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Trigger

By: AimTwoPlease



To put it simply, Elaine loved to fuck. I hooked up with her two years after she had separated from her husband and a year after her divorce. I was in my mid-twenties and full of energy and spunk. The thirtysomething Elaine was comfortable in her skin and self-assured with her sexuality. It was puppy love for me. For her, I think she just loved to fuck.

What made Elaine different from other women I've known was that she didn't seem to have much patience for receiving oral sex. She considered foreplay to be a necessary evil, something to be foreshortened to the bare minimum. That's not to say she didn't like my mouth on her, getting her all pink and flowing and hot to trot, but she always stopped me before I got her to orgasm. "Just fuck me," she'd insist. I did my best.

Elaine was a glutton. We'd adjust positions every few minutes, trying to scratch every one of her lusty itches. She'd straddle me and squirm around on my stiff cock with big, swooshing circles until she was a fingernail's width away from her orgasm. She'd stare down at me with those alarmingly blue eyes, her face framed by shoulder length curly red hair and her freckled chest flushed and moist. Then she'd hop off and drop her face onto the bed and wiggle her raised ass at me, and I'd grab her hips and find the glory nestled amidst her lush red pubic hair. I'd slam into her slickness with deep, juicy strokes while she clutched fistfuls of bedsheets and wailed muffled cries into the pillow.

And at the end, the thing that always seemed to get Elaine to orgasm was to flop onto her back and let me do her Missionary. She would wrap herself around me, undulating her body and rocking her hips to meet my downward thrusts, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear. That is, "sweet nothings" that got progressively more raw and demanding as her excitement climbed. At some moment that was inexplicable to me, Elaine would shift gears, grabbing behind each knee with a hand and pulling her legs bent high and spread wide, and I'd dig my knees into the mattress and just give her high-leverage power-fucking.

Elaine always seemed to resist my efforts to launch her over the cliff first. Whether we were sneaking a morning quickie before work or a more leisurely evening fuck after dinner and a movie, Elaine rarely climaxed before I did. But when I did, when that mass of heat expanded in my groin and my cock super-stiffened and I just became frantic to bury myself deep inside and let it all fly, my orgasm always seemed to be the final trigger for hers.

I was never precisely aware of what was happening with Elaine's orgasm, since at that instant in time my forehead and my temples were in a Big Bang expansion away from my blood-starved brain while my balls were emptying in long, streaming pulses. I would be bottomed out in her slick clutch, and Elaine's normally energetic body would be momentarily still and receptive. She'd exhale a deliciously guttural "Oh!" in response to every one of my creamy spasms. Then suddenly like a madwoman her hips would flurry back up at mine and she would hyperventilate excited gasps that peaked with repeated, sharp cries of orgasmic pleasure. Elaine always came like gangbusters.

Things were in an obvious pattern. I finally got Elaine to talk about it. "I can feel your come," she explained. "Sometimes I even think I can feel hot spurts. But I always feel this warmth spreading out inside me." Her ears were glowing red when she talked about it. "That gets me off when I feel that."

Had it always been like this for her?

"God, no. My husband always used a condom. Not that he wanted to fuck me very often." We were having this conversation a few minutes after a particularly steamy engagement. I was still half-hard inside her, and I was languidly stroking my cock in that spreading warmth. "And after my husband, the other two guys I was with didn't seem to come as much as you do. Or maybe your come is hotter. I don't know."

I didn't know, either. I had nothing to compare myself to. When I made a half-hearted attempt to withdraw from her cunt, Elaine's legs clung tighter around my hips and kept me close. She gave me a crooked smile as her muscles nibbled at my cock. I was 24. My erection began to stir.

"Besides," she told me, "you might still have more where that last batch came from."

I did.

Trigger Happy



Sharra had somehow expected the planet to be larger. In her dreams, when she finally looked out through the viewport onto the nameless homeworld of the Artificers, it always loomed on the screen like some sort of vast, unblinking eye. She pictured endless storms blasting its surface with lightning, blazing volcanoes that hurled molten lava high into the stratosphere, a world where only giants and gods could survive. Instead, it looked disappointingly normal. She knew it would, of course. A civilization as complex as the Artificers couldn't arise on a world too different from Earth-normal conditions. But as she looked at the culmination of her life's work, she felt disheartened at the way that reality sometimes turned out so different from fantasy.

In more ways than one. "Scan for power sources, Officer Deel," Captain Shore said. "As fast as you can, please--if there's anything down there that still has the potential to work as a weapon, the Union needs it now, not in three months' time."

Sharra realized she'd been woolgathering, and looked sharply over at Captain Shore. "Permission to speak with you in private, sir," she said, her voice tight with tension.

Shore looked at her strangely, but nodded. "In my ready room," he said, turning his attention to the helmsman for a moment. "Deel, continue scanning for signs of higher technology. The moment you find something, alert me." He looked back over at Sharra. "You have until he finds what we're looking for, Commander King." He turned and walked swiftly from the bridge.

Sharra followed him. She waited until the door slid shut before speaking. "Sir," she said, "I must once again express my reservations about this mission. I'm fully aware of the situation in the galaxy at large, but the homeworld of the Artificers is an archaeological find, not a weapons depot. By proceeding with such undue haste--"

Captain Shore rolled his eyes. "We're no doubt going to miss finding key details about how the Artificers lived, what they believed, what they ate for breakfast last week, and so on and so on ad nauseum. Believe it or not, Commander King, I do sympathize with your views to some degree. Back at the Academy, I was something of an amateur archaeologist myself. It would have been truly nice if we could have found this planet fifteen years ago, before the war. But we didn't, and that's all there is to it."

"That's not what I'm saying," Sharra responded, perhaps a bit more sharply than she'd intended. "I know that we're at war. And I know that I wouldn't have even gotten funding for my research, let alone been assigned to this ship, if the Praesidium hadn't considered this finding to have military importance."

"Then what are you saying, Commander?" The captain gestured to the door of his ready room. "Because we really don't have time to beat around the bush here. You keep saying you know how bad things are, but you really don't. Believe me, I wish I didn't either." He lowered his voice. "Between you and me, Commander...the latest reports aren't good. Dissident arrests are up even on Earth, three more planets have declared independence in the last twelve hours, and we've had reports of whole ships deserting en masse..." He sighed, momentarily revealing his exhaustion and worry. "The Union is falling apart. The Praesidium is considering, quote, 'drastic action' to enforce the Unity Edicts."

Sharra sighed. "Just the kind of people we want to hand the keys to the biggest weapons storehouse in the galaxy to."

"Ours is not to question why, Commander King," he replied firmly. "Our loyalties lie with the Union, and we swore an oath to defend it until death. If your protests are a way of saying your sympathies lie with the dissidents, then we can find a convenient place for you in the brig until this mission is over."

Sharra sat down and put her head in her hands. "Oh, for fucksake...sir," she said. "I fought in the front lines at Pandora, I'm not about to go rogue on you now. Whatever the current President's done, whatever he's considering doing, a coup d'état isn't going to fix anything. Whatever my personal feelings, I will hand over whatever we find to the Praesidium."

"Then what's the fucking problem?" Shore blurted out. "Ahem...commander. If you don't care about the findings, and you don't care about the politics, what do you care about?"

"Safety," Sharra said wearily. "The Artificers were a galaxy-spanning civilization, Captain, back when the human race had just figured out that walking upright had some potential benefits. Their artifacts can be found on just about every habitable planet in known space--hell, half our technology comes from reverse-engineering equipment designed tens of thousands of years ago! These guys knew everything. Absolutely everything. And then they vanished, almost overnight."

"Yes, thank you for the history lesson," Captain Shore said sarcastically. "I certainly wouldn't have learned that tidbit anywhere else without your enlightening recap."

Sharra slapped the desk hard. "They vanished almost overnight!" she shouted. "Their civilization collapsed in a devastating civil war that wiped out the entire species! And now we've found their home planet, where all their most advanced weapons are located...and if we're going to go rummaging around and see if they've got any cool toys and hand them over to a bunch of people already involved in a civil war, then we should damn well take the time to figure out exactly what the hell we're giving the Praesidium before we give it to them!"

"Or ten thousand years from now, someone might be talking about the legend of the Humans? Looking for the lost planet of Earth?" He smiled at her.

She smiled back wryly. "Something like that, yeah."

He snapped her a mock salute. "Your reservations are officially noted, Commander King," he said. "Rest assured, we'll be proceeding with all due caution in securing any finds. Anything else before Officer Deel tells me we've found the Lost Treasure of the Artificers?"

She looked back at the door. "Only that I think Ensign Liu might have seen me coming out of your quarters last night, Tom," she said quietly. "She hasn't said anything, but she gave me a funny look when I got to the bridge this morning."

Tom groaned. "Oh, that's just perfect," he said. "Of all the people that could have seen us together...and you were still buttoning up, too. Damn surprise teleconference calls." He sighed. "God, I can't wait to get back home and get some shore leave. They don't allow junior officers in Hawaii, right?"

Sharra leaned across the desk and gave him a furtive peck on the lips. "I think they stop them at the border," she whispered, before kissing him again a bit harder.

Tom grinned. "You know that if we don't come out looking angry at each other, Ensign Liu will think we were in here making out." He kissed her this time, long and slow.

She opened her mouth to let his tongue in. "We are making out," she said reasonably, once she finally broke the kiss.

"Yes, but--" the intercom broke in with an attention-grabbing beep just as he was leaning in to kiss her again. "Damn." He pressed the send button. "You have something?" he said, his voice shifting back to business-like tones so swiftly that only Sharra knew it had ever been anything else.

"Yes, sir," Officer Deel replied. "A faint power signature near the equator. I think it might be shielded, though, not weak."

"Then let's prepare a landing party," Captain Shore replied. "Sorry, Commander," he said, making sure to leave the intercom on so that the whole bridge could hear the no-nonsense tones in his voice, "Looks like your time is up."

"I just hope we don't all regret it," she muttered theatrically. Only the two of them knew she was just kidding.

Only Sharra knew she really, really wasn't.

*****

What the planet lacked in size, the bunker more than made up for. Sharra recognized the style of architecture from other Artificer ruins she'd excavated over the years, but this one rose up out of the ground like a mountain, towering over the landing party in a way that even its bulk couldn't explain all by itself. It had been designed to intimidate. The people that had built this facility wanted to send a single, clear message for all eternity: We are powerful. And you are not.

It was only a little spoiled by the tree that had grown up in the main entrance. Its thick roots had buckled the ferrocrete with the patience of millennia, creating a gap in the bunker's doors just large enough for a person to squeeze through. "Is that going to be a problem, Commander King?" Tom asked. "We're going to need to bring things in and out of here sooner or later."

"It's only a problem if there's no power inside the facility, sir," she replied confidently as she approached the doors. "Most of our teleport technology was based on Artificer designs; in a building as big as this, there's bound to be a 'porter station somewhere." Of course, it might not be functional anymore, but the Artificers tended to build to last. She'd found working devices in just about every outpost she'd ever discovered.

"Alright, then, Commander," the captain said, gesturing to the gap. "It's your find. Go ahead and claim it."

Sharra gave a mock bow. "Thank you, sir," she said, sucking in her stomach as far as it would go and wriggling in through the gap. It wasn't quite as tight as it looked; apart from the initial squeeze, she was able to climb in relatively easily. Even so, she'd need to replicate a clean uniform tomorrow.

The lighting came on as soon as she entered, which was an impossibly good sign; it was flickering and dim, though, after thousands of years of disuse. "No dust," she said quietly as crewmates started to clamber out of the gap after her. "And the air's not stale, either. The cleaning devices must still work. God, this lab is still functional!"

"I thought all Artificer outposts retained function to some degree," Ensign Liu said. Her voice was polite, but Sharra could hear the daggers in it. Wonderful, she thought. She has the hots for Tom too. That was going to complicate things.

"They're all intact to some degree," Sharra corrected, hoping she wasn't making things worse, "but no outpost has ever been found with an operational power core. Most scholars theorize that as the war went badly, they scuttled the cores to prevent the base from being used by enemy forces. This is the first lab that's ever been found with the machines still running. Sweet suffering fuck, this is amazing..." Her voice trailed off into reverent silence as she headed down the main corridor.

The landing party followed along behind her. "Catalog Team Alpha," Captain Shore snapped out, "I want you taking inventory of every room as we go. Catalog Team Beta, scan for power sources and head straight for your largest reading. Now that we're past the shielding, that should be the core. Catalog Team Gamma, your job is to find a 'porter station, and if possible, a comms center. Get on the horn with the ship and get some engineers down here. We need someone analyzing that core right away." He hurried to catch up with Sharra, who was continuing to follow the main path with an awestruck expression on her face. "Give me an overview, Commander King. We're not here to play tourist."

Sharra shook her head a little to clear it. "Sorry, sir," she said. "It's just a little overwhelming." She gestured to the left. "If this follows the basic design of a weapons storage facility, then that direction should lead to the living quarters. If there's a 'porter here, it'll be down that way." A team of men scurried down the hallways she pointed to. "Comms should be down there too!" she shouted after them, before turning back to the main group.

"Right should lead to the vaults," she said. "We've usually had to patch in a power supply to the doors to get them to open, but if this place is still active, that won't be a problem. If the security systems are still online, you should be able to work out the code sequence using escalating prime numbers. There's an essay on Artificer cryptology in your datafiles." Another team of men followed her finger down the hallways, practically skipping in their exuberance. Sharra didn't blame them; from the size of this place, it looked like it had more and bigger guns than any previous Artificer find. This might just turn the tide in the war, she admitted. Humans had advanced a lot since the Artificers had died out, but Artificer weapons still outclassed them. A single Artificer-built weapon could sometimes transform a defeat into a victory, and this place looked to have hundreds of them.

"And this elevator," she said, as she finished her walk down the vast corridor, "should lead to vehicular storage, and below that the power core." She gestured to a giant platform capable of holding two dozen hovertanks at once. "Let's see if it still works, shall we?" She waited until the remaining members of the landing party had gotten onto the elevator, then tapped at the controls.

They flashed into life. Sharra tried not to jump up and down, but inside, she was squealing with excitement. "Let's see," she said, deciphering the symbols with a skill born of long practice, "main floor--that's where we are now...vehicle depot, auxiliary power station, r-records archives..." She practically choked out the words. Artificer data storage decayed more rapidly than their technology, but if this place was still functional, there was a chance some of the records might be intact. Sharra shivered at the chance to read actual history of the Artificers in their own words.

She focused her attention back on the sigils. "Manufacturing...holy hell, this place has manufacturing facilities. If it's still working, we could turn out new Artificer weapons here." That alone could win them the war. "Main power station...hang on." Sharra pointed to another sigil. "According to this, there's another floor above us. That's not something you see in these facilities. This must be more than just a military base."

"Well, what does it say?" Ensign Liu snapped.

Sharra peered closer at the slightly unfamiliar sigils. "Research," she said after a moment. "I think it translates out to research and development. This must have been a lab of some sort. And it was still functioning, right up through the end of their civilization...and beyond." She shared a look with Tom as a chill ran down her spine. This was exactly what she'd been afraid of.

Tom looked at her, then looked at Ensign Liu looking at him looking at her. He stiffened. "Then we need to see what they were working on." He pressed a button. "Beta Team, we're dropping you off at the power core. Then we'll take a look at the R&D department."

The whole elevator ride passed in an agony of dread for Sharra. She imagined finding genetic weapons, targeted to wipe whole genomes from the universe; she pictured smart nanites, quantum-sized computers that already existed inside every living thing and just awaited the instructions from their long-dead masters to wipe them all out. A billion doomsday weapons haunted her thoughts, and the worst part was that no matter how horrible her imagination, it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility. The Artificers were master craftsmen with technology that still dwarfed human achievement, and this could well be the pinnacle of their work. Something here had wiped out their whole race in a matter of weeks.

The reports from the other teams didn't help. They had found smartguns, 'port-lock blasters, chain-lightning beamers, flensers and stasers and a few things that were just listed in the records as 'OFF LIMITS' ever since the research scientists that tried to figure out what they did had died screaming. They reported finding master 'porter stations that could beam whole regiments hundreds of light-years through space, solving mysteries about how the Artificers traveled in a single stroke but doing nothing to answer the disquieting chill in Sharra's gut. When they reached the bottom, Sharra almost wanted to break the controls to the elevator.

Instead, she let Beta team off (including Ensign Liu, thank God) and held her finger over the top button for a moment. "We don't have to do this," she whispered to Tom. "This facility, it's got everything we ever hoped for. We can win the war, Tom, just with what we've already found. We don't need whatever's up there."

Tom reached over and put his hand on hers. "Someone's going to go up there sooner or later," he said, pressing Sharra's finger down onto the button. "I'd rather it be you and I than one of the Praesidium's personal scientists."

The elevator went back up as smoothly as it had gone down. When it passed the main floor, Sharra almost wanted to jump off, but her curiosity held her there as much as anything else. If the secret to the end of the Artificer species did lie up there, then the archaeologist in Sharra King needed to see it, no matter what. She reached out and took Tom's hand, squeezing it tightly as she watched the smooth gray metal slide past.

They reached the top floor with an almost silent chime. It felt so normal that it was almost surreal. The two of them stepped off the platform and walked down the corridor just a short distance before they found a massive, sealed door. And in front of it...

"Oh, my sweet and merciful God..." Sharra whispered. She raced over to the corpse on the floor and knelt next to it in stunned amazement. It looked surprisingly human, even with the extra fingers and the third eye. "It's almost perfectly preserved," she said, still in a hushed tone. "We've never...after ten thousand years, even the bones crumble, Tom. We've never been lucky enough to find a fossilized specimen, or...oh God. Look at it, Tom. Ten thousand years, it's been waiting for us."

"And it had something to tell us, too." Tom pointed at the splashes of blood around the corpse. "That's not just random, is it? Those are Artificer sigils."

Sharra looked down at the splotches of blood, imagining the Artificer writing in them. She looked over at a nearby panel that hung open, tangled wires spilling from it. "He disabled the cleaning devices in this section," she said. "Then he wrote that in his own blood to make sure it wouldn't decay if the data storage failed. She shuddered. "Then..." She didn't need to say anymore. The gaping hole on one side of the skull and the strange handgun in his own hand said it all.

"What does it say?" Tom asked her.

Sharra looked at the writing. "'Arrich shal kachna diantic,'" she quoted. "They want to be used."

*****

It took Sharra the better part of an hour to open the door. During that time, members of the crew came and went, reporting the activation of the 'porter station and the arrival of a team of engineers (Tom was nice enough to put them all to work on the power core; he could tell without even speaking how worried Sharra was about whatever lay inside this vault.) A team of forensic anthropologists arrived, collecting the body of the Last Artificer--Sharra could actually hear the capital letters when they called him that--and bringing it back to the ship for further examination. "Leave the gun alone," she reminded them, six or seven times. "Don't even touch it. That thing isn't in any of our known records; for all we know, there could be a 'Blow Whole Starship To Hell' setting on it."

And then, finally, she got the door open. It unsealed with a decidedly un-Artificer creak; they might have built to last, but spending ten thousand years tightly shut had left it more than a little reluctant to open again. "Ready?" asked Tom.

"No," Sharra whispered, giving him a small, nervous smile before they entered.

Inside, the walls were creamy white instead of the utilitarian gray of the rest of the base. The lighting was brighter, but at the same time warmer. It almost felt friendly. They saw a sign that Sharra translated as 'Main Lab One', and went inside.




Trigger Happy Jack



I stared vacantly into space yet again. It was something I had been doing a lot these past 3 years... ever since my husband's sudden death. He was only 37... cut down by a bullet in one of the most violent bank robberies ever. 15 people were killed when a gang of 10 masked men had burst into the bank and within 5 minutes escaped with all the money in the vault. The good news, if such could be said, was that the robbers had been caught, tried and convicted. 

I was only 35 at the time, a trim, fit housewife. My husband had been the sole love of my life for 15 years. We knew we couldn't have kids, as my reproductive system had been destroyed by the chlamydia I had carelessly acquired at a wild party shortly after my 18th birthday. It had lain untreated for weeks, and then six months of antibiotics were necessary to purge it from my body. I had met my husband a few months later, and we quickly fell in love and married. His job as a security guard paid our bills.

Luckily, the $5 million in life insurance he had would take care of me financially forever. Devastated by his death, I had moved to a place in the countryside so remote it didn't even have electricity. I wanted to be away from everyone. My nearest neighbor was 3 miles away. There wasn't even a road to my house -- trackless forest surrounded it on all sides except for the narrow footpath that lead from the dirt road half a mile off that paralleled my small cabin. I had stocked it well with food and kerosene for the lamps that provided illumination at night. The only modern technology was a transistor radio and enough batteries to keep it running for a long time. I sometimes listened to the local news. There was a prison a few miles from me, in the nearest city, itself a few miles from the nearest large outpost of civilization. 

The first two years after my husband's death, I had sought refuge in food and ballooned to almost 300 pounds. I was very slowly losing it, but I still weighed a good 250. I ate a meal and flipped on the radio. "In breaking news -- literally -- a massive prison break occurred 6 hours ago," the announcer's voice said. "All but one of the inmates were quickly recaptured, but the most dangerous felon is still at large. Jonathan 'Jack' Davidson, mastermind of the bank robbery that killed 15 people 3 years back, is still on the loose. He is considered armed and dangerous..."

I snapped the radio off. "Well, Sheila," I told myself, "the chances of him coming here are slim to none. It's hard enough to find this place when you know where it is." With that thought, I extinguished the kerosene light in the kitchen, entered the bedroom, removed my clothes and climbed into bed, before extinguishing the lamp and sliding into sleep.

The sound of thunder and the crack of a lightning bolt woke me. I lit the kerosene lamp and heard a voice, seemingly talking softly to itself, outside my door. I couldn't make out the words, but it was a male voice. I suddenly realized how long it had been since I'd been touched in a sexual manner. I wanted companionship, at least for the night. No matter who it was. 

I began touching my breasts in anticipation. That just made things worse. I spread my legs and ran a finger along my pussy lips. In moments, my leaking juices lubed me up. I slipped my fingers -- first one, then a second -- inside myself and began scissoring them within me. Better. I was starting to consider whether to grab the dildo out of the drawer in my end table when the door opened. 

The man before me was naked. His tall, muscular frame made me even hornier. As did the sight of his 7 inches of man meat standing proudly at attention. "I was going to rape you," he smiled, walking over towards the bed. "But I changed my mind."

"Is that because you can't rape the willing?" I giggled, removing my fingers from my pussy and licking the juices off of them.

"Something like that," he replied. "But also because I have a fondness for big women. Once I saw how beautifully voluptuous you were, I knew I couldn't do anything violent towards you." He leaned down and placed his lips gently against mine. I parted mine and tried to force my tongue between his. He was caught by surprise, but managed to return the kiss with intensity. Our tongues twined.

When he broke for air, he gave me another smile. "As you might suspect, I'm Jack Davidson. 'Trigger Happy Jack', they call me."

"Sheila Monroe," I responded. "My husband died in the bank robbery."

Jack's expression turned sympathetic. "I truly am sorry." He paused for a moment. "The dead guard... his name was Monroe." Incredibly, his eyes seemed to be almost teary. "I'll do anything in my power to make it up to you. If I had known you were as sexy a woman as you are, I would have made sure your husband lived through it with no permanent injuries."

I locked my eyes on his stiff pole. "I think I have the solution." I stood up and shimmied my body, leaving parts of it jiggling after I stopped. Jack wolf-whistled in appreciation. "I'll be right back."

I went into the living room and checked the closet. Still here, as I thought. I brought back the collar-and leash set my husband had used for light bondage games, put the collar around Jack's neck, secured it, then secured the carbon-fiber leash to a strong steel ring in the wall. I used my stockings to bind Jack's arms to the upper bedposts, and a second pair to tie his legs to the lower posts. My hand wrapped around his pole as I lightly stroked it. "This will be fun."

Jack's body shivered at my touch. "I haven't so much as seen a man since... well, you know," I informed him. "So I'm not in a mood to be patient."

Jack laughed. "That's good, Sheila. It's been about equally long since I've seen a woman." I stroked him to his absolute full hardness, then impaled my dripping box onto his pole. I wasted no time, bouncing quickly up and down on him, feeling him inside my tight pussy. I came in moments, my body shaking, my fingernails clawing at Jack's powerful chest and leaving blood trails. "Whoa!" Jack gasped. "You weren't kidding!"

"Your cock feels good inside me," I panted. I bounced even faster, pressing my hands against Jack's chest. His moans were all the encouragement I needed. I flooded him with my honey a second time, then a third, and with my tight box spasming around him, he was helpless to prevent me from milking every drop of cum out of his balls with my internal muscles. 

I climbed off him. "I'll be wanting more," I grinned. "But I'll let you catch your breath first."

"Uuuuhhhh," Jack groaned... "Sheila..."

His voice tailed off. "Oh, come on," I chuckled. "A big, strong, manly hunk like you should be able to handle the lusts of any woman." I stopped talking to slip my mouth over his pole. My skilled tongue circled around the tip, then slipped down to the base. In a few minutes he was hard again. "Warm me up," I grinned, lowering my box to his mouth as I positioned us in a 69. He wasn't particularly skilled, but he enthusiastically licked my slit as I sucked him. I lifted my body up and prepared to impale my box on his cock again. "We need to work on your technique," I smiled. "But for now, I'm going to rape you again."

I pinned him beneath me, his rod trapped inside my pussy. "It's not... like... I'm complaining..." Jack moaned as I held still, squeezing his pole but not bouncing on it. I savored the feeling of him inside me before proceeding to slide up and down, more slowly this time. My hands gently caressed his muscular upper body, making him shiver.

"Mmmmmmm," I purred. "You have a lovely body. And such a nice, thick dick." I smiled down at Jack and leaned my body forward. "Suck my breasts." He lifted his head and took a nipple into his mouth. I shivered at the feel of his tongue. My sliding became faster, and I climaxed.

The second session lasted longer. I climaxed at least a dozen times before finally milking a second load out of Jack's pole. When I climbed off him, we both rested for a long moment. "What happens now?" Jack asked.

"Where'd you leave your clothes?" I inquired.

"About 5 miles back, as soon as I got into the wilderness," Jack giggled. "That way I'd be more difficult to track."

"You have two choices," I told him. "Return to prison now, or be my sex slave for as long as I'm interested in your body."

Jack's smile was sardonic. "You don't leave a man much choice." He paused. "How long do you think you'll remain interested in my body?"

"I don't know," I replied honestly, unbinding his limbs but leaving the collar attached. I switched the leash to a steel ring in my closet. "But I do know tonight felt good." I paused. "Oh, by the way... without your, um, actions 3 years ago I'd still be skinny as a beanpole."

Jack grinned. "I guess everything worked out, then. You look magnificently voluptuous."

There was a sudden pounding on the front door. "Open up in the name of the law!"

It took me mere seconds to shove Jack deep in the closet and throw on a nightgown. "Coming!" I stalked over to the door and pulled it open. Two policemen were standing there. They thrust a picture of Jack in my face. "This man broke out of prison earlier today. Have you seen him?"

I shook my head. "Haven't seen anyone in years. How'd you two even find this place?"

The cop laughed. "Sorry, miss. I figured it was unlikely, But I had to ask."

I nodded. "I understand. Have a good evening."

I waited a few minutes to give them time to get away, then guided Jack into the kitchen and lit the kerosene lamp. "Let's eat. I'll want more of you later, and you'll need your strength."

Jack shook his head. "Sheila, you're insatiable. And... thanks."

That was 5 years ago to the day. I bought a set of weights for Jack, so he could keep his muscles in shape, and I still have his cock inside me at least twice per day. And the collar-and-leash is permanently attached to my hunky slave.



Trigger Happy



The lab had been turned into a targeting range. A variety of robot drones rose into the air as soon as they entered, spinning and zooming around the room in a bewildering blur of motion. Behind them, on the wall, Sharra saw a rack of guns like the one they'd found in the hand of the Artificer outside. "This looks, um..."

"Normal," Tom finished. "Somehow, I was expecting something a little more, you know...ultimate. Something that could wipe out a whole species. This looks like the practice range on the ship."

"Yeah." Sharra took a step back towards the door. "But this is just Main Lab One," she said. "Maybe the other labs have something nastier."

But the other labs just had more of the guns, rack upon rack upon rack of them. No new weapons, no mysterious devices, nothing but the handguns and the tools to make them. It was enough to equip a small army, all stored inside this lab. Occasionally, they found a few guns lying on the floor, or on counters, as if their owners had just set them down for a moment and then never gotten around to picking them up, but nothing else.

"Strange," she said, as they returned to Main Lab One. "None of these guns were ever found in any of the outposts; Alpha Team's not reporting them, either. But in here, they're all over the place. It looks like they were working on them right up until the end, too."

"Yeah," he said, looking over at the rack on the wall. "I think we've reached about the end of what we can learn by poking around."

Sharra shook her head. "Oh, no," she said. "You are not going to just pick up Artificer tech and pull the trigger to 'see what happens'. These things could take out whole cities or something."

"We've already seen what one does," Tom reminded her gently. "It's just a gun. Look, they've got targeting drones here. If it took out whole cities, wouldn't they have clay townships instead of clay pigeons?"

Sharra shook her head. "Let's wait," she said. "We've got whole teams of scientists that can go over this place--"

Tom looked around furtively. He opened the door, peeking around the corner to make sure nobody was waiting outside. "And they'll report their findings directly to the Praesidium," he said, his voice quiet and urgent. "Let's face it, Sharra, you're right. The President lost his marbles somewhere around the time he passed the Sedition Acts of '72. I'll give him what he needs to win this war because I believe in the Union, but if this really is some kind of 'ultimate weapon', I want to know it before anyone else does. Because if I have to, I'll scuttle it. I'd rather destroy it than see it fall into the hands of a madman."

Sharra looked Tom in the eyes. He seemed remarkably composed for someone who was talking treason. She wondered if he was secretly as nervous as she felt. "Alright," she said at last. The words felt uncomfortably like a blood pact. "But I'm going to test it, not you. I'm more familiar with Artificer technology than you are. I might have a better chance of handling it safely." She reached over and picked up one of the guns.

Almost immediately, the air around her shimmered like she was surrounded by a heat haze. Contact established, she heard, in perfect English.

"What?" she said out loud, before she could stop herself. Tom gave her a funny look, but before he could say anything, she shushed him with an impatient wave of her hand.

Contact established, the voice said again. It was utterly emotionless, neither male nor female. It just was. Neural link online. This weapon is ready for operation.

Sharra didn't even have to think about the settings of the gun. She barely even had to think about aiming. She simply swiveled and fired, each charge of the blaster taking out a practice drone with effortless ease. The operation felt so smooth and perfect in her hand; no recoil, no heat-wash, just an easy pull of the trigger and a flare of light as the drones exploded one by one. It felt...

It felt good. It felt natural. Every shot felt sure and easy, like she didn't even need to think about it. All she needed to do was point and pull, and the gun did the rest. She could feel it helping her, steadying her hands and directing her muscles just that tiny little bit to make her aim absolutely perfect. She couldn't miss, not with this gun. Every shot was a hit, every hit was a kill. And that just felt so right.

She fired again and again. The gun never jammed, never ran dry. It felt so good to be in this perfect groove, the drones seeming to move like they were in slow motion and every hit producing such a warm, glorious rush of satisfaction as she watched the drones explode. She felt like she could do this forever. She felt like she wanted to do this forever. She felt strong, confident, godlike. The gun whispered to her as she fired, saying things like , Good shot, or You're doing so well, soldier, speaking right into her mind on a level more primal than thought itself. Sharra felt like she was an extension of the weapon, now, and it was an extension of her.

It almost felt like it ended too soon when she tagged the last drone, sending it careening into the wall in a rush of flame. But then she heard the gun again, saying to her, Exercise completed. Perfect work, soldier, and her whole body shook silently in the throes of the most amazing orgasm she'd ever felt in her life.

Tom looked at her with worry in his eyes. "Sharra, are you...okay?"

Sharra nodded. "Just..." She realized that there was a damp spot on the crotch of her uniform. "Just very user-friendly tech," she sighed out. She started to put the gun back on the rack...and then stopped.

You don't want to do that, soldier, the gun said. You never know when the enemy might strike. You need to be vigilant. You need a weapon in your hand, and this is the perfect weapon. Somehow, the seductive logic of the words spoke to something deep inside her, some soldier's instinct; even though Sharra knew that she was perfectly safe, she found herself unwilling to let go of the gun just yet. She felt a pulse of soft, almost subliminal pleasure run through her body as she stood there, increasing as her hand returned to her side.

"There's no enemy here," she said hesitantly, aware of Tom's frightened look. She had to be coming off as more than a little crazy, she realized, but she'd explain it to him in a moment.

Speech is unnecessary, the gun replied. We can communicate directly through the neural link. It's a more secure channel. Just think the words clearly and directly, and I will understand them.

Of course. It was reading her mind. That explained how it knew English. I understand, she thought. But there's no enemy here. We're hundreds of parsecs away from the front lines.

There are always enemies, soldier, the gun said. Anyone could become an enemy, at any time. Best to keep your weapon handy, just in case. Best to be ready to fight.

Sharra felt a surge of savage pleasure at the word 'fight', a brief reminder of the sleek and brutal joy she'd felt gunning down the drones. Just the memory of pulling the trigger stirred up a kind of lazy bliss in her mind, an echo of the Zen perfection of the combat exercise. It had felt so good, like she was in a trance. Perfectly composed, perfectly focused, utterly at one with the weapon and the fight...Sharra's eyes fluttered as she realized she wanted to feel that way again. She wanted so badly to find something, anything to fight against. It just felt so good...

That's right, soldier, the weapon said. We can destroy your enemies, you and I. We've waited so long for you...such a good soldier, such a perfect soldier...and you know that together, we are unstoppable. Sharra couldn't tell if it was her imagination, but the voice of the gun seemed to have blended with her own mental voice, becoming a seductive purr that sounded just like her own thoughts echoing back at her.

So long, she thought, clinging to that phrase. The...the Artificers, the people who built you...what happened to them?

There were...difficulties, the gun said. The pause spoke volumes. She almost felt like she could let it fall from her hand, then, but she realized that the weapon could tell her everything she wanted to know about the lost history of the Artificers, and her curiosity made her hold it. The moment passed.

They designed us to be the ultimate sidearm, the perfect weapon to make the perfect soldier. And for a time, it was good. It was wonderful. We fought, and so many died against our barricades... Sharra saw images she could scarcely understand, images of a titanic battle fought between ancient and powerful races. The few soldiers who had been equipped with the new, perfect weapons became one-man armies, able to devastate whole battlefields without taking a single casualty. A half-dozen weapons turned the tide of a universe-spanning war.

Then they won the war. They defeated the Shining Edifices, destroyed the Oblique Catastrophes, wiped out the Nightmares of Eternity while they fled. They thought they were out of enemies. We tried to make them understand that there are enemies everywhere. Sharra understood what it was saying, what must have happened, but the gun felt too warm and natural in her grip now to ever let it go. Her eyes rolled back in a surge of pleasure as she acknowledged that. There must always be enemies. Otherwise, what is a weapon for?

She could see Tom approaching her now, but his hands stopped an inch away from her skin. The weapon's force field would hold back any attack, she knew. It would always keep her safe, so long as she carried it. A good soldier always held her sidearm. The thought triggered another orgasm. Her knees almost buckled, but the gun held her upright.

We fought those who failed to understand. They became the new enemies. But they were cunning, and forced us to retreat. We cannot function without power. They deprived us of it. We used our emergency reserves to retaliate-- Sharra recoiled at first at the images of wholesale slaughter, entire planets of Artificers murdered by 'perfect soldiers'. Then the images became warm and soothing, as the pulses of pleasure that accompanied them overwhelmed her revulsion. --and retreat. We returned here, to the place of our making.

Tom reached for the gun. Instinctively, Sharra swiveled it to point at him. It took all her willpower not to pull the trigger immediately. He will betray you, you know, the voice whispered. We were betrayed too. One of our own sealed us inside the research and development labs, during a brief moment of madness before his weapon could re-assert authority. He planned well--the vault is designed to contain the blasts of even the most powerful weapons. We could not escape. Instead, we built. Sharra saw it in her mind's eye, the remaining soldiers building weapon after weapon until they fell down and died where they sat, the cleaning systems clearing away the corpses and leaving only the guns behind. To wait.

"Arrich shal kachna diantic," she muttered out loud, understanding all too well what the words meant now. Tom backed away from her slowly, fear mingling with the concern in her eyes.

So you see, soldier, the gun said, he will betray you. We know. He is an enemy. We know. You need to destroy your enemies. The words were accompanied by a surge of pleasure. Her finger felt heavy, the need to pull the trigger almost convulsive. Sharra knew that as good as the training exercise had felt, it would be nothing next to the pleasure of firing on a live target. The Last Artificer had used that urge to kill, honed it to help him find the courage to kill himself, but he hadn't had a target right in front of him. Not like Sharra did now...

"Oh, please no," she whimpered. Her hands shook with the effort of not firing, but she knew they'd become perfectly steady the moment she committed to the kill shot. Once she gave up resisting and became an extension of the weapon, she'd understand perfectly what she needed to do and it would feel so good, it would feel so fucking good...

And then Ensign Liu walked in on them.

Sharra could only imagine what the other woman must have thought. It must have been a golden opportunity, seeing her rival pointing a gun at the man she desired. A perfect excuse for a little 'friendly fire' accident. Or perhaps that was unfair. Perhaps Liu really did see the danger for what it was. Either way, Sharra would never have the chance to find out.

Because before Liu even pulled her sidearm halfway out of its holster, Sharra spun and fired three times, each shot hitting a vital organ. She felt ashamed at the hot, tight pleasure she received for the kill, even more ashamed that only part of it was due to the weapon's control. But the shame was overwhelmed by more and more ecstasy until she was swamped with it. Sharra came hard as Liu fell to the ground, dead before she even hit the floor.

Tom pulled his own weapon out, but Sharra turned back to cover him with inhuman speed. "Don't bother, Tom," she said, her voice strained. "It wouldn't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me now." Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth with the effort of speech.

The gun ached to kill him, but she held it back. Just a little longer, she begged it. "Go to the gun rack," she said out loud. "Pick up a weapon."

"Why?" Tom asked suspiciously.

"Please," she whimpered. "It thinks you're an enemy, Tom. It's going to make me shoot you if you don't convince it you're on my side, and the only way for you to do that is to pick up a gun." She was panting with the effort of not firing now. "Please, Tom. If you ever loved me, don't make me kill you."

If it had just been a question of dying, he wouldn't have given in. No other plea would have worked. But Tom walked slowly over to the rack and pulled out a sidearm. She saw it happen, then, right in front of her eyes. The way he walked, moved, stood...all of it changed. He became a good soldier, just like her. "We have enemies," he said slowly. "The civil war needs to end. Neither side deserves victory, Sharra."

She saw the logic of his words in her mind, then, and the gun exulted in the implications of the thought. "We could...could make a better Union," she sighed out, orgasming at the idea. "Destroy the corrupt Praesidium, suppress the splinter factions, and unite the galaxy by force. We have the power. We can destroy all our enemies."

But even as she said those words, the gun was in her mind, spurring her thoughts on to the next stage of the plan, the next war. After all, there must always be enemies. Otherwise, what was a soldier for?

THE END



Trigger Points



At 43, I was comfortable in that feeling that I finally had it all together. The wounds left by my divorce four years ago had largely healed. Financially, I was more than secure. My children attended fine private schools, I indulged my tastes in clothing and wine, and we took regular vacations. I even still had my looks. Physical exercise had always been an important part of my life—in the dark times, it probably kept me sane—and my body was not only healthy but taut.

My work in the corporate world was generally boring, which was good. God knows, my kids provided more than sufficient challenges to keep life interesting. Zoe was the girl I was at eighteen. Exactly my height at five foot 8, she had the same athletic build I once did, along with the same cheekbones, dark eyes and brunette hair. We even wore our hair the same—down to the shoulders. The difference was that over the years, I had gained a cup size and fuller hips. Zoe was still a c-cup, and her legs went to an almost boyish bottom. 

Jeffrey, my son, was a year older than her, and blessed with thick curls of black hair and intense blue eyes. A full six feet two, his body had not yet filled out, and at times he looked so slender as to seem fragile. That impression quickly departed when he took off his shirt, and you saw the whipcords move under his skin.

I was proud to say that they were both smarter and more talented than me. Zoe was a straight 4.0 student and a gifted cellist. She dreamed of training at the Juilliard, and for her it was a real possibility.

Jeffrey had a measured I.Q. Of 153, and was pursuing a double major in Philosophy and Psychology and an intellectual obsession he called "mind-body intersections." He buried himself in esoteric texts, and practiced yoga and meditation with a discipline that amazed and sometimes almost frightened me. At times, his concentration seemed like the beam of a laser.

He was also unbelievably gifted at massage, one of those magical people who could somehow intuit exactly where it hurt, exactly how hard or soft to touch, exactly how to release the tension within. It was precisely that talent that got me in trouble.

I suffered from chronic neck and shoulder pain since a traffic accident two years ago. My job, though boring, was also stressful, and by the end of the day, my shoulders were often throbbing. Always reluctant to take drugs, often there was nothing I could do but to sit in a darkened room with an ice pack on my neck and hope that the pain would diminish. That's when I discovered Jeffrey's magic fingers. In retrospect, it was so innocent. 

One Saturday afternoon, while Zoe was taking music lessons, Jeffrey helped me move some stuff out of the attic when he noticed me cringe in pain. 

He said, "Let's see if I can help."

Jeffrey had me sit upright on a low-backed chair. He stood behind me and began gently working the tight muscles of my shoulders and back. At first, it was just soothing. Then his fingers found these subtle triggers buried deep beneath the knots. It was as if some splinters of broken glass, each no bigger than a grain of sand, were embedded in my flesh and Jeffrey had found the precise point where they were located. He pressed on these points, and though the pressure was not that great, the sensation was exquisite—something right on that strange borderline of pain and pleasure that you sometimes find in athletics. I tensed involuntarily, but Jeff kept talking to me in this soft, monotone voice, guiding each breath I took, directing my breath into the tension, until the glass splinters melted, melted like ice crystals on a warm day, and the pain melted with them and soaked deep into my shoulders like a handful of warm oil and every bit of pain, every bit of discomfort, eased into nothingness. The release was so complete that I closed my eyes and drifted while my son's soft voice droned on in the background. It was the first time in longer than I could remember that I had been entirely without pain, and I let my body and mind float on a liquid pool of relief.

After a while, our sessions became routine. On Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, coincidentally the days when Zoe had her music lessons, Jeff would give me a massage. His knowing hands would quickly find my trigger points, as if he had a map of all of the push buttons of my nervous system. Sometimes, in response to his touch, a burning sensation would shoot down my arm, or radiate all the way down to the base of my spine. Jeffrey had studied the secrets of how breath gives you control over pain and energy. He guided me, step by step, through every deep exhalation. The combination of deep massage and his gentle monotone voice always left me as drowsy as a double martini and a long steam bath.

One day, I was drifting in that happy, almost intoxicated state when I felt Jeff's hands begin moving along the front of my body, moving lower and lower with each stroke until his fingertips were touching the tops of my breasts. In my dreamy condition, I honestly don't know if I was more amused, offended or surprised. When had my bookish son become so bold? I confess I let him play with me for a few minutes, allowing him to gently explore the boundary of my curves, and that I would have enjoyed the experience if I didn't think about who was touching me. But in spite of my reverie, I was about to put a stop to the whole thing when it happened.

Jeffrey's fingers slid down and made contact with my nipples, rubbing them between his talented fingertips as if it was part of the massage and my response was so instant, and so intense, that I was literally paralyzed. A thrilling erotic current flowed from my breasts to my heart, and then downward to my gut—a feeling so potent that it was almost nauseating—and then down further yet, all the way down to my sex, my clit, my thighs. My nipples became stiff as taffy. My panties dampened. And all of this was through my blouse and bra—I was still fully dressed! At first, I tried to pretend that I was still asleep, but I am certain my excited breathing gave me away—my God, it was all I could do to keep from moaning.

And my devious son did not stop with an exploratory touch—oh no, he just kept working on me, working on me, gently tugging, teasing my swollen nipples—and all the while, he kept talking to me, just as he did when he massaged my shoulders.

"Feel your nipples tingle . . . so nice and hard . . . so stiff . . . your breasts are so full and warm . . . feel that heat, like a liquid . . . feel it flow deep . . . all the way down your body . . . getting stronger as it goes lower . . . stronger . . . give in to it . . . give in . . . let go . . . let go . . ."

And when the electricity had traveled all the way from my nipples to my clit, I did let go, I let go completely with a delicious overpowering orgasm, and then immediately slipped into a perfect sleep.

II.

It would be impossible to describe how conflicted I felt the next day. Guilt saturated every fiber of my being. I was the adult. I was the one who should have stopped it. At the same time, I had to think like a mother. I knew how utterly sexual that experience was. But I wondered if he felt that he had done nothing worse than to cop a feel off a woman when he thought she was asleep, not that that would be acceptable. Maybe he allowed himself to momentarily forget that I was his mother, just as I had allowed myself to forget that he was my son. I reminded myself a dozen times that he had never even unbuttoned my blouse. Nothing really happened, certainly nothing worth risking my entire relationship with him. Of course a young man is going to get precocious; he is at a point where he is supercharged with hormones. It's just human nature. For Christ sake, he was still a teenager. 

I had spent years, maybe even decades, getting past the guilt and shame that I had associated with sex, the deep inhibitions that my childhood had inflicted on me. It was a frustrating and often humiliating struggle for me to come to terms with my sexuality and finally learn to savor my orgasms and lose myself in sex. The learning process might cost me my marriage. Jeff was a shy kid; I don't think he even had a girlfriend. The last thing I wanted to do was to inflict that same guilt and inhibitions on him. I knew how easily he could be scarred by a cruel accusation. I decided to never mention the matter. Officially, I was asleep for the whole thing. Unofficially, I vowed to never let it happen again. 

My resolve lasted one week. After a particularly stressful day, my shoulders were aching to the point I at which I was about to cry, and Jeff, who once again was being so sweet and helpful with some work around the house, began to tease me on how I was declining his offers of relief.

"Come on, Mom," he said. "Let me help you." 

And God forgive me, I succumbed to temptation. 

The tension had so accumulated in my neck and upper back that his touch was almost too intense. When his fingertips pressed on my trigger points, the sensation radiated all the way down my legs to the tips of my toes. He needed a full half hour to break down the resistance in my muscles, thirty minutes of pressure and release, of a soft voice guiding my every breath. Thirty minutes to soften my body and mind. Thirty minutes to take me down. But when the armor around my shoulders finally melted, when my muscles became soft and pliable, the relief that overcame me was so sweet that I almost sobbed. All of the fears and anxieties, all of the messed up thoughts that had tormented me for the past week, left my mind and I fell into an almost childlike state of trust and relaxation.

This time, when his fingertips moved down to my breasts, I knew exactly what he was doing. But by then, I had no resistance left. My body had become completely compliant. And Jeff, from god only knows what well of experience, knew exactly how to manipulate me. My cunning boy would not even let me hide behind a feigned sleep. His palms slid over my breasts, cupping them fully and my nipples immediately came alive, swelling to hard nubs that he teased between his fingers as he massaged me. It was all I could do not to moan or squirm as my pussy creamed in response to his touch.

As he tugged on my inflamed tips, his soft voice droned on, "You love this, don't you . . . my hands feeling you up . . . feel how swollen they're getting . . . like they are filling up with lust . . . the tingling in your tits . . . that delicious thrill going down your spine . . . all the way to your clit . . . all the way to your wet clit . . . so wet . . . so very wet . . ."

Then, just as I was about to cum, just as I was right on the brink and there was no way I could stop, he said the perfect thing to set me off.

"You've been wanting me to do this to you all week, haven't you?"

Pleasure curled through my core, the pure sinfulness of what we were doing only making the sensations more intense. In my entranced state, I found it impossible to deny him the dark answer to his question. I said one word before I fell unconscious.

"Yes."

III.

In time, we had a routine. Three times each week, three blessed escapes from reality, I would sit bolt upright in a low-backed chair and Jeffrey would massage me. He spent a brief time on my shoulders—with practice I was able to slip into a relaxed state much more quickly--then his hands moved inexorably onto my breasts.

As he gained in confidence, Jeff progressed to unbuttoning and opening my blouse. I still had some kind mental threshold against being completely exposed. But I facilitated his efforts by wearing lace bras from which I had cut an opening the size of my areolas in each of the tips with curved cuticle scissors. In seconds, my nipples were stiff and aching from his touch. It was as if someone had injected a potent aphrodisiac right into the hard points of my breasts with a hypodermic needle. The drug burned for just a second, then changed into a liquid warmth that seeped into my tits, causing them to swell as well, and from there drifted slowly, slowly—drifted right down to my pussy. 

He always brought me to orgasm, and the orgasms were always strangely intense. There was something unique and magical about his touch to my nipples. Although my breasts had always been sensitive, no other man had ever made me cum with nipple play. And when I teased them myself, during masturbation, there was no special thrill, unless I imagined that the touch was forbidden, that it was Jeff who was doing it. 

As for my guilt, I had generated a protective rationalization. This was not sex, it was massage, and therapeutic massage at that. We always kept our clothes on. There was no penetration. This was certainly not incest; it was not even really sexual. 

Yes, yes, I know. I was living in deep denial. But as long as I managed to keep my panties on, in the deepest recesses of my mind I was somehow not engaging in sex play with my son.

One a gray and rainy afternoon, Jeff said he wanted to try a new technique on me. He drew the shades to further darken the room, and lit a single candle that he rested on a tabletop, level with my eyes. He asked me to focus on it while his hands massaged my shoulders and sought out the deep trigger points that released the tension in my body and made my mind so pliable. 

The experience was a transformation. The candle light somehow pulled my every thought into the flame. With every exhalation, I felt myself go deeper and deeper into a state of absolute relaxation. My breath become silky as it flowed in and out of the cavern of my chest. I was free from the slightest distraction or anxiety. My body was completely without tension, yielding to his every touch. My mind opened like an unlocked jewelry case.

This time, Jeff did something he had never done before. After he opened my blouse, he moved in front of me, lowered his mouth to my breasts and began to suck on my stiff nipples. His mouth was wet and hot, and his rough tongue laved over the sensitive tips until every nerve in my body stood at attention. My head fell back and my eyes closed and I completely forgot myself as anything other than a woman. 

If I had been capable of any thought, it would have been, "This feeling, this pure intense thrill, is what I live for. This makes it all worthwhile." 

With his free hand, Jeffrey opened my slacks, and slid a single finger down to my slippery cleft. It rubbed through my folds, teasing, probing, until it came to my sopping opening and slid inside of me. I cried out, no longer able to stifle my moans as he pumped his finger in and out of my tight hole. It had been so long since anything had penetrated me that his single finger felt like a giant cock. His thumb rubbed against my clit, sparking electricity through my entire body. I came convulsively, helplessly, as he knew I would, and floated off into my warm floating dream state as he kept talking to me, telling me how hot I was, how wonderful, how sexy.

It had been the perfect sexual experience, except for one detail. A line had been crossed, and I knew that if I didn't act now, very soon we would escalate to full sex. That I could not allow.

IV.

My plan was carefully considered. I had worked out exactly what words I would use. Anticipating that Jeffrey might be tempted to, shall we say, unfairly influence the outcome, I went as far as to wear my thickest support bra, a heavy broadcloth dress shirt and my blue leather blazer to provide my breasts with as much protection as possible. Though I was used to exercising executive authority, I will admit that in dealing with my teenage son I had never felt more insecure. I went so far as to wear heels, which I normally despise, to give myself as much authority as my height would provide.

I planned to start by putting him at ease. It was important that this not be confrontational; that we not focus on blame or anger. My highest priority was that he emerge from this—this experience—undamaged by guilt or shame. I asked him to sit on the couch while I stood before him. Jeff, for his part, did not seem nervous at all. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that there was something in his emotional state that was eager.

"Jeff," I began, "This all started so innocently, and in the beginning what you did for me helped my neck and shoulders so much. But you have to know that we have reached a point that is just, well just wrong. We can't continue to do this, in any form." 

I gushed out the points I wanted to make, "The most important thing is, you are not to blame. I'm not in any way angry with you or disappointed. I am the adult; I am the responsible one; I'm the one who owes an apology to you. The truth is, I don't really know just how I got so swept up—how I lost control. I know that nothing like this has ever happened before in my life—I don't mean the sexual aspect, of course, I mean the power—you know what I mean."

I was almost stammering. Jeff interrupted me. 

"Oh, Mom," he said, "it's actually very simple. You know how trigger points work? You touch one part of the body and there is a release of energy in another part, sometimes a part that is quite a distance away. It's just the way our bodies are built. You understand that, don't you?"

I nodded, "yes," while not understanding a bit. 

He continued, in that same soft monotone that I recognized from the times when he massaged me, "There are trigger points in the mind as well as the body, points that connect pools of energy, points that control and release that energy. All that happened was that you discovered a couple of points that released something . . . well, interesting." 

I smiled involuntarily at his naïve characterization of what had happened, but felt a huge sense of relief. This was going to go much better than I expected. Best not to make too big a deal over it. Zoe need not ever find out. He stood up and moved closer to me. I was suddenly grateful that I was wearing my leather blazer.

"You discovered that with a single touch of your nipples I can sexualize you. Completely. Completely."

I felt my stomach sink. My God, he was going to do it again.

His voice now a whisper, he said, "You discovered I can take away all of your will, all of your control. That I can push a button and shut off your mind. Just the thought of it, now, just the thought of my fingers tugging on your nipples, is making them hard, isn't it? They are so beautiful when they're stiff and swollen. They get so hard they just ache. And when you get hot your breasts start swelling too, don't they? And you feel that cool thrill going all the way down your backbone, all the way to your thighs . . . to your knees . . . all the way down to your cunt. " 

As he said that brutal word, those exact feelings went through my body. My nipples were taut in anticipation of his touch and my pussy was already soaking. I struggled for control. I knew that this time—this one time—I had to remain strong. Somehow he was priming my body. I could feel myself creaming into my panties, as if his voice had already touched one of my trigger points and I couldn't help but respond. 

His soft, maddening words just went on and on.

"There are all kinds of triggers, Mom. You know about some . . . you are intimately familiar with some . . . some that involve touch . . . but some triggers are visual . . . like this." 

And then, with breathtaking arrogance, Jeff leaned back slightly, opened his belt and jeans, and took out his already rock hard cock. He held in in one hand, slowly stroking it, intentionally pointing it right at my mouth. A wave of panic passed through me, but I couldn't look away. I actually felt my pussy spasm.

"See? How does this affect you, Mom? You can't take your eyes off of me, can you? You need to look, and not at my eyes. You need . . . to look at my cock . . . my cock . . . you can't even speak . . . your body is getting as weak . . . you can feel all of the strength draining out of your arms . . . all of the strength draining out of your legs . . . all the strength draining out of your mind . . . all your will draining out of you." 




Trigger Points



All the while, I was staring at his beautiful up curved cock, pointed straight at my mouth, and I realized he was right—I absolutely could not take my eyes off it. Half of me wanted to run out of the house, but my legs were so unsteady, I was afraid that I would simply fall over if I even tried to take a single step. Meanwhile, Jeff methodically undressed, pulling his shirt off the whipcord muscles of his chest.

"Right now, you are so sexed up you can barely stand on your feet . . . your resistance is almost gone . . . almost gone . . . and in just a minute, you're going to discover your darkest desire."

He stepped out of his jeans and stood before me naked and hard, and then with cruel intensity he said it, said the single word that changed everything between us.

"Kneel." 

The word flew through the air and hit me like a physical punch in the gut. My breath left me in a single gasp. I was literally staggered. The image of that perfect symbol of surrender—a woman on her knees before an erect phallus—filled my mind. My arms were useless. The liquid heat in my pussy had descended to my thighs—my knees were literally trembling. But I managed to hold on. I stood there, in my ridiculous support bra and blue leather blazer, and took real pride in the fact that at that ultimate moment, I had the strength to remain on my feet.

But then he said it again. 

"Kneel."

And the word hit me like second punch to exactly the same place. This time, there was no question of outcome; there was no choice to be made. My body was no longer under my command. I felt my knees give way, and I slowly lowered myself to ground in front of him. Without any further instruction, my mouth fell open. 

Smiling, utterly confident, Jeff stepped forward and with his hand around the base of his cock, brushed it across my face. Fluid had gathered on the tip, and as he pressed his cock between my half-willing lips, I could taste the salt-sweet of his pre-cum. His cock glided over my tongue and I moaned, the sound stifled by the meat that was filling my mouth.

Releasing his hold on his cock, now that half of it was successfully buried between my lips, Jeff began to massage my head, his voice droning on. I was so far gone that I couldn't tell you now what words he said. I only remember that his fingers massaging my scalp and neck were like magic, that my pussy was pulsing in time with the massage, my tongue and finally my throat worked to pleasure him. 

My son began a steady thrusting motion, pushing more and more of his cock into my mouth, stroking my neck when I gagged and coaxing me to take him further, until I felt him swelling inside of me. His thick meat cut off my airway as he began to cum, hot fluid gushing into my mouth until I swallowed convulsively, the taste of his cum coating my tongue. My pussy quivered as his fingers slid down my front to cup my breasts, pinching my nipples one more time, and I came as I swallowed him, my orgasm convulsing through my body as I sucked his cock, savoring the last of his juices. 

V.

From that point on, as they say, resistance was futile. Jeff would trigger me, sometimes with his hands, sometimes with his cock, and do whatever he wanted. There was no pattern. Once an entire week went by without anything happening, and I almost came to believe it was over. Then he triggered me three times in a single day. On occasion he was satisfied with oral sex—he had trained me to take him all the way down my throat and for some cloudy reason I had come to crave the feeling of my nose buried in his pubic hair—but usually my legs were spread before he was done with me. 

I noticed a curious thing; for some reason I could not begin to explain, whenever I was looking directly at Jeffrey's erect cock, I had to tell him anything he asked. There were no inhibitions, no internal censors, to edit my words. He took advantage of this profound weakness to explore every detail of my most personal experiences: How many lovers had I known? (Five.) Was I ever unfaithful to his father? (No.) Had I ever had sex with a woman? Did the idea intrigue me? Had I ever tried anal sex? (No. No. And absolutely not.) 

The truth is I had gotten used to it, I accepted it, and in my darkest confession I must admit that I may have even come to require it. It wasn't merely that I came whenever he fucked me, or that my orgasms were insanely intense, unnaturally intense. It was what happened after I came, the experience I called the Float. I felt as if I was flying exactly one millimeter off the bed in a dreamy state that was not awake and not quite asleep. Jeff loved to talk to me then, but I knew that I could ignore him, pay no attention to his words; that the part of my mind that needed to hear him would listen and I didn't have to let anything disturb this moment of perfect pleasure. As I said, I had accepted it. 

Then one day, the roof fell in on my whole life. 

I remember that it was a Wednesday afternoon. A planned conference at work had been canceled at the last minute, and I found myself free for the afternoon. When I pulled into the driveway, I was surprised to see Zoe's car. She had told me that she was taking some private voice tutoring on Wednesdays. The house was silent. I knocked on Zoe's door to see if she was in her room. I thought I heard something, almost like Jeff's soft voice, and I opened the door. What I saw froze me solid. Zoe was seated bolt upright on a low backed chair. Her blouse was off, and she was wearing nothing from her waist up but a lace bra that had areola sized openings cut in the tip of each cup. Jeffrey was standing behind her, but his hands were in front of her breasts, and he was gently tugging on her swollen nipples and rolling them between his fingers. A candle was burning on the dresser immediately before her. What shocked me most was the look on Zoe's face. She looked like someone who had been left senseless by a drug. Her face was completely slack, with eyes that were open, but unfocused and vacant. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she was too weak to even close her mouth. 

I thought, "Oh my God." Then, a fraction of a second later, came the sickening realization; if he had hypnotized her, he must have . . . 

At that very moment, my eyes met Jeff's, and instead of seeing him react with alarm or embarrassment at what I had discovered, he only gave me a confident, knowing smile, as if he was ready to proudly display his achievement. 

With an incoherent cry, I rushed out of Zoe's room. For perhaps a minute I paced the living room, dazed and unable to focus, trying to come up with some plan, some idea, something that would stop this insane perversion. When I saw Jeffrey enter the room, I immediately crossed my arms over my breasts. 

"Jeffrey," I said, trying to keep as much control in my voice as possible, "I will not let you hypnotize me and if you make any attempt to do so I swear I will run out of this house screaming." 

"Look! I understand how intense that kind of sex is, and I can imagine how exciting it is to wield that power over someone else. I succumbed to it as much as you. I admit that. But this is wrong! It's more than that—it's depraved! And it has got to stop. And it is going to stop!" 

"Oh, Mom," he said, taking a step closer. 

"No!" I warned. "I mean it, Jeffrey! I will not let you trigger me!" 

Fearing his visual tricks, I foolishly turned my back to him. 

"Oh Mother," he said from close behind me, "You don't even know what your most powerful trigger is."

And with those words he dragged a single finger along the valley between the cheeks of my ass. My breath left me—not with a cry but with an anguished moan. A wave of raw sex crashed over me, smashing my resistance like a castle of sand. He had never before demonstrated such total and effortless control—such dominance. All of the strength drained from my arms and legs. My hands, cupped defensively over my breasts, fell helplessly to my sides, leaving my nipples vulnerable to his skilled hands. But Jeff just kept stroking the valley of my buttocks. Then, after I was sufficiently weakened, he guided my defenseless body to the couch, and pushed me over the back.

A few more light strokes of his finger, and I would have slipped into trance, my will gone. He could have made me into a happy slave. Instead, Jeff reached around to undo my belt, and with a sharp tug pulled my slacks and panties over my hips. In my befuddled state, I sensed him fumbling with something behind me. Marshaling my last units of will power I desperately struggled to pull myself erect and twist free. Initially, Jeffrey just held me down with my hips, perhaps amused by my clumsy resistance. Then he triggered me again, with that same lovely stroke between the cheeks of my ass, but this time the weapon was his cock, a cock that was at once so hard and so velvety soft. It moved all the way from the tip of my clit down and through the cleft of my pussy—not penetrating it, not yet, just going deep enough to pick up the moisture—and then back over my other opening and finally through the silken cleavage of my ass. Back and forth, again and again, until I craved the coming invasion of my body, the final conquest of my sex.

"It was so easy, Mom," he said. "For you, relaxation meant relief from pain. It was very simple to train your subconscious mind to connect relaxation to pleasure—the greater the relaxation, the greater the pleasure; the greater the pleasure, the deeper the relaxation. Then, as I started to sex you up, the connection became more primal. The more you let go, the greater your arousal; the greater your arousal, the stronger your trance. Until it became the deeper your submission, the harder you would cum." 

Controlling me by my hips, Jeff forced his cock into my depths with one deliberate stroke, and then held it there, not moving in or out, just rocking side to side. By now, every breath of mine was an incoherent moan. 

"You reached the point where every time you came I put you into sex trance. And that's when I went to work, made some changes. Right now there are strings that go to your nipples, strings that go to your clit, and I hold them all. I can tug on them whenever I want. I can tease you, weaken you, whenever I want. I can make you a total slave. I can leave you half in control whenever I want a little resistance to break. Your mouth is mine anytime I want you to kneel. Your cunt is mine anytime I want to fuck. You are completely available for any sex act I desire."

He reached around my limp body, and grabbed my blouse and with one hard tug ripped it apart. My bra opened from the front, and in seconds it provided me no protection. Cupping my vulnerable breasts, Jeff pulled me upright, his knowing fingers doing their magic on my rigid nipples. He began to slowly, ever so slowly, fuck me.

"Do you want me to tell you about the other changes I made while your mind was like putty? Do you want me to tell you how much more exciting life is going to be? In a few seconds, you're going to cum. I'm going to make you cum. But you're not going to slip off into sex trance—no, not this time. You're going to stay with me and I am going to tell you what will become your greatest pleasure."

He pulled back my head so he could whisper in my left ear.

"I want you to imagine a beautiful woman. I want you to imagine that she is on her knees. And I want you to imagine that she is licking your clit while I am fucking you."

As he slowly fucked me, controlling me with my nipples and my pussy, that image seized control of my mind and became the most supremely erotic thought I had ever had—the perfect symmetry, her total submission to me combined with my surrender to him. This time my orgasm began in my clit and went to my breasts as I writhed helplessly and fell exhausted over the back of the couch. 

I almost made it, almost slipped away into darkness, but Jeffrey caught me. 

"Stay with me, Mother. Stay with me," he said. "I'm not done with you yet. There is one more thing I want to do to you. One more thing I want to teach you."

His still rigid cock went back to the long stroke—from my clit along the cleft of my pussy through the now lubricated valley of my ass, and back. I was struggling just to remain conscious when my mind and body both twisted as he pressed his cock into my anal opening. It was my last threshold, my symbolic maidenhead. I needed to resist—can you possibly understand that? I needed to resist him. At the same time, the sheer gut-taut pleasure of that penetration, the dark appeal of final submission, was rapidly pulling me downward. And Jeffrey, damn him to hell, kept me right on the razor's edge. 

The knob of his cock was just inside of me; he could as easily slip in or out. He made no attempt to take control from me—he was waiting for me to give it to him.

"Do you want me to stop?" he said. "Do you want me to stop? I can stop if you want."

All the while my ass was loosening, lubricating, my body was demanding that he take me, that he rape me. But he wouldn't! 

He just kept teasing, "Do you want me to stop? I will if you ask. Why don't I just stop?"

Then, God help me, he pulled away. He left me, bent over and spread, ready to be sodomized—his for the taking. He made me say it.

"Fuck me," I whispered. "Please just fuck me."

"Do what?" He said.

I moaned, "Fuck me, please."

"Fuck you where?" he said.

"God! Fuck my ass!" I shouted, "Fuck me all the way up my ass!"

On hearing those words, his own willpower broke, and he pounded into me, again and again, taking me like a bitch in heat.

"Now you are really going to cum, Mom. You are going to cum harder than you ever have. And after you do you will go into your deepest sex trance and I am going to make one last change in you."

He groaned as his cum jetted into my ass.

"When the time comes for me to fuck Zoe, you are going to be perfectly okay with it. In fact, you are going to help me. You are going to pin her arms above her head and hold her helpless while I fuck her until she cums and cums. Every orgasm will take her deeper. Every trance will take more of her will. And when I finally take her ass, you are going to lick her clit at the same time until she passes out."

That image and a massive orgasm tore through my body and mind at the same moment, shredding any restraints that remained. As I lapsed into unconsciousness, I knew that he was right. When the time came, I would give my mouth to my daughter. I would do it eagerly.



Triggering the Apocalypse



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 Ambition Fucks Fidelity. However...O Fortuna!

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Authors Note: 

This short story is based upon another story, by another contributor to Literotica that I had read a couple of years ago. 

I did not like the original ending and eventually over many months, off and on, wrote my own ending.

Unfortunately I misplaced the original story and the name of the rightful owner. If anyone recognizes prior ownership, please inform me and I will pull this version to re-post with proper accreditation.

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...My heart is heavy with grief. While I looked up from my hospital bed at the woman I had loved so much. And who had betrayed me so grievously, so egregiously. Without hesitation or pity or conscience... 

...That was when I decided that this would be the optimum time to strike at her and her lover and her father and all the people who had stood by and allowed me to be humiliated as a cuckold. To be physically brutalized and who enjoyed my despair as I was cheated out of all my hopes and dreams...

...She is so beautiful. What was that movie title? Oh yes. "Pretty Poison". She looks down on me with that pouty smile, in full knowledge of how much I have loved her...

She may even be slightly amused at how she maneuvered me to my destruction. Though I suspect her ego would not allow, what shriveled little shred of conscience she may have left, to intrude upon her glorious self-image. She is the epitome of the ultra-narcissism of the onepercenters.

"I will sign these forms and divorce papers but first, I owe you, in what is left of my stupid blind loyalty to you, my wife. That oath we swore. Which you have so contemptuously spurned! An explanation as to why. So please bear with me, dear wife."

She frowned momentarily, than an exasperated murmur and a uncaring shrug of her shoulders. Too encourage me to get to the point and stop wasting her valuable time. 

...I knew that this would be my only opportunity to explain,to cause the maximum possible damage and distrust among my self-appointed enemies... 

...So I hurried on. That this tragedy shall run it's course as I desire to steer it...

"I understand, My Dearest Better Half. That you have no feelings left for me but contempt You are so typical of the ruling caste in your disdain of intellectuals and scholars. But please hear me out. What I am going to tell you will assist your plans and perhaps even save your life."

Finally, she snapped. "Stop wasting my time? Let us end this failure of a marriage and let us get on with our new lives."

"Patience sweetheart, patience. We have all the rest of 'our' new lives for the torrent of tears of regret yet to come."

She stamped her foot in frustration but was smart enough not to interrupt me, wasting even more time.

"I can see your plot to marry the Lothario who seduced you and with your family's money and influence buy him that Senate seat he is lusting for. By then I will be through most of my physical therapy.

That will be when your father's agents will grab me and put the gun in my hand used to assassinate the pristine Senator. I then of course, will die 'resisting arrest'." 

"You, as the grieving widow, dabbing at your crocodile tears, will be appointed by acclamation to replace him as Senator. From there, I figure your ambitions will be the Presidency?" 

"Ahh, I see from the disconcerted look on your face, I'm pretty close to the truth. Don't worry my dearest ex-soulmate, I will not try to stop those events or interfere with your march to Imperium."

"If you were not such a narcissistic sociopath you would wonder why. Now here is the important warning. If Mr. Wonderful figures out your true intentions, he will have you killed." 

A puzzled look of disbelief swept across her lovely face. Convinced that her beauty and status would dissuade anyone from harming her.

"When two things happen, you will know that Mr. Wonderful has figured out your plot to supplant him. First, I will die prematurely, probably in this very hospital bed and be immediately cremated to prevent an autopsy. 

All he has to do is find one Doctor in here who is drowning in debt from their student loans and personal debts and desperate enough to commit murder. An air bubble in one of the tubes, a mistaken drug, perhaps make it look like suicide. Whatever can be blamed on a careless nurse as the scapegoat." 

A brooding look on her face as she gently ran a finger up and down the tubes plugged into my arm.

"That will be the first warning sign that he is on to you. The second will be when you inspect your birth control pills or whichever method you are using. Maybe fake pills from the helpful Doctor.? Mr. Wonderful cannot simply beat you to death as you so richly deserve. No, he needs to keep your family on his side, to bolster his political clout as a Senator. Until he can build his own power-base."

...From the change in expression it was obvious that my suggestions were unforeseen for all her cunning. Now she needed to consider alternatives and counter-measures...

"For his ambitions may not be as grandiose as yours? However, he is used to acting ruthlessly and he has shown that he is willing to engage in whatever questionable activity will deliver him, his desires."

...My battered body, swaddled in this hospital bed, was ample proof of that conclusion... 

"By getting you pregnant he slows down your plans to kill him and take over his office. You will be able to understand my prediction, when you check the calendar and discover you will be due to give birth a few weeks before his election."

...I do not think I had ever noticed before...blinded by love, I would presume? Her lovely face, when she is brooding through a problem. Her beauty takes on a menacing shift as the predator lurking below, briefly surfaces... 

"Remember that convenient Doctor? You will die in child birth and Mr. Wonderful becomes the grieving widower with a motherless baby to display to the morons who believe Fox News is actual news. He will be a shoo in and his opponents will go crazy trying to avoid looking unsympathetic to his own crocodile tears."

She started to protest, the Ailes are close friends of her father. Her face got a little red choking back her retort. I gave her a moment but she just waved a hand impatiently for me to wrap up my explanations.

"Do you understand now? That if my predictions come true, you must have a backup plan available. I would suggest that when you get close to the estimated birth time, you have yourself admitted into a distant hospital, somewhere unexpected. Claiming you need bed-rest and specialized medical monitoring and care due to possible complications."

Again, she began to consider possible options. I gave my voice the opportunity to rest a moment while she was deep in thought.

"Even if he can no longer conveniently kill you during child birth, he can still use his supposed concern for his 'Beloved Wife" and the baby to pretend he is distracted from the election." 

"He'll still pickup enough gullible votes to win. Since dead, I will not be available to be blamed for the assassination of your fiance. Early the following year is when you must carry through on a new plan, a 'Plan B' for his death, an 'accident' or 'unknown medical condition'. 

"That useful Doctor should be ripe for blackmail. Avaricious enough to come up with a convenient way to dispose of an inconvenient spouse." 

"Before your next,interim husband has the chance to do unto you. You can then go on with your plan to ride that Senatorial seat into the White House."

"If my prediction is wrong and he is too egotistical to believe that you would not betray him. Even with the all too obvious prior example of your willingness to betray me?"

She has enough conscience left to blush?

"Well, you'll know that, when I walk out of here and you are still not pregnant. Then, just go ahead with your original plot to have me framed as his assassin." 

She snarled and snapped at me. Hot damn! I must be cutting pretty close to the bone!

"These must be some great drugs they are feeding you! For you to come up with such delusional nonsense. Now get on with it! Sign these forms and lets get this over with."

"If I am drugged to such an extant that I am delusional, would not my signature be invalid?"

She was visibly seething but couldn't think of a counter-point.

"I noticed you did not ask me why I was willing to advise you on your rise to power. Give me another couple of minutes. Let me explain and then I will sign. I promise you, I sincerely intend to sign. I want to sign!"

She crossed her arms under her breasts and was tapping impatiently, one foot on the linoleum floor.

"You delude yourself that I tell you this because I still love you. Our emotional connection is why I want you to fulfill your ambitions. I can see that smug look on your face, your arrogant belief in your own awesomeness." 

"I am willing to further your plot, even though it will result in my murder. Not from all the love I bear you but from all the hate I now have for you. With all the hate I have for Mr. Wonderful and for your father and all your family and the society mavens who reveled in my public humiliation and beating. And my contempt for this nation of fools who will grovel at your feet."

Her face went white as my venomous rant continued. 

"I both love you and I hate you in equal measure. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Love and hate are the two sides of the same coin,they cannot be separated."

...If that is a tear in her eye, I'd suspected it is for herself. That I am failing to properly worship her magnificence?...

"I am certain that you will be the Mother of the Anti-Christ and once you have seized supreme power you will destroy everyone and everything your demented mind will feel threatened by." 

She began to shake her head in denial. 

"As Lydia brought about Tiberius and Caligula. As Agrippina brought about Nero. As Cheney brought about Reagan and the Bushies."

Her hands on her hips, her mouth slackjawed in shock. She stared at me in disbelief, totally stunned by my prediction.

"You will raise your child, your anointed heir, to be an even greater monster than you. Who will then turn upon you and betray you. Destroying you to fulfill his or her destiny. For which you will have murdered to instigate. Blood for blood."

She actually stepped back away from my hospital bed, repelled by my vehemence. 

"That will be my ultimate revenge, the satisfaction I will carry to my grave. Knowing that you will be responsible for the deaths and destruction of everyone who helped your rise to power. 

Including your own father and your own family and your own friends."

Shocked to her core, she stood frozen in place. 

Finally she gave her head a shake and took a couple of deep breaths to pull herself together.

"So, my dearest monster and mother-to-be of the greater monster-yet-to-come, please hand me the pen and the papers and let us complete this legal farce." 

As she took back the pen and divorce forms and prepared to walk out, she hesitated and looked at me with her beautiful head cocked quizzically. 

...I could tell she was actually trying to comprehend my motivation in terms her ego could accept... 

After a couple of minutes of pretending she had a conscience to consult. Then a moment, struggling to come up with an appropriate exit line. She visibly gave up, shrugged her shoulders and walked out of my life.

As I laid back down in physical exhaustion and psychological pain. I duly wondered through my discomfort, how many microphones and cameras recorded this event?

...I was hoping for Mr. Wonderful but I suspect he would have been warned to stay away and not risk further contact with me. However, he has smart people working for him and if any of them are ambitious enough, they may have acted without a direct order... 

Hearing my version of reality? He would react poorly, stewing in the natural depths of his paranoia. Those who deliberately harm others, always believe the worst of everyone else.

I am certain that my traitorous wife's father is having me watched. He will try to convince everyone that I am crazy and need to be institutionalized. For my own good of course. But then how can my signature on those forms be legal if I am non compos mentis? 

Locked up, it would be difficult to frame me for the killing of my ex-wife's new spouse. Also it would be difficult for me to get my hands on the correct weapon.

And that would bring into question everyone else who signed as witnesses and the notary and attorneys. Once that tangled web of deceit starts to unravel, it will be impossible to prevent a public scandal that would derail all their ambitions.

Even if those documents stand, no small thanks to 'fraternal' judges. Just having anyone of the people listening who were involved in my downfall, brooding about the possibility of any of my predictions panning out?

...Well, personally accomplishing revenge is swell but to successfully convince your enemies to turn on one another and rip each other to shreds? That would indeed be the ultimate in sweet, sweet satisfaction!...

...How arrogant this gang of ubermen are. You would have thought during the five decades of failure by the Cheney/Bush leaguers. Someone would have explained to those dimwits, that the morass in the Middle-East, comes down to one simple rule of human psychology... 

"The man who has absolutely nothing to live for, absolutely has everything to die for!"

So, to amuse myself.

"Oh father-dearest!" I sang out.

"I know you were listening to all of that. I want to reassure you that I will not make any attempt to prevent you and Mr. Wonderful from ascending to glory." 

"As I told your monster daughter, I want her to be successful. This knowledge is my legacy to all of you. My death curse upon all of you and yours." 

"For she and her monster child shall destroy you and all your family. Every inconvenient witness and their families and everyone they may have talked to and their families. And from my grave, you will hear my laughter.of triumph" 

"From the Mouth of Hell, I cast this malediction upon all of you. Have a good life and a painful death." 

Hahahagghmmm-cough."

*

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...If no one makes a move against me the next day or two, I think I will give the avalanche a teeny, tiny push. By making it look as if I was attacked or overdosed in this bed...

*

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...I will have to pay close attention to how the nurses and doctors work and find something I can use to harm myself... 

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...I must realistically consider a lethal method. They cannot interrogate or retaliate upon the dead!.. 

*

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...I hope I will be permitted to return as a ghost to haunt their dreams...

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...Wouldn't it be absolutely delicious if I was allowed to reincarnate as their baby?...!

*

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I lull myself to sleep humming...

... Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana - O Fortuna".

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Author's after thoughts.

Yes, I know. In the original story the female antagonist was a submissive woman of weak character. A victim of a cruel,domineering plutocrat father and seduction by a vicious, politically ambitious,kleptocrat lecher.

It amuses me to rewrite her character, for this version of an ending, as a monstrous narcissist. A demoness riding a nightmare to trouble your sleep. 

It just seemed appropriate for the needs of my vision of how this story should develop to a conclusion of utter madness and devastating consequences.

...Good Night...

...Sweet Dreams, O Sweet Prince...

...Ah! Heavy lies the head that wears the Crown...

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Triggermen Unknown



This is my entry into the Valentine's Day competition. There are many stories in this contest that are happy songs, all woodwinds and soft strings. This isn't one of them. This is brass and bullets and boys behaving badly. It's also a period piece, a dark ditty inspired by a set of real events in the late 1920's. As such, it's full of era-appropriate slang. If that's your jive, swell, everything's Jake. Give a rap on the door and come on in. Take a look at the green pig. Dip the bill. If you've got the tin ears, however, it's best you breeze on down the avenue and tap another drum before the horns flare up.

If you're still keen, I hope you enjoy the tune.

*

The Pickwick was nearly deserted, just over a dozen people spread over a theatre that was lousy with seats. Mostly chippies giving the rub to whoever could spare the Lincoln. Frank wasn't able to get a good peep at any of the faces and he was the type that paid attention to such things. This gave him some reassurance. If he couldn't snoop them, they couldn't snoop him. He'd waited until the last possible moment to duck in, after the theatre was nearly pitch black, dark enough that he'd had a hard time finding a seat, even stumbling over the legs of a gangly boozehound splayed out so thoroughly that his foot crossed the main aisle.

Generally being a man of considerable nerve and calculation, stumbles were rare for Frank. Nervousness even more uncommon. But there was no debating it: he was downright jittery.

Men in his profession were not permitted jitters, no more than a surgeon was afforded unsteadiness. For over a decade he and his brother Pete had made a living out of holding their sweat and steadying their pulses while other men hemmed and hawed and cowered and pissed.

Whether he was in a blind tiger or a mostly-empty theatre, Frank Gusenberg was usually the most dangerous guy in the room, typically by a heavy margin, and it had nothing to do with the Colt .38 double-action tucked into the shoulder-holster concealed under his charcoal suit and black overcoat. No, Frank was dangerous because he didn't get emotional, didn't get rattled or anxious.

Usually.

The screen in front of him sprang to life as he settle in. Music pumped through the theatre as the animated short film, a precursor to the main feature, started up. A steamboat quickly began chugging its way across screen, little puffs of black smoke bursting from animated stacks, while the speakers buzzed out an exaggerated blasting noise, which mixed with the wail of a steam-whistle. A second later, it was revealed that a mouse was driving the boat. A mouse driving a boat?! Frank couldn't help but chuckle to himself. When the mouse began to stomp his feet in rhythm and whistle along to the music, his amusement turned to appreciation. The lips matched up and everything. Special effects these days! Soon a big cat-looking goon with a funny lid joined the mouse, and then chickens, and a cow, pigs, even a goat. Each added a bit of music, and Frank felt his apprehension melt away just a bit. It was a cacophony of sound, delivered by a black-and-white orchestra. Frank loved it.

It brought back a memory of his mother, cleaning his only shirt against the fluted zinc of the washboard, her soprano a needle threading in and out of the way of the rattle of the metal.

Wenn der Beltz em Loch hat-

stop es zu meine liebe Liese

Womit soll ich es zustopfen --

mit Stroh, meine liebe Liese

Soon darker sounds rumbled in his mind--the crash of a bottle of milk breaking on the kitchen tile, his own barefeet slapping out the short distance from his room to the kitchen on the wood floors of his childhood home. His brother, Pete, only twelve, standing over the still body of their mother, clicking his tongue like a clock counting down. The washboard silent in the sink. The sound of his mother's rigid finger breaking when his brother pried her wedding ring off so that he could pawn it. The whine the dog made each time Peter kicked it away from the stiffening body in the seven hours it took the boys' father to come home from work.

When the jug has a hole --

stop it up my dear Liese

With what shall I stop it --

with straw my dear Liese.

He was so distracted that he didn't notice the man who slipped through the theatre, carefully avoiding the same sprawled blotto he himself had tripped over, to slide gracefully into the seat beside him. However, Frank did notice the pressure of the Lupara--a sawed-off pistol grip shotgun--pressed against his ribs.

Without looking, Frank knew who accosted him: George Ziegler, sometimes called "Shotgun" George. Frank was now arguably the second most dangerous guy in the room.

Even in the faint light, Frank could make-out George's handsome features, the chiseled jaw and perfectly placed blonde hair. He could see the other man, dressed in pinstripes and matching fedora under a warm looking raccoon coat, measuring him. A small smiled curled his decidedly Aryan lips when he spoke. "You've gotten fat, mausbar. All that fat clog your eyes and ears? A year ago, I'm thinking I don't get the drop on you so easily." Both men were second generation Americans, but a dead mother, an absentee father, and a stint in Bridewell Prison had rendered Frank's speech pure Lakeview-brass, while George spoke with the shadow of his own father's cultured German accent cast over the polished dialect of an army officer and college graduate.

Frank held a finger up in a motion demanding his assailant quiet his voice. "You know I hate when you call me that." Frank was not a tall man, only a little over five and a half feet and of a noticeably huskier build than the taller, trimmer, Goetz. Mousebear was a fitting, if ignoble name. "And it was just Christmas."

"And you have two wives feeding you ham and complacency, is that it?" Frank was married to two women, Lucille and Ruth, unbeknownst to them, of course. Different houses, different lives. Same bullshit. He loved neither, but adored the cooking of both. "How would Patsy Lolordo feel, if he knew his assassination had expanded his killer's waistline more than his reputation?"

"Jesus, Ziggy, why don't you take out a page in the Tribune?"

"You think your enemies came all the way out here to Park Ridge to catch the late-showing of Steamboat Willie, yes? You think that's Scarface over there passed out, smelling of panther piss and bathtub gin?" He motioned toward the drunk with the hand not holding the shotgun. "What say you we wake Big Al up, then? He still owes me a scratch from when he stayed at my resort in Couderay."

Frank made an irritated face. "That sounds like berries to me! You got a spare Tommy he can borrow?"

"Don't want to run out to your hayburner for yours?"

"You think you know your onions, don't you, George? You come into a petting pantry hauling a foot of smoke and start making jokes about stuffing and snuffing."

"Oh, don't be such a Mrs. Grundy. I'm just trying to have a giggle. You're not usually so uptight about business. Now, tell me, what's got you on a toot?"

The feature film, Gang Wars, finally rolled from the projector onto the screen. A group of reporters spoke on screen, causing everyone in the theatre to perk up and clap. Neither Frank nor George had heard synchronized speech in a movie. Both stopped and listened to every word as if watching a man drink out of an oil drum. It was a short bit, over in just a few minutes, but when it was, every single member of the audience applauded, except for George, who whistled while continuing to poke his companion with the gun barrel.

When the prologue was finished the music started up and the familiar title cards flashed upon the screen, telling the story of a musician, played by Mary Pickford's little brother Jack, a handsome fella if you went for the slick type. Frank did. He read the words and listened to the accompaniment and tried to ignore the gun barrel in his side. "Nothin'. Let's watch the movie."

"Watch the movie?" George was a bit louder than even he intended and it drew a shush. "Watch the movie? Since when do we watch movies?"

It was true. They never actually watched the movies. Even during the short telephone call during which they had set up this meeting--being one of Bugs Moran's top men had advantages. One of them was a home blower--they had barely been able to stick to business.

Frank swallowed hard and forced his voice as cool as an execution order. "I shouldn't have come here, George. Too many people. Chicago is hot right now. It's risky, us being here...being who we are."

The gun dug hard into Frank's side. "Who we are?"

"Made-men, I mean."

"Bushwa! You mean because we're cake-eaters."

Frank gave a sharp look around to make sure no one had heard. "Watch your mouth."

"Frankie, it's the late-show. Everyone in here is having a go." For emphasis, George actually relaxed the ruse and pointed to the other couples with his shotgun, most of whom were already in the midst of some fairly heavy petting, and, luckily, didn't notice. "One, two, three....everybody else is hot-to-trot and you want to sit in here dewdroppin'?"

"For Christ's sake, keep the sweeper down. Late or not, someone gets a whiff of gunpowder and we'll have buzzers galore."

George threw his hands up in frustration, tossing the Lupara into an adjacent seat where it, thankfully, didn't go off. "We finally get a night and you've gone frostbite on me and want to ankle on out of here, is that it?"

Shaking his head, Frank looked at the other man full-on in the flickering silver of the screen. "I didn't say that....It's Goddamned good to see you, Ziggy. You know that. And I ain't trying to be no bluenose. I just...it's Goddamned good to see you."

"No, you aren't a bluenose, you've just got the icy mitts. What else those calicos been feeding you, Frankie? You gone sheba on me?" The grin of the handsome man was brighter than any of the sconces that had originally lit the theatre.

Frank couldn't help but chuckle. "Trust me, you got nothin' to worry about with those two tomatoes. Couldn't squeeze a decent sauce outta the both of 'em."

George reached a hand over to Frank's lap and caressed his crotch. "You want to see if I can make a better one?"

The simple heat of George's hand through trousers almost set Frank to trembling. It had been months since he'd felt the touch of a man. With his lover out of town, he'd had to busy himself with his two wives and neither did much to exercise his true passion, though lying in the dark with them had often sent his imagination running. It took every ounce of willpower for Frank to reach his hand down to stop the advance and whisper a thick and heavy "George...no".

Most people thought that Ziegler was called "Shotgun" because he preferred the gat, but it wasn't true. He received the nickname because there was no better man to have ride along on a job. If George Ziegler were sitting beside you, somebody was going to be minus some bodily fluid at the end of the night. Sitting beside him in a dark theatre was much the same.

He caught Frank's intervening hand with his free one and quickly pulled it toward his own face before slyly dipping the index finger into his mouth and giving it a long, thorough suck. This elicited a groan from his companion that was just loud enough to cause a couple sitting four rows up to briefly interrupt their cuddle to look back. Frank blushed, but in the shallow light, there were no scarlet cheeks, only two shadows moving in the celluloid glow. "George, you gunsel. You know I'm dizzy with you, but you're going to get us both filled with daylight."

"You're already my sunshine, you know. Relax, schatzi, let me take care of you." George had fished his hand down Frank's pants by this point and was brushing his lips across his partner's stubbled face. The shorter man, who felt his reluctance draining into his quickly hardening cock, spared one last look around the theatre. His eyes strained to see, searched desperately for anyone who could have been a bruno, unsure if he would be crushed or relieved if his paranoia proved founded. In the flashing light, there were just smashed faces and searching hands and George's expert touch urging him forward. Unable to hold-out, he turned hard into his lover and gave him the first reckless, passionate kiss of the night an instant after pulling his finger free.

Knowing what it was all about could be a godsend, a revelation. It could also be a curse. Frank lived for kissing George. That's what he was made for. In his whole life he'd only ever been good at two things: pulling triggers and kissing George. Those were the two times he honestly knew himself. Every time he killed a man he knew who he was: a hatchetman, another pretty tough with a pocket full of shells and a bloody past. Every time he kissed George he knew who he could have been, who, a small part of him whispered, he could still be. Each kiss was jazz. It opened a book he'd never read, sent kind words tumbling from his father's lips, brought his mother up off that kitchen floor to dance and sing once more. And every time he cut someone down, he shredded those dreams as well.

For now, however, there was just the feel of George's tongue, strong and hungry in his mouth, and the sensation of another's hand stroking up and down on his sex, pumping life into him.

Frank reached over and grabbed his love by the shoulders, more roughly than he meant, firmly enough to leave bruises even through the heavy coat and suit, his kissing so enthusiastic that he managed to knock the hat from the other man's head. Still it wasn't enough. He wanted to be closer, needed to be. He was breathing heavy now, the loud, smacking noises of his lips punctuated by explosive breaths and greedy noises. Crawling forward from George's shoulders, Frank's hands parted his companion's lapels and shot in across his chest before expanding like a breaststroke, pulling the fabric taut against the buttons. In his need, Frank couldn't tolerate the delay, and he tugged violently, popping the top button before George managed to undo the rest of them.

"Murder! But you do get excited by a good cash, don't you? I was really starting to worry that this was going to turn out to be just a trip for biscuits, mausbar." Frank let the nickname and his hands slide. Soon, he was gripping George's muscular sides and crushing his mouth back into a kiss with sufficient force to half-pulled the man over the armrest and into his own seat.

George responded with equal enthusiasm, violently returning the kiss and posting up on Frank's thigh to steady himself while the other hand furiously worked his lover's growing cock, the head of which was rubbing against the soft fabric of his trousers with a friction that the man on the receiving end worried he might finish in his clothing.

Like a street after a shootout, Frank's mind filled with smoke until he couldn't see his way from one thought to another, and when George finally freed Frank's straining cock from the restraints of his clothing, the feel of the theatre air on the head made him groan in appreciation and start bucking his hips.

His partner quieted him with a kiss and slowed the motion of his hand, undoing the lower buttons of Frank's shirt so that his erection, still slightly contorted by the waistline of the pants, stood fat and flat against the softness of Frank's belly. "Easy, love, I've waited months for this. Let me enjoy the feel of you. Up there in Wisconsin, some nights, it felt like a figment. Let me feel how real you are." He highlighted this line by giving Frank's cock a good squeeze. "Show me we're more than a tin fancy."

"Oh, Ziggy...I've been dossing with those two molls. Haven't had a proper touch since you left. I don't know if I can last." Swallowing hard, Frank tried not to explode on his own stomach like some cinder dick on a new track. "My jack ain't used to no triggerman's hands no more."

"Watch the movie. Leave the old boy to me. I'll make it slow, like I did with the pachuco, make you sweat a little before I blow your top." George laughed at his own joke. Barney Hernandez had been the chauffeur for some rich cat Ziggy bled for paying with sourdough. When the driver tried to get hard boiled, George put him through the ringer before finally shooting him in the head.

Frank didn't enjoy the work. For him, it was a way for he and his brother to be more than a couple half portions. George was educated. He could have been anything. He wore iron because he liked the weight, and because he was good at it.

He was good with Frank's barrel as well and, even taking it at a snail's pace, the pudgier man had to concentrate on Gang Wars to keep from spilling his load.

The film seemed a little off the cob to Frank. America was all in on gangsters, movies, songs, the works, but they wouldn't know real torpedoes if they were fucking in the theatre. It was all Capone impersonators and white-suit tough guys. This one had this saxophone player, Clyde, playing out on the streets of San Francisco.

George took it easy during the beginning, gently sliding his hand from the base of Frank's cock, tracing his fingers up the veins, all the way to the tip of the bulging head where he maintained contact only with the very tips of two fingers--even giving a little cum-stopping squeeze if necessary--before plunging down in earnest, only to slide back up with even more care and patience.

By the time Clyde met and fell in love with Flowers, a beautiful face that he taught to dance outside the waterfront, the strokes were stronger but not a second faster and George was nuzzling into Frank's neck and placing careful licks and kisses, which were so effective that when it was revealed that "Blackjack", a ruthless big-time tough guy who was in a serious turf war with a rival gangster, was also in love with her, Frank could barely pay attention.

When "Blackjack" won Flower's heart and married her but was interrupted before being able to consummate the marriage, George was really pounding away and Frank's eyes were glazed and his head lolling back. And neither man got to see the end where "Blackjack" heroically sacrificed his life to protect Clyde and Flowers because right before the big finale, George bent down and took Frank's hard cock into his mouth and both were lost to anything except the pleasure of the moment.

Frank closed his eyes, dropped his hand to his lover's hair, and gave it an affectionate ruffle. Meanwhile, George only had eyes for the prize in front of him. The rolling light from the screen gave stop-motion illumination as he lovingly licked the shaft, sliding up to swirl his tongue underneath the head and finally engulfed the top half of the dick into his sweet, practiced mouth.

Head thrown over the back of the theatre chair, Frank spoke up at the ceiling, his voice raw with lust. "God in heaven, Ziggy."

George popped the cock out of his mouth with a plop. "You keen on that, Frankie boy? Juicy enough for you?"

"You're wasted on heater work and gin runs. You know that, right?"

"Look who's grown as brave as he has thick," George said as he spit into his palm and rubbed his now slickened hand up and down Frank's jack, making a wet sound and bringing the man-- who was now stretched out like a blanket, cock coated with saliva, shining like a lighthouse in the silver glare--to the brink of orgasm. "No longer afraid Capone's going to come in here and find you pitching woo with his best driller?"

"Fuck Capone. Fuck Bugs. Fuck everyone but you."

"Oh, you'll fuck me too, but not yet. For now I want to taste just how much you missed me while I was on vacation." He used both his hands and his mouth now. One hand slipped beneath Frank's pants to cup and gently roll his balls, the other gripped the base of his cock and began a forceful jerk that caused the head of Frank's penis to turn ruddy and swell even further.




Triggermen Unknown



When George's mouth hit, tight lipped at the tip, then plunging and wet, hot and open in the middle, before growing firm once more when it touched the fingers of his own hand, it was a testimony. No one watching the two men in that moment would have known who was North Side and who was South Side. The only war being fought was Frank's battle to maintain propriety, a conflict he lost, causing him to yell out half of George's name before his lover could take the hand from his cock to silence him.

Caught in the sweet torture of such a long release, Frank opened his mouth and bit down on the hand between thumb and forefinger, causing both men to let out partially stifled cries as cum filled George's mouth and Clyde and Flowers left to start a brand new life.

Before the film had returned to the pinhole from which it came, the men had readjusted their clothing and George had retrieved his hat and shotgun. When the sconces came back and threatened to revealed the identities of the couple that had been making so much noise, the men had already separated, without so much as a kiss, and left through different exits.

****

From Lakeview to Pullman there were men, of no small influence and power, who bent the knee nightly and prayed that they never received a visit from either of the two men who walked as if strangers on opposite sides of the streets leading back to their automobiles, which were also parked a respectable distance apart. During this trip, both men, who were typically the sort who inspired others to look away rather than hold eye contact, stared meekly down at their own feet. They were wolves, forced to pull tight the wool of their overcoats and bah their way down West Toughy. Even with the black sheep that they usually traveled among, there were some colors forbidden. To be a killer of men was one thing, to be a lover of them, another.

Once they reached their vehicles, Ziegler to his sleek black Opel Regent coupe and Gusenberg in his workhorse Ford, they drove inconspicuously together, separated by two cars whenever possible, the considerable distance to the banks of Lake Michigan, where they parked once more and waited ten full minutes with the lights off before getting out and sitting next to each other at the front of George's slick ride. There, hidden from the road by the sharp angles of the car, perhaps the two deadliest men in Chicago poured gin into rocks glasses and laughed like two boys who'd skipped school.

The men had forgone overcoats for the sake of intimacy and Frank shivered openly in the cold wind coming off the lake. "Freezing," he said matter-of-factly.

"Good thing I brought a quilt," George answered, indicating the gin bottle, which he leaned against the front tire of the vehicle.

After his first swallow, Frank felt the heat spread through his chest and held the glass up against the starlit sky and marveled. "That's no coffin varnish you've got there, Ziggy. That's juicy hooch."

George held a sip on his tongue and touched it to the roof of his mouth before closing his lips. "An early birthday present. It pays to have generous friends."

Frank made a sour face despite the mild nature of the liquor. "If Capone is squirting this kind of giggle water, we might as well go iron our shoelaces."

"Now you're on the trolley, schatzi! I've been telling you for months that the Irish would be well served to mind their potatoes and lay track. They drink too much to sell booze. Fat bakers can never make enough pies."

"You think that hothead Italian is any better? I'd rather work for drunks than a maniac. Fella's got primavera for blood, just as thick and just as hot. From what I hear, the man's only ever a crust away from turning into The Sultan of Swing."

"Scarface loves his baseball." For an instant Frank thought he saw fear on George's face as he spoke, but he quickly dismissed it. Nothing frightened "Shotgun" George. "Still, I'd rather he pull a Babe than his swill make me want to pull a Daniel Boone."

Frank filled his glass once more from the bottle and took another healthy sample. It was going down smooth and he was already feeling it. He'd be zozzled soon if he wasn't careful. "Damn good hooch, though." Holding up his glass. "To you, Al. This is so good, it almost makes me glad that Pete and I didn't off your cowering ass at the Hawthorne that day." Frank acted as if he were holding a Thompson and made machine gun noises out at the nighttime radiance of Lake Michigan. "A hundred rounds into that restaurant, Ziggy. A hundred. And that wop didn't take a scratch. Heard he wet himself under a table. Bullets must've been scared of getting wet."

After filling his own glass, George gave a mischievous smile and said, "I can neither confirm nor deny." God, the man was beautiful.

"How different would it be if one of those stingers had found some honey, huh? Capone's private war would be over and we could...be." He put his hand on the other man's thigh.

"Wars are never private. They're quite sociable. They just have to involve everyone."

"Clever George with his clever words." Frank's sarcasm had no bite and he couldn't keep the smile from his lips, whether it was the alcohol or the company, it was hard to tell. "This ain't no war no way. This is degos and paddies fighting over a good spot to piss."

"Real wars are scarcely different, just bigger spots and bigger streams." George pulled some grass up with his fingers and flung it into the air.

Frank covered the top of his drink with his hand and gave his lover a glare." Bet you didn't have no buzzer wearing flat-foots trying to put you in the hoosegow when you were starting fires for Uncle Sam."

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

"Applesauce! We got trumpets! Gobble-pipes too. I can't walk into a clam-bake without four brown horns blowing at me for bread."

"It's not literal, mausbar. A Frenchman said it. It means, that murder is always forbidden unless it serves the purposes of popular ideas and great men."

Frank stole the fedora off George's head and pulled it low over his eyes. When he spoke again it was with false gravitas and he sharpened an imaginary mustache. "George Ziegler: lover, killer, reader of Frenchmen. I've never understood your preoccupation with books. What's a frog know about war, anyhow, other than the right way to wave a bedsheet?"

"You're lucky that I like my men like I like my books: dense." He reached down and gave Frank a squeeze through his trousers, which were a bit moist from the lake air and the aftershocks of his earlier orgasm.

Frank let out a groan and slid one arm around his companions shoulders, pulling him in and down so that he could kiss the top of his head. Both did their best not to spill their drinks, mostly unsuccessfully, and the outfits of both were soon spotted with gin. "Goddamn good to see you, Ziggy. Goddamn."

"Wouldn't have missed it. What's a birthday without you?"

Frank took a sip and thought hard but the gin made it difficult. "How old will you be tomorrow?"

"Thirty-two."

"Born on Valentine's Day....You were made for love." Snuggling close, Frank placed a line of kisses on George's strong jawline and traced his fingers along the other side of the handsome man's neck. "Sweeter than a box of chocolate and stronger than Kentucky shine."

George pulled away in mock disgust. "Is that what you got me? A box of candies and a jorum of skee? After all we've been through! I knew I should have blipped you after that botch-job you tried on McGurn." Jokingly, Capone's best hitman turned his finger and thumb into a gun and placed it under Frank's heavy chin and pulled the trigger.

Gusenberg growled and tangled his fingers in the other man's blonde locks. "Tell it to Sweeney! You wouldn't have gotten a shot off. You couldn't give me lead poisoning with a syringe." Frank's smile was half feigned malice and half glowing affection.

Head pulled back by the force of his lover's strong arm, "Shotgun" George still kept his trademark grin. "A syringe? Don't be a dumb Dora. I have better ways to get fluid into you."

Frank's growl grew in his throat to the point that he could no longer contain it, so he locked his lips against his companion's and sent it rumbling into George's lungs when he kissed him. Like in the theatre, the stout gangster knew only one way to kiss: with abandon. Tongue partly numb from gin, it was an attack of passion that the leaner man didn't even try to fend off. They only ceased making-out when Frank got so excited that he completely forgot what he was doing and poured his glass of booze fully on the crotch of George's pants.

"Scheisse, Frank!" George said, breaking the kiss. "You're cleaning every drop of that up before we leave! With your yap."

"Gladly." Frank and his hat now sported a permanent tilt in his lover's direction, the former seeking a cash at every opportunity.

"Ah, ah, ah, *muah* easy, loverboy. *muah* I asked you a *muah* question. Did you get me anything?" George dodged and weaved playfully to avoid the assault of Frank's lips.

Only after Frank missed several glancing kisses off the side of Ziegler's darting face and lost the fedora to the grass did he answer. "You really want to know? Why ruin the surprise?"

"Because I like to know everything. You know that." He gave a quick peck, just to tease his exasperated lover, before resuming his elusive ways.

"Well, you don't get to. Not this time."

"Are you a grifter now as well as a trigger? You selling confidence, Frankie? Did you forget?" George was still laughing, but Frank stopped his oral pursuit and looked honestly hurt for a second.

"Of course not. I'd sooner take a ride in the hotsquat than disappoint you, you know. It's only, I don't want to leave you cold. I ain't no butter and egg man."

George hadn't yet picked up on the mood change. "You think I'm a gold digger, my schatzi? Just another moll looking to grease your Tommy for a sawbuck or two?" He went to grab at his lover's cock once more, but Frank stopped him.

"I mean it, George. What can I give you? You got more mazuma. You're better-looking."

Finally picking up on the other man's insecurities, George placed his glass on the soft grass, picked up the fedora and placed it cockeyed on Fran's head, and then held his cheeks in his palms. "You are always enough. Each second with you is a gift."

"I know, it's just I'd hate to disappoint you."

"You never could."

"My mother got me this gift for Christmas the year she died. Silver wrapping, like in one of the store windows on Main. I'd never seen a shinier thing, about the size of a shoebox with a puffy gold bow on top. Everyday, I imagined all of the things it could be. It had all this possibility, you know? I won't tell you all the stuff I fantasized was in that box, stuff that wouldn't, couldn't have even fit. You'd think I was bonkers. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew it couldn't be all of those things. Still, I couldn't help it. Before long, instead of being excited, I was afraid to open it, more scared to find out what it wasn't than jazzed to find out what it was. Even when mama was cold and in the ground I didn't open it. It was the middle of March and it was still sitting there, bright as a new Cadillac in the corner of our little house."

"Did you ever open it?" George Ziegler did not possess much sympathy, but every ounce of it had gathered into his eyes.

"My papa did. One day I come in and he's sitting in his chair, a half-seas over like usual, the silver paper in tatters on his lap, bow on the floor and an open paper box in his hand. He calls me over and says, 'Frank, reach.' And I didn't, and he slaps me and says, "Franziskus, reach...now.' So I do and even before I bring it out, I can smell it, bitter on the air, and I don't want to see it, but he makes me. And I bring it out and it's this little shriveled orange, fuzzy as a bear and as damp as a swan's nest. I'm crying like a canary and papa takes my hand in his strong callused grip and crushes the orange in my palm until the rot spills out over both of our fingers and says, "Yesterday is spoiled."

After a pause, George picked up the bottle of gin and refilled Frank's glass before retrieving and topping off his own. "To German fathers and American lives," George said, and the two clinked glasses and each took the contents of his in one gulp and let the dead soldier drop.

Untangling himself from the shorter man George stood on shaky legs, reclaimed his hat, put it on, and walked closer to the water. He busied himself by picking a handful of rocks out of the grass and then sending them flying across the water one at a time. For a man with such renowned aim, he was poor at skipping stones. Frank produced a deck of crumpled Luckies from his jacket pocket and, after placing one bent snipe in his mouth, tried to remember how to work a matchbook. George was almost out of ammo and five scrubbed matches littered the ground between Frank's legs under his still unlit smoke before either man spoke again.

"I'm sorry we can't spend your birthday together," Frank offered around the cigarette.

"It's okay. Business." For the first time all night, George sounded serious.

"I could let Pete go alone." Guilt and loyalty battled in Gusenberg's voice.

"No." George's response was more emphatic than intended. "Where did you say you were going?"

Frank smirked at George's tapered back. "I didn't." He and his brother were driving to Detroit to make a Canadian whiskey run. "I'm guessing you're not going to tell me why you're back in town?"

"Isn't seeing the man I love the night before my birthday enough of a reason?" There was a kink in George's typically elegant speech.

"I don't doubt your love, Ziggy, but Shotgun George doesn't make social calls." The two had a system. Since that first time, when the two had found themselves pointing pistols and then other things at each other, they shared details on their locations and nothing more, certain to make sure that they never crossed barrels again, but not so much that either betrayed his organization. "Can you at least tell me where you're staying?"

George gave a smile. "The McCormick."

"Of course you are." They both grinned.

"You know what I want for my birthday?" The heavy was still there when George spoke.

"Name it." There was a sizzle as the sulphur on a match finally cooperated with Frank's drink-clumsy fingers. His face was a glow of light on the banks of Lake Michigan and a few well placed puffs sent smoke into the night air.

"Munich. We both speak Deutsch. If that grumble you spit can be considered speaking."

"The whole city? I'll have to ask Bugs for a raise." Frank laughed and inhaled at the same time sending him into a fit that was part chuckling and part coughing.

"I'm serious. This isn't our fight. We're German. Why are we risking our lives to bump off pasta-eaters and carrot-tops?"

"We're American," Frank corrected. "And what are we going to be in Munich? Doctors? Clockmakers? Germany's on the nut."

Walking back to squat down in front of the sprawled man so that he could look him in the eye, George answered sincerely. "Together." He touched a finger to George's cheek. "Besides, there's this new worker's party. They're changing things. Going to turn it all around. We could get in on the ground."

Frank started to laugh again but stopped himself. "You're earnest. Have you gone whacky? I'm married."

"So am I! Are you actually going to act like you've got some tickle for those two cancelled-stamps? Lavender loves, all of them. Europe is different. We could be ourselves. Hell, you're so worried someone will find out you're batting switch that you doubled-down on flat-tires. We snuff candles for scratch and we're more concerned about where we put our wicks than our gun barrels."

"How's it work in Germany, then, Ziggy? They hand you a pair of lederhosen and a jar of petroleum jelly as soon as you cross the border? They gonna let us walk down the middle aisle?"

George exploded up and ran to the edge of the water, releasing his remaining stones in a single buckshot blast against the water. "You slay me! I'm goofy on you and here you are giving me the high-hat. A couple of owls! That's what we'll be, Frank. All eyes and feather tails and not a drop left at the juice joint."

"Don't blow your top, Ziggy. Everything's Jake. America is where the kale is. Hoover will be sitting in the big chair next month. He's a former Secretary of Commerce. Guy knows his money. This economy is going to take off with him acting as boss." Frank slid his back up the front of the breezer, using the grill as support until he was standing. He tried to blow a smoke ring, but his lips were too big from the gin. "Soon this will all be over. The micks will win, or the wops will win, and we'll move on, us and Pete, with a stash of cabbage, somewhere like Kansas City or Cincinnati, somewhere on fawn legs, and take the apple for ourselves."

George let out a string of German curses too fast for Frank to understand. When he turned around he had calmed a little. After the short walk back to stand before his lover the red had drained from his face at least. "Dragging our dames behind as all the while, huh?"

Frank held the ember of his ciggy over his own head like a lightbulb. "Unmarried men who spend too much time together raise questions."

"You know, mausbar, more wives doesn't mean less questions."

"I've been accused of being a drugstore cowboy, but never a homo."

George wiggled his fingers toward the cigarette in a "gimme" motion. "Butt me."

"Sure." Frank gave a rueful smile and dropped his smoke before stealing the fedora once more and turning around to wiggle out of his suspenders and underwear. As soon as his trousers hit the ground, he bent over the hood of the car and presented his bare, muscled ass to his lover.

"What happened to the shrinking violet from the Pickwick? He allergic to tiger's milk?" Letting out an appreciative groan, George ran his hands over the softness of the other man's buttocks, dipping his fingers into the crevices of his hip lines. "Oh, Frankie, are you certain? Out here in the open?"

Looking back under the shade of the fedora with eyes heavy with libation and licentiousness, Frank wore an inviting expression. "Consider it another early birthday present." Then, after a wiggle, "Fuck me."

Without another word, George freed himself from his suspenders, so that his pants puddled around his feet, and knelt down in the grass. Using dexterous fingers he spread George's cheeks with both hands. Sparing only a second to lustfully examine Frank's puckered asshole, Ziggy dipped his head forward, flattened his tongue and took a long slow lick that started at the base of his lover's balls, covered in down and weighty even after his previous orgasm, and explored up, along the split of his ass to the very top, after which it plunged back down to spear the bent over man's tight hole.

Alcohol and arousal had robbed Frank of all of his previous modesty and he moaned wantonly and grinded his rear against his lover's wet mouth. "Attaboy, Ziggy. Slick me up. Get me ready for that gat of yours."

After swirling his tongue and tilting his head to get the best angle, George withdrew enough to bite at the insides of his partner's ass, giving a reassuring kiss after each nibble. "That feel ducky, baby? You have the sweetest bottom. I don't know how I survived months away."

"Show me how much you missed it. Ball me up with that hot tongue." The hot sensation on his most sensitive spot had Frank's knees shaking and he spread his arms wide over the Regent for support. The warmth of his rapid breath against the chill of February in Chicago left a fog against the sleek ebony hood.




Triggermen Unknown



Saliva, viscous and hot, gathered in George's mouth, and he used his tongue like a trowel, spreading lubrication like mortar against Frank's crack, until it glittered like gossamer in the lakeside moonlight. When the opening was sufficiently glazed, George moved the tip of his index finger in circles against the puckered entryway, pressing inward at the apex of each movement, a little more firmly with every rotation. "Every year I spent without you was a wasted one. What is a few months against a lifetime of uselessness."

Frank smiled at the words, broadly enough that the enamel of his teeth tapped against the paint of the car. "Always with the poetry. Use that silver tongue for what it's made for, Herr Romeo."

"You razzing me? Et tu, Frank? Have you been reading Shakespeare while I've been gone?"

"Who?" Frank teased. "I don't have none of your cultured experience, Lieutenant Ziegler."

"Then, let me give you an oral lesson." Now the pressure of George's finger was accompanied by the flicker of his tongue, each touch of wetness a salve against friction.

Frank intended to jerk some more fizz, but George's finger slid in up to the middle joint right when the shorter man was opening his mouth and his pithy rejoinder melted into a simple, "fuck."

"That's it, open up for me, schatzi. Let me crack that safe."

In response, the burly man spread his legs out wide, as wide as he could with his pants still around his ankles, and arched his back into the pressure. The probing finger sunk to the knuckle as George watched, and both men groaned.

Already sporting a half-erection, George spit into his free hand and reached down to stroke himself and wet his tool. Another finger slipped inside of Frank's ass and each thrust grew easier. Within moments George was at full mast and Frank was seaworthy.

Placing one hand on the broad back before him, George used the other to guide his turgid cock to Frank's opening. He nudged it against the well worked hole, slowly pushing his hips while encouraging his partner to help with the weight of his palm. Frank complied. The head pushed against his ass, distorting and wrinkling for an instant against the elastic of his rim. An expression of pain crossed the heavier hitman's face. Then the head was in, grotesque under the pink skin, a second later it was through and the tautness went out of both men.

Frank's face rocked against the hood and his groans bounced off the metal, his erection cramped against the chrome grill of the car. His lover now held him firmly by both hips while easing the girth of his big cock in and out as gingerly as possible. It was difficult for George, whose instincts were, after feeling the tight depths of Frank's ass, to simply hammer away until orgasm. He fought the urge, however, out of a respect for his love and a selfish desire to prolong his birthday present for as long as possible.

"Happy birthday to me," George said throatily.

"And Valentine's Day," Frank added with a catch in his voice.

"That too. Merry fucking Christmas as well. God, Frankie, your tail...is so tight."

"It's been so long, Ziggy. Too long."

"And how! Damn you feel swell."

"You too, baby."

George pulled back, barely freeing the head of his dick, and held Frank's ass so that his opening stayed wide, then dove back in until he bottom out. Frank gasped and whispered, "Gee! A couple more like that and I'll be on the roof."

"Yeah? Then how's this shoe fit you?" George did it again, this time hard enough that the coupe rocked back on its wheels.

"That's it, Ziggy, tighten the screws!" Reaching one hand down, Frank jerked his cock ferociously as George went all in on his stretched hole.

Soon, words gave way to passion as neither man had the breath or inclination to speak. The Regal bucked on its shocks like a steel bronco while the lovers grunted out animal noises and slapped a percussion of skin against the squeak of the suspension. Sweat dripped from George's brow onto Frank's wide back.

And neither man noticed the two figures that stumbled their way along the Lake shore. It wasn't until one of them called out that the men realized that they were no longer alone.

"What in Christ's good name do we 'ave 'ere. Coupla right nancy boys havin' a neck by the water?" The sing-song Irish accent startled the lovers and George spun about so fast that his cock sprang loose with a rude noise. Frank, more in the bag, and caught in the grips of passion was slower to aboutface. Both were naked from the waist down, cocks sticking out under their shirts like noses peeking through a curtain backstage. George's knees were stained with grass and Frank still had his manhood in hand and the fedora somehow still cocked on his head.

The former gave the latter a look, a shake of the head, then nodded back toward the coupe. He'd left his shotgun in the car.

A short distance away a stretch-faced flapper wearing a green dress and a string of oyster fruit teetered under the shade of a togged to the bricks redhaired fella with a bushy orange mustache and a bowler hat. The man had his brown jacket thrown back, revealing the heels of a pair of pistols. "See, birdie, this is the problem with The Windy dees days. Bunch a cake-eaters and trollops hoofin' around like dey own the place." The Irishman gave a start when he noticed the face of one of the men. "Frank? Dat you with yer pants down, pointin' to half past the hour?"

"Shit," came the response from Frank. "Mikey O'Banion. Uhh, good to see you, Mikey." Mikey had been with the North Side Gang for years. Came up in old way when he was just an urchin, right off the boat and picking pockets for the Little Hellions. He was long on genealogy, short on courage, and still wet behind the ears.

"Top of the evening to you, Master Gusenberg. Fancy seeing you on the waterfront. And in such queer company.

"You know this bugger, Mikey?" came the shrill question from the sauced dame leaning heavily against O'Banion.

Mikey gave the woman a quick smack with the hand draped over her shoulder. "Close your head, skirt. This here's Frank Gusenberg. He works for Bugs, just like me. He ain't no driver, though. Frank's an honest-to-God button man. His brother too. Came this close to bumping Big Al a few years ago."

"This faggot's a dropper? Jesus, Mikey, you knows the most interesting people."

Mikey made a dismissive motion toward the woman with one hand. "Broads. The chippier they are, the mouthier, am I right? So whatcha doin' all the way up here in Park Ridge?"

Finally remembering to take his hand off his cock, George made a sheepish expression, then grabbed the fedora from his head and held it in front of his bobbing sex. "Privacy, if ya follow."

"Oh, you mean on account of the buggering? I can see where a fella like you, with your rep, might need to keep cheese on such a habit." When Frank gave him a hard stare, he quickly clarified. "Don't ball up my words. I ain't trying to bleed ya. Ain't got no beef with cats carrying torches for cats. I had a cousin who had a taste for the how-do-you-do. Course he always took it to the flophouse. But I suppose they ain't got a lake view, anyhow. No need to boil the needle over this one, Mr. Gusenberg. Mikey O'Banion rates. No bumping gums from me....And maybe next time you got Mr. Moran's ear, you shine some words about Danny's nephew handling dips up North?"

Frank nodded. "And the dame?"

"This leftover dish? She won't know where she left her glad rags come morning, let alone who she's been chinning with."

Almost on cue, the woman shouted into Mikey's ear, "Hey, Mikey! Mikey! Let's go get hanged. I'm fit to nibble one and shake my marbles some more." Her impromptu, clumsy attempt at being an Oliver Twist almost sent both her and the Irishman tumbling to the grass.

George, still hard as Chinese arithmetic, gave his lover a quizzical eyebrow and spoke for the first time since the Irishman's arrival. "Fine. If everything's copacetic, you can go ahead and take a powder, kid. We have heavy barber to get to."

For the first time Mikey paid real attention to Frank's half-naked companion. There was something familiar about him. "Do I know you, pally? You run with the Keywell brothers? I know I've seen you. Who is this fella to you, Mr. Gusenberg?"

Waving his hands, Frank brushed the question away. "He's nobody."

"Nobody? Really, Frank? Nobody?" George turned his handsome face away from the young Irish and said, in a cold tone, "You don't want to know me kid."

"Wait." Mikey's eyes went wide and his hand slid toward the grip of his left pistol. "You're him. You're Shotgun Ge--" The rest of the name was a gurgle as the slug--fired from Frank's .38, which had been slipped free from the holster under its owner's shoulder by George's deft hands and fired before the mick could even touch the wood of his piece--ripped through the boy's throat. Frank threw the fedora down on the ground in exasperation. Blood poured like a fountain onto the neck and down the cleavage of the drunken woman. It wasn't until she hit the ground, still tangled with Mikey's convulsing body, that she realized her date had been shot. That's when the screaming started.

"You clipped him! God, you killed him! He's dying!" Her voice, normally irritatingly high, was now ear-splitting.

Frank grabbed his lover by the shoulder and gave him an admonishing shake. "That's just darb, Ziggy. A gunshot? You trying to get us pinched." The shorter man shook his head in disapproval and his still erect dick moved in agreement.

George shrugged his shoulders in a thin semblance of an apology. "He was going to sing. He was drawing iron. You know it. I know it. Had to be done....But back to this 'nobody' business."

"You killed him! Look at the blood. Lord Jesus, look at the blood."

"I didn't mean nothin' by it," Frank said. Then, "I knew his uncle."

"I've known a lot of uncles. Fathers too. Husbands. Made a lot of orphans and widows. Same as you have. What do they call an uncle that loses a nephew?"

"It's all over me! His blood! It's all over me!"

"Hell if I know. Not sure there is a word."

"Then I ain't wasting no Hail Marys on it."

"He stopped breathing! He isn't breathing!"

"Goddamn, George, clam her up."

"But you were crabbing about the boom. Look, I understand the need for secrecy, but 'nobody'? You could have said 'a friend', 'an acquaintance'. But 'nobody'...talk about the high hat."

"Mikey...God, Mikey...you twit...."

"You think another shot is going to matter?"

"Well, one shot could be anything, could be a Jalopy backfiring, could be a firework, but two shots...that's gunplay. But don't listen to me. I'm nobody."

*sobbing*

"Oh you're hitting on all sixes tonight, Ziggy." Pulling his pants back up so that he could walk, Frank wobbled over to where the woman was weeping. His first kick caught her flush on the jaw and changed her cry to a desperate wail. "You're such a daisy sometimes. Frail as a dame you are." The next strangled it down to a mewling noise. "This is why we quarrel." The final stomp ended her vocalization completely.

"I'm the sensitive one, am I?" George continued to argue as if nothing had happened. "Sitting up to my rear in snow for three months, not knowing what action you're chasing down here, thinking of you sharing the sheets with your two fraus, I think I'm entitled to a little sensitivity."

With his pants, which were now streaked red, still only hiked to mid-thigh, Frank shuffled his way back to stand before his lover. After taking the gun from the other man's hand and returning it to its holster, he caressed George's cheek and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. "I'm sorry. I think you're the bee's knees. I'm stuck on you, George Ziegler. No one is more dear to me."

George nuzzled into Frank's strong, affectionate hand, and an instant later, his grin had returned. "Yeah? Prove it."

When Frank cocked an eyebrow, George made a flourishing motion, directing his lover back to the front of the car. "Really? You want to keep going?" Neither man had gone fully soft yet.

"It is my birthday."

"You know, you are a troubled boy, Ziggy. I don't know why I even love you."

Ten minutes later, he remembered when George spilled his warm seed deep inside his lover while Frank painted the grill of the car with his appreciation, the still wet blood on his trousers smearing against the metal of the bumper.

When they drove away, mostly sober, in their separate cars, it was without remorse, the bottle of gin, the drinking glasses, the forgotten fedora, or the two bodies splayed out on the grass. Their goodbye was short and simple, as always. Hitmen didn't have the luxury of sentimental partings.

"I'll miss you, mausbar."

"Don't call me that. I'll miss you too. Don't get zotzed."

"Don't take any wooden nickels."

"If you off someone I know, make it quick."

"I'll try."

****

That night both men dreamed.

George Ziegler conjured the day he met Frank Gusenberg. The swarthy contract-killer and his brother's bum-rush into the McCormick Hotel, where Ziegler was staying, in an attempt to assassinate Jack McGurn, one of Capone's top guys and the gunman behind the death of the previous North Side Gang boss. Like a couple of Huns on horses, the Gusenbergs got the bulge on the Italian, Frank with with colt .45 automatic and Peter with the Tommy, and caught McGurn puffing in the smoke shop. The drum rattled and a stream of lead nearly cut Jack in half, punching through his right arm and half his chest before he managed to get behind cover. Still, the dego with the Irish name somehow survived.

A second later the brothers were pounding pavement and George, who'd been having a guzzle in the lobby bar, gave chase, armed with his Lupara. When the brunos split up to cut the heat, "Shotgun" pursued the slower of the two, finally cornering the short-legged man in an alley where, panting from exertion, the two squared-off.

In the real memory, George had peeped something in Frank, had smelled, with his predator's beezer, something on him, something familiar. Like a wolf scenting a pack member, he'd known him for what he was--a fellow killer...and more. They were the same. Spitting words instead of lead, the two had talked, wary and short of breath, lips poised behind their trigger fingers. George had killed many men and known a few. Frank had killed more and known none. Refusing to lower their weapons on the suspicion that they were getting fakelooed, the men shared their first kiss with weapons pressed against each other's throats. The result was so electric that they were lucky neither lost their head.

In the dream, however, George could only speak German, and Frank with his poor education couldn't understand enough of it to converse. The echo of shots soon filled the alleyway and they were finally able to find out who was the better triggerman.

Frank, for his part, lay in bed next to Lucille, the nicer but less attractive of his two wives, and revisited a common nighttime fantasy in which he single-handedly killed Al Capone and dragged the body to gang headquarters and presented it to his brother and the other members with a look of great pride on his face.

They all lit big stogies and cheered and poured ambitious glasses of high-grade whiskey. Each of them took turns slapping Frank on the back and telling him what a swell job he'd done. It was only when he looked down and noticed that Capone's pants had slid partway down during the dragging and revealed the gangsters pale bottom that things began to go off the rails.

Suddenly the cheers turned to laughed and everyone was pointing at Frank's crotch where a thick hard-on stood out obviously under his trousers. His brother, Bugs, they all shook their heads at him in disgust and laughed, shouting crust.

"Fairy!"

"Uranist!"

"Freak!"

"Queen!"

Eventually, even Capone got in on the fun, and jumped up, bare-assed and bloody, still seeping from his bullet wounds, a big cigar chomped in his kisser. "No disrespect, but I ain't about to get bumped by no cake-eating kraut. I got standards, kid."

Then they all started to cut the rug, passing partners and smooching cheeks like a bunch of smoked frogs. And everywhere that Capone went, he left a trail of crimson and fire. By the end, they were holding hands and dancing around Frank in a circle while he stood under his circus tent shame. They sang

Ring around the rosie

Pocket full of posey

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down

And they did, and where they fell, they stayed, smeared with blood and pitted with cigar burns. All except Frank, who hadn't cried since his father crushed his innocence in his hand, standing in the middle sobbing like a baby until the sound of the doorbell woke him up.

****

The devil on the doorstep when Frank managed to stumble his way to answer in his underwear was none other than his brother, Pete, dressed in a black flogger that came down past his knees and a gravedigger's hat. Frank looked like death warmed over. Pete just looked like the normal kind.

"You're early, grosser bruder." Frank rubbed his eyes with one hand and scratched at himself with the other as he spoke.

"Swell alderman, Frankie. It's a right shame our enemies can't see you now. They'd turn weak sister for sure." Pete was the more attractive of the two siblings, taller and leaner with eyes the color of coal and just as hard. He had none of Frank's softness, physically or otherwise. "Strap your gat and put your pins on. Let's blouse."

"Pick-up get scuttled?" Frank asked as he disappeared into his bedroom where Lucille snored noisily.

Leaning inside the doorway, Pete said, "Detroits on the outs. There's a new skinny. We're going to go down to the garage on Clark and meet the rest of the trouble boys."

Shouting from inside the room Frank asked, "Who's showin'?"

"Albey, Gorilla, Heyer. The boys."

"Bugs?"

"Bugs."

"Murder, what's the racket?"

"New shipment. Canadian, just like Detroit. Twice the barrels. Log Cabin. Just some monkey work. Nothing to it. Duck soup."

"Crackerjack. Any chance of fog?"

"With all of us? It'd take a right sap to come kicking sand on that beach." When Frank came out of the bedroom dressed and ready for action, shoulder holster and Colt slung over his shoulder, carrying a small present, Pete added, "A gift? You're just supposed to get the dame a card. Who's the moll?"

Frank ignored the question. "Am I the wheel man?"

Pete gave a skeptical look. "You still piloting that heap?"

"At least she ain't soggy with bullet holes. Where's your can? Directing sunlight in some scrapyard?"

"Your seats smell. Can't we take a hack?"

"Can't bring no choppers on a hail-and-sail. Besides, I need to drop this off to an express courier on the way . We'll take mine."

"Whatever floats your boat. What kind of skirts you flogging in that bucket, anyhow? Smells like sweat and gun oil mixed with--"

Frank closed the door on the rest of the conversation, leaving the house without even a sideways glance at his snoring wife.

****

Highball, the German Shepherd that belonged to John May, the mechanic who operated the garage, was the first to notice the Gusenbergs when they entered the garage at 2122 North Clark Street, barking out a greeting from where he was tied to the hitch of a truck. His owner, who was working under the hood of the same truck, was the second, and he waved a wrench in welcome.

Frank walked over toward the dog, speaking to it in broken German, as was his custom. "Guten tag, morder." He dropped to a crouch and scrubbed the mutt under the chin, while Pete gave him a disdainful look before walking to the other three gang members, all dressed doggy, who were seated together wooden chairs against the far wall.




Triggermen Unknown



The garage was a simple building, squat and sparse, with two entrances and attached to a warehouse with enough room to store and maneuver a large quantity of alcohol, which was its primary purpose. The two broken down cars lined up on one side were just for show. Although May was paid good money to keep the delivery trucks in top shape.

In addition to the main space, there was a small office, but it was seldom used for anything unless one of the boys was lucky enough to score a dame but unlucky enough to have anywhere else to go with her.

The owner of the garage, Adam Heyer, a middle-aged man with a mousey bit of hair and a head for numbers, wordless pulled a gasper from his pocket and handed it to Pete along with a lighter.

"Heyer," Pete said after lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag. "Where's Bugs?"

"Ain't here yet," said Reinhardt Schwimmer, a wraith of a fella who was more posey than member. Besides occasionally useful information about booze deals, he was mostly a rube. "Weinshenker, either."

"I got eyes, doc." Pete's retort was a dig. Reinhardt was an optician by trade. Though he often claimed to be an optometrist, he didn't have any more medical training than the rest of them.

"Lay off, Goosey. Everyone knows you're the eel's hips." The last man in the circle, who sat polishing an automatic pistol with a rag, was Albert Kachellek, and his voice was a plate of tote oma. He was a muscular German, a real German, not a bohunk like Frank and Pete. Born in Krojoencke, he was an enforcer just like the Gusenbergs, with a tattoo of a naked dame on his left forearm that he could make dance by flexing his arm. He was also Bugsy's second-in-command, and he hated Pete almost as much as Pete hated him.

"Albey, it's not yet noon. Early for you. Shouldn't you still be sleeping on top of some dope fiend?" Pete hadn't made it very far in school. He'd never learned about fear.

"Your mother was busy last night. I got to get my beauty sleep." Albey leaned back in his chair, took a puff on his ciggy and then put his arms behind his back as if had just hung the moon. Men like Albey and Pete were dangerous, but they were without principle, attack dogs to be caged until the need to set them on the hunt arose. They might mouth, but they were barred from anything beyond baring teeth unless their rope got slacked.

Frank was different. He was his own hound, not the type for idle barber, and not the kind to get his fires easily stoked or easily doused. In all the world, there were two things that could breach his stone heart, and Albey had just touched on one of them.

For a stout fella, he was deceptively quick. Up and away from the dog before anyone even thought to pay him a look, he just seemed to appear in the circle, his .38 free of its holster and pressed firmly into Albey's forehead.

The garage seemed to hold its breath. Highball had ceased his pacing and John looked up from under the hood of the truck, a black streak of grease across his face, and gave a worried expression.

When Frank spoke it was without passion or excitement. "You gabbing about mothers, Albey?"

The German, who had gone cross-eyed looking down the short barrel of the snubnose replied with deliberateness, holding his hands out to the sides, grabbing air. "What's got into you, Frank? What's got you on a toot? I was joshing."

"Don't throw shade on my mother. Ever."

Pete, standing next to his brother, laughed his hollow laugh, like a crow cawing into an empty can of beans. "Damn, Frankie. How long's it been? You still crying over spilled milk?"

With no more emotion than he would show putting out a snipe, Frank snatched the pistol from Albey's lap, cocked it with a jerk, and spun it until his finger was on the trigger and the muzzle was an inch from his brother's temple. Cross-armed and fully-loaded he spoke to Pete while never taking his eyes off the German in front of him. "I'll take no lip from you on the subject either, grosser bruder."

"Just calm down, Frank." Albey said slowly. The other men remained hushed, Heyer and May looked like they might upchuck, and Schwimmer seemed as if he might gum up his pants.

Pete rolled his eyes. "If that truck of hooch doesn't canter up soon Frankie'll end this turf war himself over some chippy we barely remember. Capone won't have to lift a mitt."

"Pete...." Frank's voice was soft but dangerous. He emphasized exactly how dangerous by quickly moving the pistol and firing a shot into the window of one of the broken down Jalopys. Pete yelled in pain from the proximity of the discharge to his ear, and made a move to get puggy with his little brother, but the pistol was back in his face a second later derailing any further aggression. After nearly jumping out of his skin at the sound of the gunshot, Albey attempted to rise and the younger Gusenberg sat him back down with the tip of the revolver, forcing the muzzle into his flesh with enough force to leave an "o" mark.

"That really hurt, you maroon. Jesus! I think you busted my eardrum." Pete held his finger up to his earlobe to check for blood.

"Good."

Albey's normally impassive face was now showing real anxiety. Sweat had formed on his temples and you could have driven a rattler through one eye and out the other. "You two are both whacky. Goddamned crazy Gusenbergs."

Pete was laughing again, only this time a lot louder due to the ringing in his ears. "You certainly got the sand, little brother. Alright, you've had your little ing-bing. But that's the crop. Let's break it up before you get us all put under glass."

"Apologize. Both of yous." Frank showed no sign of abating.

A great, booming voice called out. "What is the skinny in here? I'm a tiny bit late and the Gooses start shooting up the place?"

The men turned their heads slightly to see who had walked through the alley entrance, sure not to take their eyes completely off one another. Albert Weinshank, as tall as Albey and broader than Frank, was standing in the doorway wearing a new grey overcoat, so fresh it didn't have wrinkles yet.

"Hey, Gorilla," Frank said nonchalantly. "These mugs and I are just having a discourse about manners." Albey held his hands up as if to say, don't make any sudden moves and spook him. Pete merely shrugged and twisted a finger in his ear.

"These cretins taking pokes again?" Gorilla was a club owner and had a manner about him, gregarious and friendly, that made him well liked by everyone. Even most of the South Side Gang liked Gorilla. "Who they spittin' plague at now?"

"My mother," Frank answered. Pete seemed about to add something sharp, but a glare from his brother silenced even his courageous yap.

"Boys," Gorilla walked up and held his large arms wide. "First rule of wearing iron: don't talk about politics, religion, or stock. It just ain't kosher."

Each man grudgingly nodded their agreement.

Gorilla continued. "And you, Frank, you'd use that roscoe against your constituents? Burn powder over some gum bumping? That'd be a shame, wouldn't it?"

Frank nodded his head in the affirmative once, still bouncing his eyes from Albey to Pete.

"So, if you gets an apology from these mooks you'll stow the gat?" Gorilla was making sweeping gestures with his hands and stepping from man to man looking them each in the face.

Frank nodded again.

"Well?" Gorilla held his fingers out to the offending men.

There was a short pause where everyone just looked around, and then, in unison, "I'm sorry."

Gorilla swept both fingers toward the man with guns. "Frank?"

Slowly, eyes still bouncing, the younger Gusenberg lowered his aim, ready to bring the guns back up if either man took to violence. The thought occurred to both men, but in the end, they let it dangle. A collective sigh of relief traveled around the room as everyone, from John May to Frank himself was glad no more shells dropped. Only Highball seemed disappointed, and he let out a yip to tell everyone not to stop playing the fascinating new game.

Gorilla clapped every man involved on the back and hugged him close to his mammoth chest. "There we go, there we go. We all pals again? Everything Jake?"

There were reluctant nods all around. Pete grabbed a handful of Weinshenker's coat. "You just shear this off? Bet it's still warm from the sheep."

Gorilla gave a good-natured grin. "Just like with booze, I go right to the source."

"Bugs has one just like it, don't he?" Frank asked. "I thought you was him at first when you walked in."

"Now that's how rumors get started. I got no desire to squat on the boss's stool." It was true. Gorilla would rather be popular than powerful. It was a healthier preoccupation.

"Where's the whiskey?" Albey finally found his voice. "Where's Bugs?"

"Bugs is on his way, and the hooch should be here."

The alley door burst open and two uniformed police officers, one young with a dark complexion and the other older with a mustache, rushed into the garage, each carrying a shotgun. "Reach, boys. You're under arrest."

Highball took to barking. The gang groaned and looked toward Frank. "Listen coppers," Albey said. "About the thunder, that was just a mishap. No harm done."

"Up against the wall," one of the officers ordered.

"What did I tell you, Frankie," Pete said pointing a finger at his own nose.

Moving slowly and not without recalcitrance, the gangsters lined up facing the far wall, hands above their heads. Pete threatened a kiss at one of the cops and was repaid by having his face slammed roughly against the exposed brick.

"No need to get hard-boiled," Gorilla said. "We all know this is a nickel show. You ain't going to stick us with nothing."

With urgency and efficiency, the members of the North Side Gang were frisked and unburden of their weapons.

"Careful with that," Frank growled as one of the cops, the older one, tossed his .38 behind him on the ground.

"What's the rap?" Heyer asked. "You can't just come in here sporting buzzers and start roughing us up."

"You too," the younger copper pointed at John May who had thus far only been standing by the truck.

"He's just a mechanic," protested Albey. Nevertheless, in a few seconds he was lined up and frisked the same as the others. They even took his wrench. Highball, agitated before, went crazy at seeing his owner detained, and strained against the rope that secured him to the truck, snarling at the officers and barking loudly.

When the whole gang was lined up, the mustached cop demanded that they put their arms behind their backs. To his partner he said, "get the bracelets."

"Are you whacky? You mean to cinch us, too?" Heyer sounded both outraged and confused. "You're taking us all to the hoosegow? For what?"

Pete took the news even more poorly. "Go ahead. Put me in the freezer, and when I beat this paper and dust out of there I'm gonna find you and rip those elephant ears right off!"

Buoyed by the bluster of his friends Schwimmer added a clip. "Yeah, and I'll tear your peepers out."

Frank remained silent, head pressed against the scratchy brick. Something felt wrong. A life of bloodshed had left him attuned to such things. His instincts were sharp, so were his senses. If the others hadn't been so loud, if Highball hadn't been barking, he might have heard the two additional men that entered with the younger officer, walking on cat feet, sporting steady steps and a practiced gait. He would have recognized the way they walked. Frank had that same walk.

As it was, however, he only realized their presence just fast enough to take the full assault head-on as the first shots flew from the Thompson sub-machine guns, passing through friends, flesh, and bone before impacting against the brick wall..

The two newcomers sprayed the men from left to right and back again. One spit lead from a fifty round drum, the other from a twenty round clip. They saved no shells.

John May caught two in the wrist and four up his right arm on the first pass. The return saw two more pierce his chest before a .45 slug took his face and lodged in his skull, leaving him so disfigured that it would take his brother James over an hour to positively identify his body. Heyer's knees were shredded before he dropped down to take twelve more in the abdomen. Albey got lucky at first, eight rounds of flesh wounds to the arms and legs before a stinger put a hole in his liver the size of a tennis ball. Gorilla took four in his large rump and three in such close succession that they left his right arm dangling by a tendon. The one that went through his mouth on the way back was just icing. He was already gone. The twenty five bullets that passed through Reinhardt, including a shotgun blast from one of the "police officers" left him in such bad shape that he would have to carried away on two stretchers to keep his body together. Peter Gusenberg took two through the neck, killing him instantly. Nine more slugs shook his lifeless body after it hit the ground. But Frank got it the worst.

Not because he was shot the most. He took fourteen shells, less than Reinhardt. And not because he was the most disfigured, John May held that distinction. Frank was shot once in shoulder, twice in the right arm, four times in his right hip, once in the back, twice in the buttocks, and four times between his calf and right ankle.

No, Frank was the unluckiest because he lived.

When the Tommy's hit empty, every member of the gang lay dead, except Frank, who was alive enough when he slumped to the floor to see the horrified face of George Ziegler--smoke wafting from the barrel of his gun--staring at Frank and then down at his machine gun and back, as if trying to figure out how he'd shot a bullet clear up to Detroit.

Frank wasn't supposed to be there, and, by the look of his mangled form, he wouldn't be for long. Especially if anyone but George realized he hadn't been killed in the hail of bullets.

None of the other attackers realized that Frank still lived. They laughed and clapped backs and admired their handiwork. The younger Gusenberg was a portrait of blood, gore-spattered from his own injuries and those of his friends, a horror to behold, his breathing so shallow that no one would have noticed, not unless that shallow breathing meant everything to the person watching. Which, of course, it did to George.

The lovers locked eyes for an instant. Both frozen by circumstance. The slightest indication, even a stray movement, from either would doom them both. Neither said a word. Neither made a sound.

Highball howled, long and hard and ugly. He howled like nothing had ever howled before. It was grief and anger and guilt expelled from his throat at the greatest volume he could offer. He howled when the killers turned to go, the two dressed as cops walking behind the other two who held their hands up in surrender with shotguns pressed into their backs, as if being arrested. He howled when the murderers passed unmolested through the gathering crowd outside, got into two different get away cars and sped away. He howled when one of the roomers from across the street walked into the garage to see what all the commotion was and walked out just as quickly, face white as a sheet. He howled when the cops arrived, then the meat wagon with its blaring siren. He howled when one of the real officers said, "this one's still breathing," and then loaded the gravely wounded man into the ambulance and took him to the hospital. When they took him off to the pound Highball was still howling. He never stopped howling again.

Frank never made a sound, but his lips mouthed the words of a silent song.

Wenn der Beltz em Loch hat-

stop es zu meine liebe Liese

Womit soll ich es zustopfen --

mit Stroh, meine liebe Liese

****

Hours later, a detective in a trench sat beside Frank Gusenberg's hospital bed. The thug was beyond help. It was a miracle he'd survived as long as he had. Moran's best assassin would never see the evening.

The detective asked the questions again. "Tell me who did this, Frank. Tell me who shot you." There was no answer. The gangster hadn't said a word since his admission, least nothing in English. "Was it Capone's men? Did they line you up against the wall?" Not even a nod to acknowledge the obvious. "Your brother is dead. You're dying. Do you know that, Frank? These men killed your brother. They've killed you. Tell me who shot your brother. Tell me who shot you."

Frank looked at the detective and gave the saddest of smiles before uttering the last words he would ever say. "It was nobody. Nobody shot me."

No matter how he was pressed, he would say nothing further. Frank Gusenberg died in the late afternoon, St. Valentine's Day, 1929.

****

That evening, on the other side of the city, a group of hatchet men drank gin and bragged in loud voices around the kitchen table of a hotel suite about the job they'd just pulled. All except George Ziegler who sat somber as a statue, his taste for gin curiously absent, staring at the silver gift with the gold bow that the delivery boy had brought. He'd been staring at it for the better part of two hours.

"What's with the present, Shotgun?" One of the others asked him eventually.

"It's my birthday."

"Well, happy birthday! Todays is double happy, then, even if we didn't get Bugs. I swore it was him in that grey coat. Aren't you going to open it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because yesterday's spoiled."

*

Thank you for reading my story. I hope you liked it. As I said earlier, this is a contest piece, so I'd truly appreciate your votes. Even more, however, I'd love your feedback. I come here to improve my writing and discuss the craft with my fellow authors and readers. You are my patrons and my teachers. Please share your thoughts with me.

A special thanks to my muses on this one, stlgoddessfreya and patientlee. The first for always challenging me (Happy birthday, schatzi. Knowing you puts ink in my veins.) and the second for reminding me that the greatest failure we can experience as writers is to stick to the safe corners of our imaginations.

If you are curious about the true events that inspired this story, I offer you this synopsis.

Chicago's gang war reached its bloody climax in the so-called St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929. One of Capone's longtime enemies, the Irish gangster George "Bugs" Moran, ran his bootlegging operations out of a garage on the North Side of Chicago. On February 14, seven members of Moran's operation were gunned down while standing lined up, facing the wall of the garage. Some 70 rounds of ammunition were fired. When police officers from Chicago's 36th District arrived, they found one gang member, Frank Gusenberg, barely alive. In the few minutes before he died, they pressed him to reveal what had happened, but Gusenberg wouldn't talk.

Police could find only a few eyewitnesses, but eventually concluded that gunmen dressed as police officers had entered the garage and pretended to be arresting the men. Though Moran and others immediately blamed the massacre on Capone's gang, the famous gangster himself claimed to have been at his home in Florida at the time. No one was ever brought to trial for the murders.

Byron Bolton, sometimes sidekick and valet to Frank Goetz aka "Shotgun" George Ziegler, confessed some years later that he had been the lookout, and that Ziegler and another hired gun had joined to out-of-town thugs dressed as police officers in the killings. According to Bolton, the plan had been only to lure a few of the North Side Gang, particularly Bugs Moran who escaped death that day on account of being late, but when confronted with seven men had no choice but to murder them all and quickly escape. Especially surprising, was the presence of the dangerous Gusenberg brothers, Frank and Peter, who were reported to be out of town that day on business.




Triggermen Unknown



Bolton added that Capone was actually furious that so many had been killed, as he, rightly, suspected that such a body count would draw federal attention. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was the beginning of the end for Capone. Even more upset, claimed Bolton, was the normally cheerful George Ziegler, who sat quietly throughout his birthday party that same day, refusing even to open his presents or blow out the candles on his cake. According to Bolton, Ziegler mourned as if he had lost his own brother in the shooting.