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Zero G

By: SeaCat



Floating before me in the darkened room she struggled to remove her jumpsuit, her partially clad body eclipsed my view of the Earth behind her. I was too preoccupied watching to help at first but coming to my senses I anchored my foot beneath one of the grab straps and reaching out grabbed one of her ankles. Now that she was anchored and didn't have to worry about drifting into anything she was easily able to work the suit over her hips and thighs until it pooled around my hand and wrist. Shifting my grip to her other ankle I slid the fabric off over her foot and stuck it with mine under one of the many cargo nets dotting the walls. As my eyes adjusted to the light reflecting from the planet below I could clearly see her floating weightless just out of reach in front of me. My eyes traveled over her body as I once again marveled at the beauty of this woman I was lucky enough to call my wife.

Seeing me staring at her from my spot on the wall Denise smiled while brushing her hand through her short dark red hair making it stand up as she gently motioned for me to join her in the middle of the room. Shrugging I pulled my foot from under the strap and softly pushed away from the wall. Everything we did up here was smooth and unhurried. Drifting over to her I waved my hands in front of me to help slow me down. As much as I loved her I didn't want to crash into her under these conditions. Not only would it be painful but it would be embarrassing trying to explain any injuries to the rest of the crew. We were in here on what was nominally our sleep time.

Denise, being in charge of communications, had disabled the observation system from her console in the Command Module so we wouldn't have to worry about our being watched. Although we had planned this for a time when most of the crew would be resting we still didn't want to risk being seen by someone who just couldn't sleep.

Slowing to a stop in front of her I reached out and rested my hands on her upper arms. Gently I slid my hands down her arms then back up, enjoying the feel of her skin under my palms. Slowly, carefully, I drew her to me until our bodies were pressed together for the first time since before the launch a week ago. Feeling her hands sliding up and down my back I mirrored her movements, stroking her skin as we held each other close. God how good she felt pressed against me. Holding each other this way it didn't take long for the two of us to want more.

Sliding my hands down to her hips I eased her body away from mine. Sensing I wasn't pushing her away Denise let go and went limp waiting to see what I was going to do to her. Without having to fight gravity I easily spun her body around, turning her over while pulling her up until my hands were even with my face. Smiling to myself I pulled her body against mine, this time instead of my face being even with hers and me kissing her mouth she now found herself with her crotch pressed against my face and me kissing between her legs. She squealed slightly when she felt my tongue trace lightly over her shaven mound. Oh how I loved her taste and now, for the first time, I could enjoy performing oral sex on her without having to worry about getting a cramp in my neck from the odd positions I would normally have to get into.

I could feel and smell her slowly becoming more aroused as I slid my tongue over her sensitive skin, tracing first the outside of her lips then inside of them as they became engorged and opened slightly. Even as I was doing this I could feel her breasts pressing against my belly as she wrapped her arms around my waist. Sliding my hands off her hips I started massaging her ass while slowly working my tongue around her slit. Gasping when she felt my tongue dart inside for the first time she slowly bent at the waist until her legs were on either side of my head. Moving a hand a little more on her ass I started playing with her snatch from behind while zeroing in on her clit with my tongue and lips. When I sucked her nub between my lips she moaned quietly while tightening her legs around my head. While I was doing this Denise decided what was good for her was good for me. Shifting her grip she moved slightly until I could feel the heat of her mouth slowly sliding over my hardening cock.

Holding her clit between my lips I ran my tongue over it making her buck her hips slightly against my face. When I continued to do this she clamped her legs even tighter around my head and pulling her mouth away from me moaned again. Shifting my free hand I pressed a fingertip against her anus as I slid another finger deep inside of her. This was too much for her, pressing her face against my thigh to stifle her moans she flexed her legs pulling my face against her while she came. 

As she relaxed she loosened her hold around my head, pulling my face away from her while removing my fingers I grabbed her hips and slowly turned her so we were once again facing each other. Smiling at me she reached between us and gently grabbing me, carefully pulled me towards her until I was pressing against her lips. Still holding her hips I waited until she had moved her hand out of the way then eased our bodies together, the two of us gasping at the sensations this caused.

Grabbing my shoulders while wrapping her legs around my waist she started gently moving on me, our movements causing us to tumble slightly as we slowly made love for the first time in zero G. Tiring of this position Denise let go of my shoulders and leaned away from me until she was floating on her back with her legs straddling my hips. Moving my hands from her waist to her thighs I slowly started stroking into her again. Her breasts while small, weren't tiny, and because she was no longer a teenager had a tendency to sag on earth. Here though they floated in front of her moving in time with my thrusts. I watched as she reached up and started playing with her nipples, gently pinching, pulling and twisting them in time with my movements. The skin of her chest slowly darkened with the flush she got when she started getting close to an orgasm. Speeding up my movements I thrust deep inside of her while listening to her breathing getting shallower and faster. As her orgasm built I could feel how she started tightening her muscles around me trying to feel every inch of me moving inside of her. Suddenly she arched her back moaning while her muscles tightened around me and her legs clamped around my waist. Thrusting as deep as I could I held myself still, feeling the rhythmic pulsing of her muscles as they spasmed around me. I waited, not moving until she finally opened her eyes again. Seeing them focus on me I started moving inside of her again making her gasp then smile.

Arching her back and spreading her legs even more she formed our bodies into a wide Y connected only by my hands holding her against me and me inside of her. As I slowly thrust into her she reached up with one hand to play with her nipples again and down with the other to play with herself. Looking down I could easily see myself sliding in and out of her, her lips spread around me and moving in and out with my thrusts. Gasping, she quietly whispered for me to move my hands. I didn't understand what she meant until she told me.

"Dave, move your hands so you're holding my ass. I want to feel your hands on my ass."

How could I argue with a request like that? Moving my hands as she had asked I was soon cupping her firm cheeks in them. I could feel how her muscles were moving as she kept her legs spread as wide as she could. Watching her hands as she worked on herself, and watching me sliding in and out of her I could feel my own orgasm building. I could tell from her breathing that she was again almost ready. As we both got closer and closer I could feel myself swelling slightly inside of her, she must have felt this as well because she moaned that she wanted me to cum inside of her. Even as she was saying this I felt her body starting to spasm as she came again. This time the tightening of her muscles around me was too much and with a final thrust I came inside of her.

The two of us floated there, holding each other and watching the Earth spinning beneath us as we slowly relaxed. Finally, after I had shrunk enough that I slid out of her it was time to face the rest of the world, or at least venture out into the station again. Turning on the lights so we could see I floated over to where I had stashed our jumpsuits. As I was pulling them from behind the mesh I felt something hard in mine. Thinking about it for a minute I remembered the camera I had grabbed when Denise had told me what she wanted to do. Pulling it from the pocket I turned and seeing Denise floating in front of the window I raised it to my eye and started snapping pictures of her. Hearing the slight sound made by the camera she slowly turned from her contemplation of our world and seeing what I was doing smiled and posed a little bit. After taking enough pictures to fill the memory of the camera I put it away while handing over her jumpsuit. Helping each other we were quickly dressed.

Peeking through the small porthole in the hatch leading back into the station we checked for any sign of the other crew members. Seeing no one in the corridor we quickly slipped out of the observation section and headed towards the Command Module so Denise could turn the recorders back on. As she was floating in front of her station I noticed a light blink on showing we were receiving a signal from groundside. Turning on the speakers we heard ground control calling the two of us.

"Dave, Denise, this is CapCom. Are the two of you alone in the Command Module at this time?" While Denise answered them I silently wondered how they knew who was up and about in the station. It was only when CapCom started talking again that I remembered the cameras spread throughout the station. "Guys I'm handing the mike over to Mission Control in Houston. Mission Control, this is CapCom, they are online with you now."

" CapCom this is Mission Control, we have them and thank you. Dave, Denise, this is Mission Control. Can you hear us?"

"Yes, we can hear you Mission Control. How can we help you?"

"Dave, Denise, we want to thank you for making space history. A lot of people down here are very happy with you right now."

"Why is that Mission Control?" I asked even though I had a sneaking suspicion about what this was all about.

"About two hours ago we started picking up some strange readings from your telemetry." Had it been that long? "We tried to find the two of you with the onboard cameras and when we couldn't we started to get worried. That's when one of the gals down here noticed the cameras in the observation room had been turned off. She quickly turned them on and that's when we saw the two of you and the reason why your telemetry was all over the place."

Hearing this I looked at my wife who was so shy about anyone even seeing her in a bikini as she realized she had just been seen by any number of people not just nude, but having sex with me, blush bright red. I could hear laughter and whistles as well as a few catcalls in the background as Mission Control continued.

"I have to tell you that if the tapes of this ever get out you could make a fortune on the porn market. Don't worry though, there will only be two copies of this. One will go to the medical section and the other to the two of you along with framed certificates showing that you are the first members of the Zero G club. Oh and another thing, we have moved up the schedule because of this. You will still be up there for another six months but we are going to be sending up some more sections to be added to the station which will give you more privacy. As soon as they are attached and pressurized we will be sending up several more couples. Until then I would recommend you inform us before you engage in more, shall we say, Human Physiology Experiments? That way you won't be accidentally observed. Is that understood?"

"We understand Mission Control. I take it then that you expect us to continue with this?"

"That is correct, we not only expect you to continue, but you are ordered to continue. The only difference is we need you to keep the cameras on so it can be recorded and observed by the Medical Section. We will of course make copies for the two of you if you wish." Glancing at my wife as I heard the laughter and whistles from Mission Control I noticed her nipples seemed to be harder than normal and she was smiling slightly. Maybe she wouldn't mind being watched.

"Understood Mission Control. Is there anything else you need to pass on at this time?"

"That is all, Mission Control out."

Turning to my wife I started laughing. I was still chuckling to myself when we climbed into our sleeping bags that some kind soul had thoughtfully zipped together for us while we were otherwise occupied. I would have to find out who had done this and thank them, but that was for later. For now I needed to get some sleep. Somehow I knew that we would need our rest so we could conduct further experiments in space.

Zero Gravity



A while ago, in between wives, I winged my way around Texas, hopping about in my little Grumman Cheetah the way I used to do on my motorcycle.

Only faster. 

I landed to refuel at a little airport not far from Killeen. The woman behind the counter was... Well, she wasn't young. Not that I have anything at all against young women. My right seat had carried a number of adorable little butts in it. This adorable butt was older than mine by a decade. Mid-fifties I would guess, and tightly clad in perfectly creased Wranglers. She was exquisite. She had gray-gold hair with eyes to match, and for a long moment those eyes were all I could see. 

Besides her Wranglers she wore a chambray shirt with the collar up to frame her pearl earrings. She wore boots and a wonderful knowing smile and all that was in between was very nicely arranged. When I could speak I asked to have my tanks topped off. She said something to somebody on a radio, then turned back to me. "Hundred octane low-lead?" 

"Please." I said. 

She spoke again, then returned to the counter. "Going somewhere exciting?" 

"Everywhere I go is exciting." I said. 

"What's exciting about this place?" She asked. 

"So far? You." It earned a blush and a shy downward glace from those gorgeous eyes.

As if to deflect my attention away from her she pointed to the young lad who had pulled the fuel truck up beside my airplane. "That's my grandson." She said. 

"I can see where he got his good looks." I said. I sort of backed away, figuring she was getting embarrassed by my open-faced interest in her. I went to the weather counter and looked at the forecasts for South Texas. When I was finished she leaned against the counter and shoved a cup of coffee at me. "I've never flown in a Grumman." She said. 

"They're a cut above almost anything else." I said. "I'm not going anywhere in particular. If you'd like to see how they are..." 

"I would love to. My relief guy is coming in about fifteen minutes if you don't mind waiting." 

We chatted as we waited. Her name was Ellen. She was divorced. She had two children. Her son owned this airport facility. His son refueled the planes. She was a pilot but had let her medical certificate expire because she couldn't afford to fly solo any more. Besides, she got bored in the air by herself. 

Her grandson called her on the radio. "Forty two dollars." She said to me. I put two twenties and two ones on the counter. Her relief guy came in. "I'm going up in that Grumman." She told him. "Nothing else is happening." 

Leap to five thousand feet in the Grumman. She has the controls and has just remarked at how gently the plane flies, and how sweet are the controls. She tells me about an abandoned air strip about fifty miles west. "If you're not doing anything particular, maybe you'd like to check it out. It's great for touch-and-goes." She said.

Fifty miles and three touch-and-go landings further west and she says "That hangar is abandoned. It's fun to explore. Want to see it?" 

I let her land the plane and she taxied up to the hangar and we got out. She pulled me by the hand to a side door, screeched it open, and we entered the old building. It's metal support structure was covered with rust, the floor was oil stained, and there were still old oil cans and old airplane tires lying about. "I come here once in awhile." She told me. "My dad used to bring me here when I was a kid. The Army still used it then. I've seen P-38's, Mustangs, Thunderbolts and even an Aircobra take off and land here. When it shut down, my dad bought it and used it for a cropduster base for awhile. He left it to me and I gave it to my son. It's too far out in the middle of nowhere to be a useful refueling place, though." She kicked an old tire. "But it's fun to come to because nobody ever comes here." She turned and her eyes invited me to kiss her. When I did, she kissed back. "Maybe you'd like to see the office." She said after the kiss. 

The office was cleaner than I expected. It had an antique refrigerator, an old wooden government desk, a leather covered sofa and some chairs. "That's me." She said, nodding toward a calendar on the wall. "I was eighteen then." She pointed to the picture of a delicious little blond in tight shorts bending over the wing of an old Stearman biplane. The date read "December, 1948 . "I was a slut in those days." She went to the refrigerator and took two cans of soda from it. She gave me one and popped the top on the other. "I still am. You can undress me if you'd like. It's more fun to explore if you're naked." 

We finished exploring the hangar wearing nothing but our boots. Not that I saw much besides her. She had kept her body through the years, and it was a delight to study. And she wasn't shy about letting me explore her as well as the hangar. If I got distracted, she would regain my attention with a gentle grip on my cock. We went to the big door of the hangar and she pressed a button and the door opened and filled the old space with sunlight. Then she led me to a place on the hangar floor. "The first time I ever got fucked was right here." She said. "It was on the day the picture for the calendar was taken. The guy took other pictures that day, but those couldn't go on a calendar in 1948. Lie down here, on your back."

I did as she instructed. The cement floor was cool and a little dusty. She straddled me and guided my cock into her and then lay forward on me and we kissed. She pulled back. "Put your finger in my ass." She whispered. I felt down, traced along the crease between her buttocks, found the puckered little button and pressed my finger into it. She moaned into my mouth and began to work her bottom quickly. Then, suddenly, almost without warning, our souls danced together through the skies. I felt my heartbeat race, and my entire body flooded itself with endorphins and dopamine, and my semen squirted into her in powerful surges. She sat upright and announced her coming in a melodic yodel that bounced and echoed off the metal rafters. She rocked herself for a long time, then descended and kissed my neck, my ear, my head. Then we lay still for awhile, letting the after-come eddy through us. 

"You can take your finger out now." She whispered. She yeeped when I did, then kissed me. "That was wonderful." She said. "Too bad it couldn't have been like that the first time. It was pretty messy then, but that's exactly what the guy did. One finger in my ass, his cock in my pussy, sheer pain in my body, and he came much too soon." 

"I can't blame him." I said. "Do you come here often?" 

"Was that meant as a pun?" She grinned. "Just once in awhile, when the right guy and the right plane and the right time all happen at once. Those showers still work if you don't mind cold water. They're really fun."

It was a huge shower stall with ten shower heads in it. She turned them all on and we played like kids in a sprinkler. It was fun to watch her body as we dashed in and out. And once we had soaped up and gotten all lathery I discovered how deliciously anal she was. She turned off some of the showers and sat down and she showed me how to sit facing her. She crossed her legs over mine and slid her ass toward me, lay back, and lifted her hips and my cock slipped right into her ass. She yelped as her body adjusted, then sat up and put her arms around my neck and eased forward into my lap. I reached down and felt her sphincter where the skin was stretched tight around my cock. She pressed her cheek against mine and slowly gyrated her hips. "Can you come like this?" I asked. 

"Not exactly, but when I get close to coming I'll finish myself off with my fingers while you..." She didn't finish telling me about it. Instead she just lay back and did it. That gave me the opportunity to see how my cock looked in her ass and it was nicely erotic. She controlled the movements by just moving her hips, and her ass alternately swallowed me up and squeezed me out. After a moment I said "I'm going to come." Her hand went down to her pussy and she masturbated by holding her lips apart with one hand and vigorously massaging her clitoris with the other. For the second time we came together, and for the second time it seemed like we danced in an effervescent pool of endorphins and dopamine. When she had finished her orgasm her clitoris stuck out like a tiny pink cock with a pearl white tip. I touched it and she yelped. "Don't touch " She said, and she sat up and put her arms around me and I felt her anus squeeze my slowly softening cock out. She pulled me to the shower and washed us both with lots of soap. 

The sun sank low on the horizon and it was soon too dark to explore without turning on lights. "Let's fly some more." She said. We went up to the office and gathered our clothes and she held hers in a bundle. "You're not going to wear them?" I asked.

"No. Let's fly naked. It's a thrill." 

We climbed into the plane and tossed our bundled clothes behind the seat. I took off and gave her the controls and we flew up to five thousand feet and the air was so still we just floated beneath the stars. She was beautiful with the orange glow from the instrument panel on her naked skin. Once when she looked at me I could see the reflection of a star in her eyes. She bent over and took my cock in her mouth and sucked. I was beyond another orgasm at the time, but that did not diminish the deliciously risky experience of her mouth there. After awhile she sat up and opened her legs and began to masturbate herself. "Do you know how to make zero gravity?" She asked. 

"Yes." 

"Climb to six thousand feet. Then give me zero gravity when I tell you." 

I climbed to six thousand as she worked her clitoris with her fingertips. I leveled off and waited. "Soon." She said, reathlessly. "Soon. Soon. NOW!"

I raised the nose and cut the engine to idle and shoved the yoke forward and for about fifteen seconds we floated in the cabin in zero gravity. Her birdlike warble voiced the intense pleasure she felt. As I pulled gently out of the dive gravity returned and she sank backward in the seat, her legs apart, her fingers slowly working her clitoris and pink lips. Then she closed her knees tightly and lay her head against my arm. 

I flew over Austin at two thousand feet and we both appreciated the beauty of the city at night. "Want to spend the night at my place?" I asked.

"Yes."

We landed at my home base airport. It was dark, and there was no one about. I had parked my car only fifty or so yards from my tie-down space. We grabbed our bundles, tied down the plane and dashed to the car, still naked. And we drove to my apartment like that. And we dashed up the stairs like that, and opened the door like that. And we had a drink like that, and petted on the sofa like that and when it was time we went to bed like that.

She lay with her bottom tucked into my stomach. I put my arm over her and pressed my face into the back of her neck and kissed and smelled her hair, her skin, her shoulders until we slept. Next morning we ate breakfast naked, and showered again, and made love again. We finally dressed and I flew her back to Killeen and she kissed me before she got out of the plane. I refueled and went back to get ready for my work week. 

The next weekend I flew back there. "Is Ellen around?" I asked the man behind the counter. He grinned broadly. "You've flown with her I see." He said. "Nah. She's up in a T6 Texan with a guy. I don't expect them back today." 

A surge of jealousy burbled through me as I waited for my plane to be refueled, and I took off and flew to the old airport. Sure enough, there was the T6 parked outside the hangar, and as I flew over I could see the huge hangar door open. They were naked of course. In spite of my feelings, I flew low past the door and wagged my wings and she waved back and blew me a kiss. 

I never did get to fly with Ellen again. I saw many different planes parked in front of the old hanger whenever I flew over it. And soon there were other girls, and other air dates, and other lips and labia and breathless sighs and zero gravities. But deep in my heart there is a special old hangar, occupied by the beautiful half-century old body of a phenomenal woman. And once in awhile, when I'm out in the pasture and hear a plane go over, and I can tell by the engine that they are doing zero gravity. I take her memory out and dust it off and rerun it with the fondest affection. And I can taste her flavor and smell her hair and hear her beautifully melodic warble and feel her body floating next to me.



Zero Sum



It was dark outside.

But it was always dark.

The ever-present black clouds rolled forebodingly across the charred sky, the same way they did every second of every minute of every day.

It was approaching nightfall now. The faint glow of the sun was fading, sinking down over the jagged horizon. The smoldering, skeletal remains of buildings cast twisted, misshapen shadows across the landscape. Office buildings, libraries, schools, gas stations, grocery stores, even homes, all destroyed. The shadows were the only things left of the beautiful civilization we'd worked so hard to build, and now it was as if the whole world had just broken and turned grey.

The temperature was dropping quickly. You could feel it deep inside you, squeezing your heart.

Then the alarms began to sound.

The sirens, the shrill voices of the screaming dead, wailed out of the speakers and reverberated through the wreckage. It was a warning. A sign.

Down below, a small group of people huddled in the frost of a drainage culvert. Men, women, but only a few children.

Children didn't last long.

They might even have been the last people on earth. Who knew? This was humanity in the very hour of its twilight.

The alarms shook the small throng from fitful sleep, and put the buzz of adrenaline in their blood. Could this be it? Was this truly the beginning of the end? Everyone was thinking it, but nobody had the will to say it. In fact, nobody spoke at all.

Among the small group were two people who sat away from the rest. One looked like he might have been in his later fifties, but he was probably much younger than that. People aged quickly in those days, and they wore their sorrow in lines on their faces.

In his lap, lay a boy in his late teens. He was skeletal,

[dying]

with skin that stretched over his jutting bones like canvas. The older man held the boy to his chest, cradling him in his arms. They might have been father and son.

The boy was shaking violently with fever, and his chest was heaving with slow, labored breaths.

[dying]

It was the smoke, the man thought. He's always had asthma as a kid, and now he just couldn't breathe the smoke any longer.

[dying]

That word that no one said anymore had been clawing its way to the front of his mind for a few days now. He traced his fingers across the boy's tear-streaked face. His eyes were closed, as they usually were these days, and his face was hot to the touch.

[dying]

There was no other version of the truth.

He registered a hand on his shoulder.

"When he... Passes,

[dies]

you know what we have to do."

"You're not going to touch him. You're not going to lay a finger on him."

"We need something-"

"You don't need my boy."

"We've got to have something!"

"Not him."

[and that's final]

"Then what are we going to do? How do you expect us to-- Oh, Jesus..."

It was the sirens again. Twice, now, they'd sounded. And they almost seemed louder this time. All at once, it was as if reality had come crashing down upon them, like all the rubble of their forgotten lives. 

Two sirens. Two consecutive sirens. The warning, and then...

[dead]

They didn't know whether to feel like the weight of the world had been lifted, or like it had been cast down upon them threefold. But the silence between the people persisted, as each began to deal with his own inevitability, completely alone.

After a few seconds, it all seemed to sink in.

This was it.

[dying]

What do you do, knowing you're balanced on the brink of death? Resting on the very cusp of destruction, where you know you'll die in a hail of fire, stone, blood and flesh?

"Looks like you're not going to have time after all," the man said calmly, and he turned back to the boy. So this is what it was like to be a condemned man, he thought. To wait at the gates of hell, with nothing to do but sit and ponder your own fate. 

[could I have been a better person?]

We did this, he thought. Humanity had been it's own downfall, this self perpetuating downward spiral. All this is a consequence brought on by our own hand. 

[if you believe in that sort of thing]

And we'll never get away. We'll never get to take the easy way.

He told himself it didn't matter. They would be alright. That they'd find a better place in this twilight. But the longing that he felt, staring down into the face of the one reason he'd stayed alive made it just too much to comprehend. Too monumental to wrap his mind around. He numbly stroked at the boy's sunken cheek with a finger,

[so hot]

searching for a handle on the moment, something, anything to grasp onto.

[did you ever really find what you hoped to find?]

He tried to remember what the boy looked like before. He had fewer bones back then.

[that place that is still and at peace?]

His boy, his baby boy.

After a moment, his eyes fluttered open, and he gazed up at him with exhausted fear worn into every crease of his features.

"That was two." His voice was hoarse from disuse. It was more a question than a statement.

[don't tell him]

"No."

"They're going to do it."

[don't you fucking tell him]

"No. That's just the sirens. It doesn't mean anything."

They were silent for a long time. The man gently brushed some ash from the boy's hair.

"Am I dying?"

[yes]

"Don't think about that right now."

High above their heads, a deafening roar issued from the clouds. A dozen pairs of eyes turned simultaneously towards the sky. So this was it then. This is how it was all going to end. To the man and the boy, it didn't seem real enough yet.

But all around them, people were screaming and running. The got to their knees and crossed themselves. They pushed sharp glass into their wrists. They took their knives and slit their own throats. Suicides, mercy killings. Parents killed their own children, husbands killed wives. And they ran, God, they ran. Scattering away like pathetic little ants, scrabbling and clawing at the last vestiges of their pathetic little lives. Dropping like flies, like the mindless lemmings they'd become. But while the world cringed away in anticipation, writhing in fear, the man and the boy remained still.

"What was that?"

[hell is coming up to take us]

He gently lifted the boy's body up off the ground, holding him tightly to his chest. Tears stung his eyes and blurred his vision. 

"Don't worry about that right now. Look up there, baby." He gestured towards the faint glow in the sky. "Watch the sun."

[as it crawls across the final time]

The boy just shuddered in response, turning his glazed eyes upward, and the light began to grow.

[people are screaming]

"Come here..." The man closed his eyes, pressed lips to the boy's forehead, and began to whisper into his ear. "They're starting to open up the sky."

[so loud]

The boy began to shake more violently. His breath became ragged, erratic.

[the fever is taking him]

He spoke, the only words his slipping mind could form. "Do you remember the time we..."

[shame on us]

"They're starting to reach down through."

"All the times we..."

He was speaking, but it didn't make any sense. The nerve endings in his brain had been set aflame by fever, and it terrified him. 

"If only we had a little more time.

[doomed from the start]

But soon it'll all be said and done."

[will we even feel the concussion, when it hits?] 

Tears fell.

"The light... It's so bright!"

"We will be together soon. You, and me..."

[may God have mercy on our dirty little hearts]

"The black is really white, if you believe it--"

"Shh, baby. Be still..." Sobs wracked the man's body now. He was beyond maintaining the illusion of control. "Close your eyes.

[in this hour of our twilight]

Don't look."

"No, the light!"

[shame on us]

The boy's emaciated

[dying]

form pressed into his chest. His shivering had reached a new height.

"I guess I just wanted to mention..."

[for all we have done]

"As the lights start to fade..."

[he's slowing down]

"You are the reason--"

[dying]

"That I am not afraid."

[all we are worth]

"We'll be together soon."

[just zeros and ones]

"If we be anything at all."

And as the cacophony of deafening thunder and piercing human screams

[this is what my death will sound like]

rose to a powerful climax, the boy felt his body begin to slip away from him. His eyes flew wide open, for one final time, and reflected all the terror of his dying world like two perfect mirrors.

"The sky is filled with light! Can you see it? Oh! Can you see it? It feels like- li- l-!"



And all the world was still. 



Zero Tolerance



I hate the Zero Tolerance policy in schools. 

My son, who's just six, is getting the message that it is okay for others to push, hit, kick and bully him as long as they don't get caught, that he is not allowed to use force to defend himself, that he must tell a teacher or other authority figure at the school, and that when he does so, the message he receives is, "If I didn't see it happen, I can't do anything about it." 

This is Zero Tolerance?

My son has reported on several occasions that "older boys" have pushed him down, shoved his face in the snow repeatedly, and hit and kicked him repeatedly, and that the issue was not addressed when he told a teacher or other school authority. Now, he's not a consistent target or victim of physical threats, aggression or bullying, but he has said on more than one occasion, "I don't want to get in trouble for fighting because my teacher told me I have to get hit ten times before I can fight back, but I don't like being hit by the bigger kids."

Of course, I know schools don't think it's ok for one child to initiate hurting another child, yet a Zero Tolerance policy effectively castrates everyone - children, educators, parents - by not allowing our children to learn in school that force is a last resort, but if necessary, needs to be employed wisely and effectively. I teach my kids to work towards compromise, that force is a last resort and that it can and should be avoided through verbal conflict resolution. I further teach my children that if they have to use force they should do so only to escape and prevent the perpetration of further aggression and violence on him/her and/or others.

But I don't think it's okay for my children believe it is all right for anyone to incidentally, continually, consistently and/or persistently threaten their safety or invade their physical boundaries. In spite of the "Zero Tolerance" policy schools have adopted, I continue to teach them and give them the message (after reinforcing the difference between aggression and accidents that happen during physical play) that they should: 1st, walk away from the aggression and tell a teacher or other school authority; 2nd, if the aggression continues, they should attempt to compromise and work it out with the aggressor; 3rd, if the aggression pattern continues further they should verbally assert their physical boundaries by yelling "STOP" or "NO"; 4th, if the aggression pattern continues, they should fight back as hard as they can using physical force if they are being physically hurt and threatened, and then remove themselves from the situation and get help from a trusted adult as quickly as possible. 

Honestly, my child's sense of self-esteem and safety are worth far more than the risk of suspension or expulsion from school, although it's so clearly wrong that such a choice is forced on parents.

If martial arts were mandated as part of our national curriculum our children would be taught non-violent conflict resolution skills, violence and aggression as a last resort, wise and efficient use of force, and the importance and practice of physical and mental discipline, fitness and health. Hey, I can dream! 

Zero Tolerance negates the learning of effective assertiveness while creating an atmosphere and environment in which aggression and violence are not appropriately addressed and The Law of the Jungle becomes the covert but primary message. The evidence shows that aggression and violence in schools have escalated despite Zero Tolerance policies. As we all learn in the kitchen and in cutting our lawns, a dull and neglected blade is far more dangerous and ineffective than a sharp and properly maintained blade.

Not only is a Zero Tolerance policy an ineffective way to establish and maintain a safe and realistically ordered learning environment, it is also counter to my personal, parental, and family beliefs and values and sets up an unnecessary and counterproductive conflict between many parents and the school—between most parents and most schools—and can leave my son, and other children, in a state of uncertainty, distrust and confusion about their worth and safety. 

It's not right that my son should not fear punishment for using force to clearly set his boundaries with other children or people when they are threatening or physically invading his boundaries, and he should not have to deal with mixed messages between his parents and school authorities while at school. 

It is interesting that our national position on school aggression, violence and bullying is so blatantly incongruent with our national position on how far out of the way we can send our military to kill others who have successfully killed some of in a vain attempt to prevent those others from killing any more of us, while at the same time we practice not physically defending defenseless people who are being killed at the genocidal level in places that don't have anything coveted by us. It is also interesting that both extremes, our tyrannical national position and our Zero Tolerance educational position, lead uselessly to even more ineffective and unnecessary violence and aggression.

Aggression and violence are part of life, and they will always be so, and it is a great disservice to our children to give them the message that they are incapable of being responsible for their own safety and the safety of others. It is a great disservice to effectively castrate our children and force them into victim mentality and behaviors.

Actually, my son handles these mixed messages very well. He's a very caring, kind and earnest boy. He's concerned with doing what's good and helpful. He asks me about these inconsistencies because he sees that they don't make sense and because he feels he's being told something different than what he knows is best. He has a good sense of self-worth and he knows the underlying, if perhaps unintentional or misguided, message of the school is that rules and authority are more important than his safety, that he's incapable of judging when to use force, and that, if he does use force to stop someone from hurting him or someone else, the reason for his use of force was irrelevant and he is no different than those initiating aggression and violence. He knows, in his own six-year-old way, that he is being put in an inappropriate and unacceptable position. 

This relatively minor, but important concern we have about my son, is simply a reflection of the cultural message we are giving our children through our educational institutions, particularly to our boys, about their natural, good and valuable instinct for, and love of, survival, competition, and the importance and value of fighting for what's good and right individually and collectively. 

We are raising generations full of more and more dull, neglected blades that are dangerous to themselves, our culture and the world. If we don't teach our boys how to temper their aggression into the capacity for assertiveness, physical and otherwise, in the service of what is good and life-affirming for themselves and the rest of us, they will continue to feel shame about their innate and valuable survival and competition instinct, conceal their weapons and go off half-cocked, trigger-happy and feeling powerless and castrated into a world that they see primarily as threatening and opposing to them. 

Culturally, we act shocked at the violence of our male youth, yet we are responsible for giving them little other choice. One definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome.

We can see the results of this all around us in child and adolescent behavior: gangs, substance abuse, risky and abusive sex, teenage pregnancy, and the list goes on... And we can see what happens in our country (and world) when we allow adult males who see the world as an unsupervised playground through immature adolescent glasses that is either to be dominated or feared to lead us. The instinct that is expressed as destruction, aggression and violence in the world is the same instinct that protects and serves life.

I see the results in of this cultural and Zero Tolerance school problem in most, if not all, of the boys and male adolescents referred from schools or from the legal system into my services as a psychologist. I see the underlying identity and self-esteem wounds that our cultural messages cause boys. I see the pain, violence, defiance, anger, resentment, depression and destructiveness to self and others that is a result of the messages we give our boys. These messages should not be tolerated in our schools, yet we continue to perpetrate the very violence on our boys that we attempt to force out of them with our Zero Tolerance practices.

If the cultural points I make seem out of proportion to the concerns I have for my child in one elementary school then it's important to remember that, after the home, the schools are where our children spend the most time, and where they receive their earliest societal and cultural messages, and the schools are a reflection of our best cultural thinking and values on many levels besides education. 

That should frighten us all.

I happen to be a member of a growing group of parents who can no longer, in good conscience, allow our educational system and institutions to be the primary educators of our children. We have chosen to use school as a supplement to home education and we know that we do not have to depend on schools to educate our children. We also know that the institution and system are not necessarily a reflection on or of the talented and dedicated educators attempting to work within it. 

It seems to me that schools are losing the war through attrition and friendly fire.



Zero Tolerance



Hi folks, sorry there was no story last week and thanks to everyone Who wrote to find out why. The main reason was the power outages during the fourth of July week. I wrote large chunks of this story on my iPhone but still had no way to send it. Thanks as usual to mikothebaby for editing this one. I really appreciate how hard her job is after looking at a story that hopefully you'll be reading soon from a first time writer here. Anyway enjoy.SS06

* * * * * *

I've always had a thing for redheads in general and this redhead in particular. In fact, it was probably the woman standing in front of me asking me to dance that started my whole fascination with redheads in the first place. All of us, every red blooded man that I know has a dream girl. That perfect combination of sex appeal, pulchritude and personality that God put on this mud ball purely for us.

And just as every man is different, so too are the embodiments of our dreams varied. Some prefer smoky eyed brunettes that are rounded to the point where they just ooze sex. Others prefer slim, blue eyed, blond ice princesses that are so frosty that every time they open their mouths a little light comes on inside. There are those who prefer exotic African or Asian descendants and some who swear that only Latin women will do. But for me, it has always been redheads. Ever since this one walked into my life when I started high school.

Marian Jones has ruled every fantasy I have had since my freshman year at Winterhalter high school. I can still remember the day we all sat down in class waiting for the teacher to take attendance. Just as the teacher got to her name on the role, she stepped into the room. "I'm here," she said. Her voice was so musical you could dance to it. And come to think of it that voice hasn't changed since high school. She was already a woman among girls even then.

Nope, before you start thinking that she was one of the girls who developed early and had gigantic boobs in high school let me rein you in. Marian has never had nor will she ever have huge boobs. In fact, I don't think she'd ever had average sized boobs, but what she has are perfect just like the rest of her.

Imagine if you will, milky white skin that never tans. She has a smattering of freckles across a perfect nose and cheeks. Her mouth is so perfectly shaped that I could spend weeks just staring at it alone. Her green eyes nearly glow they're so luminous and when she smiles the entire room lights up.

All of that pales in comparison to her crowning glory though. The thing that most people notice most and first about Marian is her fire engine bright red hair. Her hair extends to the top of her butt and moves with the slightest twitch of her head.

Back then in high school she was thin, as she is now. The years in between have given her a more mature shape but she's never going to be voluptuous or even curvy. It doesn't matter. Her appeal goes beyond mere measurements and almost any guy alive would pick her over any other woman.

That first day in high school we were both freshmen and both in the same class. It was a first day under difficult conditions and I'd like to say that our mutual nervousness drew us together and forged a bond that has transcended everything that has tried to separate us.

Well...I'd like to say that...but I can't. From that first day our lives took different paths. She immediately took over the school and breezed through high school. She loved high school and enjoyed it. Although only a freshman, she became, much to the dismay of the senior, junior and sophomore girls, the queen of the school.

They actually changed some of the rules for her. She became a cheerleader without ever trying out. Among all of the blonds and brunettes in the school she stood out. Several of the girls who thought it was simply her hair that made her special, dyed theirs and were simply laughed at.

She was voted queen or princess of everything possible and was also on the honor roll. Every one nominated her for everything possible. If there was a committee or a club or a society, she was in it. And as far as our romance goes, it was strictly a one sided affair. I loved her, like the flowers love the sun and I think she saw me once when we were both taking a picture for the honor roll. I'm sure that although we had four years of classes together and I sat next to her in math for two years straight that she didn't even know my name. Okay I'm wrong about that, I'm sure she knew my name.

I was a total geek in high school. For those of you who don't understand what that means, the Geeks are the kids that the nerds are too cool to hang out with. Geeks are not smart enough to be nerds, not coordinated enough to be jocks, and too socially inept to be in between. My proudest moment in high school was when I was voted vice president of the juggling club. The juggling club had three members that year; the president, the vice president and the member. Actually I was the member until the former vice president quit. That was how I got to be vice president. My senior year, I thought I'd get to be president, but that was the year the principal decided that the juggling club should be phased out.

Anyway, my dream princess did get to hear about me regularly. I was the guy that was always the butt of her superstar athlete boyfriend's practical jokes. Maurice Green was the male version of Marian in our school. They were the pinnacle of our high school pecking order although they were complete opposites.

Marian, was quiet, kind and beautiful. She was polite to everyone she met and never had a cross word to say to anyone. For a girl who was that beautiful it was surprising. Maurice, who liked to be called Mo, was huge, imposing, arrogant, rude and an asshole. Those were his good qualities believe it or not. He had four years to pick on the nerds and geeks in our school and he loved every minute of it.

To Mo's credit though, he picked on everyone he considered beneath him, which of course included everyone he ever met. He was the kind of guy who simply walked off the field after a football game or basketball game without bothering to shake the hands of the opponents. "Well, duh, of course we won," was his usual statement.

Marian was so polite that before and after every game she went and introduced herself to the cheerleaders on the other side and coordinated when they'd cheer or do their routines so both squads would have a chance to really perform. Most people, even the athletes on the other teams loved her, but most of the opposing athletes hated Mo. Well that isn't exactly true, actually most of the guys on our team hated Mo too.

Mo was the quarterback on our football team, the center on our basketball team and the last two years he also ran track. Some people said that Mo was a three letter man and that was as far as he got in the alphabet too.

Perhaps Mo's greatest achievement was when he asked me to show him some juggling moves. He had a few guys around and he said they'd gone to the circus and seen some jugglers. Sensing an opportunity to makes friends among the popular crowd I quickly whipped out my juggling balls and started to juggle. They yawned before I got started.

"Can you juggle clubs?" asked Mo.

"Well, I've never tried," I said. "I'd probably have to start out with two first just to get my rhythm and the feel of them."

"Great," said Mo. "Some of these guys don't think you can juggle two clubs. Show em' what you've got."

He reached behind him and slapped two clubs that looked like bowling pins into my hands. I tried to lightly toss them into the air in front of me as I had with my balls. For some reason the clubs didn't leave my hands and I ended up smacking myself in the face with them repeatedly as Mo and his cronies laughed uproariously.

Finally, I realized that Mo had coated the clubs with some very powerful super glue. Even worse was the next day when I had to go to school with two black eyes and the skin on my hands irritated. Mo met me in the hallways and told everyone who would listen that I had burned my hands jacking off without lotion.

Needless to say, high school wasn't my favorite time of life. But it passed, as all things do. College was better but not by much. And finally I entered real life. In college, I'd majored in computer science and did really well. I got my degree early and went to work for a large company and started making some decent money.

To make a long story short, I met or should I say re-met a girl that I'd gone through high school with and we started dating. Now, twelve years after high school, Marian Jones, my dream fantasy woman wants to dance with me. To tell you the truth I'd love to dance with her, but I still have questions.

I can tell you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Well, to fully understand this situation we have to go back two years. Our school is really big on reunions. Every year there's a general reunion of all the high school classes. There's also a five, ten, fifteen, etc. year reunion for specific classes. Two years ago was our ten year high school reunion. That was where this shit all started. Shit, to fully understand this we'd need to go back a bit before the reunion.

As you already know from the background information, I was not one of those people who peaked in high school. In fact, I'd probably have to say that high school was a time in my life that I'd rather forget. After college as we've established, I'd gotten a job with a large software firm. I did great writing code for and helping customers learn to use their products. The problem was that sometimes when giant companies come up with products they tend to have a 'this is what it is' attitude. You know how Microsoft introduces another version of Excel; they include all of the things that THEY think will make it better but usually ignore what the customers who use the product on a daily basis seem to want. Well our company seemed to do that too.

In my spare time, I wrote code for fun and I'd experimented with business software. So I'm pretty sure you can tell what happened next. I had a meeting with a customer, a woman who owned her own small boutique. Being an older woman, she really didn't have the greatest grasp of how to use our spreadsheet. I spent a couple of days with her trying to help her improve but it just wasn't happening.

My boss told me that we couldn't afford to give anyone as much personal time as I was giving the woman and to move on. He told me it was time to let her sink or swim. I wasn't that kind of guy though. So I arranged to continue teaching the woman to use our software, only I'd have to do it off the clock.

So that was how I ended up going to Florence Joyner's home. Mrs. Joyner's boutique closed at six and I got off work at five. It gave me a chance to go home and get cleaned up. Mrs. Joyner was a widow. At fifty eight years old she was still beautiful and she worked out religiously. Her body could put a lot of younger women to shame.

I spent a lot of time trying to teach her how to use my company's version of an office suite. She ended up teaching me a lot more. It started out innocently. Mrs. Joyner often changed into more comfortable clothing after work. She wore shorts that showed off those still incredible, nearly sixty year old legs and loose fitting tops. One evening I could tell that she wasn't wearing a bra under her top by the movement of her breasts. I tried to be polite and not stare but I couldn't help it. I think that she noticed that I was trying not to look and it turned her on.

Before long her nipples were making small tents in the material of the shirt and her arousal was obvious. "Steven, what are you thinking right now?" she asked me.

"How to get you to understand Macros," I said.

"Tell the truth?" she said. "You were thinking about my breasts weren't you?"

"Maybe," I said. Before I could do anything else she'd raised her shirt and released them. There I was, a twenty two year old virgin looking at the breasts of a woman who could almost be my grandmother. My hard on almost poked a hole in my jeans. But not for long; Flo freed it and took over the role of teacher that evening. And for the next six weeks the lessons doubled. We got together two or three times a week for computer and sex lessons.

It was during that time that I decided that it would be easier for me to develop a software suite strictly for Florence and I did. She loved it and told a lot of her friends who owned businesses about it. Before too long, I had all kinds of customers and was making a nice piece of change on the side. Florence had also convinced me to start running and working out. I slowly began to add muscle to my skinny frame. I was probably never going to be a giant muscular behemoth but I did get into better shape.

If life had a plan for me, that was only the beginning. Without even realizing it I was on track towards success. Florence had a son who was a top executive in a large sales company. For years at tax time he'd send over one of the accountants who worked for him to do his mom's books. That year, with Florence using my software there was almost nothing to do.

When word got back to Al Joyner, Flo's son, he wanted to know what the change was and that was how he and I met. That led to me securing my first corporate account and quitting my day job. After a couple of more corporate accounts came in, I'd had to hire three more programmers just to keep up with all of the accounts. The small business accounts were also more than I could keep up with. It started to become difficult to handle so I started looking for a secretary to help keep things organized.

The person who affected me the most of all of the women I interviewed was a woman named Dana Plato. I was sure I'd heard that name from somewhere before. Even when she sat across from me while I looked over her resume, there was something familiar about her. After looking over things and seeing that she really didn't have the experience or education we needed, I handed her resume back to her and told her that we'd be in touch. I was sure that both of us knew that we wouldn't be.

"In a way I'm glad I didn't get the job," she said.

"How do you know that you didn't get it?" I asked. "We haven't made any decisions yet."

"Steven, you're being polite like you always have," she said. "I've had a rough few months since college. My only experience is fast food. I majored in general education in college because I had no idea what I wanted to do. When the money ran out and I had to go to work, I was nowhere near close to having enough credits in any one thing to actually earn a degree. We both know that I don't have nearly enough knowledge of what you do or the secretarial skills for the job, but it's good to see that someone I know has become successful. It's really encouraging. So now maybe I can go back to school and actually do something with my life. In a couple of years maybe you'll give me another interview and this time I'll be ready for it."

"Do we know each other?" I asked. I took another look at her. She was very nice but almost invisible. Her eyes were a dull brown. Her hair was mousy brown. The only things I could say about her facial features were that they were normal. She was neither skinny nor fat her body was average. She was the kind of woman you saw everywhere. She could probably blend into the scenery and never be noticed because nothing about her stood out.

"Steven Grant," she said exasperatedly. "Not you too!"

She put her hand on one hip and stood up as if she was about to leave. "We had almost the same schedule for most of high school. We even did a group project together for science. I came over to your parent's house. Your mom made us cookies. You drank Pepsi with yours because you told me we were too old for milk."

"Oh Shit," I gushed. "Sorry, Dinah..."

"It's Dana," she said. "And don't worry, no one ever remembers me. I was just a face in the crowd throughout high school. Why should you be any different?"

"Dana, I'd have given anything to be you during high school," I said. "At least by being anonymous, you were safe. Try being the constant butt of the jokes of one of the most popular guys in school."

"You should have said something to the principal," she said smiling. I could tell that she was trying to hold back her laughter.

"So you're remembering some of them, aren't you?" I asked. She nodded and had to look away.

"That time you went out for the track team and they tied your shoes to the starting blocks was priceless," she laughed. She couldn't hold it back anymore and just erupted in laughter. "You lunged out of the blocks like a fucking rocket. It was so awesome. It was like you were putting everything you had on the line for one shot to be good at something. You gave it your all and everyone in that crowd felt it. But your feet couldn't actually move so your lunge just stretched you out and you landed face down on that asphalt track and just lay there moaning in frustration. Everyone in the school was laughing at you."

"Yeah, Dana," I said. "That was really funny. I dislocated my jaw and it took seven stitches to close the gash in my chin. If you look closely you can still see the scar. And, as usual, all Mo got for it was a pat on the back. They did suspend him for two practices but he didn't even miss a game. He just got to sit there on the bench with all of his friends and watch the team practice and complain about what a bad sport I was."

"For the next few weeks everyone in school talked about what an asshole I was, because it was just a joke. Thanks for the memories," I said.

Suddenly she saw that I was serious and maybe she viewed the event from my perspective. Her jaw dropped open and her hand went over her mouth. The look of sorrow on her face let me know that she really hadn't had an idea of the level of pain I went through.

"I'm so sorry Steven," she said. "I just never imagined...Why didn't you talk to the principal?"

"I did, Dana," I said. "But he always made it seem like it was just typical high school mischief. Besides that how would he ever seriously punish the school's golden boy over some no name geek?"

"Maybe being invisible wasn't so bad," she said. "Can I make it up to you? I'll buy you lunch."

I did accept her invitation, if only to show her that there were no hard feelings. That lunch morphed into dinner, which became a series of dates that led to us getting married. Our relationship had a few bumps in the road but nothing serious. Dana came from a broken home. Her dad had been a salesman who cheated on her mom to the point where she finally kicked him out and raised her children alone. Dana never wanted to be in that position and we had an argument or two about me going on the road.

When we finally did get engaged, my accountant insisted on a pre-nup to limit the amount of damage my finances would take in the event of a divorce. Dana had no problems with it. She understood that I'd built my business up before we became involved and she didn't foresee us ever getting divorced anyway. We were like two peas in a pod and we really did love each other. The only thing she insisted on was a Zero tolerance clause in the event of infidelity. If either of us cheated on the other, that person lost all claim to anything we'd accrued outside of my business. It was scary because if I ever did slip, I'd keep my business but I'd lose the house and everything else I had.

But Dana was worth it and I knew that I'd never cheat on her. Dana, besides being my wife was my first genuine relationship. Flo and I had been in a sexual FWB thing but there was no love involved on either side.

To make things even more clear, Dana wasn't a virgin on our wedding night, but I had to teach her everything. The only sex she'd had had been from guys in college who'd just wanted a quick fuck while drunk. She'd done it her first time at twenty and only then because all of her friends were always talking about it.




Zero Tolerance



Maybe I wasn't her first, but I was the first to make her enjoy it and realize what her friends had been talking about. After a while, we were constantly doing it and we experimented with everything we heard about. Having money changed our lives but not as much as you'd expect. We lived well within our means and planned on having children.

We did get a few things. On my part, I drove a brand new Mustang Boss 302 Lacuna model that was barely street legal. Other than that I was the same old guy I'd always been. Dana, on the other hand, drove a big Lexus luxury SUV because all of the wives in our gated community did. She also had some work done.

Well, I had some work done on my car to make it even faster but Dana had the work done on herself. She got breast implants. The first time it was just to make her more normal looking and to make her clothes fit better. The second time around she got stripper boobs. She also bleached her hair blond and got a nose job. She got collagen injections to make her lips fuller and got butt implants as well. She claimed, of course, that she got it all done for me. She said that a man as important as I was should have a wife that everyone noticed.

I'd kept up the runs and workouts that I'd started with Flo and had been seeing results as well. Dana made me go to a different barber. He changed the styling of my hair to make me look less...geeky. I also got contacts because Dana hated my glasses. So, at twenty eight years old we had it all. The business was growing by leaps and bounds and I'd been getting offers to buy me out from several large companies including my former employer.

We had a plan in the works for our lives. We intended for me to back off on working for the next two years and travel. We wanted to see some of the world and go crazy for a couple of years and then settle down to start our family at thirty. It made perfect sense to us.

I can still remember the day the train went off the rails. I can actually remember the second. I'd just brought in the mail and dropped it on the table. Two of the envelopes were invitations for Dana and me to attend our ten year reunion. I immediately dropped mine into the trash. I was surprised when Dana looked at me as if I was crazy and fished it out, wiping the dirt off of it.

"What are you doing Stevie?" she asked.

"Dana, I fucking hated high school," I replied. "I see no reason to go back and relive the worst period of my life. I don't ever want to see that place or those people again. I'd have to have rocks in my head."

"Stevie, our lives are perfect," she said. "We're not alone any more like we were in high school. We have each other. This is our chance to show all of those people who looked down on us or through us, that we're just as good as they are. Can we please go?"

I grumbled a bit, but finally I gave in. I couldn't refuse Dana anything. And she saw a chance to show off to everyone the woman she'd become; where I just saw a night reliving misery. I was an adult now though. There was no way I'd put up with the bullshit I had to deal with back then. I didn't see it as pleasurable but Dana wanted it so badly. What could I say? It takes different strokes to make the world. (Sorry, I had to)

Over the next few days, I discovered that the reunion was more than just a one night affair. It was an entire weekend. It began on Friday with what they called the Welcome Back Ice Breaker. It was supposed to be a chance for us to meet all of our high school buddies again and see what they turned into. Saturday was the beach party picnic, with the dance to follow on Saturday night. Finally, Sunday morning was the farewell breakfast.

"Can we just do the dance and skip the rest?" I asked.

"No Honey we can't," said Dana. "Don't you want to show me off?" Dana was acting really weird. For some reason it seemed as if she was really looking forward to this. I just wanted it to be over but I loved her so again I put up with it.

As the reunion drew closer, Dana went out of her fucking mind. She acted as if the reunion was her coming out party. "Can't we fly there and rent a limo?" she asked. "We need to put a good face on. We have to let people know that they can't push us around anymore. We're important."

"Dana, it's a two hour drive and there's no airport in town. We'd end up having to drive there from the nearest airport to the city which is over an hour away. In this case it's faster to drive. There's also the fact that if things turn shitty, we can leave whenever we want."

"Oh, there will be no leaving Mister," she said. "No one is chasing me away from anything."

Finally the weekend of the reunion came and we argued over which car to drive. I wanted to drive my Boss 302 or my new Shelby 1000. Dana wanted to drive her Lexus. We took the Boss.

All the way there, Dana gave me instructions on what to say and more importantly, what not to say. I promptly forgot them all. Actually, I had no plans of speaking to anyone other than Dana. I intended to take a page from my wife's high school year book and just blend into the scenery. I'd stay in the back and become as anonymous as possible and hope that no one remembered me.

I figured I had a pretty good chance of that because I no longer looked like a geek. With a little bit of luck, I was sure that I might be able to pull this off.

When we drove into town, all eyes were on us before we got to either the hotel or the reunion. My Mustang's two tone black and red paint job and its authoritative growl drew a lot of attention. As Darla looked in every direction with her eyes obscured behind her giant fashionable sunglasses, she began to smile.

"Honey, maybe I like this car after all," she said hugging me. "Everyone who sees it, stops and stares at us."

We checked into our hotel room and dropped off our luggage. While Dana arranged her clothes in the closet I just stretched out on the bed and watched her.

"Stevie, your clothes are going to be wrinkled if you lie down in them," she warned. "We have to make a good first impression. We don't want our classmates to think we're shabby."

"Fuck em'..." I quipped.

After a half hour that I spent relaxing and Dana spent primping, we left to go to the Ice Breaker. I patted the bed vigorously. "Get some rest, buddy. You're going to need it," I said.

"Stevie, why are you talking to the bed?" asked Dana curiously.

"Because when this dog and pony show is over tonight, my dear," I said lovingly as I pulled her to me and gently but firmly grabbed one of her enhanced butt cheeks. "I'm gonna wear your ass out."

"And I'm gonna let you," she snapped back quickly.

Luckily the hotel and conference center that the reunion was held in was only a mile away. If Dana hadn't been with me I'd probably have just walked. But even I have to admit that the stares we got as I pulled my barely legal, not quite under control, muscle car into the parking lot were worth having to ignore and hide from a few assholes I barely remembered.

Normally, when I get out of my, car I leave my sunglasses in it. It's kind of rude to hide behind them when talking to people. But in this case, I thought it was a good idea to use them to at least partially obscure my features. For me this evening wasn't about bonding or remembering. It was about hiding and surviving.

We walked into a large conference room and got into a line with a sign that read, "Check in here." Well, I walked anyway. Dana's shoes were so high that she could barely do more than just shuffle along. Dana had on a pale blue dress that had to be custom fitted. The top had to be let out to fit her boobs. The waist had to be taken in and actually tapered out again to fit her ass. Theoretically, no woman with an ass or boobs as big as hers were should have a waist that small. Her blinding almost white blond hair stood out as well. That light hair contrasted nicely with the pale blue of the dress. It looked like she was sewn into that dress.

Although the dress was tight, it still covered her completely from her neck to mid-calf. It was supposed to be sexy without being slutty. I'm not sure it made it. I got a boner every time I saw her in it.

The shoes she wore were the same shade of blue as the dress. They'd been specially made to match it. When I'd joked about it, Dana got really defensive and reminded me that she hadn't said a God damned thing about me having my brake calipers painted the same shade of red as the car's stripes and my rotor hats painted gloss black. I quickly shut up about it.

Anyway, those shoes had heels so high that most strippers wouldn't wear them. Dana clutched my arm protectively as we walked towards the registration area. With her mincing little steps people were walking around us and past us at an alarming rate.

They also stared at Dana too. Most of the men noticed her ass and tits. I heard more than a few whistles. Most of the women noticed that Dana was orange. She'd obviously spent too much time in the tanning booth. But I loved her so I didn't say anything. Especially since this was her night.

As we stood in the line and waited to get our name tags, several of the people around me tried to start conversations. I tried to give them the impression that I wasn't interested in conversing but I tried not to be rude about it.

The guy in line right behind me wouldn't take no for an answer though. He kept peppering me with comments every so often until I realized that he had no idea who I was. He also spent most of the time that he was talking to me staring at Dana's ass and boobs.

The guy was shorter than I am but heavier as well. His short close cropped hair and glasses made him appear to be far older than I am. His features were really familiar to me and all of a sudden I knew him. "Marty?" I said. "Marty McFly?"

"Uh...yeah" he said looking up at me. "You're not going to try to give me a wedgie or anything are you? We're too old for that shit now."

It just seemed strange to me that Marty thought I was one of the guys who gave wedgies while we were in school.

"Marty, get a grip," I said. "I've never given you a wedgie before, so why would I start now?" He looked at me still wondering who I was. In a way my anonymity was intoxicating. I enjoyed knowing who Marty was while he had no idea whom he was speaking to.

"So what are you doing with yourself these days?" I asked. He looked at me as if he was dying to ask who I was but to be polite he answered my question.

"Actually...I'm in the market for a new job," he said. "I'm working now but I'm not really happy where I am."

"So what do you do?" I asked.

"I'm an accountant," he said.

"Shut the fuck up," I snapped happily. "Dana, Marty grew up to be an accountant."

Dana turned around looked down her nose at Marty and latched even tighter onto my arm. "Uhm that's great, Honey," she said before she continued searching the crowd to see who was looking at her.

"That's the reaction I get from everyone," he said. "Being an accountant just isn't exciting."

"Unless you need one," I said. "And I need one. How do you feel about relocating?"

He looked at me strangely. "Uhm...that would be okay, I guess..." he ventured, still wondering if I was being serious.

Before we could talk anymore, we both hushed along with all of the guys in the line as we watched. A woman about four places ahead of us took off the scarf covering her head and it was as if the sun suddenly came out. She shook her head and at least three or four feet of curly red hair was set free. A gasp went through the crowd and the jaw of every man in the room, except two, dropped.

One of those jaws that didn't drop was mine. The other belonged to a big guy moving through the crowd towards us. He was being followed by two other guys and it was hilarious, at least to me.

Mo hadn't aged well. He was still as big as a house, but where most of it used to be muscle; there was a lot of fat now. He still had the same swagger, but it no longer affected me the same way. I didn't feel the slightest bit of fear or awe. In fact, looking at him then, I was ready to leave.

His clothes didn't impress me. Mo was wearing a suit, but not a good one. In fact, he was the only guy in the room who'd worn a suit. It was just too hot for a suit and especially since this was just an ice breaker. There was no one here to impress. Most of the guys had elected to save the suits for the dance.

Mo's hairline was also in full retreat. It looked like Mo's hair was afraid of his face and was moving as far away from it as it could. He still had the same superior sneer on his face as he walked towards the front of the line.

The two guys who were just a step behind him and out to his sides were even funnier. I recognized them instantly, Todd Bridges, who used to protect Mo, at left tackle and Gary Coleman, our former star running back. I'd heard that Gary had bombed out in the pros. He'd hurt his back or something. Maybe that was the explanation for the way he walked now. His step was punctuated with a pronounced limp every so often.

The three of them walked up near the front of line and Mo started talking as loudly as he always did.

"Why are you waiting in line?" he asked. "Just grab our stuff and let's get in there."

"There are people who got here ahead of us, Honey," she said. It was strange. The musical tone of that voice still affected me. The difference was that it had matured. Instead of being kittenish and teasing, it spoke of maturity and compassion. The way she spoke to him wasn't like a girl who could give him something he wanted badly, it was more like a mother trying to gently teach her child that he was behaving badly.

"Why don't you go outside and look for that car you wanted to see. When I get us registered, I'll come and find you," she said.

He nodded and turned around glaring at everyone in the vicinity. Then in an extremely good Eric von Zipper imitation, he snapped his finger and pointed at the door. Then he and his cronies scooted out to the parking lot. It was all I could do not to laugh.

"God, he's still a dick," I heard someone say. "Why does she put up with him?"

I found myself trying to catch a glimpse of Marian, just as I had in high school. Before I actually saw her though, the hand squeezing mine, squeezed a lot harder.

"Zero Tolerance means you walk away with nothing," she said. "That witch and her boyfriend lorded it over everyone all through high school. Those days are over," said Dana. "You're married and happily, remember?"

I just smiled at her. Beside us Marty nodded vigorously. "She's a hundred percent right," he said. "Fuck them. Let's talk about you needing an accountant."

Dana looked over at Marty as if noticing him for the first time and smiled. Marty caught her smile and elbowed me.

"Where did you meet your lovely wife?" he asked.

"Good Lord, Marty," I exclaimed. "She went to school with us. She used to be Dana Plato."

"She used to be who?" he asked. He looked at her and then looked at her again. He pulled out his year book and looked up her picture. "Wow!" he said.

"The years have been good to you, baby," he gushed. "If I'd known that you'd turn out like this..."

Their exchange was interrupted by voices from the front of the line. Mrs. Garrett, one of our old teachers who was working at the registration desk had a problem.

"Is that Mrs. Garrett?" asked someone in the line. "She probably ran out of liquor and can't function. She was already a drunk ten years ago. It's good to see that nothing has changed."

"I hated that bitch," someone else said. "All that shit about the facts of life got on my nerves."

"Isn't it funny that there was never a Mr. Garrett?"

At that moment, I saw a cloud of red hair move towards the front of the line. She went up and started speaking to the women at the registration desk and simply took over for Mrs. Garrett. Within a few moments the line was moving along smoothly and it was moving faster than it had before.

Marian seemed to remember most of the people in line and simply had them sign the list and then picked out their names tags. Everyone was wondering why Mrs. Garrett had taken so long to do the job.

As we stepped up to the table she smiled at us and my legs turned to water.

Dana glared at her instantly, but Marian didn't return the anger which made Dana even angrier. If a teen aged Marian had been beautiful, a nearly thirty year old Marian was transcendent. I could barely look at her. It was like gazing into the sun.

"I'm sorry," she smiled. "I don't recognize either of you. Which one of you went to our school?"

"Both of us did you dizzy bitch," snapped Dana. "I'm Dana Plato and this is Steven Grant."

"Stevie?" gushed Marty behind me. "Little Stevie from the juggling club? Holy Shit. I didn't recognize you."

Marian looked at me and smiled again. "You always did have such strength of character," she said. "Sometimes I wondered how you took it. My heart went out to you, when they did all of those awful things. I wish..."

"Shove that bullshit up your boney ass, bitch," snapped Dana. "Just get our fucking name tags and let us go. Shit, what do you think this is, a reunion?"

"Sorry," said Marian. "I was only..."

"Ten years too God damned late," said Dana grabbing our tags and leaving the desk.

As we walked into the larger room where everyone was supposed to mingle Marty came running up behind us. "Dana, don't you think you were uhm..." I began.

She spun in place and looked at me. "I was what?" she snapped.

"Rude," I supplied.

"That bitch is acting the same way now that she acted back then," snapped Dana. "Only I'm not a fucking teenager any more so I'm not going to put up with it."

"Dana, she didn't know you back then. You guys didn't hang out together. She had no contact with you and you don't look anything like you did back then. Her not recognizing you was kind of a compliment," I said.

"Steve, not you too," she said. "Every guy in high school always stood up for that bitch. You guys act like her shit doesn't stink. I can't believe my own husband is taking her side over mine."

"Dana, I'm not taking her side over you. I'm always on your side. For better or for worse, you're the one I care about. And that's why I felt it was necessary to tell you that you were acting like a bitch. I know that we got treated like shit in high school. A lot of people did. Most of us got over it. So there's no need for us to act the way they did. They were kids back then, we're adults now. Just have fun remembering the way things were and how they turned out. If you really want revenge find someone you used to hate and compare your life to theirs. You turned out pretty good. I'm very happy with our life, aren't you?"

She kissed me and nodded. "Very happy, baby," she said.

"So let all of that old shit, go," I said. "It's not worth getting all worked up over. Now go mingle, unless you want to talk about accounting styles with me and Marty."

As she left, Marty and I started talking about business. It turned out that Marty was a CPA and could easily handle my need for a permanent accountant. Of course, he'd actually be serving more as a CFO. Hopefully, I'd eventually be able to allow him to make a lot of the financial decisions on his own. As we talked, we noticed that there were several other people who'd zoomed in on our conversation. They came closer and closer to us and finally a woman that I didn't remember stepped up and introduced herself.

She was a stout woman with a handsome face. What made her look nicer was her rosy cheeked smile. "I'm Natalie Green," she said. "I was in your class like everyone else here and I've been listening to you talking about a job. What company are you hiring for and do you have any other positions available?"

"What about marketing?" asked a man who stood a few feet away from where Natalie was standing.




Zero Tolerance



"Do you have any sales positions?" asked a musical voice in the crowd. The assembled people parted like the red sea and Marian stepped towards us.

"Um guys this isn't a job fair, it's a reunion," I said. "We have the whole weekend and I'll try to get some information on my company and make it available to anyone who's interested. I'll try to arrange it so that after the reunion is over, anyone who's interested can drive down and take a look at what we do and see how you'd fit in; but for now, let's all get back to catching up on each other's lives."

Just as I said that, a couple of our old teachers stepped up to the microphone at the rear of the room and started outlining the events of the next two days. We were supposed to use that evening to catch up with old friends. Refreshments and drinks were being provided in a room not far from the one we were in. The next day would be the big day. Saturday morning was the breakfast followed by the big beach party picnic. The dance was Saturday night and the farewell breakfast early Sunday morning. They were still looking for people to fill out spots in the athletic events. This year they'd decided to do something different. Instead of all of the traditional picnic type games like sack races or three legged races, they wanted to go bigger.

There were three events and I instantly knew who'd had a hand in planning the events. There was a basketball game, a football game and a race around the High school's track. Surprisingly, there was no baseball, tennis or anything like that. Was it just a coincidence that the three sports picked, were the three sports that Mo had lettered in?

The idea was to put together a group of guys to play football against the high school team from all those years ago. Another group to play against the basketball team and anyone who wanted to do so could enter the one mile race. I decided to skip all three. Mo and his friends seemed to be salivating at the chance to dominate a bunch of out of shape almost thirty year old arm chair athletes. They wanted more than anything else to relive their glory days.

"I wonder whose idea this shit was?" asked several people in the crowd. Everyone went back to talking to the people around them. Marty and I were talking to a couple of the most interested people from our prior discussion. I noticed Marian talking to Mo as I scanned the room looking for Dana. She was on the other side of the room completely surrounded by guys.

I started trying to make my way over to her but I found my path blocked by Mo and his cohorts.

"So uhm, you're Steve huh?" he said. "I guess I kind of owe you some sort of apology for the way I treated you in the old days." He stuck out his hand and I looked at it.

"This isn't a trick," he said.

"Look Maurice..."I began.

"My friends call me Mo," he smiled.

"Look, the past is over. There's no way for us to go back to that. I'm not the guy I was back then..."I began again.

"My thoughts exactly," he said. "That's some car you've got out there. And the chick you married, my God, she didn't look like that in school. If I'd seen that coming, I'd have gone after her myself." He smiled broadly and his friends nodded.

"Anyway the old ball and chain, mine not yours, tells me that you own your own company now and that you might be looking for..." Even as he droned on I noticed that Marian had moved into range and also that Dana was heading straight for me at an even faster clip.

They got to us at almost the same time. Marian smiled at me as she stepped next to Mo. Dana grabbed my arm and pulled me to her. "Honey, tell everyone we'll see them in the morning. We still have to check into our hotel," she said loudly.

I waved at the people who were standing around us and allowed Dana to pull me out of the room.

As soon as we were out of earshot Dana lit into me. "That makes three times I've caught you making cow eyes at that bitch," she snapped. "You do remember our Zero Tolerance agreement, don't you?"

"So you standing there like an island, in a sea of guys staring at you, doesn't matter?" I asked. "You get to do whatever you want but I'm on lock down?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked. "I can't help it if men want to look at me. But you need to stay away from that witch."

"Dana, not once out of the two times that I've spoken with Marian have I initiated the conversation or sought her out. She's happily married to that block of cement that you pulled me away from," I said.

"I've been watching her the whole time that we were there," snapped Dana. "She never took her eyes off of you. She was the one who pointed you out to Mo, dummy. And I'm not having it. That bitch thinks everyone is supposed to bow down to her. She thinks she can have any and every guy she sees and she can't have mine. Can you believe she's already had some idiot nominate her for reunion queen?"

"Who cares?" I asked. "Dana, you have to stop letting all of this childish shit get to you. Do you want to just go home now? I've told you from the beginning that we drove so we could leave at any time. Maybe we should just go now."

"Okay, I'll calm down," she said. "Besides wasn't someone supposed to, and I quote, "Tear my ass up?" Did you mean that literally or figuratively?"

"Both," I smirked.

"Well let's get to it," she said, taking my hand again.

As soon as we got back to the car, I lit up the tires heading out of the parking lot. It was a good thing that our hotel was close by. When we got into our room, Dana's dress was on the floor before the door closed and I noticed that she wasn't wearing anything under it.

She dove onto the bed and spread her legs as wide as she could get them. I got undressed as quickly as I could. I reached for her and started rubbing her bald pussy and noticed how wet she already was.

"We don't have time for foreplay," she said. "I'm already so wet. You don't know how exciting it was to have all of those guys staring at me," she said. "But I'm a good girl. I got excited as hell and then went and got my husband. You're the only one who gets this pussy."

I don't know what it was about the way she said that, but it turned me on something awful. Maybe it was the fact that back in high school I couldn't have even gotten close to a girl, but now one of the women that everyone at the reunion was talking about, only wanted me. My dick was as hard as an I-beam. I guess that the mental aspects of sex are really important because this was the same Dana that I'd had sex with the previous evening and most of the ones before that, but now I wanted to nail her to that bed.

She grabbed me by my hard on and pulled me into her. I plunged balls deep into her moistened socket in one thrust. She moaned loudly and bucked her hips up to mine.

"That's it baby, fuck me," she said. Her legs fell out to the sides and I started pounding away at her. After a while of that I don't know how but my mind wandered. With my eyes tightly shut I saw another face in front of me and the pounding stopped. I opted for slower more gentle strokes and imagined a halo of bright red hair cascading around us.

"So good," I moaned as my lips locked to hers. I swear those lips tasted like strawberries. Dana started pushing her tongue into my mouth and she moved into her favorite position. She was still flat on her back but her legs locked around my waist restricting our thrusts. We locked into a tighter, shorter, more fractured rhythm and my dick hammered against her cervix. Our pubic bones ground against each other and I could feel the flood gates beginning to open.

"Oh, Stevie," she moaned. Her arms wrapped around my upper body as her fingernails sank into the muscles of my back. "Give it to me, baby, she hissed. "I'm all yours." I could feel every inch of her vaginal walls massaging my blood filled battering ram as she tried to milk every drop of sperm out of me. Her words became less intelligible and she started humping me harder.

After a few moments of that, I couldn't hold back and just let go inside of her. She kept humping against me until she got every last drop out of me. She rolled over and immediately started sucking all of our combined juices off of my glistening rod. It only took her a few minutes before I was hard again. She rolled over and positioned herself in front of me. She reached back and pulled her cheeks as far apart as she could get them. Her anus seemed to wink at me obscenely. I spit into my hand and wiped it gently around her rosebud and then carefully pushed the head of my dick against it. With both of us straining and forcing ourselves against each other it wasn't long before the head popped past her sphincter ring and then I waited there for a few second to let her adjust.

"Ahh," she said. "Go slowly, baby. We haven't done this in a while." I slowly pushed and felt the tightness of her forbidden passage threatening to either crush my dick or spit it back out. "Mmm, ohh," she moaned. "Stevie, oh fuck."

I continued to lengthen my gentle in and out strokes until my lower abdomen hit her hips. Then I backed off and pushed her back down changing the angle. I didn't want to rub up against those fake pillows they'd put in to make her ass rounder. I enjoyed sex with Dana, but I'm not sure she noticed that I often rubbed her sides or her back, but I never touched her ass or her breasts. I think that subconsciously I wanted to make love to her, not the silicone or saline additions she had in her.

I started stroking in that tight channel even harder. Both of us were bathed in sweat and Dana was pushing herself back against me and moaning even more. I grabbed her shoulders and started really ramming myself into her.

She was sucking in big gulps of air and slamming her ass back at me just as forcefully. "Fuck my ass, Stevie," she yelled. That was all I could take. It was too tight and I wanted to fill her ass with my essence. For the second time that evening I emptied myself into her. As the spasms subsided, I lay heavily on top of her and nuzzled my lips into the side of her neck. I couldn't help it, I started to nip and bite at her. "Oh, shit!" she moaned, turning her lips to kiss me.

"You want some more?" she asked.

"Dana, I love you so much it's just stupid," I said. "But we'll have to wait until later, because right now I can barely move."

"That's the way it's supposed to be," she said. "And I don't want you to move anyway." As my boner softened and her anal muscles forced me out, we settled into each other's arm and fell asleep, still bathed in sweat and the combination of our secretions.

I woke up first the next morning and started trailing my fingers down her side. Her hand clamped onto mine like a vise.

"Uh unh," she said. "No way, Jose´."

"I thought this was supposed to be my pussy and I could have it whenever I wanted it," I said. "Isn't that what you're always telling me?"

"It is YOURS and you CAN have it whenever you want it," she smirked. "Even right now when I feel like someone pounded the shit out of both of my holes down there. I'd give it to you in a heartbeat, but you have something to do today. And you're going to need all of your energy. So you save it for tonight after the dance. Maybe we'll do something quick and nasty during the dance if I can't wait that long."

"So what am I doing that's more important than this?" I asked rubbing her labia. She was beginning to respond and then pushed my hand away.

"Stop it Steven," she snapped. "I want you to play in that stupid sports thingy."

"Oh fuck no," I snapped. "Why would I want to put myself in a position to be abused by those Neanderthals when I can stay here and fuck you all day long?"

"All day long?" she asked dreamily. I just nodded

"Over and over," I added. She bit her lip as if she was having trouble deciding.

"No, we need this," she said. "I was working hard yesterday, but you've barely begun to scratch the surface. By today I'll have won but I don't want to be up there without you."

"Okay Dana, spill it," I said.

"I want you to run for reunion king," she said. "I'm sure that if you tried, you could beat Mo. There are a lot of people around here who hate his fucking guts. I'm pretty sure that based on all of those guys you were complaining about last night that I can beat your dream girl. My body is much better than hers is." I wasn't so sure of that last statement. Sure Dana had much bigger tits, but they were fake. Her ass was fake too and facially she couldn't compare to Marian. Marian's milky white skin and freckles were much more appealing, at least to me, than Dana's too dark bottle tan.

"I got two words for ya," I said. "Fuck and no."

An hour later, I was standing on the beach in front of a buffet table with an alternately frowning and pouting Dana.

I wore baggy shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Dana had on a cover-up that stretched all the way down to her knees. We looked across the beach at the tables that had been set-up and saw Mo and his friends loudly yammering while they stuffed huge amounts of food in the vicinity of their mouths. At the opposite end of their table, Marian sat alone. She looked up and waved as she saw us.

I waved back and Dana slapped my hand down. "I can't believe you," she snapped. "You can wave at that whore, but you can't do one little thing for me?"

"Waving at Marian doesn't cause me any embarrassment or possible pain," I said.

Several people came over to the table we sat at. Marty was playing in the basketball game so he was loosening up near our table. Three or four guys came over to talk to Dana and were introduced to me. They all looked me up and down trying to assess me for some reason.

At nine o clock everyone headed over to the basketball court and took seats on the bleachers. They introduced our high school basketball team, or what was left of them anyway. The starting five only had three original players. The other two guys they came up with were a guy who played on the JV squad and a football player.

The other team was worse. Believe it or not, Marty, my balding, stocky, uncoordinated future accountant was their point guard.

"You could have been out there," hissed Dana. "With all of the work outs and running you do you'd probably be the best one out there." She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.

One of the coaches came over to us and said a few words to Dana. "Gotta go, Honey," she said and left me sitting there in the stands.

The game started and the action wasn't fast or furious. It was awful. It was a nearly evenly matched battle between a team of has-beens and a group of determined guys who never-were.

The game was scheduled for thirty minutes broken into four, seven and a half minute quarters. For the first quarter we were all on the edge of our seats watching the two teams run, and then jog and finally walk up and down the court only to miss every shot they took. Finally just before the whistle blew someone fouled one of the guys on the team. He got to go to the line for two foul shots. He missed the first one embarrassingly and then made the second one. Even that shot was funny because the ball bounced off of the backboard and landed on the rim. It circled the rim so many times I got dizzy before finally dropping into the basket out of exhaustion. Then the game got interesting.

The cheerleaders bounced onto the court to cheer for the team. Most of the cheerleaders were past their prime. They didn't cheer as much as just yell. Their lack of enthusiasm was contagious. I was ready to go back to the buffet line until just before the cheer ended Marian got into the line. She had on shorts and you could see that she had on a modest one piece bathing suit under the shorts. But when she leaped into the air and shook her pom-poms, the game got interesting. I wanted to see the team score thousands of points just to see her cheer.

Early in the second quarter the team scored again. This time it was a layup and it was legitimately earned. The never-were team was too tired to move up and down the court anymore so the layup was uncontested.

I didn't care all I wanted was to see Marian jumping up and down and that halo of red hair rising and falling with her.

The first half ended with a score of three to zip in favor of the team. Mo and his boys were cruising towards victory as we all expected. Somehow, I don't think any of us expected it to be this boring though. All of the guys on both teams looked as though they'd run a marathon and I didn't look that bad when I actually did run one. It seemed funny to me.

The hilarity changed though when early in the second half, one of the never was guys got in a lucky shot. He actually just threw the ball towards the basket and didn't even expect it to go in himself. He was surprised when the announcer called his name and pointed at himself in a "Who? Me?" gesture.

What made the game no longer funny was when the never were cheerleaders took the floor. There were three fat women and my wife Dana. Dana pulled off her cover up revealing a slingshot swimsuit that most strippers wouldn't wear outside of a bar. Her breasts were completely visible except for the nipples and if her pussy wasn't completely shaven, most of her fur would have been visible too. Dana didn't dare jump all she did was to gently shake her pom-poms and even that lulled the crowd into absolute silence. Every man there except me was praying for the suit to fail, and every woman there except Dana was thinking she was a whore.

After that, the entire crowd was urging the never-were team to score just so they could get a look at Dana. The game finally ended with a score of four to two after one of the guys from the team made another foul shot.

After the game was over, I went back to the buffet line. I'd been thinking of just going back to the hotel. I was more embarrassed than I'd been in high school by Dana and her suit.

"Honey, there you are," said Dana coming over to me. "Don't eat that. You don't want it to weigh you down."

"Dana, get the fuck away from me," I said.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

"Dana, from the moment we got the invitation, you've known that I didn't want to be here. It's a waste of time. You can't go back. You can't make up for the way you were treated in high school. You weren't really treated badly any way. Maybe you didn't get any attention but no one stuck fire crackers down your pants or unloaded on you with a super soaker full of dog piss," I said.

"But since we've gotten here, you've acted as badly as some of those people back then did. What the fuck was on your mind when you decided to wear that swimsuit at the game? Were you trying to run for school whore or something? You embarrassed both of us."

"Stevie, I'm sorry," she whined. "I guess I just wanted to be noticed. You sure didn't mind it when that redhead was out there jumping up and down."

"Dana, Marian was covered from head to toe except for her arms and her legs. You looked like a fucking stripper," I snapped. "I don't want to be the guy whose wife shows her tits to everybody. If that's what you want to be, maybe you need someone else."

"Stevie, we need to talk about this later," she said. "I'm sorry. I'll go change if you want but you need to get over to the track."

"Why?" I asked. "I don't really want to watch them run. If they run the way they played basketball, it won't be worth watching."

She mumbled something under her breath that I could barely make out.

"What was that?" I asked.

She hugged me and pressed her big fake breasts against my lower chest. "I signed you up for the race," she said.

"What?" I shouted, pushing her away from me. "Why the hell would you do that? I already told you that I wasn't doing any of this shit."

"Honey, do you love me?" she asked.

"Of course I do," I spat. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. I never wanted to come to this thing in the first place. I especially didn't want to participate in the entertainment. Since we got here, Dana, I'm beginning to wonder whether or not YOU love ME. You've been ignoring what I want to do ever since we drove up. I don't even know why this means so much to you. We've been married for almost five years now and the first thing that we talked about and had in common was the fact that we both hated high school in general and most of these people in particular. I don't get it."




Zero Tolerance



"Stevie, please just do this one thing for me," she whined. "When you love someone you're supposed to support their dreams even if you don't understand them. If you just run in this one race, I swear I'll never ask you to do anything again. You run races all the time. You run marathons for God's sake. No one is asking you to run twenty six miles this time. It's only one freaking mile. If you can run twenty six miles just for the fuck of it, why can't you run one mile for me? Unless the reason you won't do it is because you really don't love me."

Needless to say, less than ten minutes later, I was on the track with twenty five other guys and four women. Dana sat in the first row clapping her hands together giddily and waving at me. I noticed the section around her was full of nothing but guys who weren't even watching the start of the race, they were watching her.

"Okay gentlemen," began the announcer. "You will be running one mile. That is four laps around the track. You will be eligible for two different prizes here. The first is an award for coming in first, second or third. The second is that we'll be comparing your time with the time you ran in high school gym class during the required physical fitness tests. The person who comes the closest to matching his or her high school time will get an award."

"What about age group awards?" asked a voice in the crowd.

"You're all in the same graduating class, asshole. That means you're all probably about the same age," said the announcer.

I noticed then that Mo was near me. "Hey Stevie, it's good to see that you're going out for something," he said. "Don't go out too fast. Try to start out at a pace you can keep up for the whole distance. The worst thing you can do is to go out too fast and have to drag your ass home tired with everyone else running by you and laughing."

"Thanks for the advice," I said.

Then, while I was still talking to him the gun went off. We started running. I expected a fast pace. Usually in a marathon, there's a big group of guys who go out really fast so they can get clear of the crowd and then settle into their pace. I guess that's what I expected. When the gun went off I thought it would be like getting shot out of a cannon. But it was more like we just dribbled out of the barrel. 

I timed the first lap and we ran it in a minute and forty five seconds. That was a seven minute mile. I almost went to sleep. I could keep that pace up for ten miles easily. I moved up right behind Mo who was leading for the second lap. Mo kept the pace going as a lot of the runners started to drop back. At the end of that second lap, we were going even slower. But there were runners strung out behind us. By the third lap I realized that most of these guys never got any exercise. They were huffing and puffing worse than Mo. Mo was first, I was second and two of the women were third and fourth. Mo was huffing like an old freight train and he started looking over his shoulder. In a marathon that's a bad sign. It can either mean that you're trying to gauge your position and make sure no one is gaining on you, or that you're juiced and there's blood in the water.

I figured on the latter. So, at the end of the third lap with one lap to go, I just started running faster and went by Mo almost casually. I waited to see if he'd respond and I could tell from the look on his face that he couldn't, so, I just floored it. I ended up winning the race in a terribly pedestrian six minutes and fifty seconds. I was the only person under seven minutes. Mo ran seven forty five and came in fourth. The two women had passed him.

Since my fastest mile in high school was eight minutes and some change, I was also the person who did the best comparing themselves now to the old days. One of the women also beat her high school time but only by twenty seconds.

Dana was all over me. There were all kinds of people coming over to congratulate me. And the biggest sentiment among most people was that their surprise at seeing me win the race was only second to their shock at seeing someone, me in particular, beat Mo. That was unheard of.

When I went back over to the beach to relax for a while, there were tons of people coming over to see me. Some of them wanted to talk about possible jobs with my company, the rest wanted to talk about the race or the football game. I had no intention of playing in it. Dana kept trying to interject things into the conversations but no one was paying her any attention.

Finally, Marty came over and begged me to act as a reserve on the football team. There were so many people watching and waiting for my answer that I couldn't say no. We were only going to play flag football on the beach anyway. We went over to the field and I got my flags and stood on the sidelines. At least I could help by pointing out open players.

I noticed that Dana was pouting again. I couldn't figure out why. I thought she'd have been happy.

The game again was a spectacle of athletic mediocrity. Neither side seemed to be able to do anything. Towards the end of the first half, unbelievably the never-were team scored a touchdown. I was happy at first until I noticed Dana out there cheering in her swim suit again. I was sure that she'd understood my views on that. I glared at her and she pretended that she didn't see me.

Late in the second half, the team scored a touchdown to tie the game with only five minutes left to go. With less than a minute, they got an interception and looked like they were going to score again.

"We need you," said Marty. "We need you to cover one of their receivers. If you can prevent him from catching the ball we may be able to salvage a tie."

I was already pissed about Dana so I went in. How difficult could it be to prevent a guy from catching a ball? I lined up and followed Gary. He'd lined up as a receiver instead of a running back so I had an idea that Mo was going to throw him the ball.

When the ball was snapped, Mo looked across the field at his other receiver and so did everyone else. Mo cocked his arm back, turned and fired the ball, but not at the guy everyone was watching. He pitched it straight to Gary the way he always did. I leaped directly in front of Gary and snatched the ball. I took off for the opposite goal line with Gary chasing me. I could tell that Mo was pissed. He thundered towards me angrily. He didn't reach for my flags. He dove at me as if he was trying to tackle me. I think he was really pissed about that interception. I faked left and he dove just as I ran past him to the right. Mo landed in the dirt and I made my first and only ever touchdown.

I didn't have a touchdown dance or anything. I just stood there looking stupid and handed the ball to the referee. The announcer was telling the crowd that time had run out and the never-were team had won the game.

The entire crowd was screaming. I was getting so many pats on the back that it was crazy. My team mates came over and lifted me onto their shoulders.

That was the last good memory I have of that day. When my team mates put me down, I went off to find Dana.

"Well, it looks like you'll be getting your wish," she said acidly.

"No, it looks like I didn't," I snapped. "My wish was for you to take off that suit or at least keep it covered up. What happened to I'll change if you want me to?"

"What's wrong with my suit?" she asked. "You like looking at me in it. Why shouldn't the other men?"

"You're married to me," I retorted. "And I don't like having everyone look at you like that."

"Steve, you're my husband, not my master," she snapped. "I can do whatever the fuck I want. Not all of us just have everything handed to us. Some of us have to work to be noticed and get our votes. If you don't like having men look at me in this suit then maybe you should just go back to the hotel, because this afternoon is my last chance to get votes and I need to work it. I can't believe that so many people are voting for your girlfriend."

"Dana, I've never tried to tell you what to do, but don't walk around in that fucking suit," I said.

"What happens if I do?" she said.

"Forget it Dana," I snapped. "Do whatever you want."

I walked away from her and headed back to the hotel. Before I got there, Mo stopped me.

"Good job at the race," he said. I noticed that he hadn't mentioned anything about the football game.

"There's something I need to talk to you about," he said. "I'm in sales and I've been out of work for a while. I've heard about you having a company and I was wondering if you could give me a job. I mean we're old high school buddies and all, so you kind of owe it to me."

I looked at him as if he'd just shit a brick on the sidewalk. "I don't think so Maurice," I said and turned to go. He bristled when I called him Maurice.

"What the fuck do you mean, you don't think so?" he yelled.

"Exactly what I said," I said calmly. "I have high standards for my company and my employees. I'm not sure what kind of salesman you are. But I know the kind of person you were. Some things we grow out of and others stay with us. In high school you were the kind of person who enjoyed picking on and torturing people who were smaller than you were. Some people might have considered it a joke or did it once or twice. But you made a career out of it. You spent most of your time trying to think up ways to make life harder on people who were basically defenseless. I don't want someone like that working for me."

He started screaming as I walked away. I ignored him and headed for the parking lot and my car. I drove to the hotel. I started packing as soon as I got there. Before I finished, I got a call from the desk that a couple of people were waiting for me. There were more than a couple of people. And they all wanted information about my company. I went to the front desk and asked if the hotel had any office suits for visiting business men. The woman behind the desk spoke to the manager and I was able to get the use of one of their offices for a couple of hours. I called my office and got my company's information packet faxed over and made copies for everyone there. We discussed what my company was doing and where we were going. About halfway through the discussion, I noticed that among the late comers was a certain redhead who looked away shyly each time our eyes met.

After we got done and everyone had enough information to satisfy them, I started to go back to my room to finish packing.

"Stevie, I'm here to apologize again for my blockhead of a husband," she said. "I heard what he said to you and you were absolutely right. I can't believe that he gave you all of that stuff about being high school buddies and you owing him a shot. That's the reason why he's out of work now. He's too arrogant for his own good. Anyway, congratulations; it looks like you have your life on track. So many of us got stuck in that rut we created during high school and simply haven't moved past it."

"Thanks," I said and turned away. She grabbed my shoulder.

"Stevie, did I do something to you?" she asked. "I know your wife doesn't like me for some reason, and I can't think of anything bad I ever did to her. There are so many people who blame me for things that other people I know did. I've tried to apologize to her several times but she won't listen or accept my apology. What did I do to you two?"

"Marian, you never did anything to either one of us," I said.

"Then why do you walk away every time, I try to talk to you?" she asked. I could tell she was frustrated. Then she just started to vent.

"My whole life I've tried to be nice to everyone I've ever met. Why won't people ever give me a chance?" she said.

"Marian, it's not you," I said. "It's just people."

"Well, I'm a person too," she said. "I have feelings too. My life is hell. Mo treats me like a slave and everyone else treats me like a pariah. I came here to try to make some friends with people who know me. Half of them treat me like some kind of princess and the other half treat me like I'm the evil witch from Snow White. I can't even tell about you."

"Princess," I said. "Definitely Princess."

"You don't act like it," she pouted.

"Marian, in high school I was, as you remember, the butt of all of the jokes. I was the school whipping boy. But I had the biggest crush on you EVER. To me you were the most beautiful thing ever made. I was far too shy to ever look at you let alone talk to you," I said.

"That's so silly," she said. "Stevie, I talk to anyone who talks to me. I'm just a woman, nothing more. And that's part of the problem. All of the guys I've spoken to are constantly asking me how I ended up married to such a dick. I usually just shrug my shoulders but I want you to know the real reason. There are two. The first is that until we got married, Maurice never let me see that side of him. He was always on his best behavior. He always treated me kindly until we got married. Then he gradually started to let me see the true him. The second reason I ended up with him was because all of these nice guys who supposedly liked me, never had the balls to step up and try to talk to me. That left me two choices. Either I sat home alone and didn't go anywhere because no one ever asked me to, or I went out with the only guy who had enough guts to approach me."

"But you were like the queen of the school," I said. "How is some nobody supposed to measure up to that?"

"No one had to measure up to anything," she snapped. "We all have dreams and things we want. Do you know what my dream was?" I shook my head.

"I wanted what my sisters have. I wanted a man who loves me and a home and children. I don't need to go out and do a lot of fancy things. I don't need to have a lot of jewelry or any of that stuff. I want a man who looks at me the way you look at what's her name. Stevie, people have always told me that I'm pretty or whatever. I have three sisters and I'm the ugliest one of us. We all look like this, I'm nothing special. The only thing different about me is that all of my sisters have found men who treat them like they matter, while my husband can't keep a job and when he gets one, he spends every fucking penny trying to impress people. We have no savings and are barely above water. We were voted the couple most likely to succeed and the only thing we've succeeded at was high school."

I couldn't think of anything to say.

"Why doesn't your wife like me?" she asked.

"That's easy," I said. "You're her husband's dream woman."

"So is there a chance that I might get a dance from you tonight?" she asked. "I'd really like it and I could tell Mo that I was talking to you about at least giving him a formal interview."

"Not much of a chance of that I'm afraid," I said.

"The wife wouldn't allow it, huh?" she asked.

"That's not it," I said. "It's just that I'm leaving. I won't be here for the dance. I didn't want to come anyway. This was Dana's show."

"Stevie, you have to stay," she said. "Besides we'd have possibly gotten a chance for that dance anyway."

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"Because, I'd spend the rest of the afternoon campaigning for votes to make sure I win for queen. Pretty much everyone is already voting for you for king. Then we'd have to dance together at least once," she said.

"I thought the voting was pretty close between you and Dana," I said.

"Oh it was," she said. "But I wasn't really trying. Things like that don't matter much to me. My dog wore my prom queen tiara on his collar for years. If you stay, I'll try to win. Besides most of the women have started to hate your wife because of that swimsuit she keeps falling out of. And a lot of the guys are starting to turn away from her too. Most of the people who are still voting for her are doing so because of you. So could you please stay so I can have one nice memory of this fiasco and maybe one nice new friend?"

There was simply no fucking way I could say no to her. "Only if I get more than one dance," I said.

There were all kinds of ideas going through my mind. On one hand, I needed to find out where she and Mo lived. Maybe they could relocate. I didn't want to hire Mo but maybe I could hire her. Shit, I'd hire Mo if it gave me the chance to look at her regularly. There was no way I'd consider cheating on Dana, I loved her too much. But Marian was so beautiful and the idea of being friends with my dream woman was really appealing.

And speaking of Dana, if she could run around looking like a whore in front of our entire class, then I could dance with Marian.

I got my suit out and laid it out on the bed. I decided to just call room service and grab a bite to eat and watch some television while I waited for the dance. I only had a couple of hours left before it would be time to leave.

Before my food arrived the door to the room opened and Dana walked in. there was something weird about her. "Why are your suitcases packed?" she asked. "Are we leaving?"

"I know that you aren't," I snapped. "But I was leaving. In fact, if a bunch of people looking for jobs hadn't convinced me to stay I'd have already left. That's why the bags are packed."

"But you didn't pack any of my stuff," she said. "You were going to leave without me?"

"Yep," I said turning back to the TV. "After that bullshit you gave me about how you're not my fucking slave, I don't want to do anything with you. And all I heard about this afternoon is you running around dressed and acting like a whore."

"You don't know what this means to me," she said.

"I guess I don't," I said, turning back to the TV again.

"Why don't I take a shower and freshen up and then I'll show you how much YOU mean to me," she said.

"No thanks," I said.

"You'll really like it," she said. "We both liked it last night and you wanted it again this morning."

"Look Dana, I'm trying to relax before I go to this fucking dance and pretend to have fun with a bunch of people who don't matter to me and a few who do. After that, I'm out of here. I may not even wait until morning to leave," I told her.

"Oh honey, that's so sweet," she gushed. "I know you're only going to the dance for me and I know this has been really bad. This is the first time we've ever argued. But we'll get over this. It's just a nightmare. By this time tomorrow, we'll be back the way we've always been. But can we please go to the farewell breakfast too. I want all of the people to get to see me and remember me as reunion queen. Think of it as part of the dance. If you can go to the dance for me, the breakfast is much shorter. Do that one more thing for me and I'll do things for you that will melt your nuts."

"Dana, I'm not going to the dance for you. I already told you I was going to leave. After the way you spoke to me this afternoon, fuck you and the dance. I'm only going because I promised a friend that I'd be there. I made no promises about the breakfast. You have your credit card. You can fly home whenever you want," I said.

She was acting really strangely. She kept looking at me to see if I was looking at her. I just watched my show and when it was time, I got into the shower and dressed.

"Stevie, aren't you forgetting something?" she asked.

"Like what?" I said as I opened the door.

"Like me," she said. "I'm not done getting ready."

"Then take the shuttle over there," I said. "Or let whoever brought you home take you back." I closed the door before I even heard her reply.

Even as I parked my Mustang, people were waiving at me. "Hey Stevie," said person after person.

"You look great Steve," a couple of women told me.

"Great catch," I heard from several of the guys.

When I walked in, I noticed that Mo and his guys were already in a corner talking. They saw me and Mo glared at me, then they all started laughing. If he was planning one of his little jokes, he'd have a problem because this wasn't high school. I was in a mood to bust his ass if he got out of line.




Zero Tolerance



I ran into Marty and we hung out for a while. Mo saw me and came over to Marty and I. "Stevie, I shouldn't have said some of the things I said," he said, holding out his hand to me. "No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," I echoed.

"I guess you're kind of right about some of the things you said," he said. "Maybe we could talk about it a bit later. I need to ask you a favor though. I busted my knee up a bit when I fell trying to catch you in the game. It was already a little sore from the race, which is why I couldn't keep up on that last lap. So could you dance with Marian a few times?"

"Sure," I said. He seemed to be smiling as he walked away.

"Why the fuck is he smiling?" asked Marty. "Does he really think anyone will believe him about having a sore knee being the reason he couldn't catch you?"

"Nah, he's smiling because he thinks that he just convinced me to dance with Marian so she can talk to me about hiring him," I said.

"I don't want to work with that asshole," said Marty.

"Don't worry about it," I said.

"Are you actually going to turn HER down?" asked Marty again. "Hell, if that woman asked me to shit in a bucket and then smear it all over my face, I'd probably do it."

"Probably do what?" asked Dana from behind us. I turned to look at her. She had on a neon blue dress with cutouts all the way down the sides. It was obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra or panties under it. Marty's eyes bugged out.

Dana took my arm and I deftly moved away from her.

"Baby, do we have to argue, here too?" she asked quietly. "This will all be over soon."

"I'm thinking it's over now, Dana," I said. "I'm trying not to make a scene but I don't want to be around you while you're dressed like a whore. It makes people think that I'm okay with it. I had to go through high school as the butt of all the jokes. I don't want to spend tonight with people laughing at me too." I moved away from her. Somehow she convinced Marty to dance with her.

As I walked across the floor, I could see everyone looking at her. I just shook my head. When this was over, Dana and I were going to have a long talk about whether or not we should stay married.

Suddenly, I noticed that no one was looking at Dana anymore. They were all looking in the opposite direction. I turned to see what was going on and saw that Marian had entered the room. Her naturally curly hair had been straightened and shaped into cascading ringlets that draped down her back to her waist. Her beautiful face was half hidden behind a curtain of hair that only made me want to look at it more. The one eye that you could see was playful and intriguing.

Her dress was nothing like Dana's. Her dress fit tight above the waist and called attention to her slim figure and small but perfect breasts. Instead of sticking out like fruit on a tray for anyone to fondle, only the bare tops of Marian's breasts showed. But her neck and shoulders were on display. It called attention to the smoothness of her skin and made you want to see more.

Below the waist, the dress belled outwards like the dresses from the civil war period. I wondered how many hoops were under it. As Marian looked around and found Mo, she seemed to move with such grace that she appeared to be gliding or floating.

Mo barely noticed her. She stood there next to him and he said a few words to her and then scanned the crowd until his eyes landed on me. Then he pointed to me and she nodded her head acting, for all the world, as if she didn't want to come to me but was being forced to.

The closer she got to me, the less she was able to hide her smile. But she wasn't the only one whose expression was changing. Dana saw Marian heading towards me and left Marty standing on the dance floor. Several people tried to talk to her but she ignored them in her rush to get between Marian and me. At the same time, I headed for Marian.

"Would you like to dance, Steven?" she asked.

"Fuck no," snapped Dana. "He only dances with his own woman."

"Dana, shut up," I said. "You're embarrassing yourself and you're also losing more of your precious votes." She looked around and saw the expressions on the faces of people around us.

"One God damned dance and that's it," she hissed.

"Dana, if you can run around all afternoon acting like a slut, I can dance with whoever I want as many times as I want. We didn't come to this dance together and if you keep acting like this, we won't leave together either," I said, ending the conversation.

I placed one hand on Marian's waist and took her hand in my other. We danced away from Dana and left her standing there. The band seemed to play a variety of music. They segued from a slow ballad into a faster seventies dance track and Marian amazingly pulled up the bottom of her skirt revealing tantalizing glimpses of those amazing legs. I'd been ready to head for the sidelines but when she started to pump those slim hips I was back in front of her. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Dana was even more pissed. "This, still only counts as one dance," said Marian. I smiled and resisted the temptation to tell her that if it was up to me I'd dance with her all night.

After the dance, I escorted her back over to Mo and his friends and went and sat down at the table with Marty. Dana grabbed a drink and came over to where we were.

"I hope you don't mind me sitting here," she said.

Before I could reply, the MC reminded everyone to cast their ballots for King and Queen because the ceremony would be starting in only five minutes.

"Would the nominees for best athlete please come to the stage?" he asked. Mo quickly got up and headed to the stage. A couple of other guys went as well.

"Welcome to the Mo show," I quipped.

"Steven Grant we're waiting on you. Do you need a personalized invitation?" the MC asked.

"Me?" I asked.

He introduced each person and talked about them and what they'd done in high school athletics. "Here's the weird part," he said as he got to me. "This guy didn't do anything in high school."

"He juggled," some guy who already sounded drunk screamed.

Everyone started laughing. I even laughed, because they weren't laughing at me this time. They were laughing with me and it was funny. And then someone said something that changed it. "Hell I'd take up juggling if it got Marian to dance with me," another guy said. I was still laughing and so was Marian, but Mo got a really pissed look on his face and Dana folded her arms across her chest and looked around to see who'd said it.

In fifth place we have Todd Bridges," said the announcer. "Todd participated in every sport we did today. He came in dead last in the race and didn't score in either basketball or football but at least he had the balls to get out there." Todd got mild applause.

"In fourth place, honorable mention, here's Tina Struthers. She came in second in the mile race and was the first woman overall. She was also second best in keeping up with what she'd done in high school. She actually beat her high school time." Tina got a big round of applause.

"In third place, Gary Coleman," said the announcer. He went on to list Gary's accomplishments during the day.

"Shit, I thought that should have been you," whispered Mo. "Well, second is pretty good," he said patting me on the back.

"Sorry, I blew that one," said the announcer. "Third place actually went to Maurice Green, I goofed that up big time, sorry. But it's good news Gary, you actually moved up to second."

"Third place," screamed Mo. "I didn't get third. That's bullshit. I've never placed that low. Let me see the scores."

He tried to snatch the score sheet from the MC. "You didn't score in basketball," began the announcer. "He did. You were fourth in the race he was fifth. I'd say that made you guys tied. He came closer to his time in high school than you did. That put him ahead of you. The last thing is the football game. He ran for a touchdown. You didn't throw the ball to him it was a hand off. That put him even further ahead. You also had that embarrassing interception. He beat you fair and square. It's kind of embarrassing to have you fighting over second and third places isn't it?"

Mo looked around and saw a bunch of angry faces in the crowd. "Um, I was just joking," he said nervously. No one bought it. Everyone could tell that he was pissed about coming in third.

"Anyway," said the announcer. "In first place we have Steven Grant." The crowd lit up and started screaming. I was in shock. I hadn't wanted to be in the race and had to be dragged onto the football field.

I looked out at the crowd. They were all waiting for me to say something. I stepped up to the microphone. "Uh, thanks," I began. "I don't know how this happened. I'm not a great athlete like these guys. I didn't want to be in the race but my wife made me. Back in high school the only running I did was running away from these guys to avoid getting my underwear stretched over my head." The crowd broke up with that.

"I guess it just goes to show you that anything can happen. High school was not a great time for me. I really didn't want to come to this reunion. Again, the only reason I'm here is because I love my wife and she really wanted to come. But for a lot of reasons, including some of the people I've either re-met or met for the first time, I'm glad I came. Some of you will go back in my memory, not as people who ignored or persecuted me but as people who work for my company. And an even larger number of you will go into my memory as my friends. It's great to see that we can put the petty jealousies and rivalries of the past behind us and move on because we all have a lot more in common than we have differences between us."

There was a huge round of applause and then some drunken guy in the back screamed, "Enough of this bullshit. Let's see some juggling."

The MC stepped back up to the microphone. "Okay, folks, all of the votes are in. They are being tabulated as we speak. So go have another drink or another dance and we'll get back to you momentarily."

As he stepped away from the mic the music began to play again and several couples started dancing. Mo jumped down off of the stage and headed for the bar. Someone shouted to him as he went past. "Hey Mo, wasn't it painful on your sore knee to jump off of the stage like that?" Mo gave him the finger and went to the bar where he started drinking with both hands.

I was standing with Marty who was congratulating me while I looked for Dana but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. "Oh shit," said Marty. I turned to see what he was looking at. Marian was making her way towards us.

"Can I have that trophy?" asked Marty. "I mean it should really be mine anyway. I was the one who dragged your ass into the football game."

Marian laughed as she heard him say that. She was standing next to Marty and he stiffened up noticeably. He stopped joking around and stood at attention.

"Marty, I'm not here to stop your fun," said Marian. "I wish you wouldn't get so serious all the time. It really makes me feel bad."

"But you're..." said Marty.

"I have an idea," she said. "Let's start all over again." She held out one tiny hand in front of him. "Hi, I'm Marian," she said.

"M...m...Marty," he gushed.

"Good, now we know each other and we can be friends," she said. "Marty, right now I'd like to dance with your friend Stevie. Is that alright?" Marty nodded his head woodenly. "Marty," she said. He turned back to her like a private who got called by a general.

"Y...y...yes ma'am," he said.

"Can you save a dance for me later too?" she asked.

"You...want to dance with me?" he asked. She just nodded.

As we moved out onto the dance floor, I heard Marty mumbling behind me, "Shit, I don't know how to dance."

I pulled Marian into my arms much closer than we'd been the first time. She smiled and let her head fall onto my shoulder. Her little sigh let me know that she was content. Unfortunately, before we even started to dance the music stopped and the MC started reading off names again. The contestants for Reunion Queen are Natalie Green, Blair Warner, Tootie Ramsey, Josephine "Jo" Polniaczek, Dana Plato-Grant, and last but not least, Marian Jones-Green."

The whole crowd clapped loudly. "Marian you should probably be with Mo right now," I said.

"You're probably right," she said. "I guess this isn't about where I want to be. It's more about where I should be. I'll see you later. Good luck."

"Good luck for what?" I asked.

"You're in the running for King, dummy, remember?" she smiled. I laughed.

"Things like that don't matter," I said. "I'm probably going to have to buy a dog so he can wear the crown on his collar." She smiled at that and her smile sent shivers down my spine. "Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm not going to win. I'm not that kind of person, but I will be rooting for you."

"I really wish we had spent time together in high school," she said. "I feel like I've wasted my life."

The lights flashed brighter as the MC stepped back to the stage. I watched as Marian went over to Mo and tried to hug him. He pushed her away and picked up his drink. Marian looked back towards me and shook her head.

"Okay Winterhalter High school class of two thousand and two, let's git bizay," the MC was ramping up.

"To make this progress faster we're going to only bring up the top three vote getters. To all of you other ladies, thanks a lot for participating and remember you're all queens in my eyes."

"Okay, here I go," said Dana. I hadn't noticed that she was standing next to me.

"Where the fuck have you been, Dana?" I asked.

"I had to make sure that I got votes," she snapped. "Obviously all you cared about was winning your athletic trophy."

"Dana, did you notice what I said during my speech after they gave it to me?" I asked.

She looked at me and shook her head. "Why don't you ask somebody then," I said. I walked away from her.

"Okay can we have Tootie Ramsey come up on the stage?" screamed the MC. "And can we get Blair Warner up here? We only need one more lady to join them. Gimmie Marian Jones!"

"What!" screamed Dana. "This is bullshit! I was supposed to win!"

I looked at Dana and shrugged my shoulders. "Honey, let's get out of here," she screamed. "They're all a bunch of liars and cheaters. You were right. Coming here was a mistake."

"Out of two hundred and fourteen votes Blair Warner received, forty two votes," screamed the announcer. She got third place. Tootie Ramsey received fifty votes. Surprisingly none of the other contestants got more than two votes with the exception of our landslide winner, who received more than one hundred votes. Your ten year reunion Queen is none other than Marian Jones." The crowd erupted and Marian stepped forward. They placed a tiara on her head and she waved at the crowd. She stepped up to the mic and thanked everyone and echoed the MC statement that all of the women who participated were all queens and they were all special in some way."

"This bullshit is getting deeper by the second," said Dana beside me. "I'll bet you're happy, your dream girl stole another crown. We're never coming to another one of these things. Fuck all of these people we don't need any of them, right?"

I wasn't paying her any attention.

"And now the lovely Marian will help us out by reading the names of the nominees for Reunion King," said the MC.

"The top nominees for Reunion King," began Marian in her musical voice. "Are...Conrad Bain, Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, My husband, Maurice Jones and...Steven Grant." The way she said my name led most people to believe it was more than just the way the names were listed.

I smiled at her and she smiled right back.

"Why is that hideous, beastly bitch grinning at you?" asked Dana.

"We still haven't talked about where you've been?" I said.

"We only need to bring up the top three in terms of votes," said the MC. I think he was trying to tone it down because we were all getting tired of his over the top delivery.

"The lovely Marian will read the names now," he said.

"The Top three are..." began Marian. "Gary Coleman...Todd Bridges and..." she hesitated and looked over at Mo.

"Sorry buddy," said Marty beside me.

"I told you it was bullshit," said Dana.

"Steeeevie Grrrrrraaaaaant!" sang Marian excitedly.

Mo threw his drink down shattering the glass on the floor. "What the fuck is going on here?" he screamed. "I'm the fucking King. I always have been and I always will be. Are you people stupid or something? My fucking wife is the queen. That makes me the King. You all must have written the names down wrong."

There was dead silence as the crowd just watched Mo ranting. "Maybe you should have taken up juggling," said a voice from the back. Mo looked around angrily as Todd, Gary and I walked up on the stage.

"Every guy who participated in this contest is a king," said the MC. "Even if it's only to his own wife and family. For some reason more people voted for king than for queen. We got two hundred and twenty two votes for king. The three guys up here on the stage are here because they got the most votes. Let me put it this way the gentleman in fourth place, which is honorable mention who isn't here on the stage, he only missed being here by one vote. Maurice Green received three votes."

"I only got three fucking votes?" screamed Mo. "How the fuck is that possible?"

"I voted for you Mo," said Gary Coleman.

"I voted for you too," said Todd Bridges. "Did you vote for yourself?"

"Of course I did," yelled Mo.

"Can we get on with this?" asked the MC. "In third place with a total of four votes, Todd Bridges." Todd walked up to the front of the stage and then down the steps. His wife took his hand and they stood waiting for the ceremonial dance of the top three couples.

"In second place with six votes, Mr. Gary Coleman," screamed the MC. Gary aped Todd and went down the steps to the other side of the stage. His wife obviously wasn't too smart. She went to the same side of the dance floor that Todd and his wife were standing on. She looked around, spotted Gary and ran over to him, tripping over the hem of her dress and landing flat on her face. Her dress was relatively short and it rose up in the back revealing a cellulite riddled ass in a leopard spotted thong. She stood up and curtsied to the crowd which erupted in laughter.

"And your Ten Year reunion King is..." said the MC. "With a total of two hundred and seven votes...Steven Grant." Everyone clapped and I headed for one side of the stage. Dana ran over to me with a big smile on her face. "It is customary for the King to dance the ceremonial dance with the Queen," said the announcer. Dana looked embarrassed and stepped back into the crowd.

Marian had walked down the stairs on the opposite side of the stage and we met in the middle.

"Told ya," she said, playfully grabbing my hand. We danced and they turned off the lights and had just the big disco ball shining over the crowd. It felt like we were floating as we circled the floor. It all ended too soon. The lights came back on and the MC concluded the program by telling everyone to eat, drink and have fun.

"Can we see some fucking juggling now?" screamed a voice from the back. The DJ launched in and started playing dance music.

I really didn't want to let go of Marian. We just stood there in the middle of the dance floor as other couples came out to dance. She didn't seem to be in a hurry to let go of me either. Then she tensed up and I felt Dana grabbing my arm. "The fucking music has stopped. Let's get out of here?" she snapped. She looked straight into Marian's eyes. "Let's go back to the hotel and I'll give you some of what you got last night," she said.

"Dana, I should walk Marian back to Maurice," I said.