0 comments/  15713 views/  2 favorites

Fred's Big Game

By: Frogsoup



"Mf." 

What's that? A pretty voice I don't quite recognize, off to my left...right where my elbow just went.

I open my eyes, and I don't recognize where I am. Sunlight shafts in through a window above my head, illuminating laundry baskets filled with folded laundry, a sliding closet door half-open on racks of sensible girlwear--nope, this is surely not my apartment. Carol's clothes were what she would call 'executive' and what the rest of the world would call 'whorish'. My eyes wander onto the dresser; a few cosmetics up there next to a small lighted mirror and a waitress' apron hanging from one of the dresser drawer pulls.

Waitress.

I turn my head, and see red-gold curls all over the pillow, next to me. I move my arm just a little, and yes, she is nude next to me, her breathing is even, she is so very warm and I'm struck with wonder that this beautiful woman would somehow be naked in bed with Fred. Sure, I've been able to pick up women, but....not good women. Not like Emma, the wet dream of every man in Jerry's Bar even before they'd had a drink and who bowls better than anyone I've ever seen. No, I mean women like...well, Carol.

Oh, yeah. Carol. Shit...I'm glad. I'm glad I caught her cheating, just getting away from her is best for both of us. This must be a regular thing for her, with her on business trips every week for three weeks and then one week off, the week she had her period.

So, I feel like a dupe about Carol, and court might get ugly. But I'm the happiest guy alive.

I roll toward Emma and brush her hair away from her face. She's got sleep dirt in her eye and she is still the most gorgeous woman I've ever been with, maybe even seen. She's been my barmaid for a couple of years--the gorgeous one, you don't dare flirt with her because she can kill you with a look--and this morning, early Christmas morning, I'd made her scream my name under her Christmas tree. I smiled to myself; I'd come down her chimney last night...

But now it's Christmas Day, and time to face the music.

I get out of bed quietly, so I don't disturb her, and I'm realizing as I reach for my pants that no, you do not slink away from a girl like this. I slip back into bed and run my cold big toe down Emma's shin.

"Mf..heh?" Emma's eyes didn't open.

"Emma?"

Her eyes snap open and fix on mine. "Here," she says, hoarse and groggy. "Fred...oh God, Fred, what did you do to me?"

I take her into my arms and we kiss--shallowly, for morning breath. She maneuvers her warm calves around my cold feet. "Brr, you've been up. Did you make coffee?" She gives me that glorious smile, wide and fun and summery.

"Do we have coffee?" I reply with a grin. I had been able to find very little in her kitchen last night for dinner, and I might have noticed coffee.

"Well, no, but I think you could make it out of nothing after that pasta, which you have to work off me by the way."

"We need more pasta," I tell her and she giggles against my neck. I run my hands along her slim side and am surprised at how wiry she is, the strength in her seeming fragility. It's reasonable; she was a pro bowler. My hand finds her waist, slides up to her shoulder, over her shoulder and ends cupping her left breast. Emma's eyes close and I feel a little tremor pass through her. 

I press my hand against her, rubbing her breast against her chest but without a lot of friction to her nipple. Hers are really sensitive. She moans and then uncoils, all graceful and slow, and moves out of the covers as if surfacing. Her hand finds me already hard and she strokes and she kisses me and she is laying me back on the bed, her eyes on mine, still tugging my dick. 

Emma straddles me. She pauses a moment, I feel her lift me and position--and then she's sliding onto me, a little at a time, and those blue blue eyes go vacant as she feels me in her. Now she is lifting, lifting forever and it's all I can do to keep my hips from rising to stay inside her, and now she slides down in one stroke and I gasp and run my hands along her hips. 

"Ohhh, damn!" Emma yells, and she lifts herself off me without ceremony and runs to the dresser. "I hate these things." She tears open a condom and rolls it onto me, then she's back aboard before any loss of altitude. "They kill the mood, you know--unh..." I bottomed out in her and she threw her head back and drew in a long shaky breath. 

Emma reaches out and grabs my wrists, stretches my arms above me, and holy shit, I really can't move. She has me, and she knows it, and now she's leaned way down onto me, and looking me in the eye, and smiling that smile, and she rocks her hips and grinds her mons against my pubic bone and I see her breathing catch, and she rises and lets go of my wrists and I get the full glare of that smile and...I...fight...but I lose, I have to lose when I see that smile widen and her blue eyes grow big. "Oh God Fred, yes, do it, come now--"

I feel myself blast like a shotgun inside her and the blast echoes throughout my body. I feel my guts wind like a catapult and warm chills all over as they release. All I see is Emma, riding me, grinning at me and glowing with the aura of a woman in happy coitus. 

"Raise your legs," she tells me, and I do, and she is reclining back against my legs, kneeling backward, and I am still inside her, and now she is drawing little circles on her clitoris with one hand, spreading herself and occasionally dipping to the wetness between us, and she lays there spread for me, watching me watching her demonstrate her masturbation technique. She slides her fingers up and down now, along the sides of clit, and her breathing deepens. And now I've got enough wood just watching her that she can feel it inside her, and her eyes go vacant again and she wriggles on my dick. "Ohh--Fred--oh hold me baby?" and her arms are around my neck and I'm railing into her and she is gasping in my ear, and her 'unh's are raising both in pitch and in volume and I feel her gush onto me, I can't come yet, it's too soon, but it isn't and I do and I am, and I cry her name and I feel the condom overflow onto me as I spurt, shooting into her over and over and gradually slowing, Emma coming to rest with her head on my chest and making soft whimpering sounds and trembling.

"Baby, this thing is leaking all over..."

"Hm? Oh. Uh, yeah," Emma replies vacantly. "Take it off then."

"Um, most of it is still way up inside you."

"Huh? Oh!" She chuckles, then lifts herself off me. The condom goes with her, spilling the rest of my wonderful time onto my belly. I hold the condom while she rises and it pulls from her. Emma feels along the side of the bed and produces a wastebasket; I throw the rubber into the can and she drops it, then skootches down to lick my spend off my lower belly. I lay back and put my hand on Emma's head, stroking her hair, and begin to let sweet post-coital sleep take me, but I know I have things to do and stop myself. I lever my way to a sitting position, with my feet on the floor, and Emma slides into position beside me. "Going somewhere?" She bats her eyes coyly.

I sigh. "Yes, unfortunately, I have to."

I watch Emma's face fall, and it's heartbreaking. "On Christmas?"

I nod. "I have to see about my apartment."

"Well, Fred--" She broke off, and I looked at her, waiting. "Wow, I just really met you yesterday, and I'm about to ask you to move in with me. I'm crazy, huh?"

"Yes, Emma. You're crazy." I kiss her lips, and they're sticky; I taste myself on her. "And I would love to live with you. But," and I watch her eyes widen, "you don't have anything in my size. All my clothes are at my apartment."

"Oh, Fred... your wife is at your apartment."

"Ex-wife," I correct. "Yes, and I have to make sure she knows that she's out of there on the first of February, unless she decides to take over the lease. And that I'm out of there today. And that I need my clothes and bowling ball."

"You know it makes me worry, Fred," Emma told me, and her blue eyes clouded to a misty grey. "You'll talk to her, and you'll miss her, and she'll want you back, I know she will."

"Honey, you don't know the woman. I myself wonder how I stood her so long." I encircle Emma with my arm and kiss her, tender. "But if you want to, you can come with me."

I watch her eyes deepen to blue again. "I'd like to see where you used to live."

I love Emma's laughter. It makes even the crummiest stuff all right, like rounding the corner of my apartment building and finding all my stuff outside in boxes. She wastes no time in poking around inside the nearest box, which evidently has ties in it. She pulls out the bowling one, with a view down a lane at pins flying before a hurtling ball, and looks charmed beyond imagining. "Aw, it's a bowling tie! Was it a gift?"

I nod and she tweezes the tie between her thumb and index finger. I laugh. "My buddy Mark got that for me two years ago." Emma grins and pulls the tie to her, smelling my aftershave on it and looking beatific.

I take the tie from her and knot it around my neck, then take it off and hand it to her. She puts it on and tightens it over her coat, looking distinguished, and flashes me that big Emma grin and I feel all melty inside. We pick up boxes and take them to the car. I begin to load the car and she walks back for another load. 

While I load I hear yelling, and look up to see Carol, pointing a finger at Emma and Emma backing away.

"Hey!" I yell. Carol turns to me and I see contempt in her eyes.

"Oh, is this yours?" she asks, indicating Emma. "I thought it was a garbage picker. But then," and she looked me up and down like some kind of specimen, "I guess it is. Aren't you, darlin'?" Carol gives her her best brat sneer. Emma doesn't move. "Well? Aren't you a garbage picker?" Carol gets in her face.

Emma just smiles. "I picked you, didn't I?"

There's a pause while Carol figures out she's been insulted. Emma has time to walk away and end it here but she doesn't move, and Carol takes a swing.

Emma looks like she never moves, and Carol is flying through the air. I can't tell what she did. But whatever it is, it looks effortless and launches a five-ten brunette through space. Carol lands in the snow on the lawn and she's up spoiling for a fight.

"Please, I don't want to fight," Emma tells her reasonably. She's smiling a little. 

"Well I do." Carol flings a snowball at Emma and it hits me in the side of the head as I enter to break it up.

"Hey, enough!" I yell. 

"Um, Fred, you need to move," Emma tells me softly. Carol looks at her.

"Why?" I ask her.

"Because you're going to be in the middle of a cat fight if you don't," she replies, and I hear the laugh in her voice as she stoops for a handful of snow. 

"Okay then," I reply amiably, and back away. Carol's eyes follow me with a betrayed look; I realize she was counting on me breaking this up. Instead I look straight back at her. "Go on, you started it," I tell her.

"I thought you didn't want to fight," Carol asks her, her voice a bit uncertain now that no-one's going to rescue her.

"You said you did. I'm easy," Emma tells her with a grin.

"Yeah, well, obviously," Carol says snidely. Emma laughs.

"I never cheated on any of my boyfriends, let alone my husband," she responds. "At the Shady Rest during a snowstorm, hm?"

"Beats another night at home with this boring piece of shit nobody--Owww!" Emma's smile is gone and her snowball takes Carol high on the cheek. "Oww! No fair, I wasn't ready!"

"Ready enough to talk shit about someone I care for," Emma replied. 

"He's my husband and you can't...have him!" Carol yells, and she throws herself at Emma, who just stands, watching her approach, and steps deftly to the side. She trips Carol into a snowbank.

"No fair, I wasn't ready," Emma tells her with a dollop of angry spite mixed into her sweet high voice. "Just like you're not ready to be married if you can't at least be nice to the poor guy you roped into doing it with you. Oh, and last night--I had him. Oh yeah."

Carol walks up to her--no more throwing herself at people just because they're smaller, I see--and pulls back her right arm to deck her, but before she can get that one away, Emma's own right connects with Carol's eye. I hear it from here and I hurt in sympathy; I know that's going to turn black and I know as sure as sunshine she will blame it on her abusive ex-husband. I pull out my cellphone and snap pictures, including a video clip of Carol circling Emma warily and Emma smiling and waving to the camera.

"Hi, Mom, this is me cleaning up the neighborhood!" she yells, and I laugh hard enough to shake the camera. Carol picks this opportunity to land a solid hit to Emma's chin, and Emma rocks for a beat.

"Hey, you hit me! Good one," Emma tells her amiably, and I think this is what turns Carol off of the fight entirely; for her it's personal, her pride is at stake, and for Emma it's...kind of like a car wreck on the freeway--you have to look, but it's no-one you know.

And now Carol rocks back, and again, and she is driven backward by a flurry of combinations. "Do it this way next time," Emma is telling her, "and you stay on your opponent's weak side, and if you're really lucky or your partner's really bad--" and she lets a punch fly solidly into Carol's side; her arms drop to protect her and she doubles over a little bit. I can't hear what she's saying now but I see her lips move. The women circle and as Emma nears me, I hear she is continuing Carol's boxing lesson.

"So you feint, like this--" and Emma's hard little fist snakes out toward the hurt place in Carol's side, and Carol drops her guard to protect that place and her jaw is bare. Emma's other fist darts out, fast but with arm behind it, and cracks against Carol's chin, snapping her head back, and I see that suddenly no-one is there behind Carol's eyes. "--and boom." Emma steps behind Carol and catches her, easing her to the snowy concrete. A quick look at the puffs of steam blowing into the cold air from Carol's nostrils, and a feel of her neck for a pulse, and Emma straightens to face me, her face rueful. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Ladies don't box; it's unladylike."

I step forward and, grabbing her wrist, raise her arm in the classic victory. "The Winnah!" I take her in my arms. "I bet you could kick my ass."

"Maybe," she says quietly, looking deep into my eyes, "but I haven't seen you do a damn thing to deserve it. She egged me on, she told me she wanted to fight me, I begged her--"

To my surprise, she's crying a little. I kiss her tears away. "I know, I saw. She wouldn't have let it come to anything other than you or her stretched out on the ground." I look at Carol, still out cold. "It happened just right, baby, you tried to make her better even while she was trying to bring you down. Where'd you learn to fight like that anyway?" But I know what she will say as soon as I ask, and we answer together. "PBA tour." Emma used to be a professional bowler, and seems to have learned everything about being a great wife on tour with the PBA.

Emma laughs and wipes her tears away. "Fred, you know me! That's sweet. Where's your rock?"

"My what?"

"Bowling ball, didn't you say--"

"Oh yeah, that's not here." I feel for my car keys, and for certainty I take Carol's keys. "Let's go look. I'll give you the tour."

We take the stairs rather than the elevator; it's shorter for only two flights so I take them all the time. Emma doesn't seem tired by the climb but she is shaking from adrenaline withdrawal. At my apartment the knob looks new; sure enough, my key doesn't work. I try hers and we're in.

"Everything okay? Are they gone?" A naked man steps out of the bedroom, sees me, and freezes. 

"Yeah, they're gone," Emma tells him, smirking. "Put something on, okay?"

He puts his hands in front of his dick, and he's shaking. His eyes are big and he can't look away from me. I spread my hands, showing him the palms. "Relax, buddy. Frank Caswell, I take it?"

He nods, speechless.

"Listen, I don't think you know just what Carol is. I know you won't listen to this, but you ought to do yourself a favor and run away from her." He looks panicky and I continue. "I mean, she's not a nice person. I don't know how long you guys have been doing this, and I don't really care to now. But she's a beautiful woman--" I feel Emma's light punch on the side of my arm. "--And you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Frank..." I drew a breath. "I'll tell you right now that I'm sorry, to save me the trouble later. Now if you'll excuse me," and I step past him into the bedroom, into the closet where a good deal of someone else's duds are already hanging. On the floor in the corner I find my bowling bag, and I heft it out. I snag a few of my outfits and carry them on the hangers, and my good shoes, which go in a box under my bowling-bag arm. As I leave the bedroom Emma takes the shoes.

"Bye, Frank," I tell him, and walk out the door, Emma in tow. I hear her chuckle all the way down the stairs.

Carol is ringing for the elevator as we walk past, and she faces Emma with wide eyes. Emma walks up slowly. "You know, I didn't want this," she tells Carol. "I begged you not to fight me. That didn't mean I can't fight."

"Yeah, well, you and your boyfriend get to pay me alimony." She sneered at me. "What have you got there?"

I shrug and show her. "I bought you that bowling ball," she says, as full of spite as I ever heard her--which is quite a lot. "You can't have it."

"I bought you that dress," I tell her. "I want it back. Now."

"Fuck you. I'll see you in court over this. She assaulted me."

I hold up my phone. "I got movies, Carol."

The elevator door opens and she steps inside. "You know what, Fred? You're a lousy lay as well as a dumb gullible son of a bitch."

"God, you're a liar," Emma chips in, and with a dagger look Carol gets in the elevator and the doors close.

I turn to Emma, and I see that fun, sunny grin and she takes me arm. Her eyes are blue as the overhead sky on a summer afternoon. "You're incredible, Emma," I tell her. "I wish I could have seen you on that tour." I think of her on tour, learning how to suck cock and fight. "I bet you had a boyfriend, huh?"

"No, not exactly," she replies. "I had a few guys I slept with but no boyfriends...just a girlfriend." Her voice falls very low when she says this.

"A...girlfriend?" I think of Emma with another woman and the thought goes straight to my crotch.

"It wasn't a good breakup," Emma told me, and her blue eyes clouded. "She's the reason I left the tour." She chances to look down at my crotch, and a laugh escapes her. "You fuckin' pervert! Anything that smacks of lesbian sex and your tail's a waggin'." 

I don't address this; I just get in the car and open her door. "What was her name?"

"Genevieve," she replies. "Same as the girl who runs the skinny-bar outside town. But no relation."

"Genevieve. Pretty name."

"I told her I'd name my first girl that. But it started to look like there'd be no family, no man around the house, and I'd be Emma Grossberger forever. I couldn't do that, and Gen needed that. So I left the tour, and spent the next two years single. There was one guy I liked right when I got into town, but it turned out he was married and no-one else looked as good."

I'm embarrassed by this.

"So now, two years later, here I am with the guy I dreamed about. I used to listen to you talk about stuff with Tony whats-his-name, the playboy guy? I always laughed at your jokes, when you weren't looking." She pauses. "That guy's a whore, you know?"

I shrug as we get into the car. "Tony's a good guy."

"I know," she says. "He's your good friend."

"How do you know that, little girl?" I raise an eyebrow at her. Emma chuckles and pins me with that blue gaze and that heartbreak smile. 


Fred's Big Game



"I overheard," she tells me in a gossipy tone, "that cute Fred Duncan tell his friend Tony, whats-his-name, you know, the whore guy?" She raises her own eyebrow in retaliation. "Fred told Tony that his drunk aunt had peeked in his bedroom door while he jerked off--"

"Oh no." I shake my head; I remember the night I told Tony about the event as well as the event itself, and I remember getting fed a free beer or two by a gorgeous yet somehow still friendly woman behind the bar.

"And he didn't know until he was ready to come, and she fell in the door." She grins at me. "He'd have to be a good friend for you to tell him something like that."

"I don't tell him everything, though," I tell Emma. "When she fell on me, her head went into my lap and--"

"Oh no." It's Emma's turn to deny the inevitable.

"Yep, she did. She sucked me off and cleaned me up. My first blow job."

"How old were you?"

"I'd turned eighteen like two weeks before, and my Aunt Prudence was my mom's brother's wife, so we weren't related by blood or anything. I wasn't too freaked out about it. I fucked Prude at least once every family reunion."

"Prude?"

I smile. "It was a joke. She would do anything, any sex act that wasn't disgusting or too painful."

"Man, that's just...I dunno." Silence falls for a beat, then two. "What about your uncle.?"

"Dead. In the war."

Emma reflects on this. "Oh. I'm sorry, but then I don't blame you, eighteen year old kid, worldly widowed older woman...was she good-looking?"

I look away from the road and into her eyes. "Yes, she was very attractive, brunette, tall, she looked a bit like Carol, and she was almost half as attractive as my new girlfriend and best friend Emma, who I tell everything to." 

"Wow." Emma's smile is sort of tender and her eyes are soft. "Thanks, Freddie. No-one's ever told me their heinous family shame before." She reddens a little. "Mine is that for my guy I will do anything that's not disgusting or too painful."

"Really?" I grin. "Anal?"

She looks a little shocked. "Right here? C'mon, lube? Take a brochure?"

I laugh, but she doesn't, and I think she might be serious. No woman ever admits they like it that way but they all come when you do. "You like anal sex?"

Emma puts a hand over her face and peeks at me between her fingers. "What, you want me to tell you that?" I nod. "Well...I like sex a lot. I've tried a few kinds--" She looks at me with a worried look. "--that doesn't bother you, does it?" I shake my head; it doesn't matter to me who did what to her in the past as long as I was doing it to her in the present. And the foreseeable future. "Well, I like anal sex a lot. It's very...intimate, and nasty enough to be exciting--" Emma grabs my crotch and squeezes my comforts. "You know, Fred, you ever thought about being a dom?"

"A what? You mean--"

"Sure. Chain my neck to your ankle so I have to crawl, make me touch myself on a webcam--" My face is hot, and Emma points at me. "Hah! That's what you get for making me blush, Mister Duncan." She gloats. "To answer you, Yeah. I like anal. I come really hard every time, and I'm up for it anytime. Practically. But we gotta use lube, that's the Emma's butt rule. That, and, uh..shower after."

I almost hit Emma's mailbox pulling into the driveway. Our driveway, I remind myself, our mailbox. I turn to her. "You drive like you bowl," Emma told me, smiling.

"You mean to tell me," I ask her, putting the car in Park, "that if I'd had a tube of KY, you'd have taken me in your ass right on the road?"

She leans across the seat to me and grabs the back of my neck to stare into my eyes. "Fred Duncan, I would do anything within reason if you wanted to do it." She smiles that killer smile again and I know I would never hurt her by asking her to do that. "I'll open the garage, and you can carry stuff in that way. Oh, here comes Mrs Fendle." She leaned in to whisper. "She peeks in the windows."

I grab two big printer-paper boxes full of stuff and carry them up the driveway while Emma lets herself in through the front door.

"Are you renting a room from Emma?" Mrs Fendle's voice is soft and high. I turn to her and smile. "I...I'm moving in," I tell her, and I realize that sounds lame. "You're Mrs Fendle, yes?" She nods, and I introduce myself. "Fred Duncan, new neighbor."

"Oh, I know you," she tells me. "You installed Sylvia Platt's burglar alarm, didn't you?"

I think back. Sylvia Platt is all too easy to remember; a woman with about seven big dogs, shepherd-retriever. I had asked her why she needed a burglar alarm with all those dogs, and she'd told me so they wouldn't get stolen.

I set the boxes down. "Yes ma'am." I present a hand and she shakes it delicately.

"I hear you're a very nice man," Mrs Fendle tells me. "Are you Emma's new boyfriend?"

"Ma'am, I believe I'm Emma's new future husband."

Mrs Fendle smiles and I can see her breaking hearts once upon a time. "Why, that is wonderful! Does she know?"

I shake my head. "Not yet."

She takes my arm. "Good. Don't tell her yet. Move too fast, you'll scare her. She's been alone a long time." Her smile widens. "And Mr Duncan, she's a very sweet girl. Don't hurt her, because I'll cut your balls off."

I laugh and hug her; she hugs back. "You'll have to wait in line behind everyone else that knows her. I might not have any left when it's your turn."

"Oh, you are a sweetheart," she whispers in my ear, and kisses my cheek as the garage door rolls up behind me. "I hope things work for the two of you. I have a feeling they will. Are you good on a ladder?" 

Her question takes me by surprise. "Well, you kind of have to be to put in burglar alarms, ma'am."

She nods. "Good! 'Cause Emma's roof is losing shingles here--" she points, "and there, and there. You'll want to fix that in the spring, I have some tar you can use."

"I'd appreciate that," I tell her. "Will you hang around and be my fan club while I do that?"

"Well, I don't want your girl getting jealous," Mrs Fendle tells me, and tosses her head at Emma as she is revealed by the electric garage door opener. Emma walks out the garage door and my jaw drops; her garage is spotless, empty. A man's dream. There is a bare workbench on one wall, with an equally bare pegboard above it. There are hanging cupboards, and long hanging shelving. "Typical man," Mrs Fendle says as she sees me rapt. I hear Emma chuckle. "I'm going to go empty mine out before bingo next week," she continues. "Maybe I'll finally get Frank Cirti from the community center. Well," she continues, "I'll leave you two be. Good choice, Emma," she tells my girl with a smile.

"Been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs Fendle," I tell her with a smile.

"Oh, Marlene, please," she answers.

"Okay, Marlene, call me Fred," I reply. 

"Thank you, Fred," she tells me. "I'd like to talk to you about maybe getting one put in..."

My mind goes the wrong direction with this; I look at Emma and she meets my wide-eyed gaze with one of her own. 

"What are you--oh. You're a bit young for me, Mr Fred. I meant a burglar alarm."

I snap back to reality with a giggle. "Oh, anytime you want to, just give me a ring. I'm in the phone book under Unseen Alarms."

Mrs Fendle--Marlene--waggled her fingers at us and crunched across Emma's snowy front yard. In her bedroom slippers, I notice, and once again I envy the elderly for their ability to not give a shit about the stupid silly things the rest of us have to pay attention to for convention.

I pick up my boxes and set them off to one side of the empty garage floor. Emma goes to the car and comes back with another box and my bowling bag. She sets the bag down at her feet and puts the box down on top of one of the others before gazing at me with a wondering smile.

"She really likes you," she tells me. "I have friends come over, she doesn't talk to them. I wonder if she was looking in the window this morning."

"She doesn't want you hurt and she threatened to castrate me. It keeps happening."

"They don't have to worry, I can castrate you myself. May I?" I panic for a moment, then she kicks the bowling bag with a sneakered foot. I nod; she's immediately drawing the zipper. "Okay, one standard issue pair of ugly-ass bowing shoes, size...uh...eleven and eleven and a half. Can't make up your mind?"

"My mom couldn't when she built my feet," I explained. Emma's nose crinkles with her grin.

"Okay, what else...a rosin bag." She looks up to me, nodding. "A real man carries his own rosin." She leaned closer. "I don't carry any, I just ask the closest Real Man." She crinkles her nose again and it's obvious she loves bowling and bowling stuff. Her hand dips in and pulls out my marbled bowling ball, blue as the afternoon summer sky overhead, the color of Emma's eyes.. "Oh wow, nice color, fourteen pounder, good size for a duffer." She winks at me, hefts it without effort and mimes a throw. "Almost fits me too, your thumb is a bit thick, but I can bore it out and put in a slug--"

"Not my ball, you don't!" I point. "See, it has my name on it."

"'Fred C Duncan'. What's the C for?"

"Plastic explosive," I reply. I usually get a blank stare at this joke, but Emma surprises me again. 

"Ah, C-4. Is that your typical 'blow-off'?" she asks me, and she gives me her smile as I groan at the pun.

"My middle name really sucks," I tell her, and she jumps up and down, pumping her fist.

"Yes!" she cries. "Someone else with an embarrassing name! What is it? Tell me!" She grabs my shirt and pulls me close. "Tell! Tell!"

I sigh. "It's Cornwall."

Emma stares. "Like...Cornwall in England?" I nod. "Okay, weird. Not that bad..."

"So you say," I tell her, with a little resentment. "You can marry out of your embarrassing name. I'm stuck with fucking Cornwall for a middle name."

She laughs and takes my arm, then looks at me and cocks her head to one side, like she's curious. "You don't seem very broken up about Carol," she asks as we walk out for more boxes. "You just walked in on your wife moving another man in the day you move out. It's like you don't care."

I turn to her, and in the icy sunlight her hair shines and her eyes are so blue they shadow her eyelids. "I don't feel a lot about Carol," I tell her. "I stopped feeling a lot about Carol the first time I caught her cheating, two years ago. I told her if it happened again, I was out of there, so she had fair warning. I think I should have left her then. I tried to trust her but I suppose part of me knew that she couldn't stay faithful to one man for long. If I'd known I'd meet the girl of my dreams so soon, I would have."

"You already knew me, you drank out of my hand for years."

"I drank here that night, and you were tending bar," I tell her. She shivers. 

"Let's get this in, I'm freezing." And she puts the ball back in the bag and we bucket brigade the boxes into the garage.

"How come you didn't tell me?" Emma asks, stepping inside into her--our, I corrected--kitchen. "I would have remembered that."

"I didn't want to make anyone else miserable," I answer. "Least of all you."

"You played liar's poker with me and Danny that night," Emma remembers. "You won."

"Yeah. I was jealous of Danny," I hear myself say. 

"Of Danny? For what?"

"He was your boyfriend. I thought," I add.

Emma laughs that sunshine laugh. "Danny is definitely not into me. Danny has a nice guy at home."

I stare. "Danny? Naw. You gotta be shittin' me."

"I wouldn't shit you," Emma says. "I might tease you a bit, but that's because you have a beautiful ball and you can't bowl for shit. Fred," her smile is gone. "I gave a lot of me to you last night, and maybe I shouldn't have, maybe you're still like rebounding. Maybe it's unrealistic to consider us a team, but I do." She moves into my arms and lays her head on my chest. "I won't lie to you." Her blue eyes, all serious, stare into mine. "Danny is homosexual."

"I believe you," I tell her immediately, and I do. "I'm just surprised, a big macho kinda guy like that. And I have no regrets about last night, I'm sorry I wasted time on her when I should have been with you."

Emma nods. "Things aren't always what they appear, Mr Duncan," and my hands slide down to her hips and I sway us back and forth. "I didn't think you'd be a man who'd possess his own rosin bag." She plays at admiration in her voice; it isn't convincing. Her arms go around my neck and cross behind me and she draws close to sway with me, her head on my chest over my heart.

I look out the window as we spin, and I see the sign on at Jerry's Place, where Emma works. "Aren't you guys closed today?"

"Who guys?" Emma looks out the window. "Oh. Yeah, we're closed to the public. Jerry always goes in though, and employees can drop in and drink for nothing. Non-employees get turned away at the door."

"Aw. I could use a drink after the Carol Affair." I waltz her away from the window.

Emma's voice is slurred against my chest. "We could get a drink at the bowling alley...."

I chuckle. "Bowl a frame?"

"Are you gonna use your pretty blue ball?"

"Yeah, it's my ball."

Emma pulls away from me, takes my hand and pulls me toward her--our--bedroom. "Feast your eyes, big man Fred," Emma tells me and pulls a white bowling bag from behind the door. She hands it to me and I unzip it to look inside.

Her bowling shoes are small and white and look a bit like nursing shoes. Her ball is a twelve pound silver pearl with her name etched into the cover-stock: her first name only. I ask her about this.

"Well, if and when I get married, I'll put my new last name on here." She points. "If I don't change my last name, it won't fit on the ball anyway. You know," she says softly, "I wondered if I would ever bowl with this ball again." She strokes it, takes it from my hand and smiles. "I was pretty messed up after Gen and just wanted to forget bowling. But you can't forget bowling." She smiles at me, and I kiss her tenderly. 

"Do you ever talk to her?"

"No, I never saw her again after the tour; I heard she died in a car wreck somewhere in Louisiana but I couldn't bring myself to check." She shivers a little. "I think I can bowl with this again, if it means I'm beating you." Tears shimmer in her eyes but the smile she has for me is pure fun.

"You know, Emma, I'm gonna keep watching you til I beat you."

"How long is that gonna take, Mr Duncan?" She presses herself against me and wriggles a little, and I can feel her nipples pressed against my chest.

"I don't know, Miss Emma, but I will be happy watching til then."

She squats to put her ball back in its bag; she leaves the shoes out. "You are welcome to watch all you like, my Mister Fred." She runs her hands down my chest and down to my belt. "You'll never be as good as me..."

"I'll never be as fun to watch, anyway, you competitive little thing." I sweep her into my arms, cradled; she doesn't fight. Her arms stay around my neck and she snuggles her shoulders a little.

"Untrue," she tells me. "Your form isn't good, yet, but man you know how to move every other way." I remember last night, when we bowled, she corrected my form and I rolled a strike. Sure, I might have still been distracted by her hard nipples pressed against my back-- "Fred, you could be a good bowler. Maybe not the best, but good enough to get into league."

"Aw, you're just sweet talkin' me."

"You got that right, you'll suck forever," Emma teases, and I lift her to slurp her earlobe. She shrieks softly and her fingernails sink into the flesh of my shoulder.

"And you'll be ticklish forever," I say to her, and kiss her neck and her chin and she wriggles in my arms. I kiss her lips, no wriggle there, but when I move to her neck, she fusses and lets out cries. I suck her other ear lobe and she throws her head back and relaxes, she no longer responds to tickle but I feel her warm breath quicken and her blue eyes cloud. 

"Um, Fred...take me to the bedroom. Now. Please..." Her eyes meet mine and I see need in them. I've learned something else about Emma: tickle her and she gets hot.

"Wow, not so cocky now," I say, with a bit of teasing in my voice. I carry her through the front room and past the tree, down the short hallway to the bedroom we had left so long ago and so shortly. I set her down on the bed and she is already dropping her pants; she doesn't bother taking her shoes off, she just drops everything down around her ankles and crosses them. 

I walk to the dresser and pull a condom out of a box that once held twelve. The box says the condoms expired last July. 

"You know, these are expired--"

"Huh? Oh...oh no." She brightens. "Forget 'em. Get the lube." And she rolls over to a doggy position, her divine ass thrust into the air. 

Oh yes; the Emma's butt rule. I find a slightly-sticky bottle of lube and take off my shirt, keeping it handy.

My hands run across the cheeks of her ass, down between her thighs and up to where they meet, feeling her hot and wet and receptive to my fingers between her lips. Her butt starts to rock in a swaying motion as I rub her clitoris so gently; she moans my name long and low as my thumb slips slowly into her. "Oh, c'mon Fred, fuck me," she pleads, and I dribble lube down the between her cheeks and press with the ball of my finger, not entering her, just pressing and moving in circles. Emma shakes a little and I slip my thumb out and back into the wet warmth of her sex. My fingers of that hand still touch the center of her pleasure and I feel fresh dampness; Emma's ass relaxes and accepts my fingertip to the first knuckle, then the second and I pull it from her a little way and dribble more lube, cleaning up with my shirt and slipping my finger into her effortlessly to the third knuckle. She draws a choked breath and her head drops to the bed. "Oh God, Fred, take me, take all of...huh...Ohh!" Her disappointed groan ends abruptly as she feels me against her tight opening, pressing; it's now impossible to continue playing with her down below, so I pull out my thumb and she grabs my hand, pulling it to her lips and sucking the taste of her sex from my thumb as I press harder, deeper, feeling her stretch to accommodate me and watching her wiggle her ass to take me.

I bury myself in Emma a little at a time until I can go no further; she drops herself from her knees to her belly and writhes beneath me as I lay my weight upon her, driving myself deeper and making her purr. I raise myself, pulling out of her burning, gripping circle, and plunge slowly in, and Emma's answering cry is pained ecstasy.

Buried within her, I rotate my hips against her, I feel her respond, rubbing against me. I feel her raise up a little and I see her hand slide beneath her; I know she's found her spot when she gasps and groans. I pull away from her, and slip back in, and her cry is lower and throatier and I can hear her fingers in her wetness beneath me. I pull away again and slip my hand down between us to take hers. She squeezes it and then resumes her play, and I slide back inside her in a smooth motion. 

I plunge in a little faster, and she is undeterred; she makes it plain she wants more and I pull out faster and thrust deep into her. I feel her rise again and her hand comes out from beneath her; I lift and pull her arm up behind her back to lick her fingers. I release her but her arm stays. I take the hint and grasp her, then take the other arm and hold her harmless. I pull her up, back onto her knees, and pull back on her arms as I thrust into her, and I can feel her ragged breathing through her shoulders. Kneeling between her legs as I shaft into her, I feel the wetness running down her thighs on the outside of my own.

Emma stiffens. "Ohh my God..." she cries, stretching the last word out as she trembles and I feel her grip me and squeeze, again and again, I hear choked groans from her in time to her squeezing, I feel her ring milking me and I get chills and I hear myself groaning but can't stop it and I feel myself swelling and an explosion of pleasure throughout me, starting somewhere behind my tool and traveling everywhere and I'm throbbing, and each throb is a wave of pleasure, and each throb spills into Emma, no barrier between us. She hisses as she moves with me, crying out as a new plateau sweeps her, pulling her arms against my grasp just a little, to hurt her just a little as she comes and collapses onto her belly beneath me.




Fred's Big Game



We pant. I let her arms go and they fly to my hips, holding me inside her. I slide my own arms around her, one below her breasts and one above, and hold her tightly. 

"Fred...you read people well," she tells me, and she sounds a little breathless. "How did you know to grab my arm?"

I'm honest with her. "I wanted to lick your fingers." Emma laughs at this.

"Oh. Uh huh. Well, you could have licked them over my shoulder," she points out, and she's right; I don't know why I pulled her arm up in a joint lock like I did. I tell her this.

"Wow, you just knew," she tells me softly. "Most of the time I like cuddles, but once in a while..." her voice goes low, "...I like to be a little...bad." She snuggles up against me and I tighten my grip on her. "Do you think I'm weird?"

"Oh, hell yes," I tell her. Hearing her say this and in response I shift my still hard member inside her and she gasps. "In all the good ways." I take her wrists in my hands and move them above her head, and out and then back in, not letting her hands go. I spread her legs wide with mine, and slide out and back, then out and back hard. Emma hums her pleasure and straightens beneath me, her legs spread out wide and flat and bent at the knee, pulling against her pants and bound by them. I put my boot against her pants and push down, straightening her on me, and she cries out in pleasure and she's shaking in spasms and I feel her grip me again and her cries fill the room, Emma's loud now as her orgasm takes her, and she squeezes me--

I slow with her and rest in her, unspent, it is too soon after the last one and I'm only a man. She with-draws from me and looks me up and down. "That's for me later," she tells me with that grin, and I know it is.

We undress and walk naked to the shower. 

"Yay Shady Rest," I say as we drive past the motel where my wife cheated on me last night.

"Good name for a league," Emma says. "Ranked number one, Yay Shady Rest, with the mad bowlin' chick Emma Whatsername!"

I have to laugh. "Imagine Carol seeing that on TV or something..."

"Oh please," Emma scoffs. "No-one watches bowling on TV, not since--" She does a clever mimic of pins falling and we both finish. "--Bowling for Dollars!"

I lay my hand on her thigh and she covers it with her hand; I feel the muscles work beneath her pant-leg as she works the pedals of her shiny little green Volvo. 

"Fred, you kind of scare me," Emma tells me, her voice and face serious. 

"Why?" 

"You are...just so good, at me. I feel like we've been together long enough to know each other well enough for me to be totally comfortable around you, but I tell you things that could scare you away, and I'd never tell these things to anyone else...and if you go, I feel I won't have anyone else to talk to. My Fred. A solid guy, keeps his word, honest...and I'm way too deep in love with you for our first day."

I caress her cheek and she grabs my hand between her face and shoulder. "Emma...you don't have a damn thing to worry about. Except trying to win at bowling and failing. It's gonna happen, baby," I say into her scoffs. 

"You love me, Fred?" Emma asks, and she holds my hand and I see she is serious.

"I'm in love with you, Emma," I tell her, looking at her across the console. "I can't leave a woman with a ball like that, and little white bowling shoes that look like nurses' shoes."

Emma's head snaps around and she faces me. "They look like nurses' shoes? Really?"

I nod. 

"Wow, I should bowl in a nurse's outfit sometime." She chuckles at the picture.

"You might get barred," I point out.

"Alleys don't bar good bowlers unless they really have to, they might actually go bowl somewhere else. No harm, no foul, right?" She looks inspired. "And if I bowl okay, they want me to be on a league, spend a ton of beer money...and be the Amazing and Spectacular Emma Duncan, the Bowling Nurse!" And she stops and shoots a look at me. I don't even get it for a moment, til it sinks into my thick-ass head what she'd said. But Emma obviously doesn't care. "That has a great sound, doesn't it, especially the 'Duncan' part." That confirms it; I'd heard right. "If you dress up like a doctor we can do a slapstick routine."

"It does sound better...than Emma Grossberger," I acquiesce. "But I don't know if we should play doctor on the lanes. They do bar you for that, bowling being a family game and all."

Emma seems excited about the idea. "Ohh..okay, how about Halloween?"

"Okay. Doctor and nurse for Halloween."

Emma grins. "Okay!" 

She pulls into the alley and we get out and grab our bags from the back. As we walk arm-in-arm toward the lanes she pulls me down for a kiss, and her lips are on mine, sliding, her tongue slipping into my mouth and I suck it and tease it with my own tongue and she draws it back, her lips hungry on mine.

Our kiss ends and we find ourselves standing in the middle of the parking lot, the early afternoon sun shining around us and an old lady in a pickup truck waiting patiently for us to move. I walk Emma into the alley and wave to the woman, and I try to clear my head from that kiss.

"Jeez, three bucks a game? That's robbery!" Emma complains as we walk from the counter, score-sheet in hand. "Now I'm about to knock some stuff down."

We sit at our lane and change shoes. Emma fixes the score sheet on the projector, and looking overhead I can see she's written 'Emma' and 'Derf' on the side. As she rummages in her bag for her shoes and ball, I'm at the alley, blue ball leaping from my hand to fly its spinning path straight into the pocket. It's a beautiful roll, and the pins are laid flat. Emma applauds. "Ohh, Fred, you rosin-carrying man!" she vamps, and I see she has my rosin bag. She gets up and gives me a little shove in the shoulder as I pass. 

Emma walks up to the foul line and stops, with no approach whatsoever. She turns to me. "I'm supposed to just knock those down?" she yells; I nod. "With this?!" She brandishes the silver ball, and again I nod. "Well, can I just walk out there and push 'em over?"

I hear titters of laughter from around us in the alley. 

"No, dear," I tell her. "You have to roll the ball down the lane, and knock over the pins, just like I did." I'm struggling not to laugh.

"All of them at once, like you did?"

Out of the corner of my eye I see money changing hands and odds being quietly given. "Yes, baby, all at once, just like I did." 

Emma shakes her head. "Sounds like a dumb game, but okay," and she turns and lays one alongside the fifth arrow, fast and with a little lift. It arcs into the spot between pins one and three. The crash resounds as the pins are swept off the lane and a collective gasp is heard from the crowd, and the complaining of the bookies. 

I get my ball from the return and give Emma a look as I pass her. She's got that little smile, just for me, and I know so is that extra wiggle in her walk.

I am determined not to mess up as bad as last night, and I take my time, setting up the shot carefully. "No, wait," Emma says behind me, and I feel her against my back, the same way she corrected my form last night. Now she knows I can feel her nipples, but now she doesn't have to be embarrassed about it. We're officially a package. "I'm really horny," she whispers in my ear, and moves away.

I know what she's doing. Now I'm too strung up to roll. I let the ball dangle at the end of my arm and I swing it in arcs, relaxing, focusing, and I roll that puppy right into the hole, mowing every pin down.

"Wow, Fred, you're starting to look like you can play this game," Emma taunts. "Must be that blue ball."

"Y'know," I tell her, "your eyes are the same color as this ball."

"Y'know, if I hadn't just spent three bucks to roll this game, I'd drag you out to the car. I'm supposed to do it again?" She calls out the last sentence for the benefit of the bowlers around us, and I see considerable interest in our game.

"Just like last time," I call out, and she does, a hard roll right into the pocket again and I mark her X. "Good girl," I call out to her, and she skips over and sits on my lap. 

"Did I do good, Daddy?" Emma asks, her so-blue eyes full of fun and mischief. I stroke her hair and lift her off me so I can rise.

She walks with me to the approach and cocks her head at the pins. "You know what those look like to me?" she asks, her voice sultry.

"I know you're trying to kill my game by making me think of fucking your lights out."

"You bet your ass I am, Fred," she says, and I hear a laugh in her voice. "You use any angle you have. You're not a good-looking girl, so you have to actually know how to bowl." I hug her and she lays her head on my shoulder. And I toss that rock right into the hole again, and down the pins. "You're a smart guy, Fred," she tells me, "and you're better at this than you let on last night."

"I was scared to death last night," I tell her. "I'd just found my wife in the Shady Rest motel with Frank the Patsy, I'd just found out that my bowling date not only bowls a lot better than I do, but she's the one person in the world I could even think about fucking at that point in my life. And, hell, at any point from then on." I squeeze her and look into her unsmiling face. 

"You never told me you were better," she says.

"That's a sore-loser thing to do. And it's your turn." I offer her my ball on the return. "Would you like to?"

She lifts the ball, holds it. "Well, loose in the thumb, but I'll try." This time she doesn't say anything to the crowd, she just rolls my ball dead into the zone and doesn't even turn to watch the pins fall. I watch; I mark the X and retrieve my ball; she shows me a red place on her thumb. I kiss it.

And as soon as I roll I know what's going to happen. The ball whacked dead into the head pin and they all fell except for the seven and the ten. A 7-10 split. Emma groans behind me.

I'd blown the spare on this last night, but tonight it's my ball and my alley and my Emma rooting for me and I roll, aiming for the side of the lane about forty feet up, and the ball hooks just right to tick the ten pin, the pin arcs in big heavy loops off the cushion and into the seven pin for the spare.

"Whoa Fred, you can actually bowl!" Emma's down on the lane with me and hugging me. There's a smattering of applause.

She pushes me out of the way and grabs her silver ball; I motion to a waitress and order a pitcher and two glasses.

"Fred, I thought you were going to show me how to PLAY this!" Emma cries from the front of the lane, her ball under her arm, her hips cocked with one fist on them, a petulant look on her face. "Then we get here and it's just throwing a ball over and over again!" And she spins and chucks the ball down the lane without seeming to pay any attention. And it rolls right into the deck, knocking down every pin. "When does the fun start---Ohh, beer!" She skips off the lane like a girl.

Up close to me, she scolds me. "Fred, you're very bad for my figure." She sips her glass of beer. "I don't drink beer usually."

I stop. "You're drinking beer every time I'm at the bar, honey. You drink this kind."

"Yes, only when you're in the bar, sweetie. Any other time, I drink club soda." She sips. "Beer is kind of okay around you. You know you're leading me in score?"

"Only because you can score spares before strikes. You're at 60 and I'm at 78 but you'll be at least 80 when you score that frame." Now I feel kind of silly in light of who I'm telling the rules to, but Emma lets it slide. 

"You know, your ass looks better tonight than it did last night," Emma tells me in the same tone you might use to tell someone somebody just hit their car. 

"Well--"

"Fred!" My friend Mark walks onto our lane, carrying a bottle of beer. "I heard there was good rollin' goin' on here, I never thought it'd be you. And who's your friend...er--" He looks up at the projection. "Emma, that's right, you work at Jerry's." He holds out a hand, Emma shakes it and smiles at him.

"I'm his girlfriend," Emma tells Mark, and she moves back into my arms.

Mark looks at me and back to Emma, and back to me again. "Uh, what...Carol?" 

"We're separated," I told him. "She cheats."

"You and Carol split up, huh?" Mark nods. "I hate to say it, but a lot of us saw it coming; you guys are too different. But I see you've got a really beautiful girlfriend. Do you want me to teach you to keep score?" he asks Emma, and she answers, "Okay, what do all these Xes mean?" I sink my teeth into my tongue as I face the pins.

I'm rolling well tonight and my throw hooks into the pins from the right and takes them all down again. Emma is playing with Mark and the crowd, pretending she doesn't know a thing about bowling. "I don't understand this game, I don't," Emma told him in a whiny little girl voice. "I heard it was hard but it's not!" She marks an X and scores the frame.

Mark has obviously caught on. "What do you mean, it's not?" he asks her. 

"Well, I guess I'm supposed to pick up this ball--" and she takes her ball and walks right up to the foul line, "--and knock those pins down from here." And she rolled from the foul line, a perfect strike. "But that's easy!" Her too-blue eyes were wide and the side of her mouth twitched just a little.

Mark just faces me. "Fred, your new woman is full o' shit." He smiles and Emma laughs. "What are you, pro?" he asks her. 

"Not at all," Emma replies. "I tend bar for a living."

"Yeah, and you just learned how to fill a sheet with strikes by bein' some kind of bowlin' prodigy? If it was that easy I'd'a done it."

Emma cracks up at the characteristically sardonic Mark. "I was pro a few years back." 

Mark nodded. "Uh huh, and now you want to join a league." It's not a question.

Emma scoffs. "At three bucks for an open lane? Please."

"We just picked the wrong day. Christmas is expensive, too many people with new bowling stuff to try out and too may employees gettin' holiday pay." I put an arm around Emma's shoulders.

Emma snuggles into me; Mark 's eyes glaze a little and he runs his hand through his long hair. "No, Mark, I'm just here to make fun of Fred, but he's doing pretty well."

"He's doing damn good," Mark tells her. "I roll with this guy all the time, he's got four out of five."

"That was a seven-ten spare," Emma tells him, and she embraces me, looking up into my eyes.

"Holy shit!" Mark is impressed. "No wonder everyone was cheering for this lane. What are you doing differently?"

"It's Emma," I tell him. "She's working on my form."

She squeezes me. "Yeah, twice today, so far."

Mark looks away. "Yeh, rub it in."

"Oh, he does," Emma tells him, but she relents. "No girl at home for Mark?"

"Nope," he replies, and his voice makes it obvious he doesn't like this much.

"Go to the grocery store and look for a woman with no ring on and nothing in her cart but tampons and wine," she advises him. "Give her your number, and she'll probably call in about three days. If she does, you're pretty much set."

Mark opens his mouth, but Emma continues. "You're right, smart thinking. She will be on her period. Show her a good time anyway, take her out to dinner, a movie. Don't take her dancing," she warns him. "Get her number, but don't pressure her for sex. Call her the next day and make plans for the following day at lunch." I smile; I realize Emma's a romantic and that this may actually work for Mark. "Get her a nice lunch and let her talk, just listen to her and don't say anything, and if you like her, call her that night and invite her out in a few days. If she says yes, she likes you too, and you're in." Emma beams at Mark, who watches her, his eyes wide. "But first you'll want to let your wife know."

"You're the devil," he tells her softly. Emma laughs. "And you look like a nurse in those shoes."

"Oh DAMN it, Fred! I KNEW I should have rented a costume! We'd have been a hit."

"No, Emma, YOU'D be a hit," Mark tells her. "He'd just be Fred. How'd you know I was married?"

My girlfriend gets into Mark's face. "Are you saying he isn't a hit?" She indicates the old-style antique projection of the score. "Look at those rolls. And you got 'married' stamped all over you by that expression of dismayed realization on your face."

Mark faces me. "Fred, how do you do it? You got the perfect girl. Carol's gorgeous but she sure ain't perfect, but his one..."

"You just don't know how perfect she is. Can't shop for food but can decorate her own Christmas tree and bowl us both under the table."

Emma bats her eyes at me over the rim of her beer glass. "And fix my own plumbing, and I might help some guy put in a home security system." My heart melts. I turn and grab my rock. "Okay," I tell myself, and I'm warm inside from Emma's presence and I'm proud of her and I fling my ball into the side of the deck, taking out the six pins of the near corner. I call myself a fool for letting her kill my game again; she's too good at the psychology of bowling. I make the spare easily.

Emma's standing behind me with her silver ball; I sit next to Mark and sip my beer while she rolls, and his eyes bug out. I know just how he feels; Emma's ass is beautiful even without knowing what she likes to do with it. She spins abruptly and catches us; she steps up to Mark, swinging her hips with every step. "Eyes off, Bud," she tells Mark. "I'm taken by Mister Derf." She plops onto my lap, jostling my beer and spilling a little. "Are you gonna take that from him?"

"I think you can take care of yourself. I saw you fight." I get up, lifting her with me and setting her on her feet, but she doesn't let go, so I carry her with me, dangling by my neck and shoulders, to the ball return.

She lets go of me and walks back to the chairs; I see her talking with Mark. I grab my blue ball and approach the lane, letting go with a severe hook that skitters on the edge of oblivion. "Aw, no!" Emma cries behind me, and the ball dips neatly over the edge and into the gutter. She walks slowly up behind me to the return and hands me my ball. "You moved your foot when you delivered." She's right; I nod. "Hard luck, Chief. I bet you can spare it if you keep your foot still." She stands behind me on my left, and I approach the lane, holding my foot flat and stopping it just short of the foul line, carrying through and snapping my wrist just a little as I release the ball. It hits the deck just past the pocket, clears the pins except the head pin, number one; it rocks and wobbles and I hear Emma's excited high-pitched squeal behind me. It rocks forever, then rotates once around one corner and tips. Emma hugs me. "Excellent roll, Fred! I knew you could do it, but if you rolled from an inch behind where you stopped--eek!" She squeaked as I tickled her. She pulls away with a loving dirty look and gets her pearly ball.

Emma points at the pins. "Now you die!" she yells at them, and attacks them with her ball. More applause sounds from the folks on the surrounding lanes as the pins drop and the X shows on the display above the lane. "Wow, Fred, that is kind of fun!"

We laugh, knowing that the crowd is now well aware that she knows how to bowl; nobody has luck enough to bowl a six-pack. We take seats and fill our glasses from the pitcher. Emma takes Mark's empty beer bottle and fills it from the pitcher without spilling a drop. Barmaids; they're all showoffs.

"I thought you were hooked up with that Danny guy," Mark says. I don't say anything. 

"No, Danny's not my type, and besides, he's in a pretty serious relationship."She sips. "I've been waiting for Fred here." 

"Fred's got a wife..er..ex-wife--is she single now?" Mark looks ashamed. Emma looks outraged.

"What? You wanna ask out Fred's wife?" Emma's right in Mark's face and speaking intensely.

"Well, uh--I--" Mark begins, looking kind of apologetically at me to help against her.




Fred's Big Game



"Well, you just listen to me, bud: she can't take a hit to the body and her block's weak on her right side. Hard jabs to the belly'll do. Her arms are pretty long; close in and hurt her before she uses that nasty left on you." Emma grins and rubs her chin, aiming that special grin at Mark. "And she can throw. Watch for rocks, plates, pots, pans...insults--"

I finish up my shell and grab my ball while Mark's jaw drops. "Fred, she's PERFECT! Have you got a sister?" Mark asks Emma, and I smile as I roll my ball toward that happy place that brings them all down. I see Emma grin; she actually looks proud as she tallies my score: an X in frame eight, 148 as of frame seven, versus 150 in frame five, to be 180 in frame six if Emma strikes. 

The whole alley seems to be crowding around lane four, our lane, to watch Emma roll. She's a performer; she takes a little bow as she weights her ball on her arm and seat myself at the table to mark her score.

Emma has a bit of shimmy to her approach, her butt wiggles in a way that's gotta stop every male heart in the place, and I watch her turn her damn foot just the way I did. But damn if that snow plow doesn't go straight into the deck and lay waste. I make a note to myself that Emma doesn't always take her own advice. "One-eighty," I call to her, and our fellow bowlers cheer. I take a drink of beer, knowing that we'll have to hurry the game for the crowd. 

I'm up and my ball is in my hand even as Emma takes my arm. "Hurry up," she tells me. "Jackals make me nervous." She indicates the bowling alley patrons with a toss of her head and I approach the lane, not quite steady, and thwack myself really hard in the side of the ankle with the ball as I release it.

The agony is sudden and deep, and I topple over on the lane, clutching my ankle. I can't see the pins, but it sounds like a strike and there are a few cheers from the crowd mixed in with the hisses of sympathetic pain from the veterans and derisive laughter for the inexperienced. My pain-reddened field of view is filled with Emma, looking very worried, almost frantic. 

"Fred, are you okay?"

"Not sure," I manage. "I feel like my ankle got kicked in the balls..."

"Try to keep it off the lane next time," she tells me, and I can see concern in her eyes. "C'mon."

I let Emma help me up and support me to the chair.

"Can I have a cup of ice?" she calls out, and three empty drinks are thrust at her; she picks up my rosin bag and rips into it with her teeth. "Here, hold this," she tells Mark, and dumps the rosin out of my bag into his outstretched hand. She dumps the ice into the bag and sets it on my ankle. "Pressure," she tells me, and I press the rosin/ice bag as hard as I can against the ankle. "Oh, and Fred?" I look up. "Great roll!" and I see the X in the ninth frame.

Emma picks up my blue marble and kisses it, then set it back on the return and picks up her own pearl. She turns toward the crowd. "How many more times do I have to do this?"

"Four," a bunch of people, including me, yell to her.

"Dude," Mark says to me, still holding a hand full of rosin. "Want this?"

"No thanks." I grin at him and he sets the rosin pile carefully on the table of the open lane next door.

"Go Emma!" Mark yells, and she faces him with a look of pleased embarrassment.

"Okay, this one's for Mark," she says to the crowd, and she lets loose with a rocket that devastates the pins. She jogs back to my chair to tend to me. 

"Thanks, Mark," she tells him.

"Anytime, little sister," he tells her.

"Fred, can you bowl?" Emma asks me, and I stand up, wincing.

"I can if I shoot from the foul line," I tell her, and I take my ball from her and limp to the front of the lane. I am careful to keep my ankle far short of the swing of the ball and so I let the ball go too late. This slows the roll but it still rolls true; the wood falls in a slow collapsing pattern.

"Yanked the ball! You don't deserve that strike, Derf," she tells me, then scores it. "One seventy-eight."

I hobble to the table and pour Emma and myself the last of the beer. We click glasses and drink, our gaze locked.

"How's the ankle?" she asks, and her voice is soft and a little unsure. I just smile at her.

Emma walks slowly to the lane and sets her ball on the floor in front of her. She raises her arms. "This one's because WE WANT CHEAPER LANES!" The crowd roars and Emma scoops up her ball and, fluid, flings it sideways down the lane. It twists weirdly, picks up a drastic hook about forty feet down, and kicks the one, two, four, and seven pins into the rest of the deck. A left-to-right strike, and I know Emma's going for a comeback, she's trying to bowl a perfect game. No; she's not even trying.

I limp up to the foul line and throw a careful rock, minding my form and ankle placement. This one rolls just as I like it, a little hook at about forty-five feet and slam into the one and three, and down the pins tumble. "Beautiful!" Emma yells, and there's applause.

Emma addresses the half drunk bowlers watching, points at me. "That's Fred. He's done some incredible things in his life, mostly to his ankles. He's my guy." She smiles, and I hear aww's from the crowd. And Emma turns and lets fly a blistering-fast roll down the alley; it seems to be at the pins sixty feet away in half a second, and the pins scatter. The number one pin flies into the lane next door, and the pinsetter guy runs down the gutters to go get it. The bowlers' cheers are louder than ever. I give a little extra rub of the icy rosin bag on my bare ankle (now turning blue), then drop it on the floor and limp to the lane Last frame. 

"Go Fred!" someone yells, and Emma comes back with "Yeah, knock em down!"

I aim my shot carefully, take two steps back and approach the lane the 'normal' way: a couple of steps in. On the second step I realize this was a mistake; the ankle doesn't hold against the skidding up to the foul line and I drop to one knee. The ball slams against the lane hard enough to feel it through the floor and wobbles as it spins toward the pins. 

It seems to vibrate as it touches its first pin, the four pin, down the left side; somehow, the pin goes forward instead of back, and the one and two pins fall. the rest of the deck collapses like a house of cards.

"Fred! Yes!" Emma yells. "You made a lousy roll look good!" The crowd chuckles and then quiets; all eyes are upon my girl as she approaches the lane. She turns, and I catch her private wink before she speaks into the surreal solemnity of the alley.

"Okay, this one is for me, so in love that I don't...care...about anything else." And Emma turns and dumps her ball straight into the left-side gutter.

There's no question that she did it on purpose. For a beat there's no sound except the pinsetters in the back; I feel shock that Emma threw away a perfect 300 game. Then a female voice yells "Yeah, go baby!" and the frozen instant shatters; half the crowd cheers and half groans with disappointment, and I realize that bowling is not Emma's life. I am. I cheer.

"What?" Emma asks the groaners. "You guys take this much too seriously. Game, right? Would you like a brochure?"

"You guys play us?" a skinny woman asks; she sounds like the woman who yelled. She has another woman in tow; they both look very athletic.

"I'm sorry, I gotta sit out," I tell them. I pick up my ruined, now-sopping rosin bag and stick it against my ankle, which is now about the size of a grapefruit.

"Yeah, nasty ankle killer," The woman told me. "You guys thought about competing?"

"We might," Emma tells her.

The woman, in her early twenties by appearance, sticks out a hand. "I'm Jo, this is Janice. You're Emma, and this is Derf."

Emma grins at her. "My Derf. We fell in love in this bowling alley last night."

"We fell in love last night too!" Janice speaks, and Jo looks at her, eyes wide. The awkward level skyrockets, but Emma just grins.

"You guys did?" she asks, but doesn't wait for a reply. "That's great! We're Those Christmas Eve Guys! Perfect for a doubles league." Jo looks more at ease and Janice just looks intoxicated, but I know she's not: she's lovestruck. Like me. "I like you guys," Emma says, and beams at them both, rummages in her bowling bag and produces a stub of pencil and a little pad of paper with Hello Kitty on it. She writes and passes it to Janice. "Let's bowl. Doubles is Monday, want to do that?"

Janice and Jo look at each other and look at me. "Perfect," I say.

Mark trots up and hands Emma a bag and some money. She lets the cash drop into her bowling bag and hands the bag to me. Inside is a brand new rosin bag.

"For my Real Man," Emma tells me, and presses her lips to mine. We sit and change shoes.

Mark carries my bag and I hang onto Emma's shoulder all the way to the car. We put our bags in the trunk.

"Man, Fred, you bowled like crazy," Mark told me. "You guys should join a league. How's the foot?"

"Still hanging by a thread from this smashed ankle," I reply.

"Oh yeah, here this'll help." I hear the distinct sound of a lighter and smell a familiar aroma, sweet and musky. Mark sticks a fat joint between my fingers.

Any other time, I wouldn't hesitate, but I have no idea what Emma's take on that sort of thing is and she gives nothing away, standing, straight-faced, looking at me with those eyes the same shade of blue as my ball. I think for a moment, then look at the joint and shake my head. "You, know, I probably shouldn't--"

"Well, jeez," Emma says in an exasperated tone, taking the joint from my fingers, "don't bogart the man's weed, Fred! Rude. D'you mind?" she asks Mark, and he just grins and motions her to continue; she inhales and hands it back to me. "I swear, I'm gonna have to teach you manners..."

I roll my eyes and hit it my customary once. Mark follows suit and makes to pass to Emma, but she demurs. "No thanks, Mark, I'm a lightweight," she says with a giggle. "Ah thank Ah shall swoon," she says in a horrid Southern Belle accent, and presses her wrist to her forehead.

Mark knows better than to offer me any more pot. "Hey, if you guys want to...y'know, really bowl, I wanna be on a team with you," he says.

"That'd make us five," Emma tells him. "Can you keep a sixth?"

"Five? Oh...those two?!" His voice carries shocked disbelief. "Dude, they can't even roll!"

"At all?" Emma asks, interested.

"One got a forty and one got a twenty-six, their lane was a gutter-fest."

Emma laughs. "Okay, someone's gotta teach 'em how to bowl. You teach 'em," she tells Mark."If you can get 'em to bowl 160 and pick up a reliable sixth person, we'll let you on board." She laughs at Mark's shocked look. "We'll talk, Mark. Now, we've gotta go; I want to stop off at work for a minute and say 'Merry Christmas' to Jerry." 

We wish Mark a Merry Christmas and I get into the passenger's side. Emma starts the Volvo and pulls out into the weak sunlight of deep winter afternoon. To credit Mark's grass, my ankle does feel better. Emma is obviously feeling it; she rolls the window down and cranks up Christmas carols on her stereo.

We sing "Winter Wonderland", we sing "Let it Snow". We sing "Silent Night" and "Deck the Halls". Emma sings "Santa Baby" to me and I start "Baby It's Cold Outside" but we're at Jerry's before I can get more than a few bars in.

"C'mon," Emma tells me, then "Oh. Whoops." She grins at me, shuts her door and comes around to mine. I let her support me to the door. Emma raps twice."

"Fuck off, we're closed," comes Jerry's voice from behind the door.

"Open up Jerry," Emma tells him, and he opens the door on us. 

"Hey, Emma," he says, "Nice of you to drop in. What the hell you been smokin'?" he asks her, his eyes narrowed.

"Aww, you DO care!" Emma hugs him. "I've got Fred; can he come in?"

Jerry looks at me up and down. "I let you go out with my barmaid and you get her stoned?"

"We were just along for the ride," I tell him, and he looks long at me, then chuckles. 

"Yeh, looks like she's carryin' you, lightweight. So why should I let you into my employees-only Christmas?"

Because last night I'd made him a promise: that if I got Emma pregnant, I'd have to work her shifts until she came back. It could happen.

"Remember last night, what we talked about?" He nods, looking at me like a jeweler looks at a gem. "You might need a good bartender," I tell him. Emma looks lost but Jerry's smile gets wider and he puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Sure. C'mon in. You want somethin', help yourself," Jerry told me. I hobble over to get a shell, and leave the fee on the bar. I see Jerry and Emma talking, but I can't hear them; Emma's smiling and Jerry hugs her and walks her over to the bar.

"Get your money back in your pocket, Fred, it's Christmas, and I got a toast." He slips behind the bar and opens a bottle of champagne; he pours flutes. Passing them around, he continues. "Friends, an announcement: Our little Emma has finally found a guy that bowls her over, heheh." I can almost hear the 'fifties drum sting to the joke. Jerry looks at me. "And her guy here tells me that he's found his girl, and that's love; we knew these guys for years and nobody woulda thought...well, okay, someone mighta thought it," Jerry says, looking at Emma. She looked innocent. "Anyway, here they are, and it's the best Christmas present to get. Cheers." We sip, but I have one of my own. I raise my glass to Emma. "To the Amazing, Spectacular Emma Duncan the Bowlin' Nurse." We touch glasses; Jerry looks confused but tops us off. I look around the bar; we are the only three here.

I need to go let some beer out so I limp to the men's. Once inside, I relieve myself, then I take a look at the vending machines on the wall. I have no change. I wash and go back out to the bar to whisper in Emma's ear; Jerry is nowhere in sight. "I need some change for the vending machine in the men's. You know, that one?" I tell her softly.

Emma nods once and gets up from her barstool; she walks to the men's and slips inside for a moment. She has two rubbers in her hand when she walks out, and she tosses them to me before throwing a five on the bar with my beer money. She shows me a tiny toothy key on her ring.

Jerry comes back into view from his office. "Emma, I gotta run home, the wife," he says. "Wait for me here, don't let anyone in til I see 'em. Right? Oh yeah!" He walks over to Emma and hands her an envelope. "That's for you. You bring in good people, they come back to see you. And they drink. keep it up."

"Oh, Jerry, no," she says, tears in her eyes. "Just...just keep it, I love working here!"

"No doll, that's for you," he tells her and then walks to the door. "Don't let anyone in, right? And don't let him eat all the Beer Nuts like he usually does."

"Hey, Beer Nuts!" I look around on the bar for some while Jerry walks out the door. My eye falls on Emma, standing by the bar crying. "What's wrong, sugar?"

"He can't pay me extra just for doing what I'm supposed to be doing," she tells me. 

"He told you it's 'cause you bring people in," I told him. "I can see that. And more people is more money for the house."

Emma sighs and nods, then starts leafing through the envelope. "There's...shit, close to six hundred dollars in here..." She sobs. 

I take her in my arms. "You could give it back, y'know," I tell her. 

Emma looks up at me and it's crushing to see tears in those eyes.

"Put it in an envelope and put a note in it. Here." I grab a napkin off the bar and a pen out of the cup by the till, and I write:

'Dear Jerry,

This was given to me by a girl named Emma to pass on to you. She wanted you to know that she likes you and likes working at your establishment, and that she knows the place needs the money more than she does. She mentioned' 

I look at Emma. "What do you guys need around here?"

Emma thinks. "A replacement liver for his wife would be best," she says low, and I nod.

'an illness in your family and we both hope it will help.

Sincerely,

K Kringle

P.S. You're on the naughty list again this year, Jerry.'

I show her the note and her nose crinkles in fun. "Fred, this is perfect." She finds a clean envelope and stuffs the money and the note into it, stopping to add a dollar of her own money, then seals it and slides it under his office door.

"Wow, this is fun!" she tells me. "We can't be here when he opens it, though, he'll make me take the cash."

"What do you have against taking cash?"

"Not cash, his cash. His wife's really sick, and he needs the money for the bills."

I see her view, and I understand her feelings, and I take her in my arms and kiss her, tenderly. Her lips move under mine, wanting more, and her hands grab my back through my shirt. Emma's breathing rapidly now, and her breath puffs into my mouth as I kiss her, and she's making a growling sound deep in her throat with each kiss. She sounds hungry, and her lean body with its curvy hips and chest presses against me. She pulls back to look in my eyes. 

"Are you ready to work off three glasses of beer, Freddy?"

"Sure, Em," I reply. "I figure all I have to do is feed you once a day and I'll get all I need." I rub her back where the shoulders and spine meet.

"Aww, God, Fred, that's wonderful, right there...and I have never let anyone call me Em before."

"I can call you Em," I tell her, confident.

"Ohh..why do you want to call me that?"

"Because you call me Derf."

"Oh, no! No, I take it back!"

"You can't take it back, it's on the score sheet. It was projected up for the whole bowling alley to see."

"Then you are Derf forever!" she yells. "Sir Derf the Infinite, Albatross Around the Neck of the Wonder Nurse! Woo!" She squeals as I grab her ass. "Careful," she tells me with a revealing little smile. I pull her close to me and nestle her on my chest, and her hands drop to my belt buckle, unfastening. "Mister Real Man," she says to me, "May I borrow your rosin bag?" She takes me in hand and pulls me toward the dartboards and pool table. She backs against the table and lifts herself. "Fred, you know I have always wanted to this?" She lays back against the green felt and slips her hips out over the edge.

"Fuck on a pool table?"

"No, GET fucked on a pool table."

My hands are on her flat belly and gliding down over her skin, firm enough to not tickle, and they find the button of her jeans. I unsnap and unzip and slide her pants down and I look in front of me and there is her sex, wet, and I smell her and I cannot resist her. I bury my face between her legs. Emma lets out a yelp of surprise but then gasps and I feel her part her thighs for me as my tongue finds her. Her clitoris is hard under my tongue and I lick down to her entrance, darting my tongue inside her . She moans low and I know she's going to come quickly, and so am I. I drop my pants and press myself against her, and I feel her tense.

"You want to get fucked on this table?" I ask her.

"I want to get fucked hard and fast on this table, Fred," she replies, and I slide into her in one rough stroke.

Emma arches her back and hisses. I hold her hips and pull her away from me, then pull her hips to me as I thrust, and Emma draws in a ragged breath. "Do it, fuck me--"

I pull her off and slam her onto me in quick succession, again, and again; she lays her cheek against the green felt and whimpers in pleasure. "I love you, Emma," I tell her as I hammer her.

"I love you, Oh, Fred, I hunh-uh--" Her speech turns to a rising pleasured yell that turns to individual screams in time with my thrusting. 

I continue, fucking her just short of sadism and she grabs my hips, slapping me against her, harder, and I understand that she needs this, she needs me to rape her on this table. This is not really something I'm wired for. But the sight of her lain back on the felt, her head thrown back so only her triangular jaw on a pillow of strawberry-blonde is visible and her panting groans with each stab excite me and encourage me to do this, to make her happy. I hold her wrists to the felt, plunge into her. 




Fred's Big Game



"Take it, bitch," I tell her, thrusting harder.

"Oh, God yes, give it to me--"

I give, and she takes all of me.

"You love it don't you little slut?" I ask, and I feel her pussy grip me.

"Oh, I love it, don't you stop Fred, take it, make me your whore, come in me--" and she pops, pulling me into her harder than ever as her legs shake and cries of pleasure and pain escape her lips. I feel her wetness through the condom; she's not playacting, this really got her off.

I pull from her abruptly.

Emma lies flat on her back on the table, looking up at me. "Aw, you didn't." She sounds disappointed.

"I'm not done fucking you on this table. You want to be mine, Emma, I'll make you mine. Swallow it all."

I watch her blue eyes cloud with desire. She rolls onto her belly and puts her chin on the rail. 

"Yes, Daddy," she says, all soft and demure, and she pulls the condom from me with her teeth.

I hold her head and move myself in and out of Emma's mouth. She trusts me a lot to let me do this and I'm careful not to gag her. She shifts and I see her right hand has disappeared beneath her--she's jilling off while I take her mouth, and her tongue is going crazy on me. I pick up speed, and I can see that she is too, by the play of the muscle in her upper arm and the rotation of her hips. I hope I can wait for her.

But I don't have to wait, she's over the edge now, trying to cry out with me in her mouth, and maybe it's the vibration of her voice or just sympathy, I feel myself spasm all over and my cock coils and springs and I groan and jet into her throat and now her moans have swallows between them, I can't stop coming because she has not stopped making me feel incredible yet--

"Shit." Emma leaps up from the table, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and licking. "Jerry's back--" I look down at the table, expecting to see wetness, but it is clean. She sees me look. "I kept it in my hand," she tells me, and I see her palm is shiny with her juice. I lick her palm and kiss her tenderly before pulling my pants up.

I limp back to the bar, shaken by the power of the climax that is still spasming drops of come onto the front of my boxers, and the door opens as Emma sits next to me. We're silent for a moment, then Emma speaks.

"Am I too weird for you, Fred?"

"You're just weird enough for me. Although you do take me by surprise."

"What surprises you?"

"Well, I didn't know you had a pool-table rape fantasy." Emma hides her face. "If I'd known I would have been more aggressive, but I'm glad I got to be your rapist."

"No one else would have gotten close to raping me. Just my Fred. I usually like soft," Emma continues, "but with you I feel like I can stretch and you won't mind." She pauses. "And you were plenty aggressive enough. I'm gonna be sore all over tomorrow." She stretches her jaw open and sticks her tongue out. "Everywhere." And her high, tinkling giggle sounds like wind chimes at six p.m. on the last day of school.

"I don't mind at all... little bitch," I tell her smiling, and she looks at me a long moment.

"You call me that outside of sex again, and I'll feed you your own stones." I laugh and hold her, and she kisses my neck and ear.

"My sweet Emma, you are anything but a whore."

"Wrong," she says, blushing. "I am your whore." And we kiss, and we taste each other and ourselves, and I hold my weird little bowler chick and I am lucky, so lucky, thank you Carol...

Jerry comes in the door in a rush and goes straight to the bar, pouring himself a Scotch. 

"Is everything okay?" Emma asks, concerned.

"Yeah, she's doin' a bit better," he says, and he sounds more upbeat. "She just wanted company,Christmas and all..she says she might come down later." He peers at her. "Emma, you got blue chalk all over you. Oh, you fuckin' kids--what did you do on my pool table?"