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The Dark

By: rkm10



She had never noticed before how dark the landing was between her bedroom and the toilet. In spite of all the times she had risen in the middle of the night to walk the long corridor, the dark places she had to pass had never before seemed menacing to her, until tonight. She paused, seeing the moonlight casting an eerie glow through the half open door of the bathroom, her destination, and wondered if she could hold on until the morning. She shook her head and cursed herself for being so irrational; after all she wasn't a child anymore frightened of the dark . . . but she was frightened. As she took each step her heart began to beat faster as she imagined herself being dragged into the rooms each side; dragged screaming, fighting, into the places that only existed there at night, places banished by the daylight, reappearing again when the sun set once more. 

Shadows seemed to take on form as she willed herself to take one more step. She felt a scream rising inside, her nudity somehow making her more vulnerable and, half turning, saw her bedroom light flicker and die, causing the shadows to become longer, deeper, more terrifying; casting her sanctuary into a gloom deeper than even the landing. She began to imagine hands grasping at her, pulling her towards the dark and possessing her in ways she was too frightened even to begin to imagine. 

The moonlit bathroom, once so sinister, began to appear welcoming in contrast to the pitch black of her bedroom, and she slowly edged her way towards it. With each shuffling step that took her closer to the dim light her courage increased until she almost laughed out loud at her fears. That is, until she felt it, a leathery grip on her arm pulling her towards the blackness of the spare bedroom.

A scream died, unborn, in her constricted throat as her hand attempted to grip the door. Silently, slowly, she tumbled forward into the gloom and blackness deeper than the darkest night overwhelmed her.

* * * *

She opened her eyes, the harsh glare of the sun causing her to blink uncontrollably. An ache pulsed in her forehead and she reached up to feel a large swelling growing there by the second.

Still sitting she forced her eyes open and looked out onto the harsh desert landscape that stretched out as far as the eye could see in each direction. Huge boulders were strewn over the ground, as if a giant had thrown them there in a fit of pique. 

She rose, once more aware of her nudity, one hand covered her breasts, the other shielding her groin from no one, or no one that could be immediately seen. She started to walk, the direction immaterial, but, she thought, there had to be something, someone who could help her, even if only to explain where she was and how she had come to be there. 

Whether it was a sixth sense or some almost inaudible noise, it mattered not; she knew she was being watched. She turned, slowly, in a complete circle and saw nothing until she returned to her original direction. A small dwarf-like figure covered in a leathery skin, which, from a distance, seemed scaly and dry; but the distance was decreasing as it moved towards her.

Her eyes were dragged from its leering pointed face, down to an enormous erection pointing skywards, totally out of proportion to the rest of its body, the head almost level with its bony shoulders. She watched mesmerised as its taloned hands rubbed at its cock and the creature's long seemingly prehensile tongue flicked out as if tasting the air for her scent. 

She backed away, trying to keep the distance between them constant until her back touched a huge rock and she sank to her knees as if in prayer; but she knew any pleading would be lost here. The monsters erection appeared to be growing even bigger as it approached her as if signalling her fate and her head slumped down onto her chest in an attempt to block out the sight in front of her and to await the inevitable.

She closed her eyes tightly causing flashes of coloured lights to impress themselves onto her retina, anything to divert her imagination from what was about to happen. She began to almost feel the huge bulbous head parting her, pushing inside, tearing her tender vagina, splitting her asunder. Would it be quick? Or would it take its time with her prolonging the agony until that final push which would end her torment.

It was then that she heard it; a beating of wings, like a bird's but louder, growing almost deafening in its intensity. She slowly peeked out between half closed eyelids in time to see the monster's head arcing above her, its body slumping to its knees, the stump still spouting black blood high into the air as its erection poured its useless cum onto the stony ground. As it fell forward to stain the earth at her feet with its foul liquid she saw him, standing, his sword still dripping the monsters life force onto the floor at his feet.

His alabaster skin was almost painful to look at, so white it left an image behind when she looked away from him for an instant. She forced herself to study him, her saviour. He was tall, over six feet in height, his eyes the deepest blue and his hair snow white. She could see what appeared to be feathers sprouting above his shoulders and as she watched he stretched, enormous wings unfolding behind him extending outwards at least five feet to each side. In spite of her fear she stared at him, his eyes hypnotic, sending her waves of calming energy. 

Her eyes travelled downwards, over his boy-like chest, his slim hips and onto his cock nestling in the blond curls at his groin. Not the cock of the monster, huge, menacing, but small like that of Michelangelo's David; small and so incredibly beautiful.

He beckoned to her, "Come, hurry, more will arrive soon. We have to go," he said, placing his sword back into a sheath strapped to his back. 

She stood and moved towards him, any fear left evaporating, and grasped his hand. Directing her backwards she knew what he wanted her to do and climbed carefully onto his back, her arms around his neck, fingers interlocked. She barely felt him rise until she looked down at the ground receding beneath them. It was then she saw them, five of the monsters prowling close to the place they had just left. She began to shiver uncontrollably until he sensed it and somehow passed his strength to her. 

She saw that they were heading towards a small mountain range and, as they got closer, the outline of a small castle came into view. As they flew she could feel her naked breasts pressed against his smooth back and her nipples erecting with the friction. He turned and smiled over his shoulder at her as if he knew of her embarrassment and as they swooped down to land in a small paved courtyard she could see that she wasn't the only one affected by their closeness. 

She climbed off his back and moved around to thank him for his rescue to be amazed to see his once small cock had been transformed into a hard pulsating erection of more than impressive size. She stared both unable and unwilling to take her eyes off it and as he followed her gaze down his smile became broader as if he relished the idea of displaying himself to her in his aroused state.

"You're not an angel, are you?" she asked, as if questioning him, but the erection which still rose high, and somehow, proud in front of him gave her the answer she requested.

He laughed, a quiet, almost shy response, "No, not an angel, but not a devil either."

"You don't want me to apologise for this, do you?" he said, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of his still hard cock.

"No," she said quickly, "I was a little surprised, that's all."

He laughed again, "Surprised that such a beautiful body pressed against me would have such an effect? You shouldn't be, at least you wouldn't if you knew me."

She reached out and touched his chest as if testing to see if he was a figment of her imagination or if she really had been rescued by someone equally incredible as the monsters below, but in a very different way. She detected a low groan come from him as her hand caressed him and she withdrew it quickly.

"We'd better go inside out of the sun," he remarked, leading her through a small doorway and into a large hall. There were no chairs only futons littered the floor and a long, low table was placed centrally onto the paved surface. 

He beckoned her to sit and she dropped onto a crimson mattress, bringing her head level with his aroused organ. A noise outside caused her to start and glance at the high widows as if expecting one of the monsters to come crashing through to claim her once more.

"It's all right," he said, seeing her anxiousness, "they can't, won't, come her." He slipped his long sword from its sheath on his back and saw her looking intently at it. He smiled broadly, "It's not this that holds them back," he said, weighing the weapon in his hand. "It's that they can't climb up here, that's what makes us safe."

As he talked his movement caused his other weapon to nod and bow towards her and she again stared at his appendage, still hard, and closer now than it had ever been. A half pace forward and his cock came within easy reach of her and she willed herself not to touch him, for a moment. 

She looked up towards his face as if asking his permission and he stepped forward, another half pace, bringing the head of his cock inches from her mouth.

"You don't have to," he whispered, although his voice still echoed off the stone walls of the tower fortress.

She did not reply, but opened her mouth and took the smooth head of his cock gently inside. Most of her ex boyfriend's cocks had either been heavily veined or at least 'tanned' a darker colour than the surrounding area, but not his. The shaft and head were both as white as the rest of his body, even the slightly coarser hair that covered his balls was without any sign of pigmentation.

As she licked up and down the long shaft her hand caressed his balls feeling the fullness of the orbs inside. He began to push the head against her cheek as if entreating her to allow him back inside her warm mouth and she once more encased the knob with her lips before sliding her lips back over him.

He watched as her hand drifted almost inadvertently between her legs and began pleasuring herself as she sucked on him. Easing her back onto the soft fabric of the futon his mouth found her erect nipple and he suckled gently on her, drawing the teat over his tongue as he sucked, his eyes still watching her fingers parting her outer lips and sliding inside her obviously wet pussy.

His head moved lower, his tongue tracing a path down to the thin strip of blond hair and onto her tiny clit protruding from its hood. Removing her fingers she reached out and grasped his hard cock, using her own juices as lubrication on him as she wanked him slowly and deliberately. As he licked around her clit he watched as it erected, the silky head rising from the folds as if aching for his mouth to suck on it. His mouth covered her pearl, his tongue dancing around it as he sucked and his finger entered her pushing deep, up and forward, until he found her g spot and he stroked her inside rhythmically.

Her body arched as his finger and tongue took her inexorably towards her climax and she stroked him faster until he moved his cock out of her hand and positioned it at the entrance to her sex. His cock parted her outer lips and slid inside, filling her warm channel and pushing higher until his balls hit her cheeks. He paused, then began fucking her in long, deep pleasurable strokes.

Reaching behind she felt the soft downy feathers of his furled wings and caressed them in time to his thrusting. She heard him groan as if her soft strokes were heightening his arousal and his thrusting became more frenetic. She felt his cock just touching the entrance to her womb as if the length of his cock and her vagina were made precisely to fit perfectly together. 

He leant forward and she felt his tongue licking around her lips before parting them and slipping inside. She felt a little guilty that this was the first time they had kissed yet his cock was buried deep in her, as if affections had been turned around somehow in this strange world. Not that any of it mattered to her then; she could feel his body tensing, his thrusting slowing a little and she knew his climax was close, as hers was.

Their mouths parted and his head slid down onto her shoulder, his lips close to her ear. 

As she felt his cum flooding her and her own orgasm sending wave after wave of pleasure throughout her body she heard him whisper, only one word . . . "Goodbye," before the blackness came again. 

* * * * * 

The light felt as if it was burning her eyes as it shone directly onto her pupils and she closed her eyelids tightly forcing herself to concentrate fully on the voice that seemed, once distant, but now was getting closer and more distinct. A voice she thought she recognised, but wasn't sure.

She smiled and reached out to the hand she somehow knew would be there. "Fuck me again," she whispered, "just once more."

She heard a slightly suppressed giggle, then, "I've been asking him for that for a while," a disembodied woman's voice answered her. "Are you ok? We think you've fallen on the stairs and taken a bump on your head."

His voice, close to her ear spoke quietly, reassuringly to her, "You'll be ok now," and she opened her eyes slowly to look into the paramedic's deep blue eyes.

"What happened?" she muttered, as she strove to stand before dizziness forced her back onto the floor. 

"You fell," the woman repeated, "but we think you're ok now. We'll take you to the hospital, just to have you checked out, got to be sure, haven't we? It must have been a hell of a knock you took. You've been muttering about monsters and angels and all sorts of things in the few minutes we've been here, hasn't she Michael?"

"Sure has . . . must have been some adventure you had in the land of Nod. Come on let's get you onto that stretcher and off to hospital; and covered up, don't want to take you outside looking like that, do we?"

The female paramedic pulled a blanket over her and, for a few seconds, looked puzzled, before shrugging her shoulders as she brushed the sand from the bare feet of the girl on the stretcher. 

The Dark



She had had a shitty day at work, but she was finally home. She pulled in the driveway, put the car in park, twisted the key in the ignition to shut it off, and pulled on the key to remove it. She closed her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh and laid her head on the headrest for just a few minutes. 

She finally opens her eyes, gathers up her belongings, and gets out of the car. 

While briskly walking towards her door, she rummaged around in her purse for her house keys, found them and continued the journey to her front door. She wiggled the key into the lock, unlocked it, pulled the key out, turned the knob and walked into her home.

Dropping her purse and keys onto the bar, she thinks, "God, it's awfully dark in here," tilting her head to the side. She could have sworn she had left a lamp on this morning before she had left. She knew she would be home very late and it would be dark when she arrived back at home. 

She kicks off her stiletto red high heels. She lifts each foot individually and rubs both of her calves. Scrunching up her nose while looking at the discarded shoes. How she hated those shoes but it was part of her job; plus she always liked the compliments she received when she wore them. She knew how great they made her legs look. 

She made her way over to the end table and cursed out loud as she banged her big toe on the edge of it. She lifted her foot to rub the sore area, lost her balance and banged her head on the top of the table. "Fuck fuck fuck," she said as she rubbed her head. "That fucking hurt."

She got up and went to reach for the lamp to turn it on, clicked the knob and nothing. 

"What the fuck," she thought. She gingerly made her way over to the other lamp and turned the switch. It wouldn't work either. "I wonder if the electricity is out?" she thought.

She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The light wasn't on in it either. She quickly shut the door so her food wouldn't get spoiled. 

"Hmmm, maybe it's just my house," she thought. 

She glanced out the kitchen window and the entire neighborhood was dark and unlit. 

"Must be a blackout. I wonder if those damn teenagers had been fooling around again and hit a pole. This would be the 2nd time in 4 months." Her face scrunches into an aggravated and annoyed look.

"Oh well, " she thought. "It's late and I've had a shitty day. I might as well go to bed and get a good night's rest." 

She meanders into her hallway and heads towards her bedroom. She enters the doorway and had already reached behind her to unzip her mid thigh skirt. She lets it just drop off her hips into a crumpled pile on the floor. She reaches for the bottom of her blouse and starts to lift it over her head. She had it lifted all the way up, covering her head, just about to pull it off when she suddenly feels hands grab her wrists and pin her to the wall. She starts to scream but a hand quickly covers her mouth to muffle it. Her eyes widen in terror.

"Who the hell was this and how did they get in here."

Then she realized she hadn't locked the front door when she had come into the house. 

"Shit," she thought as her mind started to whirl, thinking of ways to get out of this. 

She started to struggle but he had a good grip on both of her wrists, prohibiting any movement. 

He leans in towards her ear and whispers into it "Do not struggle or attempt to get away and you won't get hurt. In fact you might enjoy it." Then she hears his wicked laugh as his warm breath wafts against her cheek. 

She briefly closes her eyes as her body responds to that sexy whisper. She had always had a weak spot for a sexy husky male voice, especially when they whispered. 

She pushes the thought away and opens her eyes as she feels another pair of hands caress up the middle of her thighs. The hands stop at the juncture. 

She starts to glance downwards to see if she could recognize who was crouched in front of her. 

The male, who had her still pinned up against the wall, slides behind her. Gaining her attention, he utters into her ear 'I think I'll blindfold you so this will be more enjoyable for you."

She feels him tug on her blouse, removing it from her body. 

The blindfold is slipped over her eyes. Feeling the silky material tighten as it gets tied around her head. 

She realizes in this exact moment she is clad in only her red lacy silk panties and matching bra. 

She almost giggles out loud at her thought, "Well, at least I chose one of my nicer sets to wear today."

She feels the male who is behind her move in closer. His one hand is now holding both of her wrists, which are still stretched above her head. His free hand is now caressing up and down her right side. 

She giggles and squirms as he trails his fingers past a ticklish spot. 

She feels him shift to move in even closer to her. She feels his warm body press up against her almost naked form. She feels him grind his hips up against her firm tight rounded ass. 

She bites her bottom lip as the other pair of hands moves up her thighs to her hips, grasping the lining of her silk panties. She feels the material cut into her flesh as he bunches it up in his fingers. 

She gasps out loud as he tugs hard on them, ripping them in two. She feels her cunt clench as the cold air of the room hits her wet sex. 

She knows in her mind this isn't right, but her body is reacting in a totally different manner.

The man behind her moves his hand up to the middle of her back and undoes the clasp of her bra. He slides his fingers under the front of the lacy cup to grope her one breast, then the other. 

She can already feel her legs starting to weaken and buckle. How she loves when a man plays and toys and teases her tits. 

He releases her left breast. He slides one strap, then the other off of her shoulders, and then down each arm. Releasing one wrist to slide the strap off of it, then the other. Finally removing it completely from her flushed warm body. He lifts her arms back up, holding her wrists captive within his one hand.

She blushes profusely as she realizes she is now completely naked and helpless. 

The man behind her snakes his hand around her waist and pulls her tightly back against him, forcing her to expel her breath. He starts rubbing himself and grinding his cock up against her bare ass. She inwardly groans, refusing to give either of the men any satisfaction of hearing her.

The other man, who is between her legs, places whispery kisses along her thighs, an occasional nibble thrown in. She fights even harder not to make a sound by sealing her lips shut.

The man behind her tightens his hold around her waist, pulling her in closer to him, once again pressing his body up against hers. She can feel his rock hard cock nestle against her ass cheeks. She can feel his heart thudding against her upper back. His hand returns to her tits, mauling them. His fingers grip a nipple; roll it between his fingers before tugging on it, pulling on it and stretching it. He then pinches it. 

She is unable to hold back her moans anymore as her legs start to buckle. She knows her pussy is dripping wet. She also knows if he continues to taunt and tease her pert nipples, she would be cumming very soon. 

She almost does cum as she feels the man, whom is positioned in front of her, lick very slowly up her slit. She blushes even more as she hears him utter to the man behind her, "She's dripping wet and tastes so very good. I want her to cum in my mouth."

She can only imagine the evil grin on the man's face as he replies, "Oh is she? Well, then if that's what you want, we'll see if we can get her to comply with your request."

His fingers pinch harder on her now rock hard pink nubs, pulling them even further from her chest. 

The other man places his mouth over her wet pussy, sliding his tongue up into her wet warm passage, flicking it in and out, stiffening it as he begins to tongue fuck her. 

She feels her stomach tighten. Her skin warm and tingle. An intense fire forms in her gut. Her blood starting to boil as it runs through her veins. Her cunt clenches. Her inner muscles start to spasm. A small cry emits from her parted lips as her cunt floods and fills his awaiting open mouth. 

She can feel his lips sucking in her warm sweet nectar as it pours out of her quivering pussy. She slumps like a rag doll as he removes his mouth. Her breaths are shallow.

She hears him licking his lips. "Man oh man, she's fucking delicious," he says. 

The other man chuckling as he retorts "Well, she's gonna get fucked, that's for sure, but then again so are the three of us".  

She jerks her head up. 

"Three of us" she thinks. "There's three of them?" she whimpers at the thought. She had always wanted to be fucked by three men. 

"I think she likes the idea," she hears him chuckle again, releasing her wrists as she slumps to the floor in a heap. 

She can hardly catch her breath, her heart is hammering so hard in her chest. She hadn't cum like that in a very long time. 

"On your hands and knees," she hears one of the men order. 

She hesitates only for a brief second or so before she hears the other man bellow 

"He said on your hand and knees NOW." 

She quickly scrambles into the position, then yelps as she gets smacked simultaneously on both of her ass cheeks, feeling the warmth spread across her flesh. Dropping her head and biting back a moan as she gets cracked a few more times. 

"Lovely shade of red, don't you think?" 

"Yeah, just the color I like to see on a woman's ass. Plus the fact of feeling her hot flesh against my thighs and groin as I fuck her from behind."

She's just about to make a nasty retort but winces and yelps as she feels a bunch of her hair being gathered, then pulled, lifting her face up. 

"Now it's my turn missy," she hears as she feels the tip of a cock being pressed up against her lips. 

"Lick me," he orders. 

She parts her lips, slithering her tongue out between them and starts to lick the tip, working her way around the smooth head, gathering up the pre-cum that has formed in the slit. 

"Oh god yesss, that's it, now open your lips, I want you to suck me, and then I'm gonna fuck that luscious mouth of yours." 

She parts her lips and starts to take in the thick hard cock into her warm wet mouth, slathering it with her tongue as he pushes his entire length in. She gurgles and chokes a bit as he shoves the rest of his cock in. She can feel the tip slipping down into her throat. Tears spring to her eyes as her throat tightens, causing her to gag. She hears his groan as he sinks his entire length into her mouth and throat.

"Ok guys I'm all the way in and it feels sooooooo fucking good." Maintaining his grip upon her hair, he rocks his hips back and forth slightly. "I think her other holes need to be filled now. I'm not going to last very long. Her mouth and throat are definitely made for fucking. I'm gonna cum and cum hard"

She feels a hand on the middle of her back as one man moves behind her. He quickly plunges his cock into her dripping sex. Her groan is muffled by the cock, which is stuffed down her throat. She feels both men thrust in and out a few times. Her body rocks between the two men. 

"Gotta get it lubed," she hears him say coupled along with a wicked chuckle. 

The other two join in on the joke by laughing along with him. 

Uttering a soft whimper as she feels his cock withdraw from her dripping sex.

The cock, which is in her mouth, sinks further into her throat as she jerks forward from being smacked on her ass again. 

She feels a man sliding under her and feels him positioning his cock at the entrance of her pussy. It clenches in anticipation. 

The third man squats behind her as she feels him position the tip his cock at the entrance to her tight asshole. 

"Oh my god," she thinks, "This is actually going to happen. I am going to have all three of my holes filled at the same time and get fucked by three men." Her body shivers at the thought and her mind whirls.

She hears the guy behind her say, "Ready? On three....one....two...three"...

She tries to cry out as both cocks sink into her cunt and ass at the same time, filling both holes, stretching them to the limit, but only a small muffled sound emits from her filled mouth. Her eyes well and fill with tears as her ass begins to burn and stretch.

The two men groan as they sink the entire length of their rock hard cocks into her at the same time. 

She feels her cunt and ass constrict around the thick girths, causing them both to groan again. Her tears spill from her eyes and run down her cheeks.

The man who has his cock sunk into her mouth starts to fuck her first, pulling his cock almost all the way out only to sink it back in again. The other two start to fuck her also. Each one alternates their thrusts in and out of her cunt and ass. 

Her body being rocked by all three as they start to increase their pace till all three of them are just ramming their cocks in and out of her holes. She can feel her body starting to react, quickly getting to the point of orgasm. 

The guy who is fucking her pussy announces that she is getting incredibly wet and he thinks she's gonna cum very soon. 

The guy who is behind her announces how fucking tight her ass is, landing a few hard slaps with his bare hand upon her already reddened very warm cheeks. He can see his handprint forming upon her skin.

She is now frantically licking and sucking the cock in her mouth. The inner smooth muscles of her cunt are rippling around the cock that is embedded in it. Her ass is tightening and clenching around the cock, which is buried deep in her bowels. Her body begins to quiver and shake as her orgasm builds. 

All of the guys are groaning, moaning and uttering "Oh god's" and "Oh fucks" as they frantically and roughly fuck all three of her holes. 

She feels all three cocks throb and swell at the same time. She has never felt so full in her entire life.

Her body quakes and explodes as all three men ram their cocks deeply in each orifice. Her cunt and ass clamp like a vise around the two cocks embedded in them. Her throat and mouth milk the cock, which is nestled deeply in her throat.

She hears all three mean gasp then groan loudly as each cock explodes in her, their thick ropes of cum filling up her mouth, her cunt and her ass. 

Her body tenses and she explodes again. 

The three men withdraw their cocks out of her at the same time. She slumps to the floor, panting and wheezing for breath. Her body continues to shake and quiver, as tiny orgasms burst through her entire body.

She can feel the men's cum leaking out of her cunt and ass. The taste of cum is prevalent in her mouth and on her tongue. She wails as cum gets sprayed all over her body. This last act causes her to cum once more. 

Her body is completely exhausted at this point. She passes out.

She awakens a few hours later and immediately feels a throbbing in her head. She reaches up and feels a knot on the side of her skull. "Ouch," she utters as she touches it. 

She opens her eyes and looks around. It's morning now and she blinks her eyes as they adjust to the light. The memories of what occurred come flooding back into her memory. 

She glances around and realizes she's on the floor of her living room and is still dressed in the clothes she had worn to work yesterday. She places her hands on the end table and lifts herself up to stand. She wobbly makes her way to the kitchen and gets an ice pack for her head. 

'Fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck," she mutters as she realizes she had bumped her head on the end table, had passed out and had dreamed the entire thing. 

She makes her way to her bedroom, falls onto her bed, reaches for the phone and calls in sick to work. 

"Might as well stay home and have some fun," she thinks, as an evil grin forms on her face and a wicked glint becomes evident in her eyes. 

She quickly undresses and reaches into her nightstand and pulls out a few of her favorite toys.



The Dark Alley



I guess I'm old-fashioned. If a lady looked and acted and smelled pretty, you complimented her on her good tastes. It made her feel feminine, sexy, appealing – Special!

These days are long gone, ground into the dust of a new, "sterile", impersonal age.

I had been working at Integrated Allied for about 2 years now.

I've always had a deep love for belly-dancers; what they do, the way they use their bodies, the very sweet sexiness of their bellies, their navels and the way they sway and shiver, shimmy and totally mesmerize you, drawing your mind, your body, your whole being into their lovely, erotic dance.

Standing about 5' tall, with dark hair past her shoulders and tiny, petite features, she was so very PRETTY!!!! She looked like she had Spanish features, but others as well – possibly Celtic. She could have been one of my sisters, as each one of them shared her features. On the very first day that she started working with our company I knew she was a belly-dancer; she told me. She had been listening to Middle Eastern music. When I asked her about the music she told me then that she was a belly-dancer. There was this convention coming up and she wanted to use the company camera to capture pictures of the dancers. I explained to her I thought it would be all right. 

Looking back on it now, what a foolish mistake it was to say this, but I revealed to her that I was deeply thrilled by belly-dancers.

I suppose that set the precedence right there – although she seemed at the beginning to be pleased that I liked belly-dancers, even allowing me to borrow her CDs to burn copies of her music.

In my mind, I was totally thrilled that I had a friend that was a "BELLY-DANCER!!!!" I was in Heaven! Stupid-me, I even wrote her an e-mail telling her how very thrilled I was to see a smiling face every morning - rather than looking at the "Goony" faces of some of my other fellow employees in support. I never got an answer back from her – so, fearing that she resented or was somehow embarrassed by my e-mails, I stopped writing to her. It was wonderful, though, the other guys would tease her and she seemed to like it, teasing back. I was a little shy, so I never did enter into it. Although approaching her mid 30's I would say, she was GORGEOUS! My eyes hurt every time I looked at her – and she had a way of playing with her hair and then arching her back, her tee shirt riding up and showing her cute navel. The view to me was HEAVENLY!!!!

GOD, it hurts to this day! I'll never forget walking down the hall with her. She was wearing a perfume that was very sweet and fragrant, a very nice smell – and I commented to her that I liked her perfume. Later on, I was called into my supervisor's office saying that a complaint had been filed against me. I had commented on a girl's perfume. It was termed as sexual harassment! GOD, I was so HURT that she would do this to me! Thinking she was a friend, and holding a small amount of fan worship, I was and still am, attracted to her. I've never been great on social graces and occasionally I would say or do something that would get me into trouble, not because I meant anything lewd or anything, but because I thought the girl really WAS pretty, or because I held an affection for her and thought her "wonderful." I thought Celina was "wonderful". All those other hurts in my mind, I was crushed at this "betrayal!"

For the longest time, I could not lift my eyes to look at her. I stared down at the floor or someplace else. I didn't WANT her to know how very hurt I was. I've never been very good at hiding my feelings either – face it! I'm a MESS!!! I'm SURE she could see how hurt I was. Oddly enough, out of the corner of my eye, I would still see her glance at me. Was she looking at me because she was wary of me? I'm not a young person, and maybe that's where the resentment comes from, because I'm NOT young and I shouldn't be feeling these feelings: "Quote! - Unquote!" GOD! She'd be standing there, and, out of the corner of my eye, I would even notice her arch her back a little, revealing her tummy and then quickly glance at me as if I had noticed (or if I was leering?).

It never got any better. I had gotten my hand slapped really, really HARD and from that day forward, I did all I could not to say ANYTHING to her except totally job related – not even a joke or a comment about the weather.

Still, here it came! She complained that I had made a comment about her clothes! As far as I remembered, I didn't DARE say anything personal to her at ALL!!!! GOD, I hate being so Emotional!!! My boss told me about it and said if this happens again, I would be FIRED! I ranted, raved and yelled that "I DIDN'T DO OR SAY ANYTHING!" I suppose they relented because they told me that the two of us would need to find a way to work with each other – and that she would be getting this same lecture – but if this happens again, one of us would have to leave. I never seemed to have gotten that letter in my file that they said I was going to get. Or, at least they never showed it to me.

Later on, I was even assigned to WORK with her, side-by-side helping with QA'ing the products – testing and reporting. Day-by-day, we worked next to each other on the various test benches and said very, very little to each other. It seems things were getting better, though, because I did find out that she enjoyed the same type of movies I did. The day before, I had again watched the movie "The Mummy" and was dumbstruck by how very similar the heroine looked to Celina. I mentioned to her that I liked the modern version of "The Mummy", not daring to mention about "the heroine", with all the Egyptology stuff in it, thinking that because she was a belly-dancer, that she would like Egyptology stuff. I also mentioned "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "The Hunt for Red October." I told her that I enjoyed the interplay between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, in "Last Crusade". She admitted to me that she liked those movies too.

Things did seem to be getting better between her and me – I tried my best not to be angry or resentful with her, but even started to greet her with "good morning" and saying, "have a good lunch" and things. She even offered me half her sandwich one day – it was a very good sandwich.

Walking down the hall, I would notice her looking at me and giving me a smile. Although I was still trying to keep from offending her, keeping my eyes averted; inwardly I smiled back. Still, one day I mentioned to her that I really needed to be back in QA helping out, having been intermittently pulled to other duties. She said "No, that's ok, we really don't need the help" despite her supervisors asking me to help. GOD, will I ever get away from it!!!??? A huge feeling of rejection rushed through me.

Days before, during QA'ing, I remember my supervisor coming in and checking on us one time, asking about something. His parting comment to both of us was "Are you two playing nicely together? No problems?" GOD, I could tell BOTH of us were totally MORTIFIED!!!! She didn't say anything and neither did I! I sat like a STONE, my face and ears burning. 

Sally, this other girl that I work with; she and I have become really good friends. Although older than Celina, she's really CUTE with this pretty blonde hair and these "pixie" features. She seems to be a lot more understanding about things so she and I became quite close. When the boss would say something stupid or rant about something, she and I would glance at each other and smile, inwardly rolling our eyes to the heavens and gasping. She even lets me give her a hug now and then or a kind pat on the back during really high stress times – just to let her know that I care. I found I could talk to her over just about anything. 

I guess I had to tell someone – I told her about what's been going on between Celina and I; not naming Celina by name – I didn't have to. She knows how attracted I am to belly-dancers, and of course she also knows that Celina is one. She knows that I really care very deeply about the people I work with – considering them more than just fellow employees but "friends," even Celina.

Earlier I had mentioned that I was a rock painter and had even brought in some of my rocks – including this really cute raccoon I had done years before. Sally told me that Celina was impressed and had asked how I had gotten such very fine texture to the fur.

I showed my rocks to Celina, including my rabbits. She held them, showing a twinkle in her eyes, which pleased me, being that she liked them. "Theodore", one of my rabbits, was my favorite. I had done him the best and felt that the name "Theodore" was perfect for him.

It was this particular rabbit that I gave her, and told her that this was a peace offering. She even smiled at me and said thank you. "People that know me know that I am a bunny-type girl." My heart melted. I knew what type of "bunny" she meant and that it was no reference to anything lewd, but that she loved stuffed bunnies. I was thrilled that she had revealed this to me – and could envision her, this pretty little petite, dark-haired girl surrounded by all these stuffed bunnies, holding them in her arms and cuddling them to her.

She totally threw me a curve, because it was a week later that she revealed to me that I wasn't needed in QA – (she just-plain did NOT want my help).

I had discovered this restaurant just a couple of days previous down in old town – Saphira's. The name pretty much said it all – it was a Middle Eastern Restaurant specializing in Egyptian and Moroccan food. I had never been to a Middle Eastern restaurant or had Middle Eastern food. What drew me was the entertainment – it advertised belly-dancing on Friday and Saturday Nights from 7 to 9:30. I was ANXIOUS to see them. 

I explained to the waiter that I was unaccustomed to Middle Eastern cuisine and asked if he would order for me.

What came was GREAT! Some sort of meat with a delicious couscous, that one at least I knew. However, it was flavored with a very mild form of curry and cashews – it was MARVELOUS! The wine was delicious although I can't remember what he said it was called.

Dessert was this fabulous custard with some sort of a sauce over it. It made your mouth water. But, the BEST part of the dessert was NOT the dessert itself, but the floor show, because out came this really pretty long-blonde haired beauty dressed in silks of various colors. Her dance made your mouth water as you watched her shimmy and does figure eights, listened to the hypnotic tinkle of her finger cymbals and the little tinkling chains that surrounded her pretty little ankles. Her navel was deep and oval – almost slit-like. She was BEAUTIFUL! I could hardly eat my dessert from watching her, wanting to take some of this luscious cream and place it in her navel – and use it for my dessert cup.

Dancer upon dancer came out, dancing various speeds and types of dances, some wild and spinning, some soft and swaying – moody even, and then of course, the sword dance.

Nothing, but NOTHING prepared me for the final dance.

A blue spotlight hit the stage as the room lights were dimmed. A soft mist began rising as the music changed to a somber, hypnotic, slow mood. 

All of a sudden, this very lovely creature came out, the blue light illuminating her in this fantasy hue as she slowly began swaying like a serpent, every inch of her body involved down to her tiny little feet, her pretty belly softly undulating in and out like that previously mentioned serpent.

OH . . . . . MY . . . . . . GOD!!!!!!!!

It was CELINA!!!! Celina was dancing before me in this restaurant!!!!

My mouth went totally dry and I was totally unaware that my mouth was hanging open!

I was scared half out of my MIND!!! If I could have hid behind something, if I could have RAN if I could have somehow covered myself I would have! But, I was in the front row middle and she was swaying slowly in front of me – her body almost in a trance slowly weaving her erotic magic before me!

My God, she hadn't noticed me. She kept on dancing, swaying and weaving, her arms intertwined, her belly shivering and swaying as she performed figure-eights, belly-rolls, etc. I watched as her arms slowly traversed across her body to stop at her deep, beautiful, erotic navel – shivering and quaking, moving in a quick shudder as her eyes met mine. 

My body totally froze. A grinding, searing pain gnawed at my insides! I held my belly as if letting go would mean that my guts would fall on the floor at her feet. I held my stomach hard as I watched her tummy shuddering in quick in and out pants, her fingers lightly brushing her navel. 

It was like in slow motion as I watched her dancing with her veils, like curtains of her hair brushing over my face, deep, colorful, rich curtains of her hair drifting in waves over my face – my blood ran like ice water. Looking into her eyes, I could see this cold stare as she envisioned someone she never wanted to have around, be a witness to her art. Staring at me with a vengeful, sinister glare in her eye, I watched as she smiled back at me with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

The music erupted in quick patterns as she began spinning wildly, the room spinning as I watched her, her feet dancing in dizzying circles as her veils surrounded her like a coiled viper. Again and again and again with this same siren look in her eyes she focused on me as she drew veil after veil over my face and around my head, driving me slowly mad – giving me a huge taste of what I would NEVER have; taunting me, laughing at me inwardly – "so THIS is what you wanted, huh Ted," I envisioned her thinking. "How do you like, what you KNOW you will NEVER in your wildest dreams EVER HAVE!!!!!!?????"

My heart was BURSTING because I felt deep in the core of my body the disdain with which she viewed me – this little WORM of a man!!! This, old, tired, leering, limp-dicked worthless heap of a man – this old, sex-starved man! Every single glare of her eyes showed me her disdain for me, told me how much she loathed me – how much she did not WANT me here!

She taunted me, dancing wildly before me as she ground this moment into my face, arching her back, shimmying like "Jell-O" and bringing her navel to within an INCH of my lips as I watched those tiny little diamond beads of sweat covering her swaying undulating belly. Oh, my GOD, the perfume!!!!!

With a thumping beat on the drum she fell to her knees, the music ended as she remained before me, arched, panting; her arms behind her head, her belly arched and heaving with her navel leering at me, her eyes lifted to the heavens.

Then, just as smartly, she stood up; jerking her head around as she quickly stomped out, a tiny, final defiant wiggle to her ass, grinding the taste of her deeply into my memory.

My heart was ground to a gooey, bleeding pulp! I don't know how long I stayed frozen in my chair after the dance ended. Finally, someone shook me and I came to, my eyes hurting, my heart and soul totally ground into the dust under her tiny dancer feet.

Looking around, I saw I was the last customer in the place. Totally crushed by one person, I stood up weakly as the waiter laughed, 

"Another Zombie, Saphira! You did it again with Celina – Ha Ha!!!!"

"Best investment I've ever made, with that one," came the rapport from the kitchen.

One foot in front of the other, I moved out of the restaurant as visions of her veils grinded at my heart and soul – her half-smiling, glaring eyes boring through me like a red-hot scimitar – right through the center of my belly. I staggered into the night, clutching it as I envisioned her wildly and erotically swaying, shivering belly/navel.

GOD, it was cold! At least, it sure seemed cold in comparison to the usually warm Northern California nights that we usually had. Or, was it the visions in my head, causing my heart to ache as if ground underfoot? The cold helped bring me back to reality as I began searching for my car. Tomorrow was Sunday, and then Monday would come, and I would have to face Celina and again feel her eyes burning through me.

I wanted to run away – to ANYWHERE, just not back to work and HER. I clutched my head and my stomach; my head spinning, burning with a severe headache – a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My car was parked two blocks away from the restaurant. Because of how busy it was tonight, I had to park far away from the restaurant parking lot, walking through this dark alley. Entering it, I heard this scurrying and the sounds of tin cans being kicked around. Thinking it was only alley cats; I didn't pay much mind to it. As I drew closer, however, I heard the distinct sounds of angry, threatening voices, male voices! And, something more, I heard the sound of a scared female voice! OH, MY GOD!!!! It's Celina!!!! Something's wrong! I heard them threaten her! I heard them threaten to STAB her if she didn't comply with what, I don't know!

My heart pounding, my mind raced. God, should I run for help? By the time I come back she could be DEAD! I glanced around for whatever I could find, feverish to do SOMETHING!!! My eyes ran across a four - foot long or-so pipe lying in a corner, lit by the moon. I rushed over and grabbed it. Hearing a scream, I ran frantically, gasping and panting as I yelled out, "LEAVE HER ALONE YOU SONS OF BITCHES!"

Rounding the dumpster that they were hiding behind, I saw Celina crushed up against the side of the building, a man's hand around her throat holding her up against the building as he was lifting up her shirt high, someone else laughing in the shadows, her pretty white belly visible in the moonlight. I heard the scared, trembling sound in her voice and heard her plead for help! I saw her look at me, crying out to me, reaching to me for help. I've never been a brave person, but even death itself was forgotten when I heard her voice. 

I SCREAMED, 

"You Bastards from Fucking Hell, LEAVE HER ALONE," as I came running up to them like a Berserker, swinging my pipe at them. 

I could see the gleam of a knife in his hands, pointing at her navel – GOD; he was going to stab her! Swinging wildly, they saw this maniac running up to them, screaming curses, the blur of the pipe gleaming malevolently in the moonlight. They immediately dropped their knives and started running. Not bothering to chase them, but looking back on Celina, I watched as she slowly slumped to the pavement, crying and sobbing, her hands clutching her bare tummy. She lay in a little heap on the ground, her body wracked by fear and horror, crying pitifully, her shoulders heaving.

Dropping the pipe, I rushed up to her crying, "Celina, Celina!" 

She looked up at me through fear-wracked, tear-stained eyes, her little body shivering like a leaf. Tenderly, lovingly I knelt by her as I reached out for her. Like a drowning person clinging to a life raft, she threw her little arms around my neck as I gathered her to me like a little child. I could feel her whole body convulsing, her little tummy pressed against mine, heaving and jumping as she cried her heart out. Oh, GOD, I held her so very CLOSE, not wanting to let her go! I found that my tears were running down her neck, I was crying as well. Sitting on the pavement, Celina in my arms, I half-held her on my lap as we both cried and cried, holding my little friend in my arms as I cried for her and with her, her tears wetting my shirt as I consoled this little scared helpless girl in my arms – a totally different Celina from what I knew. Through her tears, she even told me that she had tried to fight them off – she had been studying karate and had even landed some blows. Her little sandals lay about 7 feet or so from her, her tiny feet cut from trying to fend them off, apparently having been cut by their knives or the rocks and glass. She looked up at me through those pretty, soft-brown eyes of hers and sobbed, 




The Dark Alley



"I did! I did! I tried to fight them off!"

"Shhhhh, baby, don't cry my baby! They're gone, they're NOT coming back." I kept kissing her hair, her eyes, rocking her tenderly, combing my fingers through her pretty, dark-brown hair.

We must have been there for about a half-hour, although it didn't seem that time was of any importance what-so-ever as she held onto me tightly, and me to her as if we were two survivors clinging to life, drifting in the middle of a stormy ocean.

Finally, weak though she was, her arms around my neck, I carefully helped her to her feet. Celina stumbling severely, crying out with every step, we made vain attempts to try and find her purse with her keys - to no avail. My car just about 150 feet from us, I found that she could not walk. Holding on to me, she cried out as she tried. Finally, seeing how hopeless this-all was, I picked her up in my arms – my little belly-dancer in my arms! As if carrying a precious little baby, I carried her so very carefully to my car, her tiny little feet still bleeding. GOD, she was as light as one of those stuffed bunnies!

Balancing her in one arm, I opened up the front passenger door, placing her carefully inside. Then very carefully lifting up her little feet I looked at them. In the dim light, it appeared that the cuts were somewhat superficial although they were bleeding quite badly, with rocks and stuff ground into them. Not having anything else to bandage them with, I finally removed my tee-shirt, tearing a couple long stripes off the bottom and wrapping these carefully around her feet. She sat there watching me, her head back against the seat; sobbing softly in pain and fear, as she allowed me to care for her feet. I placed the remnants of the shirt back on – looking somewhat ridiculous, this rather older, roly-poly man wearing this short shirt that should have been worn ONLY by a thinly-built, muscled teenager. She looked at me in that ridiculous shirt, her fear momentarily forgotten. She couldn't help but giggle slightly. I smiled back at her, feeling rather sheepish. That was the very first little-girl giggle I had ever heard from her involving me. It practically put me back in tears again.

"I need to get you to the hospital to have your feet checked out."

"Ok," she said, smiling weakly at me as we drove over to the local hospital. 

Not wanting to wait, I again picked her up in my arms as I tenderly carried her into emergency. I could feel her smiling as she snuggled her pretty face into my shoulder, wrapping her arms around my neck – did I feel her lips against my neck? GOD, her perfume! The same perfume I had gotten into all this trouble over!

The nurse at the front desk took a look at her and called for a doctor, quickly ushering us both into a bed as I carefully lay her on it. Then, asking if I was a relative, I said, "No" and was immediately ushered back into the waiting room. Glancing back at her as I exited the door, I saw her eyes twinkling at me, as this pretty little waif smiled at me, and softly waved at me.

It seemed like HOURS as I paced the floor. I knew she was in good hands, but still, all of the memories of EVERYTHING kept racing through my mind; the fight, her soft tummy in the moonlight, her screams in my ears, her pretty arms around my neck, holding her and hearing her cry like a scared little girl, the perfume, her rejections, the threats, the bunny, her bunny comment and her soft, sweet smile and the gleam in those very unforgettable, BEAUTIFUL eyes! ALL of it flowed through my mind like molten lava.

"Hi!" I heard this sweet, tiny voice calling from the door. Looking up, I saw her in a wheel chair, her tiny little dancer feet swathed in bandages as they wheeled her out, her cute little toes wiggling and winking back at me. Smiling with a huge, warm smile I went up to her as she beamed back at me. 

"God" I thought inwardly, "Is this the same girl I've been fighting with all these months?"

They wheeled her all the way out to my car, as the doctor gave her some pills for pain and infection. They had to give her some stitches. Again, I very carefully lifted her from the wheel chair as she quickly placed her arms around my neck, placing them back where I so wanted them to be, snuggling and nuzzling her face into my neck – where I ached for it to be.

She couldn't go home, she said. She didn't even have any keys for the door. So, I took her to my place; again carefully carrying this pretty little bundle into my house – "GOD, MY HOUSE!!!!????" and sitting her on my bed. All through this she stayed silent, accepting everything as "given."

"My sweet love, you can sleep here tonight, and then you and I will tackle the problem of the rest of your life." 

While sitting on the bed, I let her use my cell phone to make a call – and was surprised to hear her say,

"I'm alright, everything is fine! I'm over here at Ted's house – I don't have any keys so I can't come home and it's too far. So, I want you to go over to Anna's house and stay with her the night." She had phoned her daughter who was at home and could have let her in – I had forgotten about her completely!

I looked at her quizzically, my eyebrow lifted up. However, not offering any explanation whatsoever, she just smiled up at me with that cute, sassy smirk on her lips and shrugged her little shoulders.

"You sure you don't want me to take you home? After all, that was your daughter you were talking to."

She simply giggled warmly and smiled, saying;

"Everything's going to be alright."

Laughing and shaking my head, I offered her some chamomile tea to help her sleep as I grabbed some blankets to go sleep on the couch.

Her pretty eyes still smiling back at me, her soft mouth smiling, just for me, she bid me a soft good night as I left her, watching her carefully slide those pretty little toes under my sheets.

The lights out, it must have been 2 AM in the morning. I was awakened by this shuffling sound. Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes as I watched this pretty little vision carefully shuffling towards me, these cute little toes winking at me in the moonlight as it streamed-in, in stripes through my windows, as I noticed this lovely, pale area at her tummy. She had tied up her shirt, way high and was carefully staggering towards me!

My mind went totally NUMB, my mouth dry, my body totally shaking; a certain amount of fear mixed with desire shooting through my body like a javelin thrust as she slowly swayed jerkily up to me. GOD, she was belly-dancing!!!! My little belly-dancer was BELLY-DANCING for me!!!! I was CRYING!!! I was seeing this through eyes totally clouded over in a waterfall of tears!

Arching her back, her pretty tummy slowly swaying and rolling, performing figure-eights and shivers, she carefully worked her way up to me as I saw her pretty toes winking back at me through eyes drowning in tears, tears washing down my face in a flood.

Gently, Celina took my head in her hands, kissing it, as she gently placed my face against her trembling, bare tummy, my lips softly kissing her sweet little navel, as she gently whispered,

"You would have died for me."

"YES, my pretty little belly-dancer; my little dream, I WOULD have - most happily!"

Epilogue:

Monday Morning: I came to work this morning, all the weekend's activities fresh in my mind, whistling, walking with a lightness in my step that I hadn't felt in a LONG time. Her perfume lay sweetly on my mind.

Rounding a corner, there she was! As I gazed at her, rather dumbly I reminisce, I felt my heart slowly fall to the floor in anticipation of it being trampled on – again, by the saucy, flippant movements of this pretty woman as she glanced at me with a cold, business-like eye. 

Saying a quick, "Hi Joe" to me, she continued reading her papers as she carefully moved down the hall, her sandaled feet in bandages.

I feel I had again been thrown a curve, as I stood there for a moment, again drowning in a no-mans-land of confusion and betrayal. My heart hurting and bruised, I found my way back to my room where, to my surprise, she was at my desk, handing me papers saying:

"Here, Ted – the new batch of QA's."

Rather stunned, I moved and sat down slowly in my chair, taking the papers. Looking up at her, I said, "Thanks", waiting for her to spin on her heels and leave. 

I watched as she did just that – in slow motion. 

Then, with that cute saucy twinkle to her eyes and a little sway of her hips, she looked back at me and said, "We don't want to be accused of not playing good together, now do we?"

As I watched her slowly walk out my door, I smiled inwardly, whispering to myself, "Life is WONDERFUL! Ain't it?" 



The Dark and The Blond



Before opening the door I glanced through the peephole. 

"Don't say anything," I told the man as I opened the door to let him in. "I don't want you to say one word or utter any sound unless I give you permission."

Circling him, I take in the faded jeans that hug his waist and reveal his muscular thighs. The complimentary simplicity of his black sweater, that didn't quite hide his rippling upper body, made my heart flutter a little. Because, I knew he didn't have on anything underneath these two articles of cloths. 

He stood silent through my scrutiny, his brown tan enhanced the dark chocolate eyes that watched intently as I backed up to the door and locked it. He smiled softly for he seemed aware that he had been approved, as if he knew I only locked the doors for those I planned to keep for the evening.

"Take your shoes and socks off and leave them by the door on your right. After that sit down on the chair that faces the bed, and wrap your legs around those of the chair. Then put your hands behind your back." I directed him with authority. 

I watched him comply, before I went to answer the chime at the door. Through the mirror over the bed, I felt his gaze as I went through the same routine, rejecting the next two men. Neither had what I was looking for.

The third man was blond with strikingly innocent blue eyes. He was dressed in a well tailored, if somewhat second-hand, suit. His tall lanky frame was contrasted the more muscularly built and his skin was much paler then the other mans. I ordered him to undress beside the bed and then stand legs apart, hands behind his head. 

I watched the performance of the blond as he tried not to fumble around while he complied with my request. Although I knew that the two men were roughly around the same age the thin blond seemed much younger then the silent stone of a man sitting in the chair. The blond, I noticed, had been surprised by the dark man's presence but the forth-sight not to make any questioning sound. 

With the two men in their positions, I let my robe slide open to expose my naked body that it had been hiding beneath its silk. I enjoyed the exploration of the two sets of eyes on my body, as I continue to slide out the robe and place it on one of the four posters of the bed.

When I was fully nude I began to explain how the evening was going to go. 

"Now gentlemen, we are going to play a game in which you two are going to have to rely on one another if you expect to please me." 

I stepped in front of the blond, his eyes trying to not to show the inexperience he must have felt. This one would need a gentle but firm tone of voice, and so I smiled innocently up at him and stroked his soft smooth cheek, trying to calm him down so he would understand my instructions.

"You will respond only by a yes or a no." I explained simply, "You will not cry out unless I allow it. If this command is not obeyed then the evening ends and neither of you nor the gentlemen behind me will gain." 

His eyes flickered and focused for a second on the man in the chair before returning to mine. 

"Do you understand?"

"Yes." He responded, attempting to sound firm.

Smiling up at him I nodded softly trying to show that I had faith that he could do it. Then I turned and faced the darker man. His eyes challenged mine and I knew that this one would not need any gentle treatment. He understood my authority and a firm tone would be all it took to reinforce it.

"You will answer with one word, each of the questions I put forth. Feel free to take your time before responding. You are not allowed to move or make a noise of any kind. Do you understand, yes or no?" 

Smiling softly with a blaze of communication that he understood the game to have begun, he answered quietly, "Yes."

"Good! Then let's begin gentlemen."

I turned away from the chair and began to trace my fingers along the blonds' ribs, but no further down. It was a well toned body with thin wisp of light soft hair. I walked slowly around him and continued the trace down his spine. His tight buttocks clenched a bit when I reached his tailbone.

Smiling, I looked over the youth's shoulder at the figure in the chair. I had felt his strong gaze while I had been taking in the fair-haired man's attributes.

"Should I play with this handsome blond devil, or do you think I should let him play with me? Him or Me?"

Our eyes locked, before he replied abruptly, "You."

I don't know whose eyes were holding whom, but as I fired off the rest of the questions I continued to focus on him. 

"Lying or Standing?" "Standing." Came his slightly harsh reply.

"Eyes open or closed?" "Open." He challenged.

"Cherry or Honey?" I asked suddenly, in which his answer of "Honey" was done in a tone of slight confusion. I hadn't smiled but my eyes twinkled slightly at my ability to have confused the arrogant man. 

"Well my blond friend," I began as I again walked around to face him, "your companion has answered my questions. There is no need to be nervous. Whether you will thank him afterwards for his choices remains however on your ability to listen and respond correctly to my orders. If I am not allowed to concentrate then neither of you will benefit, do you understand?"

The young mans blue eyes looked into mine and his mouth opened with a submissive "Yes."

Silence enveloped us, as I fetched a jar from my nightstand and poured a generous amount into my hands. Walking up behind the standing man, I explained that although cold at first the oil would heat on his skin, before I touching the pale skin beneath my hands. 

Taking my time I rubbed the oil down his body covering places that I intended to visit again later. Caressing his buttocks generously, opening up the small crack between cheeks to pour in more of the oil, the man's body lurched suddenly and my hands stopped. 

"You will not do that again, do you understand me?" "Yes." He said his voice quavering.

"I'm not hurting you, this feels good doesn't it?"

"Yes." He whispered, trying to catch his breath. 

I went back to my work. Coming around to his chest I replenished my oil and hardened his nipples, twisting them slightly causing him to gasp silently for air. Down his flat stomach I discovered his penis, hardening quickly. Though its' width easily allowed my thumb and index finger to encircle it, its' length well made up for this being almost three times the size of my large finger. 

Taking his balls in my hands I rubbed the oil in carefully but firmly. Then I anointed the tip of his organ well before I finished the rest of him.

Stepping back, the young man's mouth had opened slightly but keeping in mind my orders he had managed to hold back any cries.

"Very good, you pleased me well not making a sound." I whispered in his ear as I returned to my original position behind him where I had first started with the oil. 

The dark man eyes were harder. I smiled with a hint of contempt, knowing his punishment hadn't even begun yet, I asked innocently, "Did I mention that the oil is edible?"

"No" came a squeak from the youth, as the dark eyes of the man flashed angrily. 

"Does that please you?" I asked Blondie, as my eyes continued to stare at the dark gentleman who squirmed slightly understanding that the question, although directed at him, was not his to answer. The young man groaned a small "yes'. And I began to lick the oil from the smooth skin I had placed it on. Whenever his muscles twinged I bit him and when they calmed I kissed him gently. 

Having completed his back I stood up, "Do you tingle all over you back now?"

He nodded his hair tangled in sweat that was starting to come down his face. And I stepped in front of him avoiding body contact. 

"Good I want that tingling sensation to last but I don't think it will when I start to do your chest so I want you to hold something for me. Will you do that?"

Looking at me without reservations, his body begging him to let me do anything to him, he whispered a yes. 

Returning to my nightstand I palmed the small device that was thin like a pencil but smaller and it's tiny controller. Then I took the boys hands from behind his head and led him over to the dark skinned man whose eyes hasn't been able to see what I had done to the while I had been behind the standing youth.

I placed the youth about an arms length away from the other and returned his hands back behind his head. Then again I walked around him and knelt down. I lubricated his anus a little more before slowly inserting the small vibrator inside. 

I stood up and stepped back for a moment taking in the situation. The two men were obviously uncomfortable. The blonds' standing body put his penis in direct eye line of the strong silent man sitting in the chair in front of him. Yes I had been correct in choosing such a tall man for this part. 

Smiling wickedly for a second I looked at the two of them. Both were trying to avoid eye contact with the other's person. 

"Now I don't like kneeling on the floor so I am going to sit down on your companions' lap." I explained, and the tension in the young man's face relaxed significantly. 

The dark man however looked down at floor and then around room quickly, trying to seem unfazed. Yet, he was unable to hide the fact that the zipper of his jeans was straining to keep his muscle in. 

When his eyes again found mine I continued unyielding, "You will not touch me in anyway. Nor will you make any sound. I want to fully concentrate on releasing the beautiful gentleman's suffering. Do you understand?"

The strength of the man character shone as he took a deep breath and in a baritone breath replied with a strong "Yes." 

I stepped in and filled the gap between to two men. I gazed up at the blonds' face and found myself taking it between my palms as my fingers moved across his lips. Aloud I asked a question I had not planned on asking.

"Should I kiss this man's beautiful generous soft pink lips?" The man behind shifted suddenly in his seat stiffening at this question.

Before an audible answer was able to form, I kissed the mouth in front of me. It was a soft mouth just as I had expected and as his mouth gasped open my tongue took advantage and began to explore it. I kept kissing him until he was drowning for air and stopped before his brain could make him respond back to my actions. 

Pulling back from him I released the man's face his eyes were closed and I smiled as I reminded him that he had to keep his eyes open. His eyes opened quickly and he watched as I slowly settled myself in-front of him. The dark mans' breath felt hot on my neck and I felt his organ strain against his jeans. My naked body felt warm against his clothed body and I knew that the next few minutes would be torture for both of my guests. I took out the little remote that I had been holding between my fingers and switched the small vibrator on, and the young blonds thin form began shaking hard.

"You may cry out only once, when you are about to come. This one noise I grant you." I said fiercely before grabbing him by the hips and letting my tongue begin to lap at him. 

I began suckling his honeyed balls slowly in my mouth as his hips jerked. With each jerk I took pleasure in pressing and grinding my own hips against the dark mans jeans. The dark mans legs parted slightly but other then the hard breaths he took he didn't move. I began to take the boys throbbing organ into my mouth, licking its rim, kissing and nipping teasingly with my teeth. With each movement I made the body below moved with me, exciting my body and causing a wetness to form that until then had only been a suggestion. 

I could tell the blonde wanted to prolong his pleasure but his body was not use to this type of onslaught and the sensations he was receiving from both in front and behind started to make him jerk violently onto his toes. Throwing his head back he let out a long pleasurable cry, warning me of his release. I took only one gulp of before disengaging my mouth from him. As he continued to spout I grabbed the towel that I had laid out earlier and handed it to him has he cleaned himself off. Meanwhile I turned off the small vibrator. When he was finished cleaning I ordered him to turn around and I eased out the vibrator as slowly I as I had put it in. 

"Take your cloths and clean up in the bathroom behind me, afterwards step through the other door and inform the person there that you pleased me." I said crisply as I stood up and walked over taking down my robe. "Thank you for coming." 

The young man's face was one of confusion and exhaustion. I watched as just as before he fumbled with his cloths and then took a few strides toward the door. Before he could escape though, I chided his manners.

"You don't want to forget to thank your companion, since it was his answers that gave you that experience." 

His beautiful blue eyes were no longer as innocent but sparkling and understanding. I hadn't bothered to tie the robe around me and he looked at me fully taking in my appearance as if trying to take a photo. Then focusing on the man in the chair he gave a quick "Thank You" before leaving the room.

The dark man had turned to watch the blonds' retreat but when the door closed behind tall lankly man, his dark brown eyes turned back to meet mine. 

I poured a glass of water from a pitcher and walked back over to him, my robe hanging open. Sitting back down on his legs I felt his body convulse. His eyes caught mine and I smiled gently at him, "You must be thirsty, would you like a sip of my water?"

The man nodded mutely and I held the glass up to his lips so he could drink from it. I had placed my body between his legs, which he had once again strapped to the chair legs, allowing him a view of my exposed skin. After he had taken a few sips I sat idly tugging lightly at the hair at the nip of his neck for moment as I sipped the rest of the water and got up to return the glass. 

"You can stand now, if you wish." I told him while I washed the small vibrator with a little water from the pitcher.

I felt him rise slowly stretching the muscles in his legs. His massive frame seemed to dwarf the room and I took a few small breaths before turning to face him. 

I walked toward him slowly, stopping an arms length away. With a steady but quiet voice I began, "The answers you made tonight, did you make them because the experience was something that you wanted done to you?" 

His eyes twinkled and a small grin crossed his face, "Perhaps." 

Ignoring his attempt to arise my curiosity, I proceeded with the next question.

"Do think I handled the job well?"

"Admirably," The dark man chuckled slightly.

His answers so far had been sly, but I knew that his answer to the next question would determine how I proceeded. 

"Did you honestly enjoy the performance?" I asked him softly.

The man drew a deep breath and slowly released. His eyes gazed at me and I could see the question rolling around in his mind. His eyes slowly took in my body and then came back up to my face. 

"Eventually." 

His answer was honest. I found myself wanting to explore the conversation but I restrained myself, knowing that if I asked he would become the one in control. 

Stepping back slightly I continued airily, "The questions you answered are ones I ask every time I entertain two guests." 

The statement was made to ensure that he understood that this situation wasn't my first nor would it be my last. His eyes became charcoal in color and I could feel the energy radiating from him that it took for him to remain still and silent at this remark.

For a moment we stood without words, then lifting my hand I reached out and felt the softness of the black cotton sweater he was using to hide his muscular chest."

"It is now your turn but instead of the answers you gave, we are going to explore the answers you didn't." His eyes gazed into mine with full understanding, but with a firm voice I continued, "When I say stop you will stop, do you understand?"

The man nodded and I went on to remind him of each of the questions and his answers.

"Since you were unaware of the situation, and because I am feeling generous, after our young friends' fine performance," I said to entice a little jealousy. "I will allow you to change one of the options." 

With a dangerous glint in his eye, he smiled "Then unless I gesture otherwise, I want you to keep your eyes open." He said silkily, in the longest speech I had allowed to pass his lips in almost two hours.

"Then take off my robe and put it back." 

His hands, dark and strong like his body, gently glided the robe off my body and I felt a loss of heat as he moved to replace it on the bedpost. 

"Pick up the pink oil bottle on the table and bring it back." I ordered as I positioned myself on the bed and watched his graceful movements. 

As he returned to the bedside, I thought about allowing him to undress, his body was so primed to act. But looking up to his face there was no hint of begging in his eyes and that's what I wanted from him.

"You will put the oil only on those places you intend your tongue to explore." I explained. 

He nodded slowly and I watched him pour a small amount of the oil onto his palm, insuring that none of it would spill. Then he crawled on the bed and straddled my body.

Underneath him I felt the weight of his mass yet it did not crush me. With his free hand he brushed my eyelashes and I understood that he wanted my eyes closed. When they were shut, I felt the oil being rub into my faced over the eyelids and then my lips.

"Open." He whispered and I did only to find that he wanted me to see him put the oil on his own tongue.

"Close"

I did not rush to obey rather stared at him for a moment before agreeing to do so.

His tongue was strong yet soft against my cheeks and he kissed my eyelids gently flicking his tongue slightly. Then his mouth came down on mine and then suddenly his tongue pushed my teeth apart driving it through them to discover every part of my mouth. The cherry of the oil tasted delicious against my own tongue and I found myself pushing back so that I could explore his hot mouth. Our tongues fought for a while each trying to win an unbeatable war. 

His hands went to my neck and although I could have been frightened I understood that all he was doing was extending the path of his mouth with the oil. He covered my earlobe and sucked at my neck gently before he lifted his head away.

I opened my eyes to watch him acquire more oil. His kisses had left my face red and my body was awake waiting for more. 

His mouth at my breast was excruciating, slowly his bit hard and fiercely sucked each of the tips. My belly was warm, the weight of him gnawed at me to take him then. Pride alone kept me from doing so. 

"Take them both if you can." I challenged him. 

The smile he gave me caused me to shudder silently and he bit one nipple and dragged it over to retrieve the other. As he suckled them both, I pushed up against him wanting him to take more of them into his mouth. 

After a few moments he stopped and drew back, standing up he pulled my legs to the edge of the bed and spread them wide. Kneeling over the bed he took the bottle and he hands became wicked as they spread the oil up each of my inner thighs. However, he intentionally avoided putting any into my already saturated center. 

I gazed up at his looming body as he waited a moment before licking his lips and carefully began to lap up each spot of oil, his hot breath only making me ache more. My hands clenched the covers of the beds suddenly and I held in a Scream. 

He looked up at me knowing that I had come close to giving him my power. My body was ripe with fluid and he knew it. 

Suddenly, his hands grabbed each of my hips and he drew me harshly to his mouth. Suckling immediately he nipped and began to drain my dripping vagina. 




The Dark and the Light



The moonlight creeps in through the window behind me, casting a few shadows across the room. Mixing softly with the candle light being thrown from the flames on the dresser. I lay back on the chaise lounge, naked except for a small smile on my face. My breathing already heavy and labored my fingertip idly plays with my hardening nipple. 

On the bed, a few steps away from me is a fantasy. 

My fantasy. 

Two men. Beautifully made men, though I believe that all men are made beautifully, these two are an asset to the species. One dark. One light. A perfect contrast to each other. Both gorgeous and both very aroused. The blonde with a light spattering of hair on his chest, the dark one bare and smooth. As I watch, the carnal beauty of the image overwhelms me. A fierce but gentle scene playing out in front of my eyes. 

The Dark One stands beside the bed, one hand on his hip, the other on the back of the blondes head, urging him on as his very thick and very hard cock drives in and out from between Blondies lips. His hips moving slow and steady, his fabulous backside flexing and relaxing in front of my eyes. The blondes' blue eyes locked with the Dark Ones hazel eyes as he chokes a bit at the height of each stroke. Trying to take every inch deep into his mouth. As I watch, the Dark Ones cock is moving in and out, faster and faster, the hand on the back of Blondie's head fists into his hair. Low moans escaping the lips of both men.

My hand slips down my torso, I can smell my arousal already. Feel the wetness between my thighs. I slowly spread my legs. I begin to drift my fingers lightly over myself. Slowly up and down, I can feel my clit already hard, standing at attention. I know just a little pressure, a little play and I will be lost. I gently tease myself as I watch, prolonging my pleasure, staying my release.

The men shift, Blondie lays back, his partner kneels besides the bed to return the favor. The Dark Ones mouth opens and his tongue flicks out, brushing down the entire length of Blondie's long and very hard cock, slightly less thick than his own. He is so hard its purple and I think I can see it throbbing from where I sit. 

My fingers slowly dip into myself as the cock disappears into the Dark Ones mouth, every so slowly, teasing his partner as I mimic him and tease myself. Pushing two fingers in, my hips lifting slightly of their own accord. Moaning loud as I fill myself first slowly then faster, moving at the same pace as the cock moving between the Dark Ones lips. I can see Blondie's face, his eyes watch as his partners mouth slides up and down. His back arches as he is pleasured, his hips lift slightly, pushing his cock deeper into the Dark Ones mouth.

My mouth waters, I want to taste him, I want to taste them both. I bring my hand back up to my breasts, rubbing my wetness across the hard peak. Dipping my head to lick it off.

Blondie moves first, he pulls the Dark One up his body, Kissing him hard, pushing his tongue into his mouth. I know he can taste himself, as I watch I can see their cocks touching each other, sliding against one another. Slight movements of the hips making both men moan into the others mouths as they seen to grow even bigger and harder in front of my eyes. Blondie pulls back, smiling at the Dark One. He pushes him away and flips over onto his stomach, slowly raising onto his hands and knees. I watch as his beautiful ass comes into view. My hands cup and squeeze my breasts, pulling roughly on my nipples as I see the Dark One move into place. Casting a look over his shoulder at me he smiles then leans down, letting his tongue flick out and lightly tease his partners ass, circling and probing. Our breathing fills the room, low moans coming from all of us. My pussy is practically dripping with excitement and I know I cannot take much more. 

The Dark One stands, rubbing the engorged head of his cock against he puckered opening to Blondie's body, Blondie arches, his hips shifting to ready himself for the invasion. I lean closer to them riveted by the sight, my breaths coming faster and faster, I'm panting as I watch the Dark Ones cock pushing against the tight hole. Seeing a little resistance then Blondie's body opening as he slowly gets filled. The cock works into him deeper and deeper. I get up from my observation position, walking slowly toward them. 

The look on the dark ones face sheer ecstasy as he buries himself. Working inside until he's buried to the hilt. I hear Blondie moan. A complete animal sound as his hips lift and fall, almost trying to work the cock himself, his hips buckling and swiveling. Moving it slightly inside himself. I press my body against the Dark Ones back, my hands moving over his chest as my nipples poke into his back. 

Moving my hand down. My fingers teasing him where his body joins Blondie's, squeezing the base of his cock as he slowly pulls out and then pushes back inside. I dart my tongue out and lick, tasting the salty sweetness of his skin while I watch him work his cock in and out from over his shoulder. Slowly moving my hands back up, exploring his torso with my fingertips, tugging and twisting the small gold hoop that adorns his right nipple as my teeth sink into his shoulder. 

I drag my tongue slowly down his spine until I'm kneeling behind him, my hands moving to cup his tight ass. Leaning closer I nip, then chuckle to myself as I hear his sharp intake of breath. Letting my tongue explore, I push between the cheeks of his ass, licking gently at his little bud. Pulling back I wet my finger and teasing him slowly, circling his ass as he moves. Probing slightly, feeling him push back, knowing he wants more. I lean back to watch as my finger slowly disappears into his body. I feel his muscles grip tight around my finger as I probe, rubbing him lightly in that special little spot...the one I know that will make him go crazy. 

"Bitch," he hisses at me through his teeth as his strokes pick up, pushing harder and faster in and out of Blondie

I pull my finger out, smiling as his breathing comes faster and his stokes harder. I stand and move to the bed, wiggling my way under Blondie. He lifts off the bed allowing me access to him, his whole body moving with the thrusts of the dark one. Taking his hard cock between my lips I can't help but moan. He is so wet, pre cum dripping from the end of his cock as I work it slowly with my whole mouth, my lips tight around him, my tongue flicking along the length as I up and down his shaft, over and over. My teeth brushing lightly against his cock as I take all I can, gagging a bit as the Dark One's thrusts push him deeper into my mouth. 

My lips moving to the rhythm that the Dark One is setting, I feel Blondie's breath on my leg, he is panting and moaning, little squeaks of pleasure escaping his lips as the Dark One pounds against him. Then suddenly I feel a tongue on my slit. Hot and wet, my whole body arches, my legs open as wide as they can Blondie's fingers push inside me as he flicks over my clit, stabbing and licking. My hips rise and fall, my hand moves down holding his head close to me, I rub my wetness shamelessly over his face, against his mouth. Riding his lips and tongue. I take his cock out of my mouth and begin to lick him, his length, and his sac. The inside of both their thighs. The Dark Ones sac. I'm frenzied. So close, it hurts. My moans getting louder and more frequent. My whole body moving, I feel as though I'm about to explode. 

Then it all stops. The dark one stops. Blondie stops. I know neither of them has come yet and my anguished cry is enough to tell them both that I haven't either. I feel hands on my body. A mouth on my nipple and a hand moving between my legs. A finger pushing into my pussy. Another teases my ass. A hot wet tongue on my already throbbing clit. I don't know who is who and at this point I don't care. My whole body is moving, writhing on the bed as they tease me. The Dark One rolls onto the bed beside me, pulling me over him. He kisses me roughly, his hand gripping my hair, holding my head as he punishes my mouth. I can taste myself on his lips, he moves my legs on either side of his hips and thrusts up into me. Filling my more than ready pussy, moving hard and fast as I moan into his mouth, my hands gripping his shoulders as he fucks me, holding my hips for leverage. I cum, screaming out as my whole body shakes, my pussy clamping down tight on his cock, spasming around him. 

He slows as my body starts to relax. I feel Blondie moving behind me. His front pressing to my back, then his cock probing my little hole, the Dark One pulls me toward him, his arms banding around my middle, locking me against his chest. Blondie pushes against me. My body tenses, but he pushes harder until the tight ring of my ass lets him in. I groan, low and loud as he slowly works himself into me. My muscles gripping him tight as he pushes, his cock slowly sinking inside me. Squeezing tight around the Dark Ones cock still in my pussy, I feel pulled tight, my body seems stretched to the limit.

"Oh Fuck," I moan into the Dark Ones neck

"Oh god yesssss," I hiss as they both start to move inside me. 

My hips shifting slightly to accommodate them. Moving like one person they slip in and out of me in perfect rhythm. My hips grinding against them, my whole body tight. I lean up a bit, kissing the dark one. Moaning over and over into his mouth as they move inside me, our sweat covered bodies sliding against each other as I strive for a release that I know isn't far in coming. I close my eyes, concentrating on the sensations. The fullness. The friction. I scream as I cum even harder than before. My body shudders. My hips buck against them. My muscles clamping down hard on both cocks inside me, squeezing them tight as my body shakes. I hear Blondie's cry as he comes hard, filing my ass. Then the Dark One pushing into my sopping pussy deep, lifting me off the bed as he grunts and fills me. My eyes close as I feel them both pulsing inside me, surging as they empty themselves.

Slowly my breathing returns to normal and my eyes flutter open. The room slightly darker as the candles on my dresser, all but burnt out as I shift and pull the toys slowly from my holes. One black. One flesh colored. 

As the moonlight fills my empty room, I run my hand over the smooth wet latex before putting them aside. Leaving myself feeling sated but very empty. My pussy, still throbbing as I reach a hand down and run my fingertip over my sensitized clit. Stretching my arms over my head with a sly grin on my face I wonder to myself, if I had the chance to live it, would the reality ever be as good as my fantasy?



The Dark Angel



"Isis", what a name, she thought to herself. Her mom loved mythology and decided to name her only daughter after the Egyptian goddess. Isis had raven black hair that cascaded down her back and stopped just above her butt. She had emerald eyes and her skin was like porcelain. She was a true vision of loveliness, a goddess if you will.

Isis had been plagued with dreams of pleasure and pain, of good and evil, so disturbing were her dreams that she often found herself awakened sweaty and confused, dazed by the goings on in her dreams. "They were just dreams weren't they?" She asked herself.

There was always a dark presence in her dreams. She feared him and yet longed for him. She was tormented by her feelings for this dark hearted being, if he had a heart, if he even had a soul, was he soulless, was he a demon, could he love, did he want to love, was he just there to put Hell into her life? Isis had so many questions that needed answers.

"The dark lord of the realm of disturbing dreams." Dementian laughed to himself. "Yes Isis I will fill your dreams with all of what I am, who I am. You will come to know me like no other before you and I will know you my goddess. You will come to love me, worship me, and rule my realm by my side." 

Not an easy task for Dementian to take on, for Isis was protected and the only way to get to her was through dreams. So he waited for nightfall, for sleep to take Isis over and for her to enter his world, their world.

It was night yet again and Isis drained from her day's tasks, she crept to her room. She had bathed and was dressed for slumber, her white nightgown clinging to her shapely form, her breasts firm and full, erect nipples poking through the silk, aching to be touched. Isis smiled in the mirror briefly as she brushed her hair. She climbed into bed thinking about the dark prince that she often dreamt about. His eyes of ocean blue, his hair so long and blonde, she laughed to herself at the thought of a blonde haired demon, she always thought they were dark haired. His tanned body so defined with abs that rippled and arms and legs that were strong enough to fend off the worst of enemies.

Isis closed her eyes and let her visions of her dark lord take her to dreamland. She met him there. 

"I am here my Prince, where are thee, I wish to see you." Isis called out for her dark angel.

"Isis, I am here" A whisper came to her ear from what seemed like everywhere. Then there was laughter, deep and startling.

"You tease me." She half smiled half frown.

"Isis, I love you!" With that sentence, a hush came across the realm. Dementian did love her.

"My dark angel, I do know not of love or how you could possibly love one such as I. I am but a child in a woman's body. I know not man or even beast for that matter. I am happy you love me for I believe I may love you. I know not such things. I am afraid of not knowing and afraid of knowing. Does this make sense? I know not your name but I know your face, your body. I know you love me but please tell me your name so that I may shout it out across the hilltops of which it is I love." Isis smiled looking up to see Dementian so close to her.

"I love you Isis, I love you with all my dark heart, yes Isis, I have a heart, fill it with your light, your love. Set me aflame with your burning kiss. Torment me with your mouth, NOW!" In an instant Dementian grabbed Isis, wrapping his arms around her body, she looked up at his face, his lips burning with desire. Her lips met his and so the spark ignited into a flame. The fire danced around them. "I, my lovely Isis, am Dementian, and I will love you always." He broke off the kiss.

Isis held him tightly to her. "Why only in dreams do we meet? I want you Dementian, I know not why or how, but make it so. Make it so we can be together forever, please." Her green eyes misting, she didn't want to wake up. She wanted to stay in Dementian's realm forever.

Dementian kissed her again. The passion flamed throughout his body. His loins on fire, he wanted to bury himself deep within her. He slipped his hand in her nightgown. Her nipples erect, plump, teasing him. His forefinger and thumb worked each nipple in turn. Moans escaped from Isis' luscious lips. Dementian removed her gown and exposed her flesh. She lay her head back and he took turns taking each breast in his mouth, teasing her nipples with his tongue, nibbling, sucking, wanting to devour her. Dementian lay her on the bed that appeared from out of nowhere. The fire blazed around them. He kissed her again, their tongues danced with each others. He kissed her chin, kissed her chest, kissing down her body, he stopped at her belly button, and he pierced it with his tongue and then bit it. Isis screamed with pleasure. He branded her. He slipped an earring out of his ear and placed it through Isis navel. "You are mine Isis, no man or demon will lay claim to you for I love you and you love me." He continued kissing her stomach and gently he spread her legs apart to see the beautifully moist heaven that lay before him. Her glorious mound was swollen waiting to be loved. Dementian did not hesitate to spread her lips and lick that which tasted like Heaven, honey, milk, a woman's essence, a woman's innocence, for Isis was innocent, a virgin. He readied her for him. He licked and sucked her until she bucked under his tongue and all her juices seeped into his mouth. With his pants already off, he eased his hardness into her, knowing this was her first but never her last with him. He felt her womanhood, he gently continued. He engulfed her mouth with his kisses, his tongue, anything to ease the pain that would come when he got through. She grasped his neck as his cock made it. The tightness enveloped him, her moistness welcomed him. Isis kissed him deeply with each thrust, her breathing heavier, she wanted more. He pumped deeper inside her as the flames grew higher. She would be his bride there was nothing or no one to say otherwise. He gripped her hips closer with each thrust he gave, he was close and the pace quickened. As he was cumming so too was Isis. She screamed his name and this pleased him and he lay on her sated, sweaty, but so deeply in love.

...to be continued



The Dark at the Bottom of the Stair



The Indiana sky was a brilliant azure without a single cloud to mar the dome of heaven. Birds were singing in the boughs among the new leaves that were opening, and the crocuses, narcissus and daffodils were in bloom. It seemed that all of nature had joined in some baneful plot to mock my sorrow.

I got in the backseat of my son's car, and we slowly pulled out of the cemetery. Sally turned around in her seat to look at me sympathetically. She reached her arm over the seat and clasped my hand. "It was a beautiful ceremony, Mr. Moore. I know Madeline would have loved it."

I didn't say anything. Maddy had been a happy person, one who loved nature. Or at least she had before Grace left.

Terry glanced back at me, and I could see his eyes were red too, but he tried to be supportive. "Sally's right, Dad, Mom would have wanted it to be just like it was today."

I knew they were right. Spring was Maddy's favorite time of year. I guess if she had to go, this would have been the time she would have chosen. Still, that's little consolation when you've just buried the wife you loved for thirty-five years.

Terry parked in front of our house, and he and Sally walked with me into the house. I sat down heavily on the couch. They looked at me anxiously.

"Did you ever hear anything from Grace?" I asked. 

Terry looked down at the floor. "No, not a word."

I nodded. I had been certain of the answer, but I couldn't stop myself from asking.

In the silence, Terry shifted uneasily and then asked, "Are you going to be okay, Dad?"

"How do you answer that?" I asked myself. "Nothing is ever going to be okay again, but I can't say that to my son. It would only increase his anxiety about me, and he has his own grief to deal with."

"I'll be okay," I told him. "It's going to be pretty strange living here without her, but I plan to keep busy, and that will help."

"That's good, Dad," Terry responded. "Listen, we've got to go pick up Lance from the babysitter now. But if you need anything – anything at all – please call me."

Rising to see them off, I nodded. "You two take good care of my grandson," I told them.

After they had gone, I stood there and looked around at the home Maddy and I had shared for so many years. It was filled with memories, some good, some not so good. But it had always been filled with life, and now, well, not so much. The day was still bright outside, but the light coming through the windows seemed to lose its intensity as it entered.

I sat back down and began to remember.

My thoughts drifted back to when we bought the house all those years ago. In truth, it had been too big and too expensive for a young couple like us, just getting started. But we fell in love with the place the moment we saw it, and nowhere else would do. So we pulled all of our savings out of the bank, and my father loaned me enough in addition to make the down payment. 

Even then, the monthly payment was more than I could comfortably handle, so Maddy went out looking for a job. She was fortunate enough to find one in the development office of the city's art museum. She was always good at communications, both written and oral, and with her love for art, it was a perfect fit.

I guess you'd say we were "house poor": each month we had very little money left over after paying the mortgage and utilities. But we didn't care, we were madly in love and on our way to the American Dream. We might not have been able to go out to dinner and the movies, but we compensated by making love in every room in the house. Maddy always had a strong libido, and she'd get in the mood at the drop of the hat. Sometimes she nearly killed me, but what a way to go!

With all the sex we had, it wasn't surprising that Maddy got pregnant with Terry the second year after we were settled into our new home. It was a difficult delivery -- Maddy was in labor for eighteen hours – but then we had this wonderful new life in our arms and suddenly everything was perfect.

Terry had been a good baby, sleeping through the night within six weeks, no colic, none of the problems so many newborns have. As he grew, he continued to display that same good health and happy disposition, so much so that Maddy felt comfortable about going back to work when Terry was nine months old. The museum thought so highly of her that they had held her job, so we made that transition with remarkably few difficulties.

Having an infant in the house curtailed our love life, of course, but only somewhat. We still managed to make love frequently once Terry began sleeping through the night. And whenever Maddy would have to travel on one of her fund-raising trips to other cities, she'd come home in a frenzy. I knew I would get little sleep the first night she returned.

Terry had come pretty early in our marriage, but it was five years before our next one. Maddy wanted to wait. Part of her decision was based on the success she was enjoying in her work. By then she had been named to head the development department, and she loved every part of it: schmoozing with fat-cat donors, planning fundraising events and holding the annual membership campaign. But I also think that the delivery of Terry had been daunting enough that she just wasn't ready to undergo that again anytime soon.

In truth, we weren't even trying when Maddy became pregnant. But as every gynecologist knows, babies have a way of sprouting when they want to, regardless of the intent of their parents. And so Grace arrived almost exactly five years after Terry. But unlike her brother and despite her name, Grace was a trial from the moment she arrived. She cried when she was born and it seemed she never stopped, except when she was sleeping, which happened sporadically and only for short periods of time. 

We had secretly prided ourselves on how well Terry had done and what an easy baby he was. Grace humbled us. She cried, she spit up, she had diarrhea, and then she cried some more. Many times we were at our wits' end, but somehow we came through it with our sanity and marriage intact. I think it was harder on Maddy than it was on me. Somehow, Grace seemed to be on her better (never best) behavior when I held her, fed or changed her. But when Maddy took her, little Grace fought and cried and was generally on her worst behavior. She was almost nine months old before she began sleeping through the night. 

The pediatrician told us that some babies are just more difficult than others. If so, then Grace must have been the model of a difficult baby.

As she grew older, we could tell that her personality was very different from her brother's. Where Terry was calm and quick to become absorbed in his activities, Grace was constantly active, frequently shifting her attention from one thing to the next, needing attention and demanding to be diverted by something different.

When she reached her second birthday, we learned the true meaning of the "Terrible Two's." Worse, she didn't seem to grow out of that stage, even when she hit three and beyond. "No" became her favorite word, and she proved to be both willful and unbending. "Are you sure we brought the right baby home from the hospital?" Maddy would ask me some nights when Grace had proved unusually difficult. 

Another striking difference between our two children was their performance in school. Right from the beginning, Terry displayed the need to achieve that often characterizes first-born children. As my father would say, he took to school like a pig to mud. He was not a genius, but he was a good student who always worked hard, and all his teachers praised him when we went to parent-teacher conferences.

Grace, in contrast, was an indifferent student. That's not to say she was slow; in fact she was highly intelligent, perhaps in some ways even more so than Terry. If a subject interested her, she would throw herself into it without reservation, often making the top grade in her class. But she had no interest in nor patience for subjects that did not appeal to her, and it was virtually impossible to motivate her to put any time or effort into them. As a result, she would excel in certain areas but fail in all the rest, bringing her overall grades down dramatically.

Maddy and I were dreading the time when Grace reached her teenage years, and our fears proved well founded. The rebellion and independent streak that had burned within her as a youngster became a raging conflagration when she hit thirteen, and it got worse from there. She was impudent, insolent and frequently disobedient. When we grounded her one time when she was sixteen, she snuck out of her room, took one of our cars without permission, and went out drinking and dancing with her friends. When she came home at three in the morning, she was so drunk she could hardly stand, yet she somehow managed to get the car and herself home in one piece. I guess the Lord really does watch over drunks, fools and children.

Despite everything, Grace made it through to graduation, and while she certainly didn't distinguish herself academically, she did earn her high school diploma. Her transcript wasn't going to get her into Harvard, but at least she had the possibility of going to community college and maybe transferring to a better school after her sophomore year. At least, that was our plan.

But her achievement had lulled us into a false sense of optimism. Shortly after her graduation, Grace and her mother had a huge fight. I wasn't there when it started, so I don't know who threw the first verbal punch, but I heard the yelling and walked into the room just in time to hear Maddy shout, "I am your mother, and I will not accept that kind of lack of respect from you, young lady!"  To which my daughter replied in decibels every bit as high, "You're not my mother, you're a bitch!"  Both Maddy and I were stunned, but before either of us could react, Grace burst into tears and ran up the stairs to her room. I heard the door slam, and when I tried the handle, it was locked. I knew I could open her door with the master key, but I decided a cooling-off period was better than forcing an immediate confrontation. I wish now that I'd taken the other option.

We didn't see Grace the rest of the afternoon, which was just as well because Maddy was almost hysterical. I had to devote all my energy to consoling and calming her as best I could. 

Grace didn't come down for dinner, and we figure she was on her phone with her girlfriends bemoaning how badly her parents treated her. After the episode with the stolen car, I had made it a point to keep all the car keys in our room, and I checked them before I went to bed. I didn't sleep well, and twice got up during the night just to be sure that Grace was still there. Sometime after midnight, I fell into a troubled sleep. 

When I finally woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was to walk down the hall to check Grace's room. I was relieved to see her door was still closed, and turned to go back to our bedroom. But something made me double-check, and when I tried the doorknob, the door swung open. Her room was as chaotic as always, but Grace wasn't in her bed. I quickly ran downstairs and checked the rest of the house. No Grace.

Then I went out to the garage just to make sure the cars were still there. They were. I came back in the house, planning to go wake Maddy and tell her what I'd discovered, when I noticed my wallet sitting on the breakfast room table. I was sure I'd left it on my dresser the night before. When I opened it, I noticed two things. I'd gotten five hundred dollars out of the bank earlier in the week; now it was gone. Then I saw the note folded up where the bills had been. I recognized Grace's scrawl: "Sorry, Daddy, I took the money. I'll pay you back some day."

I quickly grabbed the telephone and called the police. "I want to report a missing person," I told the desk sergeant. He wanted to know her age and how long she had been missing. When I told him she was eighteen and that she'd only been gone a few hours, he wearily explained that a) she was an adult and could come and go as she pleased, and b) in any case she couldn't be considered missing until she had been gone more than twenty-four hours, unless there was evidence of a crime. I decided not to mention the money Grace had taken.

Maddy had come downstairs sometime in the middle of my conversation, and as she picked up on the gist of the discussion, she began frantically tugging at my sleeve to find out what was going on. I pulled out the note from Grace and handed it to her. She began to weep when she read it.

I turned back to the phone. "Look, Sergeant, I don't know whether you have a kid or not, but if you did and he or she ran away like this, what would you do?"

There was a pause and his voice lost all its boredom and became human. "The first thing I'd do would be to call all her friends and see if any of them know where she might be headed. If that doesn't turn up anything, I'd check the bus terminal to see if she might have caught one. A lot of runaways do because it's cheap and there's no hassle at the gate. And if you haven't done so already, try to call her on her phone. If she doesn't answer, leave a message for her. That's what I'd do."

I thanked him and hung up. I wondered if he might have a kid Grace's age.

I called Grace's cellphone; it went straight to voicemail. "Grace," I said, as calmly as I could under the circumstances, "please come home. I'm so scared for you, baby. If you can't get home, I'll come get you wherever you are. If you don't want to come home, at least call and let us know you're all right. Please, baby. Mom and I love you so much, and we're so scared, baby. Please."

Maddy and I began calling every friend of Grace's we could remember. No one knew where she might be going, or, if they did, no one would admit it. We called Terry, who by then had graduated from college and had a wife of his own, but he hadn't heard from her either. Terry and Grace weren't real close, but they were closer to each other than she was with us. He promised to let us know immediately if he had any word.

Then we drove down to the bus depot, hoping against hope that she might still be there. She wasn't, and none of the people at the ticket windows remembered selling a one-way ticket to an eighteen-year-old girl.

The next few days were a nightmare. After the requisite twenty-four hours, we officially reported Grace as missing. The police warned us that they couldn't make her come home since she was legally an adult, but they promised to search for her nevertheless.

We learned about the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and registered Grace with them. We learned about support groups consisting of parents of missing children. We were horrified to learn that some 850,000 new names are added to the missing persons list each year, almost two-thirds of which are twenty or under. But we also found that a nearly equal number of entries are cleared each year as individuals return home or are otherwise removed from the list. That gave us hope.

I contacted a detective agency to see if they could help. The agent I spoke to was very sympathetic, but not very encouraging. "Indianapolis is surrounded by major cities within a few hundred miles in all directions, and every one of them has a sizable population of runaways and the homeless where she could disappear. Even if we knew where she'd gone, we'd have a hard time tracking her down if she doesn't want to be found."

"I'll be honest with you: we don't like to take cases like this because it's so rare that we have any luck. If I were you, I'd keep doing what you're doing now. You're just as likely to find her that was as with us."

I left his office an anxious and discouraged man.

About two months after Grace disappeared, I was working in the office one day when my cellphone rang. "Hello," I answered, only to hear a quavery female voice: "Daddy?"

"Grace," I yelled, "where are you, baby?  Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, Daddy," she replied. "I'm in a safe place. I just don't want you to worry about me."

"Come home, Grace," I pleaded. "Or tell me where you are and I'll come get you."

"No, I can't, Daddy," she said. "It's all too weird. I'm going to stay where I am."

"Oh, baby, please come home. Mom and I miss you so badly."

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I can't. Listen, I just wanted you to know I'm alright and you don't have to worry about me. I'll call you again when I can."

And with that she was gone.

I left work and drove over to the museum to see Maddy; I didn't trust myself to tell her over the phone. When I walked into her office, Maddy saw me and put her hand to her mouth, her eyes widening in fear.

"No, it's good news," I said hastily. "I just had a call from Grace."

With that, Maddy dropped her head to her desk and began to sob. I walked around to hold her. When she regained control, I told her what had happened and what Grace had said.

"But when's she coming home?" Maddy demanded. "She's got to come home."

I sighed. "Honey, she said she was in a safe place and she's going to stay there for now. She said it's too weird for her to come back home right now."

Maddy began to cry again. "She hates me," she sobbed. "I drove her away and now she's punishing me."

"No, honey, no. She's confused and unhappy, and neither of us knows what's really going on with her. You've got to stop beating yourself up. That argument you and she had wasn't the cause of her leaving, it was just a symptom of all her confusion. You've got to believe that."

I don't think Maddy bought my hypothesis, but she did calm down, and the two of us were able to take some comfort in knowing our daughter was alive and seemed to be okay.

That set the pattern for how our lives continued: every few months I'd get a call from Grace reassuring me that she was alright. She never asked for money, she never told me where she was, and she would never agree to come home, no matter how I begged. Occasionally, Terry would let me know she had called him, always with a similar message. But she never called Maddy, and although I tried to downplay the obvious, I knew it always hurt Maddy that her daughter wouldn't speak to her.

We were never at peace with the situation, but after several years went by, we did achieve a measure of acceptance. Our daughter didn't want us in her life, and there was nothing we could do about it. We still worried about her, especially when the interval between calls would stretch out longer than normal, but wherever she was and whatever she was doing, she seemed to be safe as far as we could tell, and we clung to that belief for our own mental health.

But our comparative peace didn't last long; a new threat arose.

Maddy came home from one day from a routine mammogram with the worrisome news that the doctor had found a lump. "He wants me to have a biopsy," she told me. 

I felt a clammy sweat break out on me, even as I tried to soothe her. "It's probably nothing, honey. These days, they have to test everything for defensive reasons. You'll see," I told her as I held her. But I don't think she believed my words any more than I did. Somehow, Maddy and I had become characters in some ancient Greek tragedy, and the gods seemed in a particularly vengeful mood.

My sense of doom was heightened when we got the results from the pathology lab. The lump was malignant, with poorly differentiated cancer cells. Further testing revealed that the cancer had spread to the lymphatic system. 

I was devastated, but I knew I had to be strong for Maddy because she would need all the strength she could get. "We're going to fight this thing," I told her. "It's not a death sentence; lots of women come through it and live long, happy lives."

Maddy's oncologist was a no-nonsense type. "We're going to treat this aggressively," he told us. "I don't want to take a gradual approach and run the risk of this thing getting away from us."




The Dark at the Bottom of the Stair



When we learned what "aggressive" meant, Maddy turned pale, and I thought for a moment I would pass out. She would have to undergo a mastectomy and the removal of her lymph nodes, followed by both chemotherapy and radiation. We both cried when we got home from the doctor's office, and I cried again when I had to call Terry and tell him. 

The next act in our little drama featured scenes of darkness and light. The light came from the support groups we joined and the encouragement of our friends. They helped sustain us and keep our spirits up with their sympathy and understanding.

But the surgery and follow-up treatments were very dark indeed. Losing her breast hit Maddy especially hard. She was a beautiful woman, and had always been especially proud of her breasts. They were one of her best features. 

Although I tried to hide it, her surgery hit me equally hard. I'd always loved her breasts, and the idea of her being disfigured was difficult for me to accept. But I told myself to grow up and quit feeling sorry for myself. I wasn't the one fighting for my life, and I wasn't going to do anything but be positive and upbeat around her. "Once we get this thing licked," I promised her, "you can get reconstructive surgery. They can do wonders now; you'll be the envy of all your friends."

But when the gods become angry at mortals, they are not to be appeased by acts of courage and displays of optimism. When we learned that the cancer had metastasized aggressively to other organs, Maddy lost the will to fight. "I don't want to go through any more surgeries," she told me. "I don't want any more chemo or radiation. I've had enough."

I begged and pleaded with her not to give up, but she was adamant, and I really couldn't blame her. I'd seen how weak she'd been after the surgery, how sick the toxic chemicals they'd injected into her body had made her. No one could fault her for not wanting to keep going through that with very little likelihood of success. 

I thought there might also be another factor, though I didn't want to mention it. I feared that Maddy viewed her cancer as some sort of punishment for what had happened with Grace. Maddy never said anything like that, but I couldn't help but wonder if that was part of the reason she declined further treatment.

Once we stopped all treatment, things began to change very quickly. Maddy would have good days when she would seem almost normal. I remember taking her to a flower show and rejoicing in the pleasure she took in seeing array of blooms. Other days, she would scarcely be able to lift her head, and I could tell that her strength was draining like water from a cracked glass.

In the last days, I moved her to hospice care. Most of the time she simply slept, an uneasy, unrestful sleep. When she was awake, she had things she wanted to say, but she didn't have the energy for long conversations. "Raleigh, you know that I've always loved you," she told me on more than one occasion. That made me sad, because I had always known that; there was no reason for her to feel she had to keep reassuring me. But I only replied that I knew she did and that I had always loved her equally as much. 

On her last day, she roused herself again to take my hand. "Grace?" was all she said, but I knew what she was asking. I could do nothing but shake my head. "Tell her I'm sorry for everything," she murmured before slipping back into sleep. She would not awake.

Later that night, she went into Cheyne-Stokes breathing, and then she was gone. The gods had had their vengeance.

I shook myself from my reverie and looked around our quiet home. Now that she was safely buried, there was nothing more I could do for her. It was time for me to go on with my life. 

Those were brave words, but they didn't match my mood. There had been times when I wondered how I could go on after losing the two most important women in my life. But that was just self-pity talking; I had a son with a wife and a son of their own. I knew they loved and needed me, just as I needed them. Life might have lost its zest, but I had no right to think about giving up. 

The next few weeks were filled with a new set of hurts and indignities. The pain came from the need to clean out Maddy's things, especially her clothes, cosmetics and other personal effects. I knew I had to do it – I didn't want them to become some pathetic, dusty shrine – but every item I packed had its own set of memories, and the relatively simple task took me days to complete. 

The indignities were inflicted both actively and passively by the friends, acquaintances and colleagues I interacted with over the next few weeks. The museum where she had worked sent a delegation over to express their condolences, and while I appreciated the gesture, I hardly knew any of the people. The signed calligraphic memorial they presented me with was an embarrassment.  What was I to do with it -- hang it over the fireplace?

Many of our friends stopped by to check on me, but they had no idea what to say to me beyond the clichéd phrases everyone uses. Likewise, I had no idea what to say in return other than to employ the equally tired responses. 

Worst of all were the people who couldn't think of anything to say and, in their embarrassment, would avoid me. I'd see them shaking their head or casting worried glances in my direction when they thought I wouldn't notice. I didn't fault them; sometimes there's just nothing that can be said.

I'd taken to visiting our minister at church during Maddy's illness, and now that she was gone, I found I needed to keep going. Our minister was a wise and lovely woman who let me pour out my grief in her little office over a cup of tea. In addition to spiritual comfort, she proved to have great insight into human nature. It was she more than anyone else who helped me get past my self-pity.

But when I went to see her this Friday, I had a new problem to deal with, one that both troubled and shamed me. After she had poured me a cup and settled back in her swivel chair, I began to make my informal confession.

"I had a nightmare last night. I dreamed that Maddy was alive, but she wouldn't come to me. I was lying in my bed, but I was helpless and couldn't get up. Maddy just laughed at me and went out the door, never even looking back. I was so angry at her that I felt like I hated her at that moment."

I looked up at the reverend's thoughtful face. "What's wrong with me?  How can I be having feelings like that?"

She took a sip of from her cup and looked at me intently. "Raleigh, what you're feeling is entirely normal. Nobody likes to talk about it, but I daresay most of the people who lose loved ones experience feelings of resentment and anger toward them at one time or another."

"But how can that be?" I demanded. "She's dead, for God's sake, while I'm still alive. She should be resenting me, not the other way around."

"But don't you see," she said quietly, "she left you alone in all your pain and sorrow. The more you loved her, the more you miss her, and the more it hurts. And the source of all that pain is Maddy.Iis it any wonder you feel some resentment toward the person who's causing you to grieve and suffer so terribly?"

What she said made sense in a twisted sort of way, but I still wasn't happy about it. "What can I do to make it go away?  I don't want to spend the rest of my life hating my dead wife."

The minister gave me a little smile. "You don't need to worry about that, Raleigh. The reason you feel anger now is that you still haven't accepted the fact that Maddy is gone. It's all still too fresh and raw. Once you get to the point of acceptance, you'll find that the anger is gone too, and you'll be able to focus on the good memories."

When I left her office, I hoped that she was right. It was very disconcerting to find myself hating the woman I'd cherished for so many years.

I was glad I'd had the appointment with our minister that day because I was invited to have dinner with Terry and his family that night. The last thing I wanted to do was visit them with all that anger unresolved in my heart. Little did I know the next scene in my drama was just getting started.

After dinner, Terry and I sat out in the den. Sally made a point of leaving us alone, saying she needed to put their son Lance to bed. "What is it, Terry?" I asked him. "I can see there's something you want to tell me."

He shifted nervously in his chair and cleared his throat. "It's Grace," he said, "I've heard from her."

Instantly, all the anger that the minister had managed to ease that afternoon came flooding back, but this time it had a new target.

"Did you tell her?" I demanded. "Did you tell that her mother is dead?"

He looked at me uneasily. "Yeah, Dad, I told her."

"Well, what did she have to say?" I said, more loudly than I had intended. "She knew Maddy was dying. Couldn't she have even come to her mother's funeral?"

"She cried when I told her," Terry answered. 

I looked at him expectantly. "There's more, isn't there?" I prompted.

His face took on a guilty appearance. "She made me swear not to tell you, Dad, but I just can't keep that promise. I know where she is."

I sat there dumbfounded. After five long years . . . 

Terry went on. "When I told her about Mom's death, she asked me to send her something of Mom's she could keep. I got one of Mom's crosses from the stuff you gave Sally and sent it to her. Dad, she's living in Chicago; I've got her address." He handed me a slip of paper. "Oh, and she's living under Mom's maiden name; she's Grace Campbell now."

I took the paper with her name and address and saw that Grace' was actually living in Skokie, just north of Chicago. I put the address in my pocket and stood up.

"Dad, what are you going to do?" Terry asked in alarm.

"There's only one thing I can do," I told him. "I have to go and see her."

He looked at me in resignation. "I knew you'd say that."

He walked me to the door. "Dad, don't do anything crazy."

I looked at him solemnly. "I promise, son."

As soon as I got home, I booked a motel near Grace's address. Then I headed for bed. It's about a three-hour drive from our house to Chicago, and I wanted to get an early start. I had no idea how long I'd be staying, so I wasn't sure how much to pack.

During the drive up, I kept thinking about what I wanted to say to her. After five years and all the things that had happened in that time, I didn't know where to start. I went through various scenarios in my mind. None of them seemed right -- there were just too many things I didn't know.

It was after noon when I reached Skokie, so I decided to grab a bite to eat before going to her address. I wasn't really that hungry, but I knew that the acid building up in my stomach would eat a hole in the lining if I didn't put something down there to soak it up.

When I reached her address, I was surprised. I'd been expecting a slum; instead, I found myself parked in front of a pleasant complex filled with what appeared to be upscale townhomes. I was so bemused that when I got to the door and rang the bell, I had forgotten the speech I had intended to make to her.

I could see an eye peering at me through the peephole of the door, and there was a long pause before it opened. There in the doorway stood my long-lost daughter. From a gawky teenager, she had grown into a lovely young woman, every bit as beautiful as her mother.

She stood there eying me with a sour expression on her face. "I should have known better than to trust Terry," was all she said.

At that, the temper I'd tried to suppress began to boil, and it was all I could do not to yell at her. Striving for control, I asked rather testily, "Is that any way to greet your father after disappearing for five years?"

She heaved a sigh. "You're right, Daddy. I'm sorry, please come in." She stepped back, pulling the door open wider, and I walked into her place. It was tastefully decorated, and the furniture appeared to be pretty new.

The appearance of her lifestyle raised even more questions for me. What did she do for a living?  How could she afford such a nice place?  What had she been doing for the five long years she'd been gone?

She motioned me to the sofa, and seated herself in an armchair across from me. As I gazed at her, it struck me again how much she looked like her mother, and with that memory, all my hurt and anger came bubbling up again. "Why didn't you come home for your mother's funeral?" I demanded. 

She looked at me helplessly. "Daddy, I just couldn't. It was all so complicated -- I just couldn't do it."

"That's not acceptable," I said. "She was your mother, for God's sake!"

Grace just sat there, her eyes downcast.

I tried to regain my composure. "She wanted to see you so badly," I said more gently. "Do you know what the last words she ever said were?  She said, 'Tell Grace I'm sorry.'" Angrily, I brushed the tears that seemed to have appeared on my cheeks. "I don't know what you two were fighting about, but it can't have been so bad that you wouldn't even come to see her laid to rest."

The tears were now running down her cheeks too. "But I couldn't," she said hopelessly. "If I had gone back, it would have meant I forgave her. How could I do that?"

"Forgave her for what?" I demanded.

"For the way she treated you," she snapped back at me.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said angrily. "Your mother loved me and cared for me every day of our thirty-five years together. Even when she was dying, she kept telling me that over and over again."

Now I could see anger rise in Grace's eyes, and it reminded me of the bad old days when she was a rebellious teenager. "Maybe she did, Daddy, but she sure had a funny way of showing it."

I could only shake my head. "I don't understand a word you're saying," I shot back.

She gulped and then the words came spewing out. "Daddy, she was cheating on you!  Didn't you know that?  Didn't you at least suspect?"

I sat back heavily in my seat. I found it hard to breathe.

"No, that can't be true. Maddy would never have done that. How can you say that?"  But my words had no conviction behind them; doubt was building in me even as I protested.

"It's true, Daddy. I heard her talking to him on the phone. I ditched school one day, and when Mom came in, she didn't know I was home. I guess she had to change for some big event at the museum, but anyway her cellphone rang and it was him. I heard her talking to him while she walked around her bedroom pulling out the clothes she wanted to wear. She talked about what they were going to do that night, and then she started talking about what she was going to do to him." She sniffled. "Daddy, it turned into phone sex, and I heard every filthy word she said."

I was reeling at the scene Grace was recounting for me, and I grasped for any straws I could find. "Maybe it was a joke, sweetheart. Maybe she was just teasing him."

But Grace had broken her self-imposed oath of silence, and now it was all going to come out. She interrupted my rationalization. "No, Daddy, it was no joke. I know because the next day when she reamed me out about something, I confronted her. She tried to deny it, but when I began repeating what she had said to him, she had to admit it. I don't know why – maybe she was tired of living with the guilt – but she told me all about it: who he was, how long it had been going on, how it had started."

Then the determined look on her face seemed to dissolve, and the tears began to flow again. "And when she was done, she told me I could never tell anyone, not Terry, not my friends, and especially not you. She told me you could never accept it, that you would divorce her and break up our home. I couldn't do that, Daddy. I couldn't be the one to split up our family." 

With that she put her face in her hands and began to sob. Despite my own anguish, I went over and knelt beside her chair so I could hold her. But I couldn't keep silent; what she had told me raised so many more questions. "What happened after that?" I asked her gently. 

"I tried to keep her secret, Daddy, and I did for a couple of months, I guess. I was about to graduate, and I just wanted to get through that." She looked up at me. "But it was so hard. Every time she kissed you, the only thing I could think of was what she'd told him she was going to do with her mouth. Whenever she had some event to go to at the museum, I'd wonder if it was just an excuse to see him again. And every time she came down on me for something I'd done, all I could think was, 'Who are you to judge me?'"

She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. "It got so bad I felt like I was going to explode. And then one day when she really got onto me, I did. That was the time you walked in on our big fight. I knew I couldn't stay there another day. I couldn't stay with Mom because I couldn't stand her lies and her 'I'm so superior' attitude. And I couldn't stay with you because I knew I couldn't keep everything from you, and that would have been the end of our family. The only way out was for me to leave and get as far away as I could."

She shrugged her shoulders. "And that's when I ran away to Chicago."

My mind was filled with more questions, but the first one that popped out of my mouth was, "Why did you go to Chicago?'

She looked at me like I was dumb. "Because that's where he lives."

"Who?" I said angrily, "Where who lives?"

"The guy she was sleeping with. You've heard of him, Daddy: Carleton Morrison."

And suddenly it all started to fall into place. I'd never met Carleton Morrison, but I knew who he was. He was the wealthy commodities trader who was as famous for the starlets he used to date as for his patronage of the arts. I remembered that his first multi-million-dollar donation to the museum had been one of Maddy's early coups that marked her as a rising star in the development office. Now I wondered what she'd had to do to get it.

Then another memory popped into my head. Back when we had been struggling financially, we'd had a stroke of good fortune that had really made the difference for us. Maddy came home one day to tell me that an aunt I'd never met had passed away and left her a nice sum of money. It was enough to let us get out of debt and get our heads above water financially. Now I had to wonder who was the real source of that money?

"But that can't be right," I thought. "That was so long ago." I tried to remember when all that had happened. "That would mean their affair started . . ." 

But before I could remember, my recollection was interrupted by a stirring coming from the back of the house. Grace was up like a shot. "Oh, dear, we woke her up." Then she disappeared into the back hall.

When she reappeared, she was accompanied by a beautiful little girl who must have been between two and three years old. She had lustrous brown hair that hung in bangs over her forehead, and large brown eyes. But all I could focus on at that moment were those abnormally large elbows, the awkward angle of her lower limbs and feet, and the difficulty she had in walking, even with her mother's help. 

I fell to my knees and reached out to her. "Hello," I said quietly, "I'm your Granddaddy. What's your name?"  

Those big eyes looked at me for a moment. Then she said in a halting voice, "Soo-zee."

"Hello, Susie. Can I hold you?"

She looked back to see her mother's smile and nod, then stretched her arms out to me. I gently picked her up and stood there, holding my grand-daughter. Over her shoulder, I stared at Grace through brimming eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

It was time for Susie to eat, and I did the best I could to help Grace feed her. Afterwards, the little girl wanted to go outside, so Grace got her stroller and put her in it. Then we walked along the sun-dappled sidewalk under the trees until we reached a small park. Susie cooed and talked to herself most of the way.




The Dark at the Bottom of the Stair



There was a playground in one section of the park, and we watched half a dozen children playing on one of those slides that spiral down to the ground. One after another they'd climb to the top of the ladder and then let go, spiraling down until they were dumped out onto the ground. "Just like me," I thought wryly.

As we strolled, I gestured toward the precious little girl in front of us with a questioning look on my face. Grace understood. "It's cerebral palsy," she told me quietly. I nodded. I didn't know a lot about CP, but I did know that Susie would need special care for the rest of her life. I put my arm around my daughter. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"Don't be," she replied evenly. "She's my daughter and my responsibility. I've got it under control."

I looked at her questioningly, but she seemed certain of herself.

Some of my earlier anger resurfaced then, but I didn't want to alarm Susie, so I tried to keep my voice low. "The least you could have done is let me know I have a grand-daughter now."

Grace looked at me sadly, and then led us over to a park bench. She and I sat side by side, and she rolled Susie's stroller back and forth in a gentle motion. The combination of the sun and the motion of the stroller seemed to have lulled Susie back to sleep.

After checking on her daughter, Grace turned to me, and with a gentle expression, she said, "Poor Daddy, you just don't understand. Susie is not your grand-daughter."

"Of course she's my grand-daughter," I said indignantly. "You're my daughter and she's your daughter. That makes me her grandfather."

She took my hand gently. "You're my Daddy. You'll always be my Daddy, but you're not my father."

I heard a roaring in my ears, or maybe it was the faraway sound of the gods laughing.

"That can't be," I gasped. "I was there when you were born. Your mother and I made love . . ." I stopped myself. Even at that moment I found it difficult to talk about sex with my daughter.

Grace shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I've seen the DNA test."

I broke down and cried then. Finding my daughter after so long only to lose her again was just too much for me to handle.

We must have made a strange picture: the older man hunched over crying bitterly, the younger woman with her arm around his shoulders trying to comfort him, the toddler napping in her stroller.

I struggled to regain control of myself, but I still wasn't thinking clearly. "But if I'm not your real father, who is?"

Grace just looked at me, and the pieces all suddenly snapped together. 

"When did you find out?" I asked her.

"Oh, not till after . . . not till much later," she said.

I wondered at that, but just then Susie began to stir. "We really ought to get her home," Grace said, and so we started back. We didn't talk – I still had questions, but my misery was too great to ask them just then. 

It was becoming clear to me now: Maddy wasn't the protagonist in this little tragedy -- I was. It was my role to be tormented by the gods, taking one blow after another. I thought about the often quoted line: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad." I could relate to that: I felt like I was clinging to sanity by my finger-tips.

Grace fixed us a simple dinner, and I again helped her with feeding Susie. After the meal, I held the little sweetheart in my lap and read to her from one of her favorite books. She pointed enthusiastically at the pictures as I read the words on the pages.

After we put the little girl down to bed, Grace and I returned to the living room. The time spent with Susie had brought a brief respite from my mental turmoil, but now I needed answers to my questions.

I wanted to find out what had happened to Grace during the five years when she'd gone missing. "Tell me again why you ran away to Chicago," I started.

"It was simple, Daddy. I came here because I wanted to see him, to confront the man who had ruined my life and was threatening to break up my family. I had to know what kind of man could make Mom do what she did."

"So what happened?" I asked.

"Well, finding him was easy; everybody knew where Carleton Morrison lived. So I just marched right up to his mansion and demanded to see him. And when I told them I was Maddy Moore's daughter, he let me in."

"What did he have to say?"

"Oh, he readily admitted that he'd been having an affair with Mom for years. He even said he hoped it would continue. He showed absolutely no remorse; I wanted to claw his eyes out."

She sighed. "But then he began asking about me: why I had come, what my plans were. When I admitted that I didn't have any plans, he offered to let me stay in one of the rooms in his mansion. He told me if I needed money, he'd pay me to do odd jobs for him. And I thought, 'Why not?'  I had no place else to go, and he owed me for the hell he'd put me through. Besides, I thought that maybe by being near him I could understand more about why Mom had cheated with him."

I shook my head. "That's so hard for me to imagine," I told her, "you living in the home of your worst enemy."

She smiled ruefully. "I know, Daddy, but you have to understand, he's a very persuasive man. He knows how to flatter you and joke with you until you find yourself doing what he wants. It's no surprise to me that he was able to date all those models and starlets. Even without his fortune, he's a charming companion."

She looked down for a second. "Daddy, it wasn't long before I began to understand how Mom could have been seduced. He has a way of getting you to talk about something so that after a while you feel like it was your idea in the first place. Then he just tells you how smart you are to have suggested it."

Her face darkened, and she wouldn't look at me now. "Daddy, I don't know if you were aware of it, but I always felt like Mom and I were competing with each other."

That was no surprise to me. One of the things I had noticed was that although Maddy and Grace would fight with each other like alley cats, Grace was always trying to emulate her mother. And when Maddy noticed Grace's efforts, she'd try to up the ante in one way or another. Oh, yes, I'd noticed the mother-daughter competition.

Grace still wasn't looking at me. "So I started out wanting to find out what kind of man could seduce my mother. But after a while, I found myself wondering what she had done to seduce a man who could have virtually any woman he wanted."

I began to feel sick. This couldn't be happening.

Grace was crying again now. "Daddy, I'm sorry -- I did it. I began sleeping with him. I wanted to prove that anything Mom could do, I could do better. She might have taken Carleton Morrison for a lover, but I took him away from her. And I did, Daddy, but I paid the price for it. He made me do terrible things, things I'm ashamed of even now. There were other men, and women too, and . . ."

"Stop!" I shouted, "I don't want to hear any more. I don't want to know."

Then the energy went out of me like the air in a balloon that's been punctured, and I slumped back down on the couch. Grace had slept with her mother's lover, her own father!  Not only had Morrison cuckolded me, he'd committed incest with his daughter!

Suddenly, a greater horror galvanized me. "Who is Susie's father?" I demanded. 

Grace began sobbing.

I fell back to the sofa, unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. I thought distractedly about the slide at the playground we visited earlier in the day. It seemed there had been one more turn on the downward spiral, and I hadn't seen it coming.

Finally, I roused myself from the sofa and went over to Grace's side. She was still crying, but I had to ask. "Did you know that he was your father?"  

She hiccupped, but then recovered. "No, not till later," she told me. "I never even thought about birth control when we were together, and for a long time I was lucky. But then I got pregnant, and he demanded that I leave. I was heartbroken, but he wouldn't be deterred. He told me he'd take care of me, but he couldn't afford to have a pregnant woman in his house. It would be bad for his reputation, he said."

She looked up at me again. "I refused to go, and that's when he told me I had no choice because I was his daughter, and the publicity would ruin me. When I called him a liar, he had a DNA test run. When I saw the results, I knew I had to leave for my baby's sake. He told me they'd take Susie away from me if anyone found out."

Something about Grace's story didn't make sense to me. Morrison had cuckolded me, but how in the world could he have known Grace was his daughter and not mine?  Then another link clicked into place. Maddy, I recalled, had wanted a DNA test from me sometime shortly after Grace was born. She told me that it was recommended by the police, a way to prove identity in case something unthinkable ever happened to Terry or Grace. I'd never heard of such a thing, but the test was as simple as a swab to the inside of my cheek, so I went along with it. Maddy told me she would keep the records in the safe deposit box, "in the unlikely event we ever need them." I had never looked at them, and I probably wouldn't have understood them even if I had. Now, I felt sure, I had just found out what really happened.

Grace saw me thinking and jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Daddy, he may have been a shit, but at least he was honorable. He set me up in this townhouse and helped me to find a job. He also paid all the bills for Susie's delivery and her medical bills since then."

"How very generous of him," I sneered. "He paid you to stay out of sight and hide his sin

Grace sat huddled in her chair like a small child.  "Now you know why I couldn't come home, Daddy.  I knew you would hate me, but not as much as I hate myself," she sobbed.

I thought about her living all that time with her guilt and self-hatred, and I realized that she was as much a victim as I was. As I held her, I knew what had to be done. 

I stood up. "It's getting late, Grace. It's been a traumatic day for both of us. I need to get back to the motel and get some sleep."

She tried to stop me. "Can't you spend the night here, Daddy?  I could move Susie into my room and you could have the day bed in there. I know she'd love to see you when she wakes up."

I forced a smile at her. "I wouldn't dream of disturbing Susie. You guys go on to sleep; I'll be fine at the motel."

She threw her arms around me and hugged me as though she never wanted to let go. "I've missed you, Daddy, I really have." She pulled back far enough so that she could look me in the eye. "I love you, Daddy. And no matter what, you'll always be my Daddy."

I hugged her back. Despite everything that had happened today, it still felt wonderful to be reunited with my lost daughter.

As I started for the door, she grabbed my arm. "Daddy, you're not going to do anything crazy, are you?"

I smiled at her. "Terry asked me the same thing. I promised him I wouldn't, and I'll make you the same promise." Then I headed out the door. Sometimes a good parent has to lie to his children.

When I checked into my motel room, I was exhausted, but the day's revelations wouldn't let me sleep. I wished that I could talk with our minister back home because I badly needed someone on whom I could unload the horrors that had befallen me. But there was no one in that motel room but myself and those laughing gods who kept finding new blows to strike at the hapless mortal.

After tossing and turning, finally I could take it no more. I got out of bed and booted up my iPad. Then I went searching for information on Carleton Morrison, the antagonist who had stolen my wife, my daughter and my now grand-daughter from me. 

There was no dearth of information on the man some frustrated English-major-turned-journalist had dubbed "The Playboy of the Midwestern World." Morrison, I learned, had inherited his initial fortune from his father. But unlike so many rich men's sons, Carleton had done very well in his own right. Taking a portion of his inheritance, he taught himself about the commodities market. Then, through a series of shrewd but daring moves, he'd managed to double his father's money during one of the periodic bubbles that arise in the commodities arena. He certainly wasn't on the scale of a Bill Gates, but he was nevertheless a very wealthy man.

Then, as if guided by some sixth sense, he'd cashed out, leaving thousands of other investors holding the bag when the bubble inevitably burst. There was talk of an investigation, but as best I could tell, nothing had ever come of it. Instead, the young multi-millionaire had switched his attention to the world of art, becoming a major patron while simultaneously dating some of the most attractive women in the public eye. The stories of the parties at his Chicago mansion were legend; the gossip surrounding his romantic exploits filled the pages of a dozen tabloids.

But I noted with interest that there were very few recent entries, and I finally found a group of items with the explanation. Apparently, the playboy had suffered a stroke a year ago and had withdrawn from the public scene.

That news gladdened my heart; moreover, it gave me encouragement. In his weakened state, I thought, my revenge might be easier to exact. For make no mistake about it, revenge was what I meant to have. This man had wreaked unspeakable harm on me and my family, and I wasn't about to let him get away with it. Today's revelations had been like a series of hammer blows, each driving me lower and lower down the spiral, until I felt his murder was the only way I could end the pain.

I knew that I wouldn't escape punishment for such a crime, but I didn't care. How can you punish a man who has already died?  At least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing that I'd taken him down with me. And I already knew how to do it. My daughter had inadvertently shown me the way. 

I went back to bed and waited for sleep to come. Now that I had committed myself, I felt my resolve would surely bring the rest I so badly needed. Yet I found I still couldn't sleep. Instead, I kept thinking about the quotation that had come to me that afternoon: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."

Was that to be my fate?  Had I already reached the point of madness? Did I have to take that final step of murder?  Once I had done so, there would be no redemption, no way back. Was I predestined to wind up this way, a mere pawn in some Olympian game?  Or was there another way?

I lay there pondering eternal questions for a long time; then I fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I felt strangely refreshed. Perhaps making a final decision does that. Whatever the cause, it was a good thing I had gotten some rest because I had a lot of preparations to make.

I worked all morning, stopping only to eat a little food when my stomach protested. By the time I had completed my preparations, it was noon.

I packed up my belongings and went to the front desk to check out. The manager was on duty, and as he processed my bill, he must have noticed my original reservation. "We weren't expecting you to depart until later, Mr. Moore. Was everything satisfactory?"

I smiled at him. "Oh, yes, everything was just fine."

He thought he saw an opportunity for some repeat business. "Then may I help you with a reservation for your next visit?"

"No," I said, "I'll never be here again."

I saw the puzzled look on his face as I turned and left.

The drive south from Skokie was pleasant enough; traffic was lighter than normal on a Sunday. That gave me a chance to think about the women in my life. Maddy's infidelity had shaken me to the core. How could she say she always loved me when she had carried on an affair for years?  And then there was Grace. I could understand the stresses that had caused her to run away, but I couldn't comprehend how she could wind up becoming the lover of the man who had seduced her own mother. And then there was poor little Susie, the only true innocent. Yet she too was a victim of the unholy relationship between her mother and that man.

That man -- everything kept coming back to Carleton Morrison. He was, I realized, my mortal foe, the enemy of my family and the true antagonist in this drama. I had to deal with him; unless I did, our wounds could never heal. That knowledge brought me a strange sense of serenity. When you reach the point when there's only one thing left to do, I guess it settles the mind.

The Morrison mansion was located in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago. When I finally found it, I couldn't help but be impressed. The place was enormous, with a wall of stone and ironwork encircling the huge lot. The building was three stories high, clad in a grey stone veneer topped by turrets and battlements. The place looked more like a fortress than a home.

There were no parking places on the street, so I parked in front of a fire hydrant. What did I care if the car got towed away?

The main entrance was protected by a heavy steel gate. Instead of swinging open, it rolled to the side. I noticed the steel beam reinforcing the center of the gate. Nobody was going to ram their way through that.

My plan was simple: I took my lead from Grace. She'd been able to get into his lair by appealing to both Morrison's curiosity and his vanity. I intended to use those same weaknesses to breach his castle wall. 

I walked up to the speaker box beside the gate and pressed the button. A disembodied voice demanded to know why I was there. "I'm here to see Carleton Morrison," I said confidently, looking directly into the closed circuit television camera watching me. 

"What is the nature of your business," the voice asked coldly.

"I'm an old friend of Madeline Moore. I'm bringing a final gift from Maddy to Mr. Morrison. Tell him Madeline Moore sent me – he'll remember her." 

There was a long pause, and I was beginning to think my confidence had been unwarranted, but then the voice spoke up again. "Please proceed down the driveway to the front entrance. Someone will meet you there."

At that, the massive gate began its slow roll until it was open wide enough for me to pass through comfortably. Once I had done so, the gate reversed course and closed with a metallic clang.

When I reached the front entrance, the door swung open and a servant greeted me. "Whom shall I tell Mr. Morrison is calling, sir?" she asked politely.

"The name's Raleigh," I said. Then I waited while she went to notify her master. The front hall she walked through was encircled by a spiral staircase. She opened the heavy double doors directly beneath the curve of the staircase and disappeared inside. As I waited, I looked up. The ornately carved staircase was massive, stretching up a full three stories. 

When I looked down, the housekeeper had reappeared at my side. "Mr. Morrison will receive you in his office, sir. If you'll just follow me . . ." With that, she led me toward the double doors from which she'd just emerged. As we passed under the staircase, I thought to myself, "So this is what's at the bottom."

The room we entered was oak-paneled and dark. Even the huge leaded glass windows were insufficient to illuminate the place. Sitting behind an mahogany desk in front of the largest window was a man with the face I'd come to recognize from all those photographs I'd seen on the Internet. His most distinctive feature was his full head of brown hair, combed across his forehead. "I'll bet the women loved to run their fingers through that," I thought.

The housekeeper turned to leave, pulling the heavy doors closed behind her.

As I approached the desk, he stood somewhat awkwardly and extended his hand across the desk to shake mine. "Come in, come in, old boy," he said. "Sorry I didn't come out to meet you. Suffered a bit of a stroke a year back, and I don't get around quite so well these days."




The Dark at the Bottom of the Stair



I was amused at his affected English accent. His biography made it clear that his family had come over from Ireland during the Potato Famine. "Oh well," I thought, "the rich must have their little idiosyncrasies."

As I looked at him, I thought I could detect some traces of his stroke. His left arm seemed to hang somewhat loosely, and the left side of his face seemed to sag just a bit more than his age would normally dictate. Nevertheless, he was still a handsome man, and it was easy to see how women might be taken with him even if he hadn't been rich.

"So you're an old friend of Maddy's," he went on. "It was a shame about her passing. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman. I certainly miss her. Wish I could have come to her funeral, but with the stroke and all . . ." He shrugged with a smile.

I gritted my teeth as he rattled off his platitudes, but held my tongue. I would get my turn.

He seemed to grow uneasy at my silence, and after a minute he spoke again.

"Well, I understand you have something that Maddy wanted me to have, is that right?"

When I merely nodded, he went on, "Well that's just like her, always thinking of others. She was always that way, don't you know?"

As I thought back on what I'd learned this weekend, I wondered if Maddy had ever truly stopped to think about others. Maybe that wasn't fair. But if she did, it was only after she'd already done what she wanted to do, I thought bitterly.

He cleared his throat. "Ahem, well, what is it exactly that you have for me from her?  Some sort of keepsake or a letter, perhaps?"

"No," I replied, "nothing like that, just a simple message."

When I paused, he became impatient. "Well then, what is it?"

I bent over the desk until my face was about a foot away from his. "Just this," I said evenly, "Fuck you!"

He pushed his chair back in surprise and alarm. "Hey," he gasped, "what is this?"  Then an odd look came over his face, and he snarled, "Who are you, anyway?"  I noticed that his English accent had disappeared.

"I already told your housekeeper," I said evenly, "but I think she misunderstood me. My name is Raleigh, Raleigh Moore."

He flinched when he heard me. "Then you must be Maddy's . . . I mean you were . . ."

"That's right," I cut him off, "I'm Maddy's husband, the cuckold you thought you'd fooled for so many years. Only now I'm here, and now it's time for you to pay for what you've done."

His face went pale and he looked wildly around. His left hand tried to reach for the buzzer I saw embedded in his desk, but his movements were jerky and slow. 

"Don't even think about trying to call for help," I told him quickly. "I can be across that desk long before anyone could ever get here."

He jerked his hand away. "What do you plan to do, Moore, kill me?  Over a little affair that happened a long time ago?  Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in prison just because your wife stepped out on you a few times?"

"No, the adultery probably wouldn't be enough to do it," I replied. "But the fact that you got my wife pregnant might whet my appetite, and the fact that I unwittingly raised your child as my daughter would certainly add to my motivation. Then, of course, you wound up seducing my daughter – make that your daughter -- when she ran away to confront you. Oh, and there's also the little matter of her daughter: your daughter's daughter. Let's see: infidelity, illegitimacy, incest. When you put all that together, life in prison doesn't sound so terrible to me."

As I went through my list of grievances, Morrison grew increasingly agitated. Sweat began to run down his forehead and into his eyes.

I leaned over his desk once again. "When I went to bed last night, I was planning to kill you today. But this morning I came up with a better idea. I'm going to let you live so you can experience all the pain and grief and horror that I've gone through."

His voice was a hoarse whisper. "What are you going to do?"

"Simple," I said, "I'm going to ruin you. When I leave here, I'm going straight to the police to swear out a warrant for your arrest on a charge of incest. With the DNA test you and Maddy had done on Grace and the one I'll have done on your daughter's daughter, I think a conviction will be a slam dunk."

"But a man with your fortune might be able to buy his way out of something like that. So I'm not going to take that risk. As soon as I leave the police department, I'm heading to the offices of the Sun-Times, and I'm going to give them the whole sordid story. Once I'm done there, I'm going to contact every tabloid newspaper and gossip columnist who's ever run a story on you and let them know what kind of slime you really are."

"When I get finished, you're going to have to wall up that iron gate out front of your house, because every blogger in the world is going to be clamoring to get more dirt on you and the paparazzi will be swarming to photograph your crippled body."

"And as for all your friends in the art world, once they learn what you've done, I'll bet they won't touch you with a ten-foot pole. They'll probably post your picture with their security guards just to make sure you don't even get in the door of their museums. You'll go from being a patron of the arts to a social outcast, a leper shunned and reviled."

As I was speaking, Morrison slumped lower and lower into his chair. It was clear that he could envision the fate I was predicting, and when I finished, he visibly shuddered.

Suddenly, his right hand shot out and yanked open one of the drawers of the desk. Darting his hand inside, he pulled out a 9mm pistol, which he proceeded to point at my chest.

"You're an even bigger fool than I thought, Moore," he snarled at me. "What's to keep me from shooting you right now before you get a chance to tell your story to the world?  All I have to do is say you threatened me and I had to defend myself. I wouldn't even be lying."

I stood up straight. "Go ahead and shoot me, Morrison. Be my guest. After what you've done to me and my family, I'm already dead."

He was taken aback by my response, and he hesitated.

"But before you do, I want you to realize that shooting me won't do you any good," I went on. "This morning, I sent the whole story to my attorney back home. If he doesn't hear from me by this afternoon, I've instructed him to give all the facts to the Chicago police and then to follow up with the Sun-Times and all the rest of the media. Your name is going to be dragged so deep in the mud that you'll never get clean, and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it."

"But what about Grace, what about my grand-daughter?" he pleaded. "You're condemning them to the same fate as me. You don't want to do that."

"My daughter – I mean, your daughter – already hates herself because she feels so guilty about what she's done. Telling the truth is the only way I know to help her forgive herself. And as for poor little Susie, I seriously doubt that her name or picture would ever appear in any news media. Even if it did, that poor benighted child would probably never know about it, much less care."

"You've already done all you can do to us, Morrison. There's nothing you can do to harm us any more than you already have. The only thing left is for you to join us in the hell that you've made."

"But I have money," he exclaimed, "lots of money. I can make you a very rich man if you'll just forget about all this."

I sneered at him. "Your money won't give me back the love you took from my wife. It won't give me the daughter who should have been mine, and it won't give me the grand-daughter I didn't know. Your money means nothing to me."

As I stared at him, he slowly lowered the gun to his desk. He looked up at me with haunted eyes; there was nothing he could say. I turned to leave. I heard the movement behind me, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw him pick up the automatic again. I just kept walking – if he was going to shoot me, it would have to be in the back. "Let's see him explain that one to the police," I laughed to myself.

I reached the door and opened it without looking back again. Nothing happened. I stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind me. 

The housekeeper was waiting. "Are you leaving now, Mr. Raleigh?"

"Yes," I replied, "I've done all I came to do."

As I walked out the front door, the big steel gate began to roll back, and I started walking toward it. I had almost reached it when I heard a single shot ring out from within those gray walls. I just kept going.

Unbelievably, my car was right where I'd left it. I pulled away from the curb, and as I drove, I rolled down the windows to let fresh air into the car. Maybe that would remove the stench of decadence and perversion that had clung to me from that dark room under the staircase.

As I drove, I thought about what had happened. I knew that mortals couldn't best the gods, but at least I hadn't taken that last step down into murder and madness either. Then another thought struck me: what if I wasn't even the main character in the drama?  Maybe the gods' target had been Morrison all along, not me. If that were true, I didn't know whether to be relieved or outraged. Finally I decided it didn't matter: either way, the play was finally coming to an end.

When I reached Skokie, I had to drive past the little park where Grace, Susie and I had walked the previous day. Looking out the side window, I spied a small boy who had climbed to the top of the spiral slide but was now perched on top, afraid to make the descent. I pulled over to watch. His mother was standing at the bottom of the slide. "It's okay," she said, "it's safe to come down." He looked at her with wide eyes. Then he seemed to make up his mind and, releasing his grip, slid down the ramp. Sure enough, as he neared the end his momentum slowed until he came to a safe stop at the bottom. He looked up at his mother solemnly, then hurried around to the ladder to begin climbing again.

I smiled and restarted my car. I was ready to start over too.

Grace must have been looking through the curtains because she opened the door before I could ring the bell. She rushed out and threw her arms around me. "Oh, Daddy, I was so worried about you. I tried to call but you didn't answer your phone. I was sure something had happened to you."

I smiled at the irony of her words, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I put my arm around her waist and walked inside with her. "You need to get Susie ready," I told her. "I'm taking you home."

Epilog
I hadn't been bluffing with Morrison: I had emailed the whole story to my attorney that morning. But when I heard on the radio that wealthy philanthropist Carleton Morrison had been found dead in his home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, I told my attorney to leave the documents be. Morrison's suicide was sufficient expiation of his sins as far as I was concerned.

But I wasn't quite done with Mr. Morrison yet. The libertine had neither a wife nor a will, so naturally his relatives went into a frenzy over the prospect of dividing his estate. Imagine their dismay when my attorney came forward with Grace's DNA test. Under Illinois law, if a person dies with a descendant but no spouse, the entire estate passes to the descendant.

Morrison had taken a terrible toll on my family, but when the final curtain fell, I was the one still standing on the stage. Moreover, I emerged with my life and my sanity, and I had the rest of my family back. Perhaps most important of all, I knew my precious grand-daughter would never lack for any care or treatment she might need for the rest of her life. That was good enough for me.



The Dark Awakening



...Since you are not here with my physically, I took you to my bedroom emotionally and spiritually. I was so on fire for you that it was not going to take long.... I stood at the foot of my bed with my jeans off, legs spread wide.... The vibrator was in my right hand as I leaned forwarded and braced myself on the bed with my left hand.... 

I knew exactly what I wanted.... I was imagining you behind me, the tip of your cock on my clit.... teasing me.... I placed the tip of the vibrator on my clit and turned it to low.... increasing the speed slowly as I imagined you teasing my clit with your cock.

Within seconds I was having an incredible orgasm! My left arm collapsed and I feel to the bed, my breathing starting to slow..... and that is when the day dream took over.

In my dream we had been apart for several days.... you had been working long hours and I had missed you so. I was in the bedroom, in the same position as I was in my conscious state... legs wide, leaning on the bed, vibrator at my clit.... I look up and see you walk into the bedroom. Our eyes meet and I start to rise and move to you.... Your voice is soft "No, baby! Finish! I want to watch you!"  I see a tiny grin on your face..."How long have you been standing there, lover?"  Your voice laced with a grin "Long enough!"

Our eyes never part as I resume the tempo of the vibrator.... You are fixated on me and I on you.... You see my body start to move, my hips rising and falling.... you know I am close to cumming and you want to help me. You move gently behind me and kiss my back, running your fingers down my spine and between my legs... your tongue traces down my center and teases me.... my hips move faster as the vibrator hits against me and your tongue delves deep within my darkness..... and then it is upon me! Moans of pleasure escape my lips, my legs tighten, I through my head back and I let the climax consume me.

You move your mouth up my back and wrap your arms around me, holding me.... We stay in that position for a moment.... leaning over the bed.... my breathing starting to slow.

Your voice is tender as you whisper "I love watching you! I love touching you!" You start to move us to the bed but I have other things in mind! It is your turn to feel the rage of a climax! I turn to you and kiss you lightly then move my lips to your ear.... "Strip, Lover!" 

My words bring an instant excitement to you and you do not hesitate to toss your clothes aside.... I finish removing all remains of my togs and we stand face to face feeling the heat from each others body. 

I begin kissing your chest, down your arms.... and then encourage you to turn around and lean on the bed.... my lips move down your back... you can feel my nipples brush against you. My fingers explore your body..... goose bumps run across your back as I run my tongue down your spine and past your center.

Your back arches up to my touch as I work my way down your back.... I encourage you to spread your legs a bit wider allowing me to kneel between your knees as you lean onto the bed. My fingertips caress the sides of your hips and down your thighs as my tongue moves slowly down the back of one thigh... lower and lower I move, touching and licking your amazing body as I move to your ankles.... I see you peek down at me as I lift your left foot and begin to suckle on your toes...then slowly moving to your right foot... Our eyes meet again and we exchange a wink... 

My tongue is wild as it begins its journey back up your legs... dancing for a moment at that special area at the base of your tush where your legs join..... over your ass I move to the small of your back... 

You attempt to turn around to me...."No, Lover.... this is all for you!" My fingers begin their special journey... running down the center of your spine... down to your tush... my tongue following behind and tasting your body. I linger a moment at your center as I feel your body tense a bit... your hips push back on me as you relax.

My tongue circles the rim of your darkness... your excitement is evident as you spread your legs a bit wider, welcoming me. Darting into you slowly I hear a soft moan escape your lips... You are not aware that my fingers have left your body for a moment and now are dabbed with our special lotion from the night stand. Slowly I move my fingers to your back side, running down to your center.... My tongue pulls back as I circle your opening with the tip of my index finger. You welcome the touch and push back on my hand. With extreme tenderness I slowly insert my finger deep within you.... moving with gentleness, I slide my finger into your darkness and then out a bit... your hips push towards my finger, wanting to feel me inside you... The rhythm starts, in and out... in and out. .... my free hand moves further between your legs and cups your now swollen balls.

My lips work their way down your body further... joining my hand at your balls, sucking them into my moist mouth... slowly I pull my finger from your center.

I feel your body relax... a bit of disappointment is felt... you were so enjoying the touch to your darkness. You hear my whispers.... "I want to please you, Lover. I want us to experience everything."

Your body jerks as you feel the unexpected "visitor" now at your center.... I have coated my vibrator with our lotion and it is now teasing your tiny hole. You relax as you hear my words..."I promise, I will not hurt you, my darling.... I promise." I slowly slide the tip of the vibrator into you, adjusting the sensation to a very low pulse. Your balls are swelling more in my hand as the vibrator works its magic on your darkness. 

I move my hand further between your legs and feel your rock hard cock.... it has been so neglected and craves my touch. The head of your shaft is so defined... my finger tips trace the rim, running down the inside... pressing against the vein that is now protruding and pulsating.

You are caught in a world of passion... I increase the speed on the vibrator as my hand grips your cock... my tongue is moving on you like a wild fire... spreading over you quickly, tasting every part of your darkness and manhood.

As my hand begins to move quicker on your raging hard on my tongue teases your balls... the vibrator has slid in you a bit further and the sensation is something you have never felt before.... Your voice is heavy with passion "Oh, God, Katherine!!!!"

Your hips thrust your cock against my tight grip and then back against the vibrator... never before have you felt this... never before. You are torn between decisions... do you let yourself cum or do you stave off the explosion and continue with the incredible feeling that you are experiencing now!

The choice is no longer yours.... your body has control. My grip moves faster and harder on your cock, the vibrator is fucking your ass like it has fucked my cunt many times.... I move my mouth to the inside of your legs and bite you gently.... running my tongue over your balls and to the side of the vibrator, tasting your wetness....

You feel it start deep.... your back tightens as your legs go rigid. I grip your cock and hold it tight, squeezing it in my hand.... the vibrator stays in you, no longer moving in and out but the vibration still pulsing in your ass. My lips nibble at you.... Your moan starts from very deep within you... growing louder and louder as your hot seed travels through your shaft. You feel your body break out in a cold sweat as your cum nears the head of your cock... And with the force of a bullet your cum rockets from you! Your darkness tightens around the vibrator and attempts to expel it from you... Your breathing has stopped a moment as your mouth falls open a bit.

And when every drop of seed has left your cock you start to relax a bit, your legs weak. I begin to slide the vibrator from you gently... licking your center as the vibrator is removed... I slowly release my grip on your cock.... my lips travel down the back of your thighs and kiss you gently.

Again you peek down at me... An evil grin appears on my face as I gaze up to you. "You are the devil, Woman, and I love you madly!" 

You reach down to me and stroke my face... I move my lips to your hand and kiss you gently. "Come here, you animal" you say.. as you take my hand and pull me to my feet. We embrace for the longest moment.... the wetness from your seed is cool on my skin as you hold me tight.... We will shower later, right now we want to complete this moment the right way....  You cup your hands to my face and look down at me.... Words are not spoken.... there is no need.



The Dark Bedroom



Darkness filled the house as Steve walked through the front door. Jamie always had a habit of closing all the lights; she loved walking around in the dark and besides, she walked around the house almost naked half the time and if the curtains weren't drawn there was sure to be a few peeping toms looking in.

He heard faint music coming from upstairs. He undid his tie as he made his way to the second floor. Jamie was probably relaxing in bed listening to a little music, as she always did when she had a stressful day. He knew his supper was ready but tonight he really wasn't hungry. After being away from her for a week, supper was the last thing on his mind.

As he made his way down the hall, the music was less faint and he could see a dim light coming from the bedroom. He paused at the entrance and saw his beautiful wife fast asleep, lying on her belly. The nightlight illuminated the curves of her body in all the right places. Her olive skin looked flawless and her perfect round ass glowed in the dim lighting. Her golden hair was neatly resting on her shoulders and a few strands covered her face. She looked angelic yet he knew better than to be fooled by the sight. He often wondered what her real spirit was like. In the bedroom, she could say the filthiest things and then she would make him gave back the extra money the cashier at the store gave him by mistake. She could do anything she put her mind to and when he was around, she was like a child in need of guidance. He didn't mind, he had promised he would always take care of her and she promised she would love him till the end of time.

He approached his beautiful wife as his eyes drank in the sight of her naked body. He told himself he would not wake her, he would undress and lie with her till morning.

Lying next to his angel, he stared; she was a true sleeping beauty. He rubbed her back gently as he always did before they fell asleep. His hand moved down to her ass and he rubbed one cheek and then the other. She barely stirred. 

He straddled her body gently not wanting to wake her even though he knew she would be more than happy to please him tonight. He had been away on business and the nights had been long without her, he was sure she felt the same way. He moved her hair away and gently nuzzled at the nape of her neck making her moan gently as she slept. Her bright eyes slowly opened and in them he could see how please she was to be awakened.

Neither spoke a word. He made space for her and she lifted herself up on her knees offering herself to him. The sight of her on all fours, welcoming him, wanting him was more than he could bare. She parted her legs. And he spooned her from behind, his hardness resting on her ass and his hands slipped under her to find her perfectly round breasts. His fingers found one of her nipples, he findled and pinched and it hardened at his touch. His face now next to hers, he licked her ear and nuzzled at her lobe, he noticed she didn't wear earrings today. He licked and bit the side of neck marking her as his with a hickey. She dropped to her elbows wanting him inside her now. He lifted himself on his knees, taking in once again the sight of her beautiful back side. His now throbbing cock made it's way to her moist slit. There he rubbed his manhood a few times before positioning himself at her opening. He stopped for a second, she turned her head to look back at him and he could see the lust in her eyes.

"You should never hesitate Steven, take what you want" she mocked.

A wicked smile escaped him before he slowly entered her pussy from behind. Her head still turned back to look at him, she closed her eyes and her body shivered as his cock slowly disappeared inch by inch inside her. Her pussy was on fire, the wetness on the outside and the warmth inside almost drove him mad. Aside from being a completely sexual being, she was completely his. As the music played on, he slipped in and out of her as his hands firmly gripped her hips. She rested her hands on the pillow and clenched at the fabric. She was no longer looking at him, just enjoying being taken by him. His hand reached to grab a handful of her silky hair and he pulled it back making her look at him, he pressed his lips to hers forcing her mouth open as he slipped his tongue inside. His cock was pumping full force in and out of her pussy now. He loved being inside her, she was so tight and so wet and all for him. He let go of her hair and held on to her hips again. His pace quickened and the only sound beside the music playing was his balls slapping against her. He knew he couldn't resist much longer and he wanted to cum with her, as he felt her body tremble, he knew it wouldn't be long before she came. He fucked her pussy faster and a little harder making her cry out. His head tilted back and he closed his eyes as her pussy grabbed hold of his cock and went into spasms as he spilled all of his semen inside of her. He moaned as she cried out "God yessss fuck me harder!" 

"God yessss Jamie urrrrgh". As their orgasms subsided he slowly slipped out of her. She turned around and collapsed on the bed, he lay down on top of her and kissed her open mouth.

Her eyes were half closed and she stared into his. "Don't ever leave again baby" she told him as she put her arms around him. His chest resting against her bare breasts, he whispered to her "Everytime I'm inside you it's a reminder of what happiness is like, I'm not going anywhere babydoll."

They drifted off into sleep cuddled in eachother's arms.