5 comments/ 54993 views/ 0 favorites You Can't Go Home Again By: cantdog It was one damn fine day on Monhegan, as they say here. Don Annas came in from walking the path to the bluff and then back through the orchard. Sylvia heard the screen door clatter. "You got sand on those shoes?" she called. "Already doing it!" he lied, and kicked the deck shoes off to join the rest of them by the door. "I saw three deer! In the orchard by the lick!" He was projecting his voice to reach her in the kitchen. "Wonderful! Must have been that doe and her two young ones. There's coke now, I went to the store!" "I need the bathroom, I'll be right in!" Sylvia heard him taking the stairs two by two, as he habitually did, and smiled craftily to herself. She'd left off skimming the soup when the door noise reached her, and she now was removing her bra. She was half naked in her sunny kitchen when his exclamations could be heard up above. She buttoned her blouse up again and stuck the bra in with the kitchen linens. Sylvia had taken in the young man when his Bangor family had exploded in a confused and wretched way. He was crippled by guilt over his inability to save his mother, and a lot of other emotional shrapnel which was frozen in his belly in self-defense. He was so frozen up he couldn't even start himself up again. He had needed a mother, the way Sylvia saw it, and she'd been one of those, once. She took him home. But you know-- she was very definitely not his mother! And being back on the island for a while always cranked up her appetites. His footsteps descended, much more slowly. She had been anticipating this all night and all morning. It was a wonder to her that he didn't notice her drooling during breakfast! She shut off the heat under the iron stewpot. Her nipples were up. "Sylvia?" "Right here, Don!" He came through the doorway looking like one of the deer, nose first, all skittish, ready to bolt. "Um, I found the picture. Are you upset?" "Now think about it. I had to take that! And then print it! Didn't I?" He nodded. "You were watching the Coulter girl so hard you never noticed me." Alice Coulter had been throwing frisbee the day before yesterday for her dog on the beach. So that was the time, thought he. He'd stood in his room at the window, watching Alice and masturbating, and today there was a three-by-five of him doing it stuck in the mirror frame in the bathroom. Now that he thought it through, he realized she must have waited for that moment, or taken a lot of shots, because white drops were falling off his knuckles in the photo. Don was very unsure what to do next. "You probably already counted how many women your age are on the island." "Ya..." "Two. Alice and Sam Fellowes, right?" "Right." "Well, you don't get either of them, I'm afraid. But I have a solution for you." He just looked at her, more like a deer than ever. "We can start right now, if you like." Suddenly he got it. He pulled in air and his eyes got wide. Sylvia chuckled and put her fists on her hips. The nipples pushed little humps into the front of the blouse. Don noticed them, and her challenging smile. She was thirty-eight or so, twice his age, and she had a little belly, but she lived well and kept very active. Her hips were broad and womanly, but then, so were Alice Coulter's. His head spun a little. He looked into her face again. "Well, you ought to say something! If you don't tell me yes pretty quick, it'll be no." "Yes! I mean, sure!" She extended her hand, and he took it, stepping toward her. She expected a kiss. Giving up reasoning, he went ahead and kissed her. She broke it to kiss across his cheek and lick his ear, and one strong hand slid down over his ass. He reciprocated by handling a fine full breast, which brought a little mew from her, in signal to continue. He kissed the hollow of her neck and shoulder and thumbed the big nipple. Her hips pushed aggressively into him, rubbing in a little circle, and she squeezed the flesh through his back pocket. As if by common consent, they held each other at arm's length, hip-to-hip. As usual, she had something practical to suggest. "Let's not do it in the kitchen; my room?" "Good." His voice didn't work very well; he cleared his throat. "Good," he repeated. "I'm so glad you've decided to do this. I have too much history with all the men here, one way or another, and visitors don't stay very long. I'm going to be wanting you a lot at first, it's been a long time." "I'm glad, too; I'm just shocked a little, that's all. I can keep up with you, I hope!" "We'll be most of the rest of the day at it, then! I like it all! Come on up!" She led the way, giving his jeans a feel before moving to the stairs. She had cutoff shorts exposing good strong legs; her ass was muscular and very firm-- she was a robust woman. Don was making mental readjustments on the way up the staircase. He'd known her for several weeks, but he was seeing her this way for the first time. What was it she looked like in the shorts with the round firm ass-- R. Crumb! She was an R. Crumb woman, but older. Okay, okay, I can deal. "I took a good long shower and soak this morning and I taste clean all over," she told him. "I'll be the judge of that!" That was wit. "I do hope so!" She turned and grinned. "I'm pretty hungry; as long as you taste like a man, I'll be happy." "Guaranteed." Something about her insolent jutting ass grabbed him by the libido. He reached around her, taking a firm tit in each hand, and hugged himself into that fine field of assflesh, nuzzling the back of her neck. She braced her powerful legs and leaned her head back. He stroked her neck and down the cleavage, hanging onto the right breast and rolling its thick nipple. "Hard already!" she said. "It feels nice in there." He reached in and felt the tit directly, and she popped buttons loose to give him more range. Her ass pushed against his cock. She turned her head and kissed him. "It will!" he said. "As soon as you get those off!" She twisted out of his reach and unbuttoned the shorts. Smirking, she peeled them off her hips and let them fall. The tops of her calves caught them; she kicked them across the landing. Don was unzipping and pushing down his jeans, but stopped to watch as she turned her fabulous ass to him. "God, Sylvia." She climbed from the landing, ass rising step by step, giving him a view underneath it of her neatly trimmed graying pussy. He kicked off his jeans. "You like this ass-- God, there it is," she said, when the boxers fell away, "I saw that big thing and I had to have it-- You like this, come on to bed and climb right on it!" She slapped her buttock. It was a very firm one. Robert Crumb would definitely have approved of it! He strode two stairs at a time up to her bedroom doorway. "Lie right down!" he said, holding on to his cock and chucking away his boxers. "Let me suck that once first." Sylvia dropped to her knees on the painted softwood, staring hungrily at Don's long and beefy cock. The idea suited Don, and he stepped up to her. Her fingers stole in under his balls and hefted them; she palmed his ass. All at once her mouth slid right down half his length. He could feel her throat. It opened, and she jacked her head in closer. Her salt-and-pepper mass of tight curls was right up against his belly in an instant. He couldn't see past it, but he could feel her nose driven into his hair. "Holy fuck!" Don said. The woman didn't fool around! She pulled back until his cockhead was free of her throat. Her eyes were squeezed shut and streaming with involuntary tears. Her tongue rolled around his cock, thick drool came out the corner of her mouth-- and down she went again to the root! Don was eight and a quarter thick inches when really up full. Not everyone could take him that far down. He was deep into her neck; it was a sensation he wanted to get used to! She cupped his ass and pushed two fingers up along the cord behind his heavy balls. Both hands pushed him deeper yet into her throat. Her jaw was wide open now. Hungry, she'd said! Was that swallowing? He reached down beyond her hardworking head for the lush tits. Wiggling side-to-side like a fish fighting the line, she came back off him, gasping. She swallowed and got her reflex under control again. Strings of saliva and throat secretions connected his cock to her face and dripped onto his hands at her chest. Don's face made her smile. He was awestruck. "You still got it, Sylvia!" she told herself. "You taste like a man to me," she said hoarsely. "Come fuck me!" She grabbed his waist; her breasts slid against him as she pulled herself up. She tossed away the blouse and climbed onto the four-poster on hands and knees. She wiped her eyes, chin and nose and braced for the onslaught, dropping to her elbows. Sun washed in through the wide window, gilding her hard-muscled back. Her hard, thick nipples grazed the quilt. But he was zeroed in on the pussy. He clutched his cock and pushed in, standing on the braided rug. Holding one hand on top of her hips to settle her a little lower, he sank into Sylvia's deep, sweet, silky pussy. It took five or six strokes to stretch her deep enough to take him all, but he was used to that. "Don't worry about a thing, baby, the womb's gone; you can come in there. Ah! M'God, Don, you're huge!... Oh, Christ, this is good!!" She adapted pretty quick for someone his mother's age. Both hands free now, he grabbed on and started slamming hard. He was young and athletic and hadn't had any for a few weeks. It was very good indeed. _______________________ Don would have been living hand-to-mouth right now if it weren't for Sylvia. His family was scattered, his father in the county hotel awaiting his trial, his mother dead, his folks' house burnt to a husk. You could lay it all at Beverly's doorstep, certainly, but the only one who hadn't helped her along was Don's dead mother. Don never knew where she'd come from, apart from her soft accent, which to his ears sounded southern. There is a type of southern speech that drives New Englanders nuts waiting for the sentence to finish. Hers wasn't like that, but the tones were southern. He'd come home at the beginning of May term to find her already there, mysteriously and from nowhere. His mother Penny had fallen gravely sick over the latter part of the winter, and Miss Kingman had entered his parents' home as a home health aide, and made an arrangement to live there. She'd been given his room. You can't buck something like that, home health costs so much that any arrangement which ameliorates the expense is precious. She went out and made rounds on three to five other patients around town, using his mother's car, which she couldn't have driven anyway. In the meantime, she was right there for his mom. It all sounded reasonable, if extreme. But his haunted dad was so different from the tinhorn tyrant he'd been accustomed to, his mom so depleted and pathetic now, and his room gone. He lived in the attic at first, but it always got very hot up there in high summer and he was clearing a storage room upstairs in back over the kitchen in order to set a bed up in there. What he'd expected to come home to wasn't there at all; he felt dislocated. The longer he stayed there, the less he was able to cope. Beverly was a rock, though; he began to count on her as his parents were doing. His summer job saved his ass, the way he saw it now. Beverly Kingman Rosado hadn't planned to get involved with the old man, but it was too sweet a deal to get squeamish about. She'd taken over two times from Rosalind, mostly because Rosalind hated the old guy. He wanted to run everything. Nobody understood his wife's medical problems like he did, including the docs. Penny was getting better all the same, though. Beverly had gotten there just in time to stop that. Gil was detestable and bossy, but he sweet-talked her. It was an advantage she could accept. The family had so much money! The kid went to California to school. It was perfect, and all she had to do was make it a little better for Bev Rosado. She told Rosalind to go ahead and leave them to her, and swapped her for the Ochs family. Then she cried in the kitchen. "Beverly! What is it?" Gil Annas was forty-five, paunchy. He'd once cut a handsome figure in naval uniform, and that was now history. But he still ran his household personally, in every detail. He'd been used to a good amount of subservience in the bedroom, too. But his wife had been weak and ill. He couldn't just lie her down and plow into her while she breathed through an oxygen mask, so he'd gone months without any sex. He was susceptible. Bev was soft, blonde, young, healthy and right there under his nose-- crying at the kitchen table, right at the moment. "What's wrong?" "Oh, God!" Beverly straightened up, blew her nose, and wiped her tears. "Never mind, Mr. Annas, yall don't want to hear my problems, I'll be okay. I'm sorry, I'll be right out!" She flapped a hand toward him helplessly. Gil took it, held it tenderly, and bent forward just enough to look down her dress. He insisted gently that she could tell him, surely it was nothing that couldn't be fixed. She turned teary eyes on him and started in, holding his hand, so he couldn't sit down across the table out of reach. At the critical moment, she threw herself against him to cry when her sadness was just too overwhelming. He was still standing, so she hugged him by the hips and her bosom lay heaving with her sobs right against his crotch. She held on there through the rest of her sob story, making sure there was a good amount of friction. Gil reacted gallantly, she could feel it very clearly! He even stepped in closer to make sure he could push it into her warm tits. W.C. Fields always said you can't scam an honest man. You can't seduce an honestly upright one, either, but it was clear it wouldn't be a problem. She leaned back, hugging him; the cleavage pushed up. She buried her face into his belly, she leaned both hands against the front of him, accidentally on his stiff cock, appealing into his eyes. "The agency makes all the money, it's so hard to make ends meet..!" By the end of the evening, she had the kid's room and the wife's car, and she was just getting started. He moved her in the next day, using his truck to help her pack her things across town. That night she changed into the threadbare old white poplin dress, and left her slip in her new room. Her light blue low-cuts could be made out easily through the thin cloth. She wore the tiny matching bra under it, too. It was too obvious; but she had a voluminous jacket to wear with the ensemble. She watched him trying to see into there around the jacket all evening long, like a dog on a scent trail. She was more attentive to him than to the patient. She thought of the evening as all foreplay, an extended tease. Reaching for things her skirt rode up and the jacket fell open; stooping or bending, those little blue panties shone right through-- it was like a dance. And she touched him as often as she could. She thanked him and smiled on him; she squeezed his arm or his hand fondly when she left his side. Having access to the whole house as she did, it had been easy long ago to reconnoiter the sex gear in his wife's closet and dresser drawer. Gil liked lots of high heels and stockings, lots of shiny fabrics. All right. She was twenty-two and in reasonable shape, pale and blonde. She had never been a beauty queen, her face was blunt and rounded and she had too much brow ridge. But he was already beyond her face. Heels were an asset every time. And a shiny nylon taffeta shortie robe could be hauled in close to accentuate her bust, or let open to reveal herself to him. She put on a taffeta camisole, just a short tube on spaghetti straps, loose, taking all its shape from the body beneath it. With the robe, the heels, and some sweet lies, Gil would fall like a ton of bricks. She appeared in the dark front hall in the outfit, and he saw her from his seat in front of the television right away. He'd never seen so much of her legs before. She called his name very softly. He checked Penny, but she was asleep. He came to her in the front hall. She just had to hug him! She did so very tightly. His erection was soon clearly palpable against her soft belly, so she rolled it with a little twist of hip. "Oh, dear! I've aroused you, I didn't mean to." She pulled decorously back. "I couldn't help it..." She acted flustered, as though the whole idea were new ground. "I'm really very very grateful to you, Gil, but I could lose my license! It would be unethical." He wasn't saying anything. "You must have gone a long time, I guess." Still nothing. "Oh Gil!" She hugged him again, and stayed body to body, leaning on his shoulder as though she would be there all night. "I wish... but I can't." "No one would have to know," he said. "That's the way, you old bastard," she thought. He was playing the game now, an seriously. "Only a matter of time." Then she spoke aloud: "It's been a long time for me, too, but... Are you sure it's a good idea? Can I trust you to keep it secret?" He was absolute in his promise of secrecy. "I shouldn't, though... Oh, dammit, it's not fair!" He was spinning reasons and murmuring them in her ear between kisses. One hand was riding at the top of her buns, and he sent it lower. She pushed her hips up to intercept it when it got to a certain spot. "Mmm. I like it that way, too. There's lubricant in your wife's things. You wouldn't mind...?" He wouldn't mind at all! He was feeling her all over now-- he jumped when he discovered she'd worn no panties. The hair down there was wet to his touch. "Are you sure it will be okay? Maybe we shouldn't after all..." He was very convincing, and she allowed herself to be persuaded. She fetched the lube and they went up to her room. "Please do the anal sex first, Gil? I'll have to suck it a little of course, for that, but I want it right away... oh thank you! Here, all you do is, you just squish some on, and then open me up with a finger, push the lube in there a little before you go in. I'll get you wet." She throated him, in fact! He wasn't Superman in the cock department, it was easy. She throated him quite a bit, he was astounded. She then lay on the bed and sent her legs far back. Her knees rested on her shoulders! She was so young and limber! She stretched herself open a little, lightly pulling her asscheeks away from each other. "Okay, go ahead. Oooh... oh. Make little circles and stretch it open... Mmh! Fuck me, Gil!" He placed his cockhead and leaned in. He entered easily, and she told him how wonderful it was. He could only buttfuck a twenty-two-year-old girl for about thirty seconds, of course, after months of abstinence and the two days of teasing buildup she'd put him through. She never expected any better of him, that wasn't the point. But it was the idea that he'd done it which would work on him, cementing him to her and bringing on a lot of guilt. Guilt and lust would get her what she wanted. She eased him out the door with expressions of great satisfaction and gratitude after the anal interlude and some snuggling, and a little straight sex, also very brief. The new order was begun. She got herself clean and masturbated, then slept. The next night she had silvery-black thigh-highs, heels and a garter belt under the shortie. "Gil? Could you come up a minute?" she called in a soft voice. Once more, he left the television and followed her into the hall. The robe was closed, but he had to look up steeply at her since she was most of the way up the stairs. Stockings! He loved stockings. She met him at the top of the stairs, standing athwart them, backlit. He waited decorously on the landing, eight feet away and five steps down. You Can't Go Home Again "Please come up to my room a while? We're both lonely and I want to do something for you." "It's a lovely offer, but I can't." He's ashamed and guilty! Gotcha, you old fart. She let the robe open. "I wore this just for you," she said, which was true as far as it went. "I want to, we can meet at night before bedtime!" Aside from the belt, hose, and the heels, there was nothing to her outfit but warm blonde girl. "Please say you will, don't make me ashamed for asking." "You're beautiful, and I'm just a sad old man. You don't have to thank me, Bev." " At least once more? Please, Gil." When he didn't answer, she looked alarmed and closed the robe. "I want to." But he froze. She let her sad face argue with him a second or two, then fled for her room, gathering the robe around her and breaking into tears. "Oh, I've ruined everything! You hate me now! I'll have to move out again..." No problem. He came up to comfort and stayed to fuck. The next two weeks, like the leading edge of any sexual relationship, he couldn't get enough of her. She sucked him on the stairs, he bent her over the kitchen table, they took showers together, they were insatiable. But along with the load of guilt he was taking on was a constant dosing with drugs. His wife began to go downhill, too. She prepared all the meals, it was easy. Before her husband Jaime had been convicted, back in Ohio, she had done much of the stealing of prescription drugs for him. By the end of March she was in charge of everything. Her patient was hardly able to totter to the bathroom, and she slept all the time. Gil was being led around by his guilt and her blonde pussy as if he had a ring through his nose. He was just too doped up to think his way out of it. The family savings began to fall into her spendthrift little hands. Lots and lots of lovely, lovely money. Then Don had come back to Maine for the summer. _______________________________________ Beverly's fingers rolled her nipples. Her high heeled patent leathers were hooked onto Gil's shoulders, and his mouth was at work. Languidly she opened her eyes, and there at the door stood Don, watching them. She almost choked. "Get out!" The crewcut head jerked up, and Gil's tongue came out of her ass. Don skedaddled. She shoved with both legs, digging into the spaces behind Gil's collarbones; he yelped and fell backward with a crash. "It's your kid!" she told him. "What crap! Shut the door next time, you moron!" She stood and shook out her robe. Don's footsteps receded around the corner and down. Gil checked the empty doorway, but his belly seemed to drop and his sphincter pull up. He had never feared his son, but when Beverly was upset, it was bad. He was naked and began to root around on the floor and the furniture for some trousers to throw on. Beverly stepped across his legs and strode for the door and then away after his son, in black seamed stockings and the flimsy robe, heels clumping on carpet and then clicking on the bare hardwood of the hallway. "Don! Hold up!" Downstairs! Christ, I can't let the old lady see me dressed like this! Penny wasn't stupid, just sick and drugged up. People only wear stockings like that for one reason; the only question would be which was fucking her, the son or the husband. "God dammit!" she said, cinching the robe. She stopped, quivering with rage and gnawed by panic. If anyone started in investigating the events in this house, she would be up the creek! Slippers! She reached into the robe and jerked both garters up, pushed down a stocking and kicked the shoes off. Gil was zipping his slacks and belting up, still naked to the waist, and barefoot. The other stocking went and she dug her mules out of the closet. "Get presentable! He went downstairs. And just go along with me, we can't afford to let him talk to anyone, understand?" "You have a plan?" "Not yet, but whatever it is, just agree to it! It's too important!" She pulled panties on, the garters flew and she drove her feet into the mules. "Okay, I'll be down as quick as I can..." "Assholes! I really hate assholes." Beverly was already thinking how long until breakfast. She could give Don the digitalis if she could figure a way to cover it. No. Narcotics or something. No bodies. But there's all night first! What the hell am I going to do?? She flapped down the stairs in the mules, holding the robe shut as the air lifted it. C'mon, Bev, think! Don had heard her tell him to hold up, but he'd been faced with his father's vast pimpled ass, he'd seen his fat neck drive his head in circles in Beverly's crotch. He wasn't going back up there right now. He slowed in the front hall once he was downstairs, and came into his mother's presence without haste. She looked really bad; she was asleep again. Don himself couldn't seem to drive a thought in a straight line these days. He did figure that being in earshot of his mother might make Beverly hesitate to speak. He still had no plan what to do with the information he'd just acquired. Leaning his head on his forearm, he sat and looked at his dying mother's face with the hissing green plastic mask on it. The sensuous images, stockings and tits, and the wide pale ass rolled in his consciousness, spiked with an awareness that Beverly was angry with him. He also imagined he had power somehow, but the reason was elusive. He heard the woman in the hall. "Don, please, I need to talk with you." "Right now?" What a question! she exulted, He's spaced right out. This might not be hard. "Please. It won't take long." "I'll wait for Mom to be able to hear it, I think." "I'm sorry I yelled, I was startled. I didn't mean to sound angry." "Where are the stockings?" "What?" "The black stockings, and the high heels?" "Really, Don! If you want to talk, come upstairs. Your mother's asleep." "Uh-uh. Dad's up there-- oh, hi, Dad." "Don, please try to understand," his father said. "Gil, please be quiet. Your father's down here now, come on up," she went on. "Oh, I understand. I understand just fine!" But he'd stood up and he was walking toward the stairs. The same direction as his father. "Beverly was unhappy, I was unhappy," his father said. "Gil! Be quiet!" "Ya, right! She looked pretty happy--" "Don! Your mother is sleeping! Go upstairs, we can talk there! Gil, I said be quiet! Now, look, Gil. I have to talk to Don, and you know what about! Please wait here, watch television or something, okay? No, be quiet, Gil, I'll talk to him, it will all work out. Just let me handle it. Watch the TV. We'll be a while. Go on, Don, I'm coming." She worked them past each other and didn't let them talk, then followed the boy up and steered him into her room. She hadn't felt so much like a shepherd dog with only one doped-up man to manage. The whole thing rattled her. She really wasn't some kind of mastermind; she felt overwhelmed. Downstairs, the television went on. Gil looked woebegone, but he began flipping through the channels and his face smoothed out. Penny slept on, her mask hissing. "Now, then, Don--" "Dad comes up here before he goes to bed, every night," Don cut in. She said nothing. "You fuck him." She still was silent. "In stockings." "What do you think about that?" Therapeutic Communication, they call that in the nursing courses. How does that make you feel? I hear you saying you resent that. It makes the patient define the problem. "He's supposed to have Mom. It's not right." "Penny has to breathe oh-two, three to six liters. She can't lie down long, she sleeps sitting up--" "That doesn't matter, or it makes it worse! And you know it!" "Your father knows it, too, Don, he feels awful about it, but we can't tell her, it might kill her, sick as she is! Can't you see that?" "I ought to talk to the state and have them pull your license, the whole arrangement is screwy!" He's not spacey enough by a long chalk, she said to herself. "Look, Don, what do you want? The TR?" "What's the TR got to do--" "I'll sign the TR3 over to you, you'll own it free and clear. But you have to shut up about this." "You have it paid for? It's an antique, it's beautiful! White kid leather top and seats--! It musta cost over a hundred thousand!" Way over. "Oh yes. No payments. I own it, I can give it to you." "And you have to stop fucking Dad." "And then you'll shut up about it, never tell your mother or anyone?" Sorry, Junior, he's got the money. I'll still fuck Dad. Less often, thank God. "And you have to fuck me instead, every night before bed, in stockings." "Jesus." This is too bizarre. "Otherwise, I go to the state licensing board." "If I'm fucking you, I keep the TR." "Okay, keep the TR." "We have sex, I stop with your Dad, you shut up." "That's it. Every day." "Get your clothes off. I'll get the stockings." This will take care of it until breakfast. Under control. "Oh yeah." Don was childishly happy; he felt like a winner. It is especially good to one-up your dad! Then she saw it. "My Gawd! You sure didn't get that from your father!" "He's not big like this?" "Not even close!" This was gratifying. "It's not really all the way up yet." "I'm going to like this! You want a garter belt?" "Show me what's there... that one, tonight, if you don't mind." "Yes, Sir! Wow, that's amazing! Hook it right in back, would you?" "Sweet ass, Beverly." She squeezed and pumped his enormous cock while he explored her bottom with his hands. He nibbled her ear. "Mmm. I can't get over this thing." "Yes, you can," he said smugly, "Every time you want it, all summer long." "I want to taste it. Let me clip these up!" It didn't seem like doing the chores any more. Variety, and youth, and let's face it-- "It's even bigger! How big does it get, do you know?" "You'll have to find out!" He played with her tits while she clipped in the stockings, and the thing poked at her ass and slapped her hip and elbow. He had a nice firm touch and big warm hands. "Find out!" She turned and checked the mirror. "Okay, shoes! And then I suck it!" "Screw the shoes." "Yeah, gimme that!" Gil lost interest in the commercials and drifted off into the front hall, toward the only real event in the house. The first voice he heard was Don's. "Why don't you deep-throat me?" "You're-- you're kidding, right?" "Of course! Oh, shit, Beverly. That's sweet...!" All his guilt came rushing back. It was overwhelming, awful, bottomless. The sound of the mask in the living room accused him! His son was--! She was sucking Don, she never did that now with him! Silently, the Commander who once had directed every tiny aspect of his life sat down on the stairs and sobbed into his hands-- but he kept listening. "I want your pussy while you do that." "Yeah, lie right back, baby. There you go, Don-- kiss it. Tell it hello, little pussy... Oh, just light, just very light, oh golly. Oh, Don." "Does it like tongue?" "Yes, indeed! Oh, yes! Well, what was I doing? I remember!" Gil heard more rude noises, very faint. His guilt was receding and his old cock was stirring. "God, Don, this thing just keeps getting harder and bigger! You gotta let me have it, I want to feel it." "What are you saying, little pussy?" "Fuck me!" The bed squeaked. Gil heard a pair of feet on the floor. "From behind first, okay, it's so goddam big... oh sweet Jesus." "That looks so hot. Here it comes again, now." "Oh! Oh, Don." "Got a little more in, that time... Uh!" "Oh! Look, maybe I can't really take it all, I-- oh!!" "You can do it, baby, uh, wait'll you feel it, wait'll all this meat, uh, is right up inside!" Gil was almost up where he could see. There. Don was looking down. "I'm so full! Hold it. Right like that." "Like that?" "I can't believe it. Fuck me now, fuck me good with that thing." There's the top of her ass. One more step... Holy shit, the boy's a giant! Christ, I don't stand a snowball's chance now. The slut! She's mewing like a cat, for Christ's sake. I bought that garter belt! I bought her!! I did everything for her, and look at her! Jesus, she's taking all of it; why isn't it ripping her belly open, it's immense! "This is the best fucking cock! Oh, Jesus! Lemme turn over, lemme just... Okay, do it again. Oh, shit..." "Lift your legs more!" "Oh, God, it's too deep!" "Take it!" "Oh, oh, no, wait!" "Put your leg right on my shoulder. There." "Oh, that's better, it's deep, but it's really really good, Don." Gil watched, seething with anger, lust, hopelessness-- What's that? "Gil, can you come here, please?" It was Penny! Gil lumbered down the stairs in a welter of remorse and shame, his cock deflated like a kid's balloon the next day. "Of course, dear," he said. "Now just relax, Beverly, you're all tensed up, I won't hurt you. You'll never come if you don't relax... That's the way. Just close your eyes and feel it." "Oh..." "Feel it. Big, fat cock, all for you." "Yeah." "Wanna get on top now?" "No, just fuck me, fuck me just like that... " "Hello, little pussy...!" "Oh, fuck! Oh, Don, fuck it!" ___________________________________ "It has to be this way, Gil. We knew it couldn't be forever." "What am I gonna do? I've been--" "Look, he works." "What?" "He'll be out of the house! I won't be available most of the time. That means never, ordinarily! But when I need more money, you can have me when he's at work. Sign the papers and then you can have me, whenever I need more money, so long as we can hide it from him. Will that do?" "Will you suck me and do anal like you did at first?" "And no more spankings. But only when I need money for something." "Do you want some now?" "I could use another ten thousand." "I get your ass, ten times, and you suck it." "Dead secret, though. If he ever finds out, I'm leaving yall for good." "For good?" "He'll turn me in! I can't risk it. You'll have to act normal and wait until I say it's safe. Or I'll cut you off high and dry." The board's irrelevant, I don't need to work at all with this kinda money, but there'd be an investigation. No investigation. "I'll have the money tomorrow, there's a certificate of deposit." "Buy some K-Y, then. He works tomorrow afternoon." "Thank you. I was so afraid to lose you." "It won't be very often; don't get used to it." "I'm gonna hate hearing him go up there, knowing..." "I know. Shh. Get the money, treasurer's check. We can work it out." The spooky old bastard wants my ass so bad he's forgotten about his wife altogether! So she told herself. But whose fault was that? She reconsidered her plan so keep the younger man drugged off his feet. He was little or no danger, and she wanted him to be able to get it up. She could carry on the way it was awhile longer, the money was still good, and the old man would make sure it got better, now. Meanwhile, she had that amazing cock to play with, and a break from the whining old moron who'd become so disgusting to her. Gil came very quickly in her anus, the sessions would be brief and lucrative. Nice of him to price it at a thousand; quite a compliment! She took her thousand-dollar ass upstairs and slept. __________________________________ "What the hell is with you lately, Don? Christ, you act doped up all the time!" Stumpy wasn't the sort of guy to pussyfoot. It was one of the things that had made Don feel lucky to have gotten the job with him for the summer. "I wish!" he replied. "All the guys I used to do shit like that with are out of town now. I'm sober as a judge, Ron, I swear!" "Well, is it a medical problem? You're all over the place, you don't remember stuff one minute to the next, you're clumsy on the ladders-- Can you see okay? Are your hands numb or your feet or somethin'?" "I'm okay, Stump." But he had been forgetful and inaccurate, and he'd felt close to toppling off the staging once or twice. Don's brows knit. "But you're right, a little bit, I was real unsteady this morning." "You weren't like this the first week, but it's all the time now. I know I can't give ya insurance, and I'm sorry about it, but you ought to get checked out. I can front ya a couple hundred against your pay if you can't afford it. But you should see someone. You got a doctor in town?" "Yes, Aucoin out by the Mall. My folks got money, Stumpy, you don't need to do anything like that. Aucoin will see me." "Go now. I don't want to worry any more. You're better now than you were this morning, but it's the same most days. You get here, you're screwed up, and by afternoon you're better. That's why I thought drugs, you're young, what the hell. Tell me again, you ain't doing drugs every night." "I don't wanna leave ya hangin', I'm okay, I'll finish the day--" "No, seriously, Don, tell me the truth. Are you tokin' up or shootin' up or snortin' up at night before you come to work?" "No! I go home, I eat, I help take care of Mom, I get laid, and I get my sleep, even. I used to have a lotta trouble sleepin', but I sleep nine or ten hours a night now." Ron squinted at him. "I believe ya. In that case, though, you go see Aucoin, call him now. This is me, Don. You know I ain't fuckin' around. Call the doc right now." "Jesus Christ, Ron!" "I know, but I don't wanna have to fire ya and I don't wanna scrape you up paralyzed off the driveway. I'll see you tomorrow. Go on!" "Don? Don Annas? I'm Magowan, P.A. Come on back, talk to me." Aucoin had one of those "associates" practices, with a dozen P.A.'s, M.D.'s and N.P.'s altogether, and another dozen techs, in this rambling one-story office suite out by the Bangor Mall. Since he'd come without an appointment he'd agreed to take anyone available, to start the ball rolling. He described the problem to Magowan, who assessed him and wrote orders for blood screens for toxins. "Your reflexes are slow and muted, your pupils are a little sluggish, the sclera are reddish, too. But you get better in the afternoons?" "Yeah, that's the pattern..." "See, when you improve away from home but go downhill when you go back, we think: the problem's environmental. A gas leak, say. You haven't had headaches? Nausea? Diarrhea?" Don denied it. "Constipation?" No, he said, but then he thought about it, and said maybe. "You're sweating, here, but it's not warm, and you're practically naked." "Actually, I feel chilly." But he was sweating, a little. "Well. The toxins screen may tell us something. Can you stay someplace else tonight, and see if it makes any difference? We'll have the results to most of this tomorrow, and I want to see you again tomorrow anyway, okay?" "So you think something's wrong at the house?" "I can't say. Everybody would be pretty sick if there was a gas leak. Do people act confused or dopey at home? Vomiting, headaches, anything like that?" Don left the medical building with a lot to think about. They'd taken blood and a urine sample. He told Magowan he'd see about staying elsewhere one night, and let him know what he'd done the next day. But his Dad was a different man. Maybe not dopey, but lethargic all the time and whiny and very suggestible. Not the Commander of old, at all. But he was devoted to his Mom, he would be expected to be thrown out of his routine if it seemed she was dying. On the other hand, he didn't seem to think about her much at all. He watched Beverly's ass and legs and the television as unconcerned as could be. He slept a lot, just like Don did, and Penny slept eighteen hours a day. Why hadn't he noticed how screwed up it all was? He returned to the customer's house where Stumpy's crew was loading ladders on his truck. Ron listened to him talk about environmental stuff at his house, and Jip Haskell offered him a bed at his apartment. You Can't Go Home Again "It's one of those air beds, and you'll be in the living room." "Hey, I sleep in a storage room at home. No sweat." He thanked Jip, and said he'd be around at eight or so. On the way home, Don suddenly remembered that he had noticed how screwed up it was, as soon as he'd gotten home from California. But he'd lost the sense that anything was wrong, somewhere along the way. He decided to just stay away from home altogether. He went downtown instead of up the hill toward the house, and sat down in a diner. Coffee and an open-faced turkey sandwich, gravy on the fries. Good for whay ails you. He sipped the coffee, but the food left him cold, he just couldn't face the food at all. He felt sweaty and chilled, worse than in the doc's office. He was sniffling, his muscles were achy. What now? Was he just coming down with something? I just can't even think about eating. I gotta take a shit, then I'll call home. But he threw up the coffee. He was wretched and angry as well. "Where have you been, Don?" his father asked. "Beverly's worried." "Hamoudi's, downtown." Did you eat well? Au contraire! he joked to himself. "I'm gonna stay at a friend's house tonight, one of the guys I work with." "Great, Don!" Gil was hearty and warmly approving of the idea. Don heard Bev's voice: What's up? And then the instrument was covered. There was about thirty seconds of muffled talk, Beverly and his Dad, then he was on the line with the home health aide who ran the household. "Don, you won't be home at all tonight?" "I have to get a change of clothes and my toothbrush and shit, but then I'm off again--" "All right." With that noncommittal noise, she hung up. "Whatever," Don told himself irritably. He paid at the register and drove moodily up the hill. He felt restless and dissatisfied. He still ached everywhere, too. If something was poisoning people at the house, fuck 'em! They'd been at it for months, they could damn' well do another night of it. If the urine and blood showed something, he'd tell everyone, but without specifics, he'd just get into some dumb argument with his Dad. What an asshole, what a cunthead his dad was! That hasn't changed. He's always been a cast iron prick to live with. He's just a different kind of a cunthead now. "I hope the asshole loses more brain cells to whatever the fuck this is," he said. He was nervous and irritable, and still sweating! He wanted the night to be over already. He came in the back door, by the kitchen. His Dad was drinking milk and scoping out Beverly's buns while she did the pots in the sink. "Don," his Dad acknowledged him. The television and the hissing of oxygen were audible from the next room. "Hi, Dad. Need the truck tomorrow?" "Yeah, I'll drive you over there. This guy works with you?" They made arrangements. "Don?" came the quaver from the other room. "Mom! You awake?" He broke off to greet his mother, kiss her brow, and exchange declarations of love. She looked as bad as ever, it was like a plateau had been reached of wretched sameness. She let him go and he went up the kitchen stairs, fighting an impulse to weep. He hurt all over. The pains distracted him enough so he didn't hear much of his father's cheery, satisfied talk on the way to Haskell's place. He stared out the truck window and felt a hopeless gloom about everything in general. His belly roiled, the whole thing sucked out loud! "Christ, you're moody tonight, Don," his father said when he was stepping out in front of the apartment house on Cedar Street. "Sorry, I just feel crappy." "You and Bev didn't have a fight or anything?" "No, we never do, it's not like that." And of course it wasn't like that, it was a business arrangement. And recreation! But they didn't have lovers' quarrels because they didn't care about each other enough. His father told him goodbye and drove away. Beverly, meanwhile, woke Penny long enough to get her to the bathroom, removed her tampon and pad and let her pee, brushed her hair and teeth, and assisted her to her bed. By the bed was another tall green tube of oxygen. She medicated her, and peeled her clothes off. The woman was already asleep. She flipped her onto her belly on the bed, moisturized the wasted buns against bedsore ulcers, and put on her underwear and pad for overnight. "This one is nearly done, she won't need much tomorrow. She's losing lots of weight. I'll ease up the meds so she can eat more for a week or two," Bev decided. Penny's breathing became labored due to her position. Beverly pulled and flipped her over again, then sat her up in the recliner and rolled a nightgown onto her thin body, disconnecting the mask to do it. Fuzzy socks over the compression stockings, a warm comforter, reconnect and adjust the mask. Moisturize lips and nose, moisturize elbows, set the chair back partway, turn down the lighting. Beverly stepped back and surveyed her work. "Okay, my turn." She took off her top and bra on the way upstairs, then removed the rest of her clothes in her room. In the bathroom she took an enema for the second time that day. "Gil will come back raring to fuck my ass," she told herself, head down and full of Fleet solution. "This will be a two or three thousand dollar day! The ape does love anal. I don't even dare suggest it to Don, that fat beautiful cock would split me open." She expelled the enema and was washing up when she heard the truck driving in. Beverly, made up now, was wearing the pushup bra and hooking the garter belt when Gil peeked in the door of her room. "There you are, beautiful! The boy is taken care of, and I saw Penny was in bed already. You look fantastic. I see you had the same idea I had!" "I sure did," she purred. She turned the garter belt around and sat, gathering up a taupe stocking in her hands. "Dress like a burglar and you can surprise me in bed and rape me! Make me deep throat you and then force me to take it deep, up the ass! It's early, we can probably do two more times today. I'm so ready!" She pointed a toe and applied the nylon sensuously all the way up to the milky soft thigh. Gil was watching avidly. "I'll wear little pink panties and you can cut them off, it'll be hot!" she told him. "I have a ski mask for hunting, and a sharp knife, I'll be right back! God, you look good enough to eat." "Do that after, and you'll get hard again quicker. We can go again!" "You nasty girl, talking like that. Get right in bed, the burglar will be breaking in shortly!" To get the mask and knife, he had to tiptoe past his sleeping wife. She looked so tragic. He was eaten by guilt until he pulled on the mask and started up the stairs. Then he thought about Beverly's tight young anus waiting for his hot meat and didn't feel so bad any more... The Burglar snuck cautiously down the hallway, but the hardwood floor made little sound to betray him. Toward the front of the house was a bedroom door, which he quietly opened. He sent his flashlight beam across the room, then doused it immediately-- there was someone asleep in the bed! A blonde! The thick carpet helped his noiseless approach. By the time he'd reached the bedside, his eyes had acclimated enough to evaluate the Woman sleeping right in front of him. She looked young! Her firm tits showed through the pink babydoll nightie, rising and falling with her soft breathing. His cock stirred to see her so helpless. Money was good, but this was ass! He placed the flashlight to one side and drew the hunting knife. He pounced, clapping a leather glove across the sleeping mouth, knife at the ready. She jerked awake and screamed, but he'd muffled it. "Hold right still, Lady!" he said. Her blonde head trapped against his hip, she struggled a second but then subsided, eyes wide in fear. The back of his knife went to the lovely throat, so she could feel the cold metal. "Right still, now... that's the way. You're gonna need that throat to suck my cock! Understand me?" "Mm-hm!" came the muffled response. "No noise, now," he went on, and he released her mouth. "What do you want??" she whispered in a terrified little voice. His cock was harder now to hear her fear. Her tits heaved with her rapid breaths. "You're gonna suck me, got that? Right down your throat! I want to see it go in right to the BRISTLES! Or I'll use this, and nobody will know you." "Oh, God! Okay, okay, I'll suck you, just don't hurt me! Take whatever you want!!" "Oh, I plan to, Lady." He removed the knife from her. "Take off the pink thing, let me see those tits!" He stepped back a pace and watched her pull it over her head. He reached out a gloved hand and turned the light on. "Nice rack! Now open my pants and suck!" She made assurances in abject terms that he could have anything while she undid his pants and hauled them down over the Burglar's fat ass. His cock bobbed up and waved in her face. She looked into his eyes but could read no mercy. She ducked a little under his obscene belly and took him into her mouth and then to the very root in her throat. He groaned and thrust forward with the wide, meaty hips. She was glad that she couldn't see his face. "Good!" he said, and his glove clutched hair at the top of her head. "Open your mouth, I'm fucking your throat." The Woman complied with a sob and he pumped his cock down her neck over and over, making her gag. Each time she gagged strongly, he'd pull back a bit and let her swallow and gain control before jamming it in again. Tiring of this, she reached up and fondled his balls, then took charge of the rhythm of it, working him into her throat herself and licking him in a very sensuous way. His grip relaxed on her hair, and she brushed his hand away with a casual gesture. Remaining at the very bottom of her next stroke, she snaked out her tongue and licked his bag from down there. He uttered the name of the Lord in vain. She made another stroke and repeated the move, so that he'd do it again! "Holy shit, Lady, you can really suck! But I don't wanna come just yet. Get on the bed again! Hands and knees!... Oh yeah, what a sweet ass. Guess what? I'm fucking it!" "Oh God, not up my ass! Please! Don't rape my ass!" screamed the fearful Woman. His knife came toward her. "Hold still, Lady!" with two brutal pulls, he cut away the little pink panties. Her anus looked moist. Beverly must have greased it up already, he thought. Better make sure, though. Her cunt was definitely moist, but he wasn't after that right now. From the night table he took the tube of lubricant and removed the glove from his right hand, laying the knife out of her reach. She was sobbing and pleading for him to spare her poor little asshole. He drove a heavily-lubed thick finger into it and stretched it hard to left and right. Allowing two fingers to dip into the twat each time, he fucked it with the finger several strokes. It was very loose and slippery. Oh well, the more the better, I guess. "Grab your ass and spread it!" "Oh please no!" she whispered, but she did it for him and lowered her head to the sheet. With a push of his two hundred forty pounds, he slid his wet cock in and socked it home in one motion. There was a lot of lubrication! His fuck strokes were easy and her little ass took him in a lovely tight grip. He babbled about what a fine tight asshole she had, and told her take it, lady, take it all the way in there! "You prick, you're the first to ever do this! I hate you, I hate you!" she whispered loudly, and then she told him, "But it feels so fucking hot! I hate you for making me feel this good! You prick! You bastard! Fuck my ass, you son of a bitch!!" She bucked into the thrusting hips, which slammed into her nearly as strongly as his son's did, because of his weight. The massive belly scraped its hairy underside across the upper curve of her upturned buns. With all the lube, it was really a good feeling. She almost liked the old Commander, the more he pumped cock into her willing rectum. She begged the Burglar to let her turn and take him on her side. He pulled out, breathing hard. His rock hard cock glistened in the bedside lamplight, his hairy belly shook. She turned to look at the Burglar in fear, and he placed his cock and entered her again all at once with a grunt of piglike satisfaction. The Burglar wallowed in the Woman's ass, which felt sweet at the new angle, soft like a mouth but tight like a little girl's hairless slit. He closed his eyes and imagined a ten-year old with budding little bump tits and hair on her tiny pussy like the golden fuzz on her third-grader forearms... the Baby Girl was loving his invading giant meat! Her hot little cunt smacked its lips in joy to swallow him up! He opened them again, and drank in the stockinged legs of the whore he'd installed in his fucking son's room just so he could fuck her ass. By day, she made him meals and tended his skinny comatose woman, by night she opened her ass and took him over and over. Her anus pushed into her sweet pale hips and then, when he retreated, clung to him, stretching out and holding on to his cock vein by vein. Madly, he increased the pace. The Woman loved being sodomized, it gave her a holy glow to know that she took no sin on her soul because she'd been forced to take the hairy Burglar any way he desired. All this sweet nasty pleasure free of guilt! His cock reamed her deeply. He was going faster and faster! "Oh, sweet Jesus! Make this evildoer come in my ass! Save me, Lord, make him come in my ass!" Jesus, evidently, granted her wish immediately, like the genie in the lamp. Sudden pulses made the fat Burglar's cock twitch against the compressing tube of gut, sudden extra liquid made the cock slide more easily, both of them grunted and moaned together. "I loved it, you bastard," she gasped. And she wasn't lying, for once. There are worse ways to make a thousand dollars. _____________________________________ The big, long hank of cock flesh drove in and slid out, Don's teenage muscles powered his hips up against her upraised bottom with a meaty slap! Sylvia called his name and closed her eyes, the better to pay attention to the sensations. He was going so fast and hard! It was the finest thing since her high school days. The rude, meaty noises of a truly epic fuck sounded in the sunny bedroom. The boy was so big, she felt pinned by some raging animal. That's what's so much like high school! Christ, all these young boys fuck like wild men, I love it! He comes a bucketful, too! It was like being spanked the way he pile-drivered into her. Her wide-stretched pussy filled so full each time. "Let me flip over, Don!" They got set again and off he went. Her taut nipples traced ovals in the air with the bone shaking power of him. She clutched the quilt and grunted in pleasure to watch his single-minded jamming and slamming. I am so fucked! she exulted. He's so beautiful in the light, look at the belly muscles and his arms. Poor Alice Coulter, she'll never know what she missed out on! He's getting to me, too... oh my. A little change in angle and her orgasm could be felt coming nearer, nearer. The fine fullness, the shocking impact of the fresh young body unleashed to work his magic on her-- she opened her hips in response, she gave herself over to him. Just another moment, just a little more, a little more. "Oh Don, I'm gonna come, go just like that honey--!" Helplessly unable to form words any longer, she uttered moans and shrieks. Don was sweating and grinning his triumph, his cock sank out of sight and rebounded over and over in the ageless primitive rhythm. Boom! She came intensely, the whole world was one giant fuck! The wave passed, and another just as fine swamped her mind again. Amazingly, he was smashing into her with unabated power, and she had another long, deep twinge of sheer pleasure. What if it never stops, what if I die just like this? She'd been too young and inexperienced to respond like this in high school. The luxury of it! "I want to suck your tits, get on top, baby," Don was saying. She came back to the present and they eagerly rearranged themselves for more. She threw her mind into her pelvic muscles and squeezed him. His face looked like it had when she'd swallowed him whole at the beginning! Gotcha! She did it again, then again. And his mouth came off the nipple, his head shot back against the quilt. With a grunt from deep in his chest, he shot the first stream of seed into her. His ass locked up, driving an extra inch in, and she rode the massive rod, squeezing another couple of times and flashing her own triumphant grin to give him such a strong one. He just kept shooting! She recalled the arch of white in the sunshine when he'd come for Alice Coulter in his room, oblivious of the camera and the middle-aged reprobate on the floor in the hallway, taking dirty pictures of him. The immediate future looked rosy to Sylvia. She liked her sex, and this was going to be a great summer and fall. ___________________________________ In mid-June, the night she'd first met him, it was not such a great time for the young man. He hugged himself on Jip's awful couch like a junkie. He didn't say much but an occasional mumbled curse, for the most part. When she or Jip could get his attention, he was a pleasant, even charming fellow, but his misery kept withdrawing him from them. Not to mention going off to vomit a lot. "What the hell is the matter with him, Jip?" she wondered. Jip shook his head. "No idea. He's nothing like this, usually. He said there's something wrong at his house or something. Ronnie was worried about him, and I guess he shoulda been! Poor kid." She offered him tylenols, soup, and dope. Except for the soup, he took her up on it, and the marijuana actually seemed to help. Or maybe the painkillers had hit, although he vomited right along, even once he was empty. Eventually he could sleep, although he was up a number of times in the night. She'd left a doob or two with him on the coffee table, and he'd smoked it all in the night at some point. In the morning he was pale and drained-looking, but sharp and fairly clear of mind. He shook a little until the morning coffee got into him. He told them he'd see a P.A. named Magowan some time that afternoon. Sylvia was curious, and he could pay attention now. She extracted a coherent story of his difficulties from him. She saw his back and arms as he dressed, and glimpsed his ass through the bathroom doorway once when he was toweling off. The apartment was cheap and very small for two people. Three was a crowd. Nothing anyone could do about that, but seeing the muscular nineteen-year-old made her think. Sylvia made a living as a photographer. "Jip, I'd like to set up at your worksite and take a few rolls today. Do you think Ron will mind?" A young man like Don Annas driving nails in the summer sun might produce some saleable shots. "I imagine he will, but all you can do is ask," Jip said. "Hey Don! Sylvia wants to photograph you! You're a model!" "I am?" "You're a model if you wanna be," Sylvia amended. "I don't insist, but I'd like to follow you around the scaffolding with a camera if you're willing to let me do it." "Sure. You put up with me last night, and that was decent weed! It really seemed to help. So if you want a favor, you got it." So the three of them went to the house on Montgomery Street together in the truck. She put her proposal to Ron. Ron thought about what she wanted to do. And suddenly he realized she'd be squatting and reaching and climbing all over, and she had tight shorts and good legs. "As long as I'm not in the shots and you don't sue me if you fall off, go for it," he decided. Don tried to put a good face on it through the morning, but everything ticked him off, even Sylvia, even inoffensive Jip! His aches persisted, though the intensity was down from the day before. He chilled easily, he was shaky and a little sweaty. He was every bit as irritable, but on the whole he seemed to have gotten better. Ron was noncommittal, damn him! Waiting to hear what Magowan says, I guess, thought the young man.