motion.
   "I had this other one," she said. Without prompting, her breath a
little ragged. "We were at state, and I had that debate skirt to
distract the judges--" I remembered the skirt. It had been a great
factor in my strained, driven, oratories where I tore into other teams
with unearthly volume and vigor. "-- and we were arguing. We were --
oh, unh, that's nice -- fighting over how we'd done in the round, and
then we'd start kissing, and you'd reach down to start rubbing me, and
I would melt into you, and --" her hips began to tremble against my
hand, the arm around my chest tightened, and Laura choked, squeaked,
and bit my lip. She closed her eyes, struggling against my hand, and
kept on. "And I would come, and come, and come." I kept on rubbing,
and Laura kept on bucking, and finally drew a hand down to calm mine.
   "I can't believe," I said, "how hot you are. How hot you were. I
wish I could go talk to me, then."
   "You wouldn't have listened, then," Laura said, and kissed my neck.
"Did you ever fantasize about me?" Laura asked.
   "Yes," I said. I waited, and looked at her.
   She glared at me with big, grey eyes and a smile. "Tell me, you
jerk," she said, furrowing her brow.
   "I always had this fantasy that you'd come into the layout room to
bitch me out about some anti-you article I'd run that month, and we'd
be yelling at each other, just getting into it, nose to nose, and we'd
start kissing, more and more passionately, tearing our clothes off and
tossing them on the layout tables and light boards and computers, and
then we'd go at it on that table in the middle of the room with all
the clippings on it."
   "Wow," she said. "That's good." She paused. "You want me to break
into the newsroom?"
   "It's all alarmed these days," I said. I pulled my pants back
around my waist.
   "We can come back during summer vacation," she said. "We'll check
in as visitors, wander around innocently, then duck in and do it." She
exhaled. "I'm looking forward to this already."
   "I am shocked and amazed at this side of you," I said. "And
excited."
   "You're rubbing off on me," she said. "Let me ask you something,
and I want you to be honest. When you broke into the annual and placed
that ad for yourself, how'd you pull that off?"
   I laughed. "When I was in there arguing with you over your refusal
to use student body funding to support the paper, I used a bottle cap
to block the latch on the near window so it wouldn't lock. Then I
waited."
   Laura shook her head. "You were such a bastard. I have no idea
where this considerate lover came from."
   "We should get going," I said. "We're going to be eaten alive by
the mosquitoes."
   Laura picked up her panties and slid them back on. We stood
together, took hands, and started back for our cars.
   "Are you coming back with me?" Laura asked.
   "No," I said. "I need to be home tonight. More than that, I need a
good night's sleep. The funeral's tomorrow."
   "We could just sleep. It'd be nice."
   "No, I need to be home tonight."
   "Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?"
   My heart leapt and I almost stumbled. "Yes," I said. "Please."
   We walked together to her car. Laura kissed me slowly and then
stood there.
   "When should I come by?"
   "Seven," I said.

   It was cool that Sunday morning, light, and the cemetery was
shaded, dew still on the short blades of grass, wetting the tips of my
black formal shoes as I crossed the field with Laura on one side and
Nick on the other, all of us in black, silent. My grandfather was
buried in a family plot, next to my grandmother, and everyone was
there I'd ever seen at a family event, and then some - the few
remaining Army buddies who'd served with him, friends of his I didn't
know. After they buried him, I got all the consolation, and Nick was
ignored, as if my direct line meant I took all of the grief for both
of us. I hugged Nick when they left us.
   "I'm sorry," I said. I felt him nod and we released. "I know."
   "Thanks," Nick said.
   Laura took my hand and squeezed it gently. We started to walk back
to her car.
   "I remember your grandpa talking to me about the Bulge," Laura
said.
   "He never talked to us," I said, hurt, then childish for feeling
hurt. "When?"
   "When I was going to write that series for the Dallas Morning News,
I looked him up in the archives."
   "He never talked to me," I said, feeling distant from the
conversation.
   "I interviewed him after school for a week," Laura said. "He was so
helpful, once he started talking. I wouldn't have gotten a scholarship
if I hadn't written that series, and I wouldn't have written the
series without him."
   I stood there, wobbling.
   "I'll give you the tapes," Laura said. "He talks about why he
couldn't bring himself to talk to his family."
   I blinked, feeling my eyes heavy and slick. Laura came around to
stand in front of me, taking my hands in her cool fingers.
   "You look just like him," Laura said.
   I nodded. "I know," I said, leaned into her, and started to cry on
her shoulder. She gracefully put an arm around my shoulders, the other
around my waist, and I started to lose it, sobbing, and she stroked my
hair and waited until it had passed. Nick was standing on the other
side of Laura, wearing his neutral expression again. I sighed.
   "It's okay," Nick said. "I got my crying out of the way yesterday."

   Nick and I stayed in Sunday, drinking with my parents, arguing
about Nick's Lone Star ("It's like tap water, Jeff. Every city has
different tap water, too.") and remembering my granddad. Laura called
to check up on me, see if I wanted her to come by. My parents wanted
to know who it was, I told him, and that was a whole other line of
conversation: turned out they thought the world of her.

   It was dark Monday, with forecasts of thunderstorms and black
clouds across the sky that scared me.
   I went to Amy Monday morning, after some difficulty locating her
house. She answered the door in a T-shirt and shorts, and looked
surprised to see me. The T-shirt looked good on her, the fabric
hanging off her breasts like a curtain to her cute stomach.
   "You look terrible," she said.
   "I feel terrible," I said. I followed her in and sat down on her
couch. "My granddad's funeral was yesterday."
   She looked shocked. Had she already forgotten?
   She seemed to be considering how to hug me while I sat there.
   "I'll make you feel better," she said. "Here." She leaned over to
kiss me, but I dodged and shook my head.
   "You know what? I don't want to feel better. I have to go."
   I stood up. Amy cocked her head to one side, her curls falling all
to one side, her expression puzzled and still half-seductive.
   "I'm sorry," I said. "I have to go."
   And I walked out of her house to the skeleton truck, closing the
door behind me.

   Drops of rain like thumbs fell from the sky, filling the air. I was
soaked through immediately, running to the truck. Driving the short
hop home was terrible, the throw of the headlights lost in the streaks
of the downpour, the wipers smearing the water equally across my field
of vision. Lightning spiked from horizon to horizon. I was lucky to
get back to our driveway, where I left it parked diagonally and dashed
inside.
   Nick was in the kitchen, sitting at the counter, chopsticking
takeout Chinese food into his mouth with one hand, holding a can of
beer in the other. I dripped on the tile of the entryway. Nick looked
up, closed his eyes, and sniffed.
   "How is Amy?" he asked.
   "Fine," I said. I squished down the hall, left my clothes in the
bathtub, found sweats and came back to the kitchen.
   I took a beer from the fridge.
   Nick ate for a minute, finished his can of beer, crushed it, and
tossed it behind him into the dining room. I handed him another.
   "Did I ever tell you," Nick asked, "that I fucked Amy?"
   I looked at him, feeling the ozone in the air, the condensation on
the can. "You what?"
   "True story," he said. "Don't get up fixing to hit me yet, this is
all on the up-and-up. When I was working as a bike messenger, I was
running stuff into hotels all the time. I was buffed out at the time,
too, remember, I had the bleached hair and the eyebrow ring, plus I
was on the steroids and shit, I weighted 220 at your height and could
tear a phone booth out of the ground." He paused. "I miss those days
sometimes."
   "Keep going."
   "Yeah, so this skanky girl --"
   "Jamie?" Jamie was one of Amy's best friends in high school, a
slimy flea-market scamming weasel of a girl.
   "Yeah, Jamie. I'm in there dropping off a giant bundle of
something, and she tells me she's got this friend who's looking for
no-strings-attached sex, would I be interested?"
   I felt a dark, cold place in my heart and my eyes started to sink
back in my head to give me a better view of my sockets and Nick,
drawing smaller.
   "So I say yes, sure, because I was on this free-love kick, you
know, and I meet her at the hotel restaurant, we talk for a minute,
and boom, we're up in a room, and I'm driving the green, you know,
just going at it - let me know if I go too far with this - and you get
three guesses who she called me."
   "Me," I said.
   "No," Nick said, grinning.
   "Scott."
   "No."
   "I have no fucking clue."
   "Ben," Nick said.
   "Who the fuck is Ben?"
   Nick nodded. "From a public health perspective, my brother, that
may be a very important question. Let me ask you another question: if
she had her friends setting her up with bike messengers two years ago,
how many Bens do you think there were? How many guys was she trailing
along for repeat visits? I realized who she was when I came home and
saw one of the old pictures on mom's desk, but she asked me back.
Seriously, I didn't know at first -- she was lightening her hair then,
kept it up, I didn't recognize her until afterwards."
   I blinked.
   "It's better you know," Nick said.
   I nodded. "You're right."
   "You feel like shit," Nick said. "You've been betrayed. Go take a
shower, come back, open another beer, and we'll reminisce about the
wicked nature of women." I turned to go. "But first," Nick said,
stopping me. "What's the moral here?"
   I gave up. "Listen to my brother when he's trying to tell me
something?" I ventured.
   Nick smiled and nodded. "Very good."

   I called Amy's house and got her.
   "Tell me about when you were having sex with anyone you could get
into a bed," I said.
   There was a long pause as I could hear her breathe on the other
end.
   "It was about a year after I had Doug," Amy said. "We'd stopped
sleeping together when I was pregnant and never started again, and I
couldn't take it. I had to do something."
   It was my turn to hold the phone and not say anything.
   "You told me," I said, "you'd never been with anyone but your
husband."
   "Yes," she said, "I did. Is that what you're upset about?"
   I hung up on her, and then hung up again, busting the hanger off my
parents' crappy 1970 Ma Bell-issued wall-mounter. I pulled the phone
off its hook and disconnected the plug.
   Down the hall, the phone rang. I left the house.

   I was so happy to see Laura again that I nearly cried for the
second time in three days, after keeping it in check for years. She
looked great, still in her conference suit, smart and professional.
She carried a black cloth-and-chrome umbrella that she leaned on at a
jaunty angle.
   I hugged her tightly.  She kissed me softly, slowly, and drew back.
   "I was worried about you," she said. "You doing okay?"
   "I'm fine," I said. "I'm fixing for some dinner."
   She gave me a raised eyebrow.
   "What were you looking to eat?"
   I smiled despite myself. "What have you got?"
   Laura looked at me. "I have to change, but come with me, we'll look
at the menu."
   Her car didn't handle in the storm, it ignored it. Laura shot
through the rain-slick highways at 70 as around us men with hats in
pickups drove like bluehairs with door-hanging seatbelts. She talked
as she drove, telling me about how these conferences went, and how it
didn't really matter whether or not the drug in question was effective
in current trials, as it was the speculation on the next round that
was driving interest, and how she, Laura, couldn't have cared less
about any of it.
   Hal was not at the front desk.
   I kissed Laura in the elevator, kissed her nose, her eyebrows, and
her forehead. She smiled.
   "I've never had a fantasy about elevators," she said.
   "I'll ask you again in a week."
   She laughed. "Okay." I kissed her again.
   I held her hand as we walked to her suite, which had a living room
and everything.
   She took off her suit jacket as we entered, hung it up. "You feel
like something quick before we head out?"
   "Like what?"
   "Something to tide us over. Until we get back." She took out her
diamond stud earrings and set them on the table. "Sit down for a
second." I set down on a couch cushion. She walked into the bedroom
and after a minute came back out in just the thin white underwear.
   "Do you ever wear stockings anymore?" I asked, as she crossed to
me.
   "Only if you're very good," she said, and moved the table from the
front of the couch. "Now take off your shorts."
   I did, like a good boy, and Laura knelt before me. "I've wanted to
do this for a while," she said, leaning forward to take my cock into
her mouth straight on.
   I closed my eyes. "I've wanted you to do that forever," I said.
   Laura moved up and down before me, dragging her lips, stopping to
suck on the tip, until I was so hard my dick jumped with each pulse.
   "I guess you have," she said, and I could see she had her left hand
in her panties, moving slowly. She licked her tongue along the
underside of my shaft, and then she took the head into mouth and moved
on and off it, and I felt the first surge of pending orgasm.
   "I'm going to come," I said. Laura moved off, resting her head on
my thigh while she stroked me with one hand, the other still down her
own shorts.
   "I know," she said, "and I want it."
   That was nearly it for me, and Laura saw my expression start to
slack and went down again. I pushed forward against her hand and shot
into her, and she moaned, eyes closed, and I looked to see her other
hand nearly a blur, and then she leaned back on the floor, still
going, and then laid out, one hand running along her body, the other
jerking in her panties as she came, gasping for breath. I was spent
and astounded. Laura looked at me.
   "That was good," she said, and nodded. "Oh, man, do we have hot sex
or what."
   I laughed. She stood up. "Okay, I'm going to go change. And brush
my teeth." I zipped up and sat by myself on the couch, feeling the
pleasant afterwarmth across my skin, and waited. I could hear Laura
changing in the bedroom, and slowly, I felt ashamed of myself.
   Laura came out in jeans and a cute white polo shirt with her
consulting company's logo just above her breast. She was smiling
widely, as if about to start whistling out of happiness. She noticed
me and stopped, looked me over.
   "You want to tell me something."
   I nodded. She sat down next to me on the middle cushion.
   "Tell me," she said. "Tell me now."
   "I've seen Amy," I said.
   Laura seemed to deflate, shifted away on the couch to face me,
trying to compact herself onto the far half of the third cushion. "Is
that," she said, "a fact?"
   "Yeah." I struggled to say something as Laura waited impassively.
"Look, it's not like we agreed to an exclusive relationship."
   "Not technically, no, and I see now that we should have more
clearly laid out exactly what was going on here. Have you seen her,"
Laura said, "or have you seen her?"
   "The latter," I said. "It started before you got in."
   "So it's still going on. Fuck, Jeff, I can't believe I didn't taste
her."
   I winced.
   "It's been days. It's not going on now, and it won't again, after I
talk to her next."
   Laura looked at me, none of the warmth in her face I'd grown used
to. "I want you to do it now," she said. "Call her now."
   "Okay," I said, and got up to figure out where they'd hidden the
phone.
   "No, wait," Laura said. "I'll bet that she got you to her house.
I'll bet when you didn't have a condom on you because you didn't
expect to need one, she found one. I'll bet," Laura said. She looked
off, thinking. "I'll bet it will turn out she took them from her
husband's stash. Her husband will have suspected her of cheating and
counted the condoms. Her marriage will break up, and you, Jeff, will
be her only hope, and responsible for the whole chain of events."
   I didn't know what to say.
   "Mark my words," Laura said, anger starting to creep into her
voice, cold and frightening. "I will write this down if it would make
any difference."
   "How do you--"
   "It's what I would do," Laura said, staring at me, "if I were smart
and a ruthless, manipulative bitch, which is exactly what she is. Do
you remember what else went on when you were dating? She'd take a
fancy to someone else. Your relationship would flag. If it panned out,
you'd get dumped until it ended. If it didn't, you'd patch things up."
   "That's not really how it went."
   "You're a smart man, Jeff, you'll realize I'm right in about an
hour. The condom stash was hers. Her husband suspects her infidelity
but only vaguely, and it certainly is not yet the crisis she will
present. If you continue, he will figure it out eventually - Amy has
likely chosen her chump well, but we're all good at sensing these
things. Amy intends the divorce to threaten, holding you here, in
effect maintaining her next husband in a holding pattern." Laura
chewed on her lip in a decidedly non-sexy way. "She may maintain she's
pregnant by you, even, that a condom failed. High stakes, but if she
gets you on the first part, she'll go for it. I would. She has little
to lose."
   The phone was on the side table by the couch.
   "Call her," Laura said. "She will say exactly what I have
predicted."
   I did. She did.
   Laura had not, however, prepared me for the fight that followed. I
cut my losses at ten minutes and hung up. The handset was slick with
sweat from my palm and hot. I felt sick and cold and clammy.
   "You look a little pale," Laura said. "Do you feel better?"
   "I do," I said.
   Laura sighed, and I saw something in her expression then, just a
shade of softening.
   "That's good," she said. "That's a very good sign."
   "I'm sorry."
   "That's also good. I'll be looking to you to say this throughout
our evening, as I bitch you out at length. I'm going to change now."
   "Where do you want to go?"
   "Is there anyplace here with good beer?"
   Laura thought about this. "Yes," she said.

   The bitching out wasn't long at all, barely a half-hour, but it was
brutal. Laura had, impossibly, become even more verbally dexterous in
her years at U Penn, and dissembled me in front of several tables of
shocked and frightened patrons of the steakhouse.
   Then we ate.
   "Do you want to set out some ground rules for us, then?" I asked.
   Laura sighed. "You don't get it. See, I wanted to come see you,
find out if reading between the lines of your mail was giving me the
right direction. I don't tell you I'm going to come see you. I work
out a way to pull it off with subtlety."
   I drank from my pint of Foster's to cover my reaction.
   "Why, Jeff? Deniability. If it didn't work out, I could deny
everything. Do you see where I'm going with this? You want rules. I
want understandings."
   I nodded.
   "I think you know what I want."
   "I do," I said.
   "So let's just eat and chat."
   I finished my pint and signaled for another.
   "Okay. How was your flight in? Did they pay for first class?"
   "No," Laura said. She chewed on a bit of my steak. "This is good.
You know what I hate about flying these days?"
   "Poor maintenance practices?"
   "The fact that people have to ask how much you paid. It's rude. I
didn't ask the guy next to me how much he paid for his suit, but he's
perfectly comfortable bugging me to find out if he paid less for his
ticket over the net."
   "How much did you pay?"
   "One seventy-five."
   "That's an amazing fare."
   "It was one-way," Laura said.
   "One-way?"
   "I wasn't sure where I'd fly from here." She chewed on another bite
of steak. "I have a better idea now. You're probably not willing to
quit your job with Oracle, are you?"
   "It's a really good job."
   She shrugged. "So I buy a one-way ticket to Oakland."
   What about your job, your apartment...?"
   She shook her head. "Jobs are jobs. These things are problems to be
solved, Jeff, that's all they are. Obstacles before the goal. You
belong to me, as I belong to you. If I fly out with you to make a life
in the Bay, we'll figure out the solutions. We're both bright people."
She paused. "Well, me, anyway."

   -- Jacobin, 6/2000




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