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To Have, & Have Not

By: DekeJeffery



"Is there any popcorn left?"

"Yes."

"Pass it to me?"

"No."

She looked at him with a humorous look of shock on her face as he passed the bowl to her without making eye contact, smirking. She loved being near him and how he made her feel. She also knew that he loved being near her. 

Rick and Amanda had become fast friends over the last several months. They had met at work when she first came on board, and although their daily activities didn't generally bring them into contact with one another, Rick always made the effort to visit her desk each day, even if it was just for a few minutes. They also made a point to go to lunch together several times a week.

Rick and Amanda never failed for conversational topics, although they were as different as night and day. She wanted to have a house full of children one day; he never wanted children. Ever. Also, both had religious backgrounds, although Rick had chosen to walk away from the church, and to question the existence of higher powers, while Amanda had remained true to her upbringing, and attended church regularly. The topic of religion had come up from time to time, and while neither shared the other's point of view, they each respected it. They had also reached a point, after a few heated debates, which they both chose to not discuss it. 

Rick had developed a crush on Amanda, and made no attempt to hide it from her. He would shower her with heartfelt compliments, surprise her with the occasional small gift, or simply pick up her lunch tab. He knew that because of their differences, they would likely never have a successful relationship, but he also knew that he cared for her, and felt more deeply for her every day. 

Amanda felt the same thing for Rick, but she chose to keep those thoughts and feelings more to herself. She had alluded to him, from time to time, that she felt something for him other than friendship, but she also knew that their pairing could be a recipe for disaster. She loved Rick's company, though, because he treated her with the utmost respect, something that she felt like she hadn't experienced enough in her 28 years. 

One thing that both had in common, other than enjoying time with one another, was their love of movies. They had developed a weekly Saturday night routine of watching various DVDs, each choosing one to watch. They alternated visiting one another's homes, each selecting a different movie, and they would then analyze and critique them after viewing, discussing various symbolisms within each. Rick admired Amanda for her analytical mind, and was attracted to her intelligence, as well as her physical features.  

"So, what did you think, Mandy?"

"I liked it, but I didn't love it. I thought that the biblical overtones were interesting."

"WHAT?! Are you kidding? Amanda, this is Star Wars. It's a cinema classic, and I think you're reading WAY too much into it to draw any biblical parallels."

"No, Rick, it's so obvious. Let's start with the innocent farm boy..." She launched into one of her overdrawn analyses that Rick loved to verbally spar with her over. 

Amanda was of average height, with shoulder length black hair and green eyes. She had a very nice body that was usually hidden beneath conservative clothing. She sometimes wore tinted glasses, which although they concealed her gorgeous green eyes, Rick found a sexy quality to. Rick couldn't think of a quality she possessed that wasn't sexy to him, including her intelligence. Few things were as sexy to him as an intelligent woman.

Rick was in better than average shape, standing close to six feet in height, with short black hair and green eyes to match Amanda's. He went to the gym on a regular basis, and ran a few days a week, as well. His lower torso was incredibly toned, and he'd become health conscious in recent years, although he had a weakness for Mexican food.

Another Saturday had arrived, and Amanda showed up at Rick's house with a bag full of Mexican food. She also had brought her copy of "Casablanca" over, while Rick had chosen "Apocalypse Now" as his selection that evening. They put in Amanda's movie first, then dug into their food. Sitting on the couch, Amanda's attention was focused on the television. Having seen the movie already, and not really caring for it, Rick sat staring at Amanda. He studied her profile, trying to memorize every possible detail of her face from a few feet away. Amanda's legs sat curled behind her on the couch, separating the two of them. Rick decided to try a little experiment.

He took her legs, and placed her feet into his lap, and began to massage them. It was also noticeable how smooth her legs were. He had hugged Amanda several times, but this was really the first time he'd felt her skin. He was fascinated with it. Not wanting to be too obvious in his admiration, he turned his attention back to the movie. 

"What are you doing?" Amanda asked, with a half-smile on her face.

"You just looked like you needed it." he replied with confidence.

Her half-smile blossomed into a full one, and she just looked at Rick for a moment. His eyes didn't turn back to meet hers while she was looking. She thought what an amazing man this was, and how happy she was to now be a part of his life. 

"I have a question to ask you, Rick."

"O.K."

"I have a friend who is getting married two weeks from today. I'm one of the bridesmaids. I'm not going with anyone, so I was wondering if you'd like to...you know..." Amanda had never been good with dating, and was even worse when trying to initiate the date.

"What?" Rick anticipated her question, but wanted to see if she would actually say the words.

"Will you be my date?" Amanda looked away nervously, as if she thought his answer would certainly be 'no'.

"I would be honored to escort you anywhere you like."

Amanda's face lit up with a huge smile, erasing the uncertainty she was feeling. Her smile lit up the room, and Rick never understood why she didn't seem to receive more attention from men. 

Two weeks and another Saturday night moviefest had passed, and Rick drove to Amanda's house to pick her up for the wedding. He'd purchased a new suit to wear, inspired by the chance to look good for her. He arrived at her home, parked, got out, and walked to her door. He knocked on her door. When she opened it, she was wearing a pink dress, coming down to her ankles. She was stunning, and he involuntarily hesitated before speaking.

"What's wrong?" she said, nervously. She looked around, as if she was afraid of his answer.

"You're...Amanda, you're beautiful..." 

Her eyes turned back to his, and her face lit up with a smile. Her smile got even larger as Rick produced the bouquet of flowers he'd handpicked for her on his way to pick her up. 

"Rick, they're beautiful." Amanda had a look of happiness on her face that he'd never seen before. He made a mental note to try and produce that look from her again in the future. 

"So are you."

Amanda had received compliments in her life, but they never seemed to center around her physical appearance. She'd gotten compliments on her clothing, or her intelligence, or other things, but Rick seemed to see something in her that no one else ever had before. She loved him for it, but always felt an uncertainty about it, because of their differences. She was afraid that she was giving the wrong signals to him, leading him on. She cared for him, but she also cared for him enough to not deceive him. Or herself.

"Come in. I should put these in water." 

Rick stepped in, and waited patiently while Amanda searched for a vase to put her gift in. "I know we haven't discussed this, but are we doing movies tonight?"

"I'd like that. I'll probably feel like a good movie after today. Maybe something romantic, since we're coming from a wedding. We can come straight back here, if you like." 

"Sounds good to me!" he replied. He watched her as she filled a vase with water, and admired how amazing she was to him. She was beautiful in every way to him. The sunlight beaming in through her kitchen window only accentuated her facial features, making her look almost artistic. He wasn't aware that he was smiling at her, when she looked up at him.

"What?"

"Nothing...I just...nothing." He let his statement go, and tried to erase the smile, although it wasn't easy.

Amanda knew exactly what he was thinking. She was always flattered by his feelings towards her, and she felt the same towards him, but she was much better at keeping it in check than he was. She offered a faint smile, placed the flowers into the vase, and placed them into a spot on her counter where they could receive sunshine. Exhaling a nervous sigh, she turned to Rick and said, "Ready?"

Completely aware of her uncertain thoughts, he acknowledged that he was, and they left for the wedding.

After the wedding, Amanda and Rick found themselves among friends at the reception. A band hired for the reception was playing upbeat dance songs from the 80s, while many of the attendees whirled on the dance floor to their beats. Amanda sat at one of the tables, quietly talking with one of her friends. Rick, who had loosened his tie, but otherwise still looked quite handsome, approached her, with an open hand extended in her direction.

"Want to dance?"

Amanda looked at him, somewhat surprised to be asked. She nervously glanced around, trying to think of a quick excuse not to. 

"I can't dance. I have no rhythm. Besides, I prefer to slow dance."

"Neither can I, so we'll be great together."

At that moment, the band slowed their tempo down, and began Anita Baker's "Sweet Love", a slow, romantic ballad. Rick looked at the band's platform, smiled at the timing, then turned back to Amanda, hoping that her excuses had been narrowed down to zero.

Amanda sighed, with a smile on her face, looked up at Rick, and offered her hand to his. He assisted her to her feet, and locking his fingers with her, led her to the rapidly-crowding dance floor. He turned to face her, and pulled her close to him. Amanda seemed anxious, but she felt comfortable with Rick. He had always made her feel special, and she knew that he cared a lot for her. She also loved being this close to Rick for this long. They had hugged in the past, but that had been the extent of their physical contact. She loved feeling his arms wrapped around her, and hers wrapped around him. She had always loved the smell of him, but was always afraid to enjoy it too much. At that moment, Amanda realized that there were many things about life she was afraid of, but she really didn't know why.

Rick loved the feel of her tender skin, even if fabric covered it. He moved his hands towards the small of her back, as they began to sway on the dance floor. Her chest was pressed against his, and he could feel her hands on his shoulder blades, as she began to speak.

"So was being in a church today all that bad?"

Rick wasn't quite sure how to take her statement, but he answered honestly. "Come on, Mandy. What did you think, that I would melt when I walked inside?" She smiled at Rick's sarcastic sense of humor that always made her feel good.

At another part of the dance floor, several young children got up and began to dance slowly with one another, mimicking their elders. The youngest boy and girl, around age 5, were giggling together, as if the practice of dancing were just silly. Amanda caught their reaction, and began laughing herself. Rick watched the same children, but his reaction was no reaction. He watched the same children, but with little to no interest. Amanda turned back to him, and caught his blank stare.

"Why don't you want children, Rick? You're so loving. You would be a wonderful father."

"I have no paternal instinct. None. I've been absolutely certain of very few things in my life, but not wanting a child is one of them."

Amanda looked at him with an obvious sadness in her eyes, as if she were watching the man of her dreams turn and walk away from her. 

Rick continued. "I don't have what it takes to be a parent. I'm too irresponsible, I'm too selfish, and too emotionally immature. It would be a curse for any child to have me as a parent."

Amanda felt a sadness inside her that she'd never felt before. "I think you're wrong, and I think you sell yourself short. I think a child couldn't be luckier than to have you as a dad."

Rick offered a faint smile, but turned his head away, in an obvious display that he wasn't comfortable discussing this any more. Taking note of this, Amanda changed the subject.

"Thank you, Rick."

"For what?"

"For coming here with me today, but also for asking me to dance. I have to be honest...I was hoping you would ask, even if I might have said 'no'." She smiled at him again, which was always easy for her to do.

"I would have asked you a long time ago, but the opportunity has never really presented itself."

Amanda looked into his green eyes, and saw caring. She saw sincerity. She saw something in his eyes that she never saw before. 

Rick continued to hold her body close to his as they moved to the music. He positioned his forehead to rest on hers, and looked into her eyes as he spoke.

"You know, I'm going to be dancing at your wedding someday. I'm only sad that I won't be your groom while doing it." 

Amanda looked into his eyes again. The sincerity that she saw was now paired with sadness. She felt, at that moment, what Rick had felt for her for so long. She knew that his compliments weren't simply empty banter, and that she was capable of being loved by a special man. She also quickly remembered all the differences that separated them from being together. They each stared at the other's lips, having not been this close to one another for this extended a period of time. Rick considered taking the initiative, and thought about bending over to kiss her. What he didn't know was that Amanda was thinking the exact same thing at that moment. Instead, she just mustered a faint smile, then rested her head on his chest. She turned her head away from his view as a lone tear ran down her cheek.

Sensing her sadness, Rick held her as close to him as he could without a word. He only wanted her to feel comfort. His attraction to her was definitely physical, but it was also much more than that. She was incredibly intelligent, and even though they rarely agreed on things, he loved her researched and thought-out point of view. He also loved her sense of humor for its uniqueness. No one could make him smile like she could, and her smile was always like the sun rising earlier than expected to him. Her compassion, her giving nature, and her commitment to her beliefs were all appealing qualities to him. He wanted so many features that she had to offer, and couldn't understand why she was still single. He was certain, though, that it was mostly by her own choosing that she was. 

The song came to an end, and Amanda looked up at Rick.

"We can leave whenever you're ready."

"It's up to you. I'm enjoying just being with you."

"Let's leave in a few minutes. We can hang out at my apartment. It's movie night, remember?" She was desperately trying to feign happiness, when inside she just wanted to have him continue to hold her. It was the most comforting thing she had ever known, and that he wanted to hold her meant even more. She also imagined what his lips would taste like. 

The sun had gone down when they arrived back at her house. It suddenly dawned on Amanda that Rick would probably not be comfortable relaxing in a suit. 

"Do you want to go home to change, or just call it a night, or what? I know you don't want to hang out in what you're wearing."

"No, I'd like to watch movies with you tonight. I have some workout clothes I keep in my gym bag, in the trunk. Just some sweats and stuff. I can change into that, if that's OK."

"Of course. Come on in."

Rick retrieved the bag from his trunk, slung it over his shoulder, and followed her inside. Unbeknownst to her, he was watching her hips as she led him up the stairs to the door of her home. 

Once inside, Rick went into the bathroom to change. Amanda's thoughts briefly drifted as to what he looked like undressing. She imagined him removing his shirt, to expose his chest. She reflected to a short time earlier that day, when his chest was pressed against hers. She loved the feeling of not just any chest, but his chest, pressed against her bosom. She began to imagine him placing his hands....

The bathroom door opened, and Rick emerged wearing a pair of sweat shorts, a t-shirt, and socks. His broad shoulders had always accentuated his athletic frame, but he looked particularly attractive tonight. Amanda wanted to change out of her dress, also.

"Can you unzip me?" She turned her back to Rick, waiting for his assistance. He placed his hand gingerly on her shoulder, and began to unzip her dress. Out of Rick's sight, she closed her eyes and let her thoughts take her over for a moment. She had thought about Rick, sexually, but only briefly. She felt afraid to let her thoughts possess her too much, but having Rick begin to undress her...

She snapped back into the moment at hand. "Thanks! Be right back." She ran into her bedroom, and shut the door. She removed her dress, and sat on the bed momentarily, to digest what she was thinking. What was it about Rick that drove her so insane? Yes, he was handsome, but he'd always shown respect for her, as well. Add to that that he had made it clear to her that he was highly attracted to her sense of humor and intelligence, and she found him almost irresistible. She felt a burning in parts of her body tonight that she had only felt once before, but even that was moderate by comparison. Her upbringing had led her to believe that sex before marriage was wrong, and her only sexual experience was heavy petting, followed by finger penetration. She didn't care about the man whom she was with then, she was simply curious. He also didn't do for her what Rick did.

Amanda had never masturbated. She had always felt like it was, in a word, wrong. She felt sexual urges from time to time, but had learned to keep them repressed. It was frustrating, but it felt right. However, what she was feeling at that moment she wouldn't have classified as 'wrong'. She lay back on her bed, opened her legs, and placed her hand just inside of her panties. She hesitated, and remembered that the man who was dominating her thoughts right now was just in the next room, literally only feet away from her. She stopped, sat up, and remained at the edge of the bed for a moment, to collect her thoughts. She considered it, then decided against relieving herself for now. She stood up, and walked into her closet to find something comfortable to wear.

She came out of her bedroom wearing a dark blue t-shirt, and blue jeans. She felt flush, as if Rick knew what she was doing behind closed doors. She'd only been in her bedroom a few minutes, but she felt like he was thinking about how long she'd taken. 

"Anything on TV?" she asked, trying to deflect her nervousness.

"Yeah, good timing. "The Thomas Crown Affair" is starting. Want to watch?"

"Ooh, yes! This is supposed to be good! Pierce Brosnan, right?"

"And Rene Russo. Yes, this is a good movie. Let's leave it here." Rick placed the remote on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Settling into her normal spot on the couch, Amanda got comfortable as the movie unfolded. Rick, as had become customary, placed her bare feet into his lap, and began to massage. Her state of mind was not that of other movie nights. His touch was abnormally erotic to her tonight. She'd had similar thoughts before when he massaged her feet, but her sexuality was at a heightened state of arousal this evening. 

The movie continued, and a scene was beginning that involved highly charged sexual interaction between the movie's stars. The sex on the screen got hotter, and hotter, and so did Amanda. Rick was very aroused, but was tempering it for the sake of respecting his close friend. He also found himself normally aroused around Amanda, even if they're just sharing morning coffee in the office. 


To Have and Have Not



I wanted to play with the "gottcha" vibe that is so near and dear to the hearts of the Loving Wives set. 

It seems to me that the jealousy and outrage that stems from the protagonist discovering that the wife is cheating with her boss/co-worker/his brother/best friend/a neighbor/a biker gang/an infantry platoon/the family dog/or all of the above is the cathartic element for this genre. 

That being said, the ensuing retribution, which is usually due to the fact that the protagonist is an ex-Seal/FBI-CIA-NSA/filthy rich/ the meanest motherfucker in the valley/or a holder of black belts in Karate and Kama Sutra, is really just the falling action leading to the final reconciliation or the bitch being buried in the back yard. 

That resolution seems to be completely dependent on the author's personal predilections and level of emotional maturity. 

Still, the thought that keeps going through my head is, "Is any of this even close to real?" 

In my experience NOTHING is ever that clear-cut. And people don't respond to unexpected, life-altering events by concocting intricate plots. 

In fact, as far as I've ever experienced it, we just react to things in a semi-unpredictable fashion. And we never have any real situational awareness when we do it. 

So everybody's reality is pretty-much in the eye of the beholder. At least that's what I am working with here. 

This also lets me tell the story of the last of the Wilson girls. I could have just as easily put this in the supernatural category because of the story segment that involves her. But we know (from the other stories) that she is anything but an angel... Thank you for reading me - DT

*****

I do a lot of public speaking. It's the price you pay to sell books. No, I'm not Papa Hemingway. I write for the professional market. And you don't do that for personal enjoyment. That kind of writing is more like the Bataan Death March without any of the fun. 

I have to hustle to get my name out. So, a long time ago I formed a symbiotic relationship with the big Houses. 

People need to keep up. And there are a lot of folks writing books. So, my publishers truck me into a conference in East Buttfuck Nebraska and I do my thing. 

It's like leveraging your prostitution career by being a stripper. You show the audience enough to get them interested. But if they want to unwrap the goods they have to pay for the whole thing. 

And it's free publicity for both of us.

I was painfully shy when I was a kid. The idea of talking to total strangers filled me with horror. The concept of talking to 100 complete strangers would have been about as inconceivable as anti-gravity boots. But I grew up to be an academic. And you get over it, after years of standing up in front of students. 

\

That's a special situation though. They HAVE to listen. I hold the whip. The group tonight was another matter entirely. Each and every one was a gimlet-eyed C-Level. You have to be on your game with those guys. Otherwise, they will communicate their displeasure in creative and ego-shattering ways. 

I know my stuff. You don't publish six professional books without knowing your stuff. But when you are up there on stage you are entertaining, not informing. 

I learned that the hard way when I stepped up to the plate for the first time. I did two hours of serious discussion. The reviews were less than kind. The best they said was that I was boring. 

That hurt. So like the Burlesque queen in Gypsy, "I got myself a gimmick." 

My attitude the next time up was, "Fuck you audience!" And I unloaded a steaming pile of demagogic shit on them that would have made Chicken Little seem like a starry eyed optimist. 

They loved it. 

I was educated by the Jesuits and that first experience helped me understand the plight of anybody who tries to sway people with logic. The audience wants adrenaline not message. And rational discourse can't compete with a guy in a mirrored suit telling them that they are going to hell? 

So I did my usual fire and brimstone shtick for the assembled multitude. It was full of allusions to digital Pearl Harbors and post-apocalyptic societies. I feel like it was way over-the-top simplistic. Even if most of what I was telling them will probably happen. 

And of course they ate it up. Apparently you CAN fool all of the people some of the time.

There are two kinds of players in the public speaking game. One is an attention junkie. They are on stage when they do their talk. And they are even more "ON" afterwards. They hang around the event and grip and grin with all of their adoring fans. They can't get enough public adulation. 

The other kind are like me. I am not the guy up there on stage. I never have been. It's an act. The moment that I finish my presentation I shuck THAT persona like a snake sheds its skin. 

The guy up there radiates jaunty confidence and communal fellow-feeling. He's Davey Tyler, good-old-boy. The fellow you want to have a beer with. He connects with people from the front row to 50 rows back. Everybody knows that he's their pal.

The private Davey Tyler is not a fan of the human race in general. So, as soon as the applause dies down THAT guy reasserts his rights. And heads for the nearest alcohol dispensary. 

As usual, Bernie was waiting for me with a fresh beer. Bernie is my Development Editor. He's the guy who ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION during English class. 

Most subject-matter-experts, particularly in the technical fields, can't spell "grammar" let alone know how to apply it. 

I'm a nerd, not a literarian. So, the big Houses pair me with a DE. That's the normal situation in the book trade. 

The responsibility of the DE is to turn whatever I give them into a product, which is not too publically embarrassing.

You interact in virtual space with your DE. The DE for my first two books was a woman. I never met her. For all I knew she was a 300 pound behemoth, or hotter than Scarlett Johansson. In fact she might have actually been a guy literary catfishing me. 

All I knew was that she could catch mistakes that no human ought to be able to spot. And she turned my boring shit into really influential contributions to the field.

Bernie took over for my third book. He had the same amazing skill and also a sense of humor. 

Producing a 500 page professional tome is roughly equivalent to a woman birthing a rhinoceros. It is exceptional agony over a prolonged period. And you need a sense of humor unless you want to go totally nuts. 

Bernie eased the birth pains with the driest Jewish wit ever. And since that time, his services have been rolled into every contract that I sign. 

I finally met him at a book party. He knew who I was because I was one of the speakers. But I didn't know HIM. 

All I saw was a brown bear in a wrinkled suit and sweat stains descending on me. The guy was massive. And Bernie is as enthusiastic as he is large. 

He approached me with a huge grin on his face. I did the man-hug backslapping thing with him, while looking around at the rest of the people trying to get somebody to tell me who the fuck he was. 

Now he shows up at most of my gigs. Especially ones in nice cities like San Francisco. 

We were at the Fairmont this time. The bar area off the lobby is one of those big open expanses where it feels like you are terribly de rigueur if you are not sipping martinis. 

Bernie drinks beer directly from the bottle so he stood out. He also stood out because he is close to 350 pounds, and wears bright aloha shirts that don't quite cover up his hairy chest. 

But he mostly stands out because he absolutely radiates not giving a shit what other people think, which is pretty-much my OWN attitude. 

He was sitting with two guys. 

Those dudes were wearing suits that cost more than my car. 

A woman was also sitting with them. She was absolutely stunning in a Xena Warrior Princess way. 

She was handsome rather than beautiful. Her facial features were absolutely perfect but the effect was aesthetic rather than sensual. She was Athena, not Aphrodite.

She was tall for a woman, with a body that could only be described as aggressive, muscular and lithe. But it had substance to it, like she could kick your ass without breaking a sweat. 

She was almost mannish in her general attitude too. She came off powerful and controlled, not girly in the least. And she radiated a man's sexuality, forceful and omnivorous. 

You got the impression she would happily kill you in bed and then feed your carcass to her cubs. 

But her main attributes were two of the biggest jugs ever mounted on the species. 

Even though she was a substantial woman those things were disproportionately large. They must have weighed fifteen pounds each. 

They made me want to grab a tit in each hand, stick my head in between and go "Brrrrrrrrrrr." 

Of course serious suffocation would follow, but what a way to die!! I couldn't take my eyes off her.

You didn't need to tell me what Bernie was up to. Bernie looks out for me like a brother.

He had gathered a set of movers and shakers. And he expected me to come along and dazzle them with my footwork. 

We run that little bait and switch game at all of my shows. And it frequently leads to consulting engagements and other kinds of stipends that fatten both of our coffers. 

It had been a long day, featuring a cross country flight. And I was thinking to myself, "Shit Bernie! I don't need this!" 

But a buck is still a buck and Bernie is my best pal. So once more unto the breach. 

I donned good old affable Davey Tyler and ambled over to the table with my legendary lopsided grin. 

I said, "Howdy pardner" to Bernie

I stuck out my hand to the first guy. 

I said, "Davey". He said, "Brad."

Same with the next guy, "Davey", "Doug."

I turned to the woman and offered my hand, "Davey." 

She took my hand like a guy would. It was definitely NOT genteel. And THEN she proceeded to crush it. She was ONE seriously strong woman.

She said "Marigold, but everybody calls me Mary. My parents foisted their bizarre sense of humor off on their children." 

They all looked me over. I am nowhere near as impressive up close, as I am walking around on the stage. The lighting and elevation change the perspective. 

Their disappointment in my lack of awesomeness showed.

I looked THEM over. 

Mary was stunning in a tucked in preppie princess kind of way. Plain black skirt, patent leather heels and very expensive looking silk blouse with some kind of industrial strength thing-a-ma-jig underneath, hoisting her girls to epic proportions. 

Her auburn hair, was very thick and cut into a hip quasi-Cleopatra hairdo. The bangs made her huge yellow cat eyes look absolutely feral. 

She had a $20,000 Rolex Yachtmaster on her wrist and enough gold to stock a pagan temple. But everything was displayed in a tastefully discreet manner. 

The term "slick lounge lizard" came to mind when I looked at Doug. I wasn't sure whether he walked or skittered. He was clearly NOT the brains of the operation. But he was probably the money.

His companion Brad was radiating human attack dog. You know THAT type. Got popular in college playing middle linebacker and that's his approach to everything in life now; including his wife, kids, colleagues, and whatever friends he can scare up. 

In fact, he was so much the alpha-male I expected him to lift one leg when he peed.

Mary had obviously just come to socialize. She was a senior Partner with Deloitte in Chicago and since I have done some consulting with them I directed most of my initial conversation toward her. 

She kept cutting me looks like, "Can you believe these two?" 

The two guys were totally oblivious to HER presence. Mary being a "broad" and all. 

Bernie said, "Doug and Brad were impressed by what you had to say and they wanted to talk some more about it." 

I instantly KNEW what those two wanted. THEY wanted to shove their snouts into the Federal trough up to their eyeballs. 

I had been talking about a national security matter. It has the Feds freaked-out and when a bureaucrat gets antsy he throws your tax money at the problem. 

My ideas were mostly theoretical. But Doug and Brad wanted to hear all about it. 

They ALSO clearly thought that we were ripe for the plucking, because I was an academic and Bernie was a book guy. 

I have had to deal with that particularly loathsome species of varmint my whole career. And I learned long ago that life is way too short to spend your time getting blatantly ripped off. 

I WAS having fun messing with them, keeping the conversation at a level where they couldn't QUITE get anything useful. 

That was until I discovered that they were ALSO the kind of insufferable pussy-hounds that I avoid like the Black Death. 

The problem with that sort of simple minded critter is that they just assume that every guy is as horny as they are. So they have this wink-wink attitude among just us boys in the treehouse. 

Neither of them understood that women were actually living breathing creatures with her own hopes, dreams, aspirations and personal sense of values. And the concept that a woman might actually have thoughts other than, "fuck me baby "just never crosses their mind. 

All women were prey to them, just a piece of meat with a few conveniently warm orifices. I know a surprising number of guys who hved that attitude. Including one in particular. But more about him later.

It was beyond me how a dude could grow up with mothers and sisters and still think that every woman they meet is only there to get fucked. But they were what they were. 

These two were classic examples of the breed. And they were self-centered to a degree that would have been close to delusional. IF it weren't for the fact that the women they considered fair game were obviously THAT stupid. 

There are always loads of unattached females at big conferences. And those two seemed to view every one of them with the same attitude that the Indians took to the Happy Hunting Ground. 

The operative word here is "unattached". Those women might be happily married in real-life but there is nothing like a conference to make everybody forget that kind of thing. 

Conferences always create a sense of unreality. 

You fly in and all of the encumbrances of your day-to-day life are left at the gate. The mental separation and the unreal world of airline travel make it easy to buy into the idea that you have stepped out of your life and into Never-Never Land. 

And like one of the Lost Boys, you regress to an age when you don't have commitments, obligations, or responsibilities. 

That's why I don't hang around the places where I do my gigs. The evening parties and mixers are all part of professional networking and the booze flows. 

And the sight of all those people racing toward their own perdition is just too heart rending. 

But I DID have to admit that tonight's two assholes had a real eye for the easy ones. 

They were now excitedly calling out targets like B17 gunners over Schweinfurt. You know the routine, "Hottie at twelve o'clock high! Big boobs at four o'clock low! Check out that ass at six o'clock level!" That sort of thing. 

While THAT was going on Marigold was sitting with a look of total disbelief on her face. I was probably broadcasting horrified.

I glanced anxiously at Bernie and he read it. He knows my history. He rose and said, "Thank you for the drinks gentlemen, we'll be in touch." I smiled at the boys, not too kindly, and exited in his wake. Bernie leaves a very big wake. 

I never stay at the conference venues. It's too painful. Tonight I was staying at the Hotel Del Sol, which is a beautiful little boutique place over in the Marina. 

As we walked down the broad marble steps toward the cab rank Bernie said, "Sorry about that Davey. They seemed legitimate when they approached me." I knew what he was actually saying.

I said, "No problem buddy. No way that you could tell in advance what they were like. Brad even looks a lot like HIM."

The "him" I was referring to was Marlon Ruffing, Lothario extraordinaire. He was a corporate superstar, elegantly tall, stunningly handsome, and as relentless as a honey badger. 

And he was never more remorselessly driven than when he was in pursuit of my wife Sarah. 

---

Sarah and I met cute. We were both new to the Madison area. I had just taken an Associate Professor position at a university there. It had a nice salary and research stipend, which was what lured me to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. 

Prior to that I had worked at a small, technical college in Florida. But the allure of the Big Ten was too seductive. 

I was dating a woman who was a secretary in one of the little campus research shops. 

In my slightly more immature days we used to call a girl like Linda a "double bagger." Meaning she had an A+ body and a C- face. 

So the bag was for her head and the other bag was for yours in case hers fell off during sex. 

I know it is incredibly shallow to talk about a woman that way. But what can I say? I was young and arrogant and life hadn't taught me any lessons yet. 

Linda was a nice woman, not particularly bright or refined. But she had an incredible supple body, huge pillow tits and she loved to fuck, over-and-over-and-over.

We didn't have as much of a romance as it was a series of lustful adventures in odd places, like woods and parks and back seats and even once on a mattress in one of those big storage lockers. 

That was an all-day event. Fortunately the walls of those things are solid cinder block. Otherwise the people at the storage place would have probably called the cops. Since Linda made it sound like I was killing her in there. 

I could never understand why she wouldn't come to my place or take me to hers. That is, until I discovered to my dismay that she was married. 

I never would have figured it out. She didn't act married. Nor did she wear any rings when she was around me. 

She just dropped it on me in the post-coital afterglow. Maybe she felt like she had me hooked. 

I dropped HER on the spot. I had no intention of violating the tenth commandment, unless that's the one about coveting my neighbor's sheep in which case it is the seventh. 

Fortunately that little incident took place the week AFTER I met Sarah. 

Several days previously, Linda had told me that she had a hot friend who worked in her lab as a research associate. She said that the woman had just come to town for a post-doctoral fellowship and she didn't know anybody. 

So she wanted me to fix her up with one of my colleagues. 

I got it. She wanted to play the alpha female for one of her nerd friends.

A blind date was easy enough to set up since I hung out with the other unmarried faculty. 

I had a guy who was not particularly attractive. But using Linda as the measuring stick I didn't figure her friend would be any prize either. So I made the eventual arrangements.

The second I saw Sarah Jones I knew that I had found my soul mate. I actually came to that conclusion the instant I laid eyes on her. No talking. Just immediate kismet. Go figure? 

I have no idea why I was so sure. I am usually a level headed sort of fellow. And I don't normally jump into relationships without testing the water. But I had to have this woman. 

Apparently you go through life carrying a checklist of the characteristics you want in a mate. I wasn't aware that I had one. That is, until Sarah and Linda started walking toward me. 

THEN it was like I was surrounded by a heavenly choir. And some celestial hand reached down and ticked every box on that list.

Her face was spectacular, a perfect oval, all high cheekbones, huge blue eyes and thick black hair. I couldn't take my eyes off those sculptured lips. 




To Have and Have Not



Some guys like ethereal and waif-like. Others like elegant and super model thin. It is sort of embarrassing to admit, but I like huge tits, big wide hips and asses. 

I come from generations of German farmers and that penchant must have been stamped in my DNA about the time of Charlemagne. 

I mean I really like big jugs and Sarah put new meaning to the term "brick shithouse"

This woman was several of my sweatiest fantasies rolled into one spectacular package. She was not fat as much as she was curved and totally sexual. She had a truck frame. The kind that you could abandon yourself on. You could pound on that body for hours and not break it. 

Thirty generations of Huns grabbed their hearts and swooned like Pepe Le Pew. 

Then she reached me. I had never taken my eyes off her. She looked at me like she was more than a little creeped out. 

After we were married she explained that she thought that I was a total asshole. I was supposed to be in love with her friend. Not leering at her. 

I had to plead insanity. There was no logic to explain my reaction except subliminal chemistry.

Linda made the introductions. Sarah extended her hand and said something like, "Pleased to meet you." 

That was spoken in such a smoky contra-alto voice that I checked off a previously unknown criterion on my newfound list. 

I had never encountered a woman who could communicate more sexuality in a simple tone of voice. 

Of course her date and my date were a slight inconvenience. 

She immediately took the arm of the guy who I had fixed her up with and Linda took mine. 

I was overcome by waves of jealousy. I spent the entire evening trying to pry Sarah off Sid and the more blatant I was the tighter she clung to him and the happier Sid looked.

Linda didn't seem to get the message but she was not the brightest bulb in the room anyhow. 

Sarah certainly did. She kept sending volley after volley of "back off pervert" messages. 

When we finally parted company I left with Linda and Sarah left with Sid. 

She claims she didn't fuck him afterward. I don't know for sure. But Sid acted disturbingly laid back the following Monday. 

In the meantime, Linda insisted on visiting both front and back seats and once across the hood of the car. It was kind-of too bad that she was married. I was going to miss grabbing all that gusto. 

But that cleared the only roadblock to my romancing her friend. 

Two weeks later I was waiting outside of their building. My heart was being gnawed by a pack of ravenous Gerbils. I saw Linda come out and get in her car. 

Sarah had not made an appearance. I knew she was a researcher, not a secretary, so I hoped she was still in the building doing something. I can find my way around a research facility. I spent a disquieting amount of time in school. 

I crept down the hall and sure enough, she was in one of the labs staring intently at a monitor. Her long thick raven curls contrasted starkly with the white lab coat that she was wearing.

I stepped into the room and cleared my throat to announce my presence. 

She looked startled and then angrily at me and said, "What do YOU want!?"

I said, "And hello to you too. I just wanted to drop by and talk to you for a minute. Do you have time?"

She said, with bush-off in every syllable, "I'm busy, leave me alone."

Okay, this wasn't going like I expected. 

I said, "Excuuuuse Me? You can't spare a moment of your precious time to talk to me?

She said, with venom in her voice, "I don't have any time to talk to asshole losers who dump my friends for no good reason!"

I said, "I'm sorry that you and Linda feel that way about me. But I won't consciously violate somebody else's marriage vows. Fidelity is a really important virtue with me." 

I turned to leave. I am far too used to striking out with beautiful women. But the walk back to the dugout is still humiliating.

She said hurriedly, "Wait a minute. What do you mean by violating marriage vows?!"

I turned back toward her and said, "Linda finally got around to telling me that she is married. And I just don't do adultery. It isn't right. So of COURSE I dumped her."

She said, "SERIOUSLY?!! Linda's married???!"

I said, "Come on! You must have known that! Don't you girls talk to each other?"

She looked flabbergasted and mumbled quizzically, "I absolutely didn't know that."

As I turned and walked out the door I said over my shoulder, "Well she should have told you before she torched me. Probably didn't want to look bad." 

I added under my breath, "Or just too slutty to see being married as a problem."

Sarah was sitting there looking dumbfounded. 

The next day I came out of class to find Sarah standing in the hall waiting for me. She looked amazing. 

She had been working. So she had on her lab coat, which was open to reveal a pair of skin tight jeans and a simple t-shirt. It read, "I See Dumb People." 

Aha! A sense of humor. 

I upgraded her body from "world class" to "intergalactic"

She looked a little chastened and wary. 

I was more than wary. I was pissed. I said coldly, "How can I help you?"

She said, "If you will walk over to the Union Terrace with me I'll buy you a beer."

One of the best things about Madison is its location on Lake Mendota. And on good days the Student Union is one of the nicest places in the world to sit and talk. It's bright and sunny out there with the smell of bratwurst cooking and it serves beer. 

After all Wisconsin was more-or-less settled by Germans and we love our brats and beer.

She asked me what class I was teaching. It was just conversation to bridge the walk between my classroom building and the Union. 

I told her about the ins-and-outs of ethical hacking, which to most people sounds about as appropriate a subject as trusted embezzling. But my students have to know how hackers work if they are ever going to figure out how to defend against them. 

Sarah seemed to get that without me explaining it. Most people don't. In fact she appeared to be a very smart woman indeed.

I am several inches taller than she is and I was trying NOT to stare down at her massive jugs as they swayed back and forth. I didn't want to give her the no-doubt accurate impression that I was a lecher. 

We got our beer and we sat. She really had a gorgeous face. Sitting in the sun with the wind off the lake ruffling her hair I could not imagine a more attractive woman. 

Some of my students were sitting around the terrace as well. They kept cutting me approving glances.

She said, "Look, we got off on the wrong foot and I just wanted to straighten a few things out. I was NOT aware that Linda was married. And so dumping her like SHE said you had seemed like a typically cruel male maneuver. 

"It wasn't until after I talked to her that I realized that you were just doing the right thing. I don't believe in adultery either.

"To be honest, I thought that you had dumped her for me and that made you ten times worse in my mind. I would never try to steal a man from one of my friends. 

"I know you are attracted to me. I could tell that the minute I laid eyes on you."

I said, "Was it the snorting or the pawing of the ground that gave me away?"

She laughed and said, "Linda told me that you were head-over-heels in love with her. 

"So I didn't think it was appropriate for you to be so supposedly committed to my friend. And then hit on me as hard as you did. It made you look like a super-hound."

I said, "That is because the instant I saw you I knew that you were the only woman in the world for me. 

"I can't explain it and I probably shouldn't try. I never loved Linda. I was fond of her. She is a decent person. But she must have been smoking some heavy duty crack to think that I was in love with her. 

"Maybe she mistook lust for love. I don't know? 

"And then again, there was her totally problematic husband.

"YOU on the other hand are everything I ever wanted or desired in one package. YOU I could fall in love with. In fact I think I've already gotten there and I am just waiting for you to catch up."

Wow! That was semi-humiliating. I usually don't just lay it out like that.

She looked at me with smoky eyes and said, "Well maybe we should explore your little obsession. What time do you want to pick me up?"

The rest is history. In exactly four months I went from confirmed bachelor to married to the woman of my dreams. 

She was everything I could ever want in a wife. She is a very intelligent person with a really excellent sense of self and a loving and giving soul. She was well-read, interested in everything and hilariously funny. She was an ideal companion and best-friend. 

Oh then, of course, there was also the small detail that she is a complete animal in bed. 

I have always believed that passion in a woman is a direct function of their intelligence. Or in simple terms, the smarter they are the hotter they are. 

Sarah is very smart. She is also, hands-down, the hottest fuck I had ever know. And I had known more than a few women in my day. 

Every man wants a lady in the parlor and a slut in the bedroom and that pretty much summed up my wife Sarah. 

Most nights in the Tyler household were like something out of a Tarzan movie. She had a boundless appetite for sex, she was aggressive about getting fucked, open to anything, very vocal about what she wanted, and how long she wanted it for. And she had endless stamina. 

Plus, that sturdy frame of hers meant I didn't have to hold anything back. The vision I will forever have stamped on my frontal lobe is those huge jugs with their big brown nipples bouncing on her chest, and Sarah loudly urging me on. 

Then every morning she would put on her business suit and go off to work looking like the picture of the cool modern executive woman engineer, very sensible and controlled.

Nonetheless the best times of our marriage were just sitting on our back patio, drinking a beer and talking in the purple and gold of a deepening Wisconsin summer evening; cicadas, crickets, bullfrogs, the whole nine yards. That was my definition of heaven. 

She made me very happy and I think that I made her just as contented. It was an ideal life.

----

We had been married nine years when the serpent slithered into the garden. 

Sarah's company did bare metal programming for various types of medical devices. And one of them had run into a problem that involved litigation. 

She was not the lead on the device but she had the most technical expertise. So they roped her into the investigation team. 

The team was headed up by Mr. Marlon Ruffing, Vice President for Product Development. He sat in on all of the meetings and provided the policy perspective. 

Sarah spent a lot of time telling me how insightful and funny and overall wonderful the guy was. 

I had never met him but I knew the type. 

My only advice, and I expressed it out loud, was, "Mr. Wonderful is trying to get in your pants."

She was downright scornful. She said, "He knows that I am happily married. I tell him about you all the time and he is very supportive of our marriage. In fact he constantly tells me how much he envies you."

Since that line was only slightly less subtle than having him outright tell her to, "Hit the ground and spread 'em" I reinforced my point. 

I said, "I want you to tell this guy to back off. And I do not want you hanging around him in any one-on-one situations."

She looked disgusted. But she said, "Well if it makes you feel better I will tell Marlon that he needs to respect boundaries. But I wish you trusted me more. You are the man I love, not him."

Not the answer I wanted. But she is willful. All smart women are. 

Nevertheless, there were no further suspicious signs from Sarah, not that I was even looking. She was my wife and life's companion and I trusted her. 

She also stopped telling me about Mr. Wonderful. I know. I'm dense.

In early July of that year Sarah decided that she wanted to attend a seminar on product safety engineering. It was just a one day technical conference in Chicago. 

Chicago is only three hours away from Madison and the event didn't even start until noon. So she planned to drive down on Friday morning and spend the rest of the day and overnight doing professional networking. 

Then she would drive back whenever she got rolling the following day. 

The night before we had a long and arduous session. She was so wild that she would have sated the Playboy Rabbit. 

Summer in Madison almost makes up for the lousy winters and this year was nearly perfect, warm and sunny with less of the humidity that I was used to in Florida. 

So I went for a run as soon as she left. Running has always been my exercise of choice. And I like to do four to six miles a day. It gets all of the endorphins rolling. And of course that kind of distance keeps me whippet slim. 

But the separation was already beginning to wear on me. 

Sarah goes where I go and vice-versa. It is something that both of us prefer. 

There is no more interesting companion than my wife. She is a voracious reader. And she has fascinating thoughts about everything from classic literature to current events. 

We keep a Mac Gregor 26 in a marina on Lake Mendota and we spend hours on the water in the summer reading and daydreaming. And we have a little log cabin just north of Madison where we cross country ski and snowshoe in the winter. 

Making love by the fire after a day of brisk exercise in the snow is an experience that I heartily recommend.

I was trying not to think about her. But I missed her. The seminar was only down in Chicago. So I decided, "What the fuck! I got nothing to do the rest of the day. Why don't I just drive down and surprise her. Maybe we can spend the weekend shopping in the City, or whatever else might spring to mind." 

One of our cars is the updated Thunderbird that Ford produced for a few years. It's really Sarah's baby but it is fun to drive It was only noon and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I was in a mood for the open road with the top down and the warm sun on my face,

The seminar was in session when I got there. Reading the schedule I could see that it wouldn't end for another hour. So I went into the bar for a beer and sandwich to wait for her. 

While I was eating I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting down the bar from me. 

The badge he was wearing told me that he was in the same event as Sarah. 

I asked him why he was in the bar instead of the event and he said that he already knew the material front to back. But his boss didn't know that. So he was using the event as an opportunity to play hooky. 

I was thinking to myself, "Another fine specimen of American productivity."

I told him that I was down there to surprise my wife who was also in the seminar. He asked me her name and I said Sarah Tyler. 

He gave me a strange look and said, "Wow! She has the same name as Marlon Ruffing's girlfriend?" 

That statement hung in the air for several seconds before I finally processed what he had just said. I looked at him as blandly as I could and said, "Where would you get an idea like that?" 

He said, "Well I know Ruffing. He's the VP at Acme in Madison. We do business with him. He is in the event too. And a woman named Sarah Tyler has been hanging on him like she was his playmate." 

I said, "Excuse me." I dropped two twenties on the bar and marched out to the front desk. 

The clerk detected fire in my eyes. Stupid move on my part.

I shifted into good old affable Davey Tyler. I said, "Hey buddy, I was wondering if a couple of old friends of mine are staying here. Would you be able to look them up for me?"

He told me that he would certainly NOT be able to look them up for me. Guest privacy was of paramount importance to the hotel.

I asked him the same question again. Only this time three twenties were under the hand that was resting lightly on the counter. He looked around. I pushed the money in his direction. He slid the money off into his pocket carefully blocking the view of the camera watching the front desk.

He gave me an eager to please smile and said, "Certainly Sir, we are always glad to assist our guests."

He did a little typing, wrote on a post-it and handed it to me with a metaphoric tip of his cap. It had two room numbers on two different floors. Thank God for tender mercies! 

I was leaning on a lobby pillar when the seminar broke up. Some guys might want to sneak around and catch the offending spouse in the act. But I am not one of those guys. 

I wasn't going to let Sarah take one step over the line until I had a little "Come to Jesus" with her. After that she could do whatever she pleased but I would have said my piece. And it would be on the record. 

I was also hoping that she had NOT done anything too unforgivable yet. 

She came out of the event holding onto the arm of a tall, slim and impossibly handsome guy. They were completely into each other as they approached me, laughing and talking animatedly. 

I had already pinged their phones and force paired them. Apparently they didn't cover Bluesnarfing in that seminar. Both devices were wide open so it took me less than 10 seconds to do the Bluebugging. And before they had covered half the distance I owned them. 

I stepped in front of the loving couple. They sensed rather than saw my presence. And they began to move around me, like I was an obstruction. 

She was still looking lovingly up at him and holding his arm to her exquisite chest. He was smiling down at her and saying something witty. 

I took another step, to stay in their way.

He looked up at me irritated. 

I said in my friendliest tone of voice, "Hello Marlon. So, who is your new girlfriend?" 

My voice snapped her out of her reverie. Her head came up and she gawked at me, just appalled. 

Her face changed to a mask of horror. That was a completely and totally gratifying reaction. 

Fuckface continued to look confused and annoyed. 

She dropped his arm like it was on fire, put both hands to her mouth and said far too loudly, "OH MY GOD, Davey, it's not what you think."

I actually started laughing, I turned around and walked toward the valet station shaking my head in disbelief. 

I turned back toward her and said. "You really need to get better scriptwriters my dear." 

Then I exited stage right. 

As I was leaving I heard Shithead say. "Who the fuck was THAT Sarah?"

All the way home I was wondering how long THAT had been going on. There had been no signs of trouble, no working late, no nights out with the girls, or unexplained trips. 

In fact she had been super loving for the last couple of weeks, which might have been the only possible red flag. She was doubtless feeling guilty.

I hear you asking why I did not immediately challenge Dickbreath to pistols at dawn. That was because I wanted to run a little fidelity test on my wife first. SHE was all I cared about.

If she arrived home shortly after I did, THEN we were going to have a conversation. If she got home tomorrow looking well-fucked I had nothing to say to her. 

Plus I had already gotten my electronic hooks set in both of them.

She came out onto the patio exactly a half hour after I got home. She was utterly shamefaced. I was sitting there with a beer in my hand and watching the sun go down. 

She had been crying, which was a good sign. 

She was wearing a loose fitting grey sweatshirt and sweatpants. It looked like the gear that Rocky wore in the first movie. I was hoping that was where the analogy stopped. 

She must have run upstairs to change into something more comfortable before coming out to confront me. 

She was so naturally beautiful it took my breath away. I offered her the second beer. 




To Have and Have Not



I had gotten both out of the refrigerator when I arrived. It was kind of measuring stick for our marriage. 

I wasn't going to take a sip until she got there. And if it was warm and flat, then we had reached the end of the road. 

She sat down and stared off into the back yard. It was getting too dark to see her face. I could sense that she was steeling herself. 

I was inwardly cringing from what I knew she was going to say. But I tried to look as bland as I could. I was afraid that any agitation on my part would spook her. 

I said calmly, "Is there something that you need to tell me Sarah?" My tone of voice conveyed my love and concern.

I could see her make her decision. 

She said in a voice so small that I could barely hear her, "I didn't do anything with him YET. But I was going to cheat on you Davey. Tonight was going to be the first night. And it is just tearing me up inside to know that."

That information shot a thunderbolt of angst through me. But I was oddly composed. I think that I had come to some conclusions on the drive back and I wanted to see how it played out. 

I sat there looking at her, my expression was deadpan. This was top-stakes poker now

She looked mortified and said, "I got caught up in it. You've seen him. You can imagine the effect that he has on women. Every female at Acme, single or married, was drooling over him. 

"He could have had any girl in the Company but he picked me."

That was no surprise. All you had to do was look at Sarah Tyler to know that Mr. Ruffing had excellent taste. 

She said, "He romanced me relentlessly at work. Little gifts and constant compliments. 

"He was my boss's boss. So nobody questioned him. And his behavior toward me eventually caused an unreal sense of time and place. 

"I wasn't just a thirty something married engineer. I was back in high school and the hottest guy in the senior class had picked me to be his girlfriend. 

"It was thrilling at some fundamental level of my feminine ego. And every day I walked around on a cloud, basking in the envy of the other ladies. 

"I am aware, that the women who were not total fools probably thought that I was a cheating whore. But as far as I was concerned I was the most beautiful girl in the world. 

"In the beginning it was just flirtation and lunches. Then about two weeks ago we were coming back from lunch and he made a move on me in the parking lot. 

"It was just some simple kissing and a little groping but I didn't say no. The experience was way too exhilarating. 

"After a couple of minutes I got my sanity back and broke away from him. I told him that I was married and that I loved YOU not him. I told him that we had crossed the line and it wasn't right. 

"But from that day on, every time we went to lunch he kept pushing the boundaries. And I never really redrew the line. 

"I am embarrassed to admit that I was afraid he would move on to another girl if I shut him off completely.

"I have a feeling that you sensed something from the way I have been behaving the past couple of weeks. I am normally not THAT insatiable."

I said to myself, "Aha! So it WAS the guilt talking!"

She continued with, "Then this week he managed to get his hand inside my bra and tweak one of my nipples. That almost did it. You know how sensitive my nipples are. 

"I would have probably fucked him right there in the front seat except it was the middle of the day and we were in the company parking lot. 

"So sanity prevailed one more time. But we were both pretty disheveled. 

"He looked at me and I looked at him and God help me but I knew that I was going to fuck him. I love you. You are my whole life. But I just understood that I was going to have this man sometime and somewhere. It was a compulsion.

"Since it would have killed me to hurt you I wanted to do everything I could to ensure that you would never find out. And I planned on making it up to you in every way I could. That was a rationalization. I realize it now.

"I had the seminar scheduled anyhow and so we arranged for him to come down and we would spend the night together. 

"Then, if it worked out we would see each other on a very limited and carefully controlled basis. 

"It wasn't going to be one of those three times a week in a motel affairs. It would just be once in a while when the time was perfect. 

"And it would only be for the sex. He is just THAT gorgeous.

If I had been a dog I would have started a long warning growl at that point.

She looked disgusted and said,"I know how foolish that sounds now, even to me. And all I can say is that I am ashamed that I ever considered it.

"And I swear that I was going to ensure that you would benefit from what I was doing by giving you my extra loving attention. I would deny you nothing and I would seek to make you happier than you had ever been.

"That all sounds incredibly weak, self-centered and delusional now. But that was what I was thinking two seconds before I looked up and saw you.

"Then the reality of what I was doing came tumbling down on me. 

"What can I say? I was acting like a giddy teenager. That isn't me. I like to think of myself as a mature and sensible woman. I have no idea what would make me act like that. 

"Marlon is a very persuasive man but the fact that I was willing to buy into the things that he said scares me. 

"For the entire three hour drive back it was like waking up from a nightmare. I went from dazed and confused to being totally ashamed and embarrassed by my behavior. 

"The transition back to myself was like kicking a drug habit. It was physically painful. 

"In 3 hours I went from a silly school girl crush, to seeing what I had done in the cold light of common sense. And I was utterly devastated emotionally. The guilt was awful. And I am utterly humiliated.

"I am a realistic person and I should have been able to understand what I was doing. I am so ashamed of myself now. And I pledge to you that I will never be dragged into that kind of behavior again. 

"I have told you everything as scrupulously honestly as I can. And all I can do is beg you to forgive me."

It was a relief to some extent to discover that she had not crossed the line into something that would be totally unforgivable. 

Yet, the impact of her intention was catastrophic. 

Cheating is one of those acts that ends life as you know it. 

One minute the days are certain and reliable. And the next second you are switched onto another track entirely. All of your comfortable assumptions and beliefs about the inevitability of things just disappear in a puff of smoke. And you are left as helpless as a newborn. 

Sure, there are cowboys who like to move from town to town. But for most of us, a stable marriage is the foundation of your life. Your marriage ensures order in a chaotic world. It gives you a sense of permanence. And it gives you the courage and strength to face things. 

That is because you know that, come-what-may you're not alone. You are intimately connected to one special someone. And you can always count on their undivided support and devotion to get you through the tough times.

The physical manifestation of that special connection is the exclusive sexual intimacy that you share. Adultery literally "adulterates" that link. And the consequence of severing that connection is that the two partners find themselves confronting life's adversity totally and utterly alone. 

It doesn't matter that the act itself didn't really occur. The intimacy revolves around exclusiveness. And so, the simple INTENTION to step outside of the marriage ALSO impacts your connection. 

I didn't blow up. 

My daddy was a man's-man. And from the day I was born he drilled into me his belief that any form of emotion was for women. Real men internalized their anger and hurt and never let anybody see them sweat. 

That probably explains why he died of a massive heart attack at 58. 

Nevertheless by the time he left me I was irrevocably who I was. 

I was a picture of calm with a layer of pure ruthlessness underneath. 

Sarah felt relieved. I could see it in her face. She had gotten the whole sordid thing out on the table and I had not reacted too badly. Since nothing had really happened she felt like we had moved past it now. 

But she had no idea what she had done. I said with infinite sadness, "The fact that you didn't fuck him is immaterial. The important issue is that you were planning to do it. And now that you CLAIM to have broken the spell I only have your word that you will never do it again. 

"Harm has been done to our marriage and frankly I don't know how to fix THAT. How do I trust you short of following you around?"

She looked at me with a depth of passion I have never seen in her before and said, "It will be my job to convince you of my fidelity. You will see it in everything I do. I will win your trust back."

I didn't believe a word of that. In my mind, she would go back to buying what Dickhead was selling as soon as she got over the shock of being discovered. 

But I always play the long game. Time would have to tell. And I had only seen a few of her cards. I was waiting for them to all get laid down before I placed my bet. 

Waiting to see what would happen also had other advantages. Sarah Tyler has a lot to offer a man. And before I made my final decision I was going to take full advantage of that. 

So I fucked her like the whore that I now thought she was. It was different and exciting to not give a shit about her pleasure. Even so, she still managed to have three or four orgasms.

Things went wonderfully for the next couple of weeks. She was extra loving in everything she did. We ran together every day and spent the following weekend in the cabin enjoying a very active and imaginative series of romps, among the majesty of nature and the surrounding forest and lakes. 

I know that Shithead and Sarah still had contact at work. That was inevitable and impossible to prevent. But she was trying every trick that she could think of to let me know that she was being a good girl. 

She realized that lunch was a hot button and so at every practical opportunity during the week she would drive over to meet me at noon. 

I was almost convinced that the storm had passed when the little item that I had dropped on their phones cemented their undoing. 

It had been lying there dormant waiting to be activated by treachery and it finally caught something of interest.

If Sarah, or Fuckface called each other I was the man-in-the-middle. In essence, what I had installed in both of their phones was like an old fashioned party line. If they talked to each other I could listen in. I even had the thing set to record any calls between them that I might have missed. 

Of course I missed the calls that led to their ultimate downfall. That's how things roll with me. 

Sarah had begun to convince me that her bout of temporary insanity was just that; temporary. And I had started thinking of her as my loving wife again. So after a while I stopped paying as much attention to the bug. 

Then one hot sunny Thursday in August I noticed that I had three recordings. 

The first was the usual feeling-out that any predator does when he is getting back to his prey after being chased off. 

I heard him say, "Sarah, this is Marlon, Hi. I just wanted to see how you are doing."

She said, "Marlon, why are you calling? I thought I told you to never contact me for personal matters. I nearly lost my marriage thanks to our indiscretion and I don't want to ever go there again." 

Fuckface said heartily, "Oh come on now! We didn't do anything for you to lose your marriage over. 

"If your husband is so insecure that he thinks that just talking to another man is an indiscretion then he needs psychiatric help. I am your friend and I am concerned about you."

She chuckled ruefully, "Well you should be. My marriage to Davey is my most important asset and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize it. 

"And he is a lot smarter than you give him credit for. He saw right through our little adventure."

Asshat said, "We didn't do anything for you to be ashamed of. It was just two good friends together for an afternoon. Maybe we can do that again sometime. You know I have never met a woman who I was so attracted to."

Sarah said, "That's very flattering Marlon but you really need to find another woman to bother. I am not interested in messing up my life because you are attracted to me. Now don't call me again."

She hung up on him at that point. Good girl!!

I was thinking, "This guy is a master of seduction." He had planted all of the classic seeds of doubt. And my guess was that he would be around in a couple of days to see how they had grown. 

He had made the case that their relationship was platonic and friendly, not hot and tawdry. He had laid out the idea that I was a jealous weenie. And he had stroked her ego big-time. 

Having done the groundwork, the next call got down to the nuts and bolts. 

He said in a voice dripping with fake sincerity, "Sarah, I have been thinking about our relationship and we really need to talk. I miss what we had together and I want to try to work something out where I can share some of your time. 

"You are a lovely, wonderful lady and being around you makes me happy. Couldn't you spare me at least ONE lunch so we can just talk?"

She said, "How many times do I have to tell you. Davey does not want me spending ANY time with you. He couldn't be any clearer about that. 

"If I as much as met you for a conversation in the middle of the Capitol square I would be violating the promise that I made to him. So please don't ask me to do this."

Dickhead said, "I am sorry to hear that you are such a submissive person. I thought you were an enlightened woman who did not live under the thumb of a man." 

She said with some heat, "That's not it at all and you know it. We had an emotional affair and almost a physical one and Davey knows what might happen if we started seeing each other again. Even if our intentions were strictly platonic."

Shithead said with considerable pompous indignation, "Now that is REALLY insulting. Do you mean to tell me that he doesn't think that you can control yourself when you are around me? 

"I KNOW that you are stronger than that my dear. I TRULY believe in you.

"How is a little conversation over lunch going to hurt anybody? And I would really like to see you some place where we can talk about things besides work. Your thoughts and feelings mean a lot to me and we really had some good times together."

That did it. Her voice softened a bit. She said, "We DID have good times didn't we?" The yearning came through loud and clear.

He said, "We sure did. And I don't want it to stop. Just say you'll have lunch with me and we can talk about ways we could spend more time together and not threaten your husband. I don't know why he is so insecure anyhow. But I will respect his wishes. I just want to see you again."

Either the fucker didn't understand the paradox of respecting my wishes while romancing my wife, or he was intentionally ignoring it. My money was on the latter explanation.

She said, with wistfulness in her voice, "Let me see what I can do. But it has to JUST be lunch. Absolutely nothing more!!"

That lunch was simply not going to happen. I was going to confront her with the evidence and I didn't care whether she knew I had Bluebugged her or not. Violations of trust go both ways and her sin was a lot more mortal than mine. 

Nevertheless, I still had one additional short message to hear.

It was a ten second phone call from him to her. He said, "Let's meet at Vilas Park. I'll be there at noon. The weather is wonderful. We can sit outside and talk. I'll bring a picnic and we can reminisce. I really miss you." 

The timestamp said today. My watch said that it was 12:30 in the afternoon. 

A picnic huh!? Prone on a blanket in some secluded spot in that big park. That didn't sound very platonic to me.

I thought, "Well what the fuck! May as well have it out in person." 

I was not going to just sit home and wring my hands waiting until she came back to tell me all about it. 

Her Thunderbird was in the parking lot. So she was still there. It was parked next to a white Jag XJ. Of course Fuckface would be driving a motorized penis like that. 

I had no idea where they were. I imagined that they would go somewhere private. So I walked toward the trees at the back of the lot. There were people off to my left in the main part of the Park and I didn't think Fuckface would take her there. 

There was a woods in front of me. And it would be quiet and secluded. It was a perfect place for a tryst. 

I walked slowly in that direction looking around for them. Vilas is a big place and I would probably have never found them except she moaned. 

Sarah gets very loud when she is aroused. 

I homed in on that sound like I was a Sidewinder Missile and it was a MIG 25 exhaust. 

They were back some way under the trees, lying on a spread out blanket. It was still a bit public but if you got caught up in things it was sufficient. 

He had her blouse open and her bra pushed up while he worked on a nipple with his lips. 

She had him by the back of his head plastering his face against her delectable right breast while she moaned and thrashed her legs. 

She was cupping and manipulating the other tit with her left hand, which is something that she does when her motor is really revving. 

At the same time she was panting and moaning over and over, "Noooooo Please!! Oh God Noooooo!!"

I walked right up to them taking pictures all the way. I wonder how people ever recorded visual images before cellphone cameras were invented. 

Our marriage really didn't matter at that point. And like I said, I hold it in. So I stopped next to them and said very conversationally, "How was lunch?" 

It took a second for my voice to register with them. Then they both nearly jumped out of their skin. 

He scrambled ungracefully to his feet zipping his pants up. It looked like he had just been clearing the decks for stage two of the operation. 

Even though he was taller he looked terrified. It was probably the homicide that he saw in my eyes. 

She opened HER eyes dreamily and then did the same shock and horror thing she had done the month before. 

She shrieked, yanked her bra back down over her exposed tits, and began to cry. 

She jumped to her feet and tried to come to me. I backed away from her and held her by the shoulders to prevent that. 

I looked her squarely in the eye and said in what I hoped was a casual tone of voice, "Sorry about the interruption. You can go back to what you were doing now, since you are no longer married to ME." 

And I turned and walked back toward the car. 

Different people have different strategies about ways to hurt people. I didn't care about Asshat. I had already set in motion the long-term consequences for him. Costs that I hoped would make him wish he had never been born. 

The pictures I had taken were just a bonus.

I know Sarah though. And I knew that turning my back and walking away from her like I had just done was the worst possible thing that I could do. 

She doesn't handle guilt well anyway. And telling her that her marriage was over would crush her. 

I also knew that she was going to run to try to catch me to "explain." But she had to button up her blouse first. So I had almost made it to the car before she reached me. 

I thought it was Shithead. Her arrival was that violent. 

She was trying to throw her arms around me to make me stop. She was sobbing hysterically against my back. 

I stood stock still and said in my most reasonable tones, "We can talk about this at home. Now let go of me." 




To Have and Have Not



I could feel her willing her arms to part. 

I got into the car, still calm, cool and collected, and thought, "Thanks Dad!" 

She was standing there looking totally defeated. Good!! 

I was busy in the 10 minutes that it took her to join me at home. The thing that we kept doing with phased arrivals after my discovering her clandestine affairs was getting to be a travesty. 

She had put herself back together and she looked like my wife again. 

I was sitting on the patio just staring into the trees at the back of our yard. She sat down timorously in her chair. 

She said, "I am so, so, sorry. I was just going to meet him for lunch. I went so I could reinforce the fact that he needed to stay away. And I got caught up again." 

I knew that was total bullshit because I had seen the outcome of THAT conversation. 

I said, "That's odd because I could have sworn it was because you wanted to figure out some way to spend more time together." And I pushed the play button. 

She listened to the whole thing getting paler and paler. She knew that there was no point in any further argument. 

If I had confronted them at a Panera, our ability to "talk it out" would be severely limited. 

Because I had discovered them with her nipple in his mouth there was no question about what had to happen next. 

I said, "I get it, you can't stay away from him. He's a hellishly attractive guy and he has a great line of bullshit. 

"Problem is that I had a hard time justifying staying with you after your FIRST exploit. Now I absolutely can't trust you. And I never will. You tried and you failed. 

"That is no way to run a marriage. So here is what I am going to do. I am going to move out. And we are going to get the quickest, simplest divorce possible. 

"I just want to warn you that your boyfriend's divorce will probably take a little longer. His wife sounded like she was going to roast him over a slow spit." 

Sarah was thunderstruck. She said, "Marlon is married??!!" 

I thought what is it with this woman!!? Is she THAT naïve? 

I said, "Of COURSE he's married, three cute little kids too. Don't you ever use Facebook?" 

She just sat there looking like a wax figure. 

I said, "Anyhow, while I was driving to the Park I mailed the clip you just heard to his wife. That was before I discovered how bad it REALLY was. 

"I don't know what she is going to do when she sees these pictures." 

And I flipped through the series I had shot while I was walking up to the happy couple. 

I thought the photography was excellent and you can't beat 1080p for getting the definition right. It was unquestionably old Marlon busily sucking on Sarah's right tit while he groped his way down her stomach toward her pussy. 

I said, "I also mailed this to the CEO at Acme under the subject line, 'This is what your employees do on their lunch hour.' 

"I don't think it will affect you since you are the underling; in more ways than one. 

"But this isn't going to advance Mr. Ruffing's career." 

Your CEO and I are going to discuss it tomorrow over our OWN lunch. It will be stimulating in a different kind of way though. Don't worry. My one condition will be that you are not affected professionally. 

"Not so sure about your boyfriend though."

She was looking at me like a bird hypnotized by a snake muttering over-and-over in a ghostly voice, "He's not my boyfriend."

I said, "You can stay here at the house. I am going to live at the cabin until I get a place. 

I loved you absolutely and unconditionally. And I don't think that I deserved this. 

Don't try to fight the divorce and don't ever talk to me again. You owe me that."

With that I stood and walked to the door. I had already stashed my roller bag and my suit carrier there. 

I turned to her one last time. She was sobbing loudly, slumped in her chair with her head on her arms. 

I almost felt sorry for her. She was vulnerable in one area and she had run into a predator capable of exploiting that weakness. 

It was too bad that real-men are not allowed to cry or I would have joined her in her grief. I reached back and closed the door on the happiest period of my life.

----

That door was shut tight over two years ago. But the sense of loss was never far from me. And it was the reason why I hated any form of extramarital hijinks, and the stupid people who perpetrate them. 

I had arranged to have Ruffing fired with derogatory references as a condition of not going forward with a suit against Acme. 

They were very cooperative. They knew that I had them over a barrel. And the way their CEO reacted to my pictures convinced me that he would have done it anyhow. 

I also secured their iron-clad assurance that none of the stink would come back on Sarah. 

I still loved the silly bitch and I wanted her to have a normal life. Losing her job would kill her. And her NOT losing her job would kill Ruffing.

For the first year the unadulterated loneliness and the deep feelings of longing for my ex-wife nearly destroyed me. 

You never think about the empty eternity that follows a divorce. That was especially true at Christmas. But I always had my old man's voice reminding me to suck-it-up. 

I threw myself into my teaching and writing and managed to produce two new books. Which is remarkable in that short a space. 

They were very well received in the small group that I call my peers. Nobody gets rich in the professional book trade. There just isn't a wide enough audience. But I was in it for ego and reputation, not money. And you have to publish, or perish. My subsequent promotion to Full Professor proved that. 

Asshat reconciled. His wife thought that the evidence was damning. But that it didn't justify the death of their marriage. And of course, they DID have three cute little kids to consider. 

He never actually fucked Sarah and he is extremely good looking. So, his line of bullshit got him out of hot water one more time. 

On the other hand, I imagine the wife kept him on a very short leash. The woman sounded like she took no prisoners. And since she was the one with the money now, my guess was that Dickface would not stray far from home and if he ever did she would have him fixed.

Some of the more visceral types would have probably gone after the asshole in a dark alley. But you have to be part of my world to appreciate why what I had done to him was a whole LOT more satisfying than a couple of cracked ribs.

He didn't work in a blue collar trade, where the reason why you left your last job doesn't make much of a difference. He was in a position of trust in upper management. 

And there is nothing like being fired over a sexual harassment complaint to hold down your long-term career prospects. 

His total unemployability robbed him of any hope for the rest of his life, which to a classic high achiever was as close as you could come to literally cutting off his balls. And he knew who had done it and why. 

THAT was the gift that just kept on giving. 

I had no idea what happened to Sarah. She is beautiful, intelligent and clever and I am sure that there were plenty of men waiting to take my place. 

She had attempted to "explain" things to me for over a year. But that ship had already sailed. I had no desire to beat her up any further. 

She knew what she had done. And we had BOTH paid the price. That was immutable fact. So the only thing I was going to get out of any further discussion was more grief. 

I tried to lead a normal social life. I am not bad looking and I am a bit of a star in a hot field. So I had my pick of the area women. 

Over the ensuing two years I had dated quite a few interesting and very lovely ladies. But there was absolutely no chemistry. 

And frankly Sarah had more-or-less gelded me. I still loved her to death and she was the only woman I ever wanted in that way. 

I quickly discovered that without the sex there were no long-term prospects with any of those women. Modern girls expect to be taken care of at the end of the evening. 

It bothered me that I had no lustful urges. But the only way you can change biology is through your head. And I was not going to discuss my problems with a shrink. THAT was weakness. And my dad wouldn't allow it. 

But then again, the woman walking out of the Fairmont with me was more compelling than any female I had ever known. 

Marigold had bailed when we had, leaving the boys to their monkey business. And incidentally also sticking them with the check.

She looked totally pleased with herself. 

Looking at her I felt my interest rise, along with something else. My little voice looked amused and said, "Welcome back."

She was an incomparable creature. She just glittered when she walked. She was beauty, intelligence and strength of character wrapped in a matchless package. 

And she conveyed incredible sexuality in the swaying of those big muscular buns and the swish of those impossibly long legs.

When we got to the curb she turned to me and said with utter confidence, "Let's talk at the Mark Hopkins? I'm staying there." 

The Mark was across the street and the Top of the Mark has been an institution in San Francisco since FDR. 

I looked at Bernie. He said, "I'm tired and I'm going back. But you two go ahead. You can fill me in on the details at breakfast." 

Then he hailed a cab. I got the distinct impression he was setting me up. As I said, Bernie looks out for me like a brother.

I looked at her and said, "One quick drink at the Top and I'm going to join him."

We rode up in the elevator, keeping a modest distance. The perfume that she was wearing was another one of her shamelessly expensive weapons. And it was driving me nuts. I am sure the pheromones she was exuding would have had the same wicked effect on any OTHER male standing within ten feet of her. 

The lady was pulling me in like she had her own gravity and I was fighting it because she scared the shit out of me. 

She was an incredibly beautiful and sexually alluring woman, with a force-of-nature personality that gave me no doubt why she was such a high flying executive. 

And she seemed to have deliberately selected me for some additional attention. I do not believe in coincidences.

We got a table by the window and I looked out over the City below. San Francisco is amazing in any weather. But on a night when the fog rolls in, the view from 19 floors above Nob hill is beyond special. 

She fixed me with those huge intelligent cat eyes and said, "What happened to you? I have never seen so much hurt on anyone's face than when those two morons started their juvenile little pussy hunt."

I said, "That is absolutely nothing I will EVER talk about. Are you married? I don't see any rings. Or are you just single when you are out of town?"

Being an asshole is a tactic that I have adopted with sympathetic women. It keeps them at bay. I detest any form of warmth, or compassion from them. It hurts too much. 

She laughed out loud. It was a hearty laugh, like a man's. She said, "Excellent comeback. I can see that somebody really fucked you over. 

"And to answer your question I am 37 years old. I have never been married. I like variety. There are too many men and there is WAY too little time." 

She favored me with a look that was so hot my acrylic socks nearly melted.

She added, "I have never known a man I could respect enough to play wife to. And most of the men I meet don't want to be MY wife. 

"Even though some occasionally DO like being tied up and dominated." Another flirty smile.

"So I have affairs, sometimes long, sometimes one-night. 

"I am a Senior Partner at a Big Four firm. I make more money in one month than you probably earn in a year. So I don't need a man for anything but sweaty recreation. 

"And I am never lonely. This ensures that I have companionship whenever I desire it," And she gestured dramatically down the length of that remarkable face and body. 

"If I am interested in a guy, I fuck him. That fulfils my needs and I have never had a customer complain. So why would I tie myself to the whims and interests of one man when there are so many to meet and experience? 

"I don't toss the word "hypocrite" around lightly and I can tell by the look on your face what you are thinking. So let me clarify something for you. 

"If a man acts like I do, his buddies call him a stud. He gets congratulations. If a woman acts the same way, men call her a slut. And she gets burned at the stake. Which is the typical condescending attitude of a male dominated culture. 

"So let me assure you. I am selective in who I choose to fuck, and I practice safe sex when I do. 

"I harm nobody. My partners all know the rules up-front. And I never stray into somebody else's marriage. I like romance with my sex. Even if that is for just one night. And I am faithful to the person I am fucking until I move on. 

"I lead my life independent of the constraints of anybody else. And I am a very happy person. 

"Is that open enough for you cowboy?" 

Her incredible eyes bored into me, "NOW, who hurt you like that?"

She was stunning in the dim light of the cocktail lounge. Her superb features were serene and her extraordinary body very relaxed, like a big cat at rest. The physical and psychic power absolutely radiated off of her. 

The fog was covering everything below us in an unreal shroud of grey. It was like reality was shifting and I was being transported into a mystical universe. I had never imagined that a stranger could be so enthralling. 

My only thought was, "This woman's beauty is almost divine." 

Suddenly I felt COMPELLED to tell her everything about my marriage, and how it had come to an end. It was an inexplicable desire to unburden myself. It was like the woman was exercising some kind of supernatural power over me. 

I told her about our wonderful life together. That is, until Sarah's unholy attraction to Shithead. 

I told her about his almost seducing her at the conference in Chicago. She nodded like she had suspected something like that. It clarified why I had such a marked aversion to socializing with those assholes at the Fairmont.

I told her about Sarah's heartbreakingly unsuccessful attempt to stay on the straight and narrow. Finally, I told her in great exacting detail about how my wife had fallen off it and how I had reacted to that.

She sat back and looked disapproving. It was a surprising reaction. 

She said, "Let me get this straight? You found some stud sucking your wife's tit. And because of that you threw away nine years of happy marriage and a woman who apparently loved you to death?

"Seriously??!! Nobody is THAT stupid."

Now it was my turn to be puzzled. I said with some indignation, "What ELSE could I do? I could never trust her again. She knew what she had to do and she failed. Once a cheater, always a cheater."

She was looking at me like she couldn't believe what a moron I was. That look would have been insulting if it had come from a normal person. Coming from this almost unreal being it set my hair on fire. There was suddenly not enough oxygen in the room.

She paused like she was going to ask a profound question. 

Then she said, "Do you act like you did when you were a pimply faced teenager?" 

THAT was right out of left field!

I spluttered, "Of course not!"

She said, "Why not?"

I said, "Because I grew up. You learn from your mistakes. You can only hit your thumb so many times before you decide to pound the nail right."

She said, "So you changed your behavior over time based on feedback you got from life?"

I didn't like where this was going one bit. She was making me sound like an idiot. 

I said with some heat, "Curing a married woman of the tendency to cheat is not the same as me learning self-control."

She looked at me like I was too dumb to be allowed out in public. 

She said, "Really!!? You REALLY believe that?!! In both cases it is PRECISELY a matter of self-control. Tell me how either case is different."

I thought for a second. She had a point. 

I said, "Well, I guess they basically aren't. It is just that my learning to be less impulsive was an inevitable side-effect of me maturing. Whereas Sarah WAS already mature, but she still made the wrong choice. 

Then I thought about it some more. 

I said, "Of course she didn't really know what it was going to cost her. You won't do the crime if you can't do the time. And Sarah is a smart girl. She might have thought twice about ever meeting the dude again if she knew that the penalty was the death of or marriage."

The goddess across the table looked at me like she thought that I might have an intelligent bone in my body after all. 

She said, "It is just a matter of choice, once you understand the price. You weigh the costs and choose the option that offers the greatest personal benefit. 

"Nothing is EVER completely black, or white. There are always tradeoffs. But no SANE person makes a cognizant decision to do something that they know for sure will be self-destructive.

"That applies to her deciding not to stray exactly as much as your decision to act like a grownup. Although I am beginning to wonder about you.

"Your wife put herself in that situation because she did not fully appreciate what would happen to her if she did. 

"She was obviously into the guy. That kind of subliminal attraction happens between men and woman all the time. 

"I am sure you are attracted in a sexual way to women you meet so you have to understand that. You just never acted on it. That was a conscious choice on your part."

I TOTALLY understood that. I'm human and a male. What she was talking about happens to me three or four times at an average cocktail party. 

But of course we all follow civilized rules of engagement. So nothing ever happens. 

But then again, none of the women I have ever been attracted to have tried to seduce me with the degree of remorselessness that Shithead had devoted to pursuing Sarah. 

I wondered how I would have reacted if a particularly tempting woman had actually tried to do that." 

It was clear that Fuckface had unrelentingly romanced my wife. And if the effort is THAT persistent it is hard to keep saying "no", especially if it comes in a package as good-looking as Mr. Marlon Shithead. 

I suppose that, given enough time and subtle persuasion it is possible to get confused about how the rules apply. Particularly if you are able to convince yourself that whatever you are doing won't hurt anybody. 

The goddess had seen the dawning comprehension in my face and said with some approval in her voice, "Did you ever tell her directly, I am going to divorce you if I catch you with this guy again?" 

She said, "It is one thing to tell somebody, 'Don't pick up that snake' and another thing to tell them, if you pick up that rattlesnake it will kill you."

Now it was my turn to look at her like she was an idiot. 

I said, "Of COURSE not. It never crossed my mind to tell her THAT. I shouldn't have HAD to. I never thought to tell Sarah what would happen if she strayed. Because, I just naturally assumed that she knew what the REAL cost was." 

"It's simple common sense. She should have understood what would happen if I caught her with him again. I shouldn't have had to spell it out for her."

The goddess gave me an ipso-facto look, like I had just pled guilty. And she said, "So she DIDN'T know that she was crossing some absolute line when she arranged to meet this guy." I felt a lump rise in my throat. 

She said, "Do you seriously think that she would have met him under any circumstances if she knew that it would end her marriage?"

I bowed my head in defeat. I knew that Sarah wouldn't have. She's not stupid. And she obviously valued our marriage. She had said as much to Dickbreath over the phone. 




To Have and Have Not



She wouldn't take the risk. I just KNEW that. I felt utterly simple minded. 

She said gently, "Being a woman I know that she ACTUALLY thought. She thought that she had the situation under control. That was because she didn't intend to cheat. There was no malicious intent, no mens-rea in the legal sense. 

"She's not a total slut right?"

I said with some anger, "Of COURSE NOT. She is very controlled. She has an excellent self-image. She has never come CLOSE to inappropriate behavior with ANY other man except this dude." 

Marigold looked like I had just confirmed something. 

She said, "Then I assume that you realize that any woman with even a modicum of self-respect does not plan to get fucked outdoors, in the middle of the day, in a public setting where any stranger could wander idly by. 

"If she had met him at the Sheraton, then she was probably planning to cheat. But her meeting him in the middle of all of the moms and kids and bugs and wildlife in a public park indicates that she had nothing on her mind besides conversation." 

"She is willful right? Thinks she is smarter than anybody else? She just assumed that the consequences of the first discovery would get her past her fatal attraction to the guy. 

"And that meeting with him again was no big deal. It was not something you would divorce her over as long as it stayed platonic. And she was also probably testing herself, in order to be sure that she had closed that door. 

"But, by placing herself in that situation she underestimated the guy's intentions and how far into him she actually was. 

"He clearly connived to put her there because he realized that she was still vulnerable. And all he needed to do was to give her a little push to send her over the edge. 

"He chose that specific setting because he knew that she would never meet with him if he suggested something like a motel room.

"So it was a cleverly planned seduction on HIS part. 

"Letting herself get lured into that trap was pure blind arrogance on HER part. All beautiful women think that they can control ANY man. That was her chief mistake.

"Let me ask. Do you think that she ever fucked anybody else while you were married?"

I said huffily, "Certainly not!" 

I was sure of that answer. There was just no way. We were together too much. And I knew Sarah too well. I was absolutely confident that I would have been able to tell if she had gone down that road. 

In fact, I was getting weird vibes from her the week before she was going to fuck Shithead in Chicago. And she hadn't even done it yet.

The goddess said, "So getting physical with this guy was her only misstep. And it was because he pursued her relentlessly. 

"Plus he was some kind of walking phallic symbol. Is that right?"

I said, "That about sums it up. He looks like somebody who stepped off the cover of GQ. And he knows his stuff when it comes to seducing women." 

She took a sip of her drink, set it down and contemplated for a minute. It looked like she was trying to frame a thought. She said, "Notwithstanding her intention to do it in Chicago, do you think that she ever actually fucked him before you separated? Did she admit to blowing him, or jacking him off?"

I said, "God no! I KNOW that she didn't do that. The furthest he ever got was to play with her tits. When I broke that up he was around second base and heading for third."

She said, "And you divorced her for THAT?!! What in the world was going through your mind? Are you THAT naïve about sex? 

"If you were still married to her and I unexpectedly reached over and started massaging your dick, do you think that would justify her divorcing YOU? Is that something you would accept as fair?"

I said with some heat, "Of course not!!" 

Then I just sat there staring at the enveloping fog. It had been so clear for over two years. Now this superbly self-confident woman was sitting across the table relentlessly chipping away at my certainty

I said in a voice loaded with irritation, "Are you condoning infidelity? Because that's what it sounds like? She would have fucked him in Chicago if I hadn't stumbled into the situation by sheer blind luck. And she looked like she was going to fuck him in the park the second time. That's a fact. 

"It doesn't matter that she didn't actually consummate anything with the guy. She would have fucked him no doubt if I hadn't kept interrupting things. 

"I even concede that she might not have planned to do it the second time. But she yielded to his line of bullshit and in doing that put herself in a place where he could get a shot at her. That disrespected me and our marriage. 

"I knew after the first incident that she would never leave him alone. The second occasion just cemented that fact. The guy was a lot better looking than I am. And I had my pride to consider."

She looked like I had finally revealed the true underlying cause and it disappointed her. 

She said, "You are telling me that you just handed her over to that asshole because you felt THREATENED? You didn't fight for her, just surrendered without firing a shot because your ego wouldn't let you challenge another man for her affections

"I am not condoning infidelity. But I AM suggesting that the intention to cheat is different than actually committing the crime. 

"It's the difference between standing in the window and actually jumping. 

"Until the person jumps there is STILL the opportunity to change their mind. But you just TOOK OFF rather than stoop to competing with somebody else for her. I can't believe that you didn't do your absolute best to talk her off the ledge. 

"If you really truly wanted her you would have fought to keep her. She hadn't done anything unforgivable yet. 

"You should have had it out with both of them on the spot and gotten some resolution. At least that way you would have walked away knowing that you'd given it your best shot."

I didn't like the way this conversation was going. It made me sound like a pathetic weenie, instead of the noble man of principle that I had always viewed myself as.

She said, "Let's get to the crux of the matter here. Did you ask her about what happened afterward? Did she tell you how she ended up flat on her back?"

I said, "I never spoke another word to her after I left. She tried to talk to ME but I wouldn't let her."

She shook her head and said, "Do you think that she loves him like she loved you? Are they together?"

I said. "No, I don't believe so. He's still married. And they don't work together because they fired him the next day. 

"But of course I could be wrong. I never see her and nobody will talk about her in my presence. She has tried to call me on every major holiday but I don't take her calls."

Marigold sat back and regarded me with a look of fond amusement. It was like I was a backward child, silly and naïve but I couldn't be blamed for being that way. 

I got what she was thinking. I am not a total idiot. This divine creature had made me see that I had abandoned my wife for no other reason than the fact that a more attractive guy was trying to take her away from me. 

Sarah is a woman that any man would want. She had approached but not crossed any unpardonable lines. While at the same time she had declared over-and-over that I was the man she wanted. 

Nevertheless, I had not fought any pitched battles to keep her on my side. There were no last ditch attempts to save the marriage. No competition whatsoever. 

I took one look at my rival and the moment she wavered I bailed. My little voice shook its head ruefully and said, "You are a complete and utter pussy my friend." 

Marigold looked contemplative for a moment and then seemed to reach an important decision. 

She pawed around in her little Coach purse. Then she pulled out a hundred and absent-mindedly dropped it on the table like I would a dollar. 

She rose briskly and took me by the hand pulling me to my feet. 

She said, "Come on. You need an attitude adjustment."

I was totally bewildered. She had gone from grand Inquisitor to mental health professional in a split second. 

We rode down to the suite level and she walked us to her room. It was one of the Terrace Suites, nothing too ostentatious, just totally luxurious. I was gaping at it like the country bumpkin I was. 

She hadn't said a word to me since we left the Top. She just walked into her suite and proceeded directly into the bedroom. 

The understanding was that I would follow. It was just assumed. 

So I trooped along behind her like a little wooly lamb. Did I mention that she was a force of nature?

I was not getting the slightest tawdry vibe from this. What I was sensing was that I was about to undergo some kind of transcendent learning experience, where she was the teacher and I was the student. 

And the lesson actually had nothing to do with the sex, which was clearly imminent. 

It had the aura of renewal about it. There was no mistaking it. This earth-bound angel was about to bestow a miracle of enlightenment on me. It was like she was preparing to move me to a higher level of awareness. And it would restore my nerve and my lost perspective. 

I wondered if she turned water into wine as a sidelight.

I still wasn't sure what I thought about the situation. But Old Lucifer had no misgivings. He was raring to go. That was a total surprise. He had just lain there quietly since the day I closed the door on Sarah. 

Marigold turned briskly toward me, almost business-like, and stepped out of her skirt. Then she laid it on the chair next to the bed. She removed her blouse and put it and all of the gold on top of the skirt.

I saw her body revealed for the first time. Her hips were extremely full and muscular with a narrow nipped in waist and then a well-developed back, with a little indentation in her spine all the way from her shoulders to the two deep dimples in her huge delectable buns. 

She unsnapped her bra and turned toward me. Her gorgeous breasts literally made me gasp. Nude, I could see that they were even bigger than I thought. And there was no sag whatsoever. They looked like two watermelons cut in half. 

She looked at me questioningly but I was rooted to the spot. I had never seen such bounty.

Then she slid off her thong revealing a smooth totally bald pussy. It was perfect.

She was standing next to the bed now, unselfconsciously naked, posed like an ancient Greek statue and waiting for me. The look in her eye was speculative, like she was saying, "What have you got?" 

I just stood there staring at that gorgeous body. She had a smooth woman's six-pack and above that a full ribcage. Sitting on that ribcage were two of the most beautiful breasts one could imagine. 

They were huge but they were perfectly formed full and broad and round, they were arranged close together across her entire chest, giving her cleavage even though she was not creating it with a bra. 

The nipples on those breasts were puffy rather than flat and they were currently very erect, almost like acorns. 

Her neck was long and muscular. Her shoulders were broad for a woman, but they were incongruously vulnerable compared to the rest of her powerful female body. 

Her legs were full and graceful with the muscle definition on her thighs evident, even under that soft womanly skin. Her hips were full with perfectly formed and very muscular flanks. The flat of her lower belly between her two prominent hip bones looked rock hard. 

But her face trumped everything. Her beauty was heart stopping, centered on her huge deep, intelligent cat eyes. Those yellow predator eyes were looking at me hungrily. 

She stood serenely, totally unselfconscious. She had inquiry written on her face. She was posed with one of those incredible thighs overlapping the other like a model. 

She was still wearing her thigh high nylons and her four inch heels and the effect of that was like something out of the most sensual Parisian fantasy. It was like Toulouse- Lautrec himself had drawn it. 

My level of need was building to volcanic proportions and the pressure was getting unbearable. Then something inside me snapped and I had to have her without any preliminaries. 

I knew that she was in total control. And I was willing to surrender the power to her, which was a completely unique state of affairs for me. 

She actually got a self-satisfied smirk on her face as I struggled clumsily out of my clothes and strode across the floor to take her in my arms. The feel of that hot body against my skin almost made me cum right there on the spot. 

She turned her face up to me, she was a relatively tall woman. But I still had almost four inches on her. We kissed with open mouthed ardor. She was totally open to me, inviting me into all of her secret places. 

Both of us were breathing, panting rapidly as our tongues dueled. 

I walked her backward and laid her down on the bed, crawling up between her spread legs. She slid herself further back on the bed so that she was fully on it. She reached up over her head and seized the bars of the headboard arching her big beautiful breasts for our mutual enjoyment. 

I fastened my lips on an engorged nipple, which was already extended as far as I had ever seen one of those captivating appendages get. 

She cried out and bucked lightly against me, her red hot slit sliding up and down on my cock. The lubrication indicated that she wanted this as much as I did. 

She was panting and moaning; her remarkable eyes were staring at me stoned with lust. She was forcefully humping her mound against me now, making little cries each time we came together. 

I wanted the foreplay to go on forever. But the heat and excitement was too much. She rolled a rubber on me. She must have palmed it as she was undressing. It was a seamless gesture. She was clearly a master of the art.

I inserted myself in her. She gave a loud satisfied groan. And opened her legs wider to draw me deeper into her hot, tight, very wet passage. 

The journey up into her was a study in silky smoothness with little nips and flutters. Then she threw her legs widely into the air above both of us and began to seriously fuck against me. She was gasping now, like she couldn't get her breath and yelling, just absolutely yelling, "Ahhhh Yesssss FUCK ME!!" 

I was slamming into her so hard that the bed was banging against the wall behind us. She grabbed the backs of her knees and completely spreadeagled herself. Then she reached down and seized my ass in her red lacquered claws and pulled me further into her. 

At that juncture, she started a series of rapid fire up-and-down movements while she urgently clawed my back, her fingers were like the talons of a bird of prey. She started yelling, "MMMMMM!! MMMMM!! COMMMING!! COMMMING!!"And then she sank her teeth into my shoulder. 

Even in the throes of ecstasy I thought, "This woman is more cat than human!!"

She continued to cum, bucking like a wild thing. Her powerful woman's body was bouncing both of us all over the bed as she humped back at me. 

She had her legs wrapped around me and she was shouting over-and-over, "That's it!! Right there!! Give it to me baby!! Give it ALL to me!! Don't stop!! Don't ever stop!! Fill me up!!"

That did it. I shouted "OH FUCK, OH YEAHH! And I came in ways that must have changed the barometric pressure in her womb. I saw stars and rockets and nearly blacked out. Blackouts will happen when your blood pressure is probably registering somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 over 495. 

We both came back slowly. That was the most intense sex I had ever experienced and she must have come three or four separate times in the process. So I imagine she was feeling a little worked out. 

I slid off of her to lie gasping on the bed. 

She eventually raised herself on one elbow, her huge right tit squashed against my chest and said, "You are an amazing man Davey. I know a lot about men and I can't imagine why you would ever feel threatened by any other male of the species. 

"I bet your ex-wife is really missing what you just gave me. 

"Now let me get you back in action, because this is going to be a long night for both of us. I really liked what you did to me and I need you to do it again, several more times, before you will be released from your duties." 

Then a warm mouth closed over Old Lucifer. 

I awoke with the sun streaming through the floor to ceiling windows of the suite. She was nowhere to be seen. I looked at the bedside clock. It was 7:30 AM. I had gotten perhaps four hours of sleep. 

She appeared in the bedroom in one of those huge white bathrobes. She was carrying one for me. 

I reached for HER instead. 

By the way she reacted I could tell that she was done with me. It was nothing like the all-enfolding response her body had given me over-and-over the prior night. 

She handed me the robe and said, "I ordered room service. I hope you like full English breakfasts. The woman was truly an angel. I could have eaten a Mastodon after the exercise last night. 

I was gratified to see that she looked as well-fucked as I felt. 

She had been almost preternatural last night. She was completely and totally giving, while being insanely greedy. It was just straight sex in a number of conventional positions. But her hungers and her physical strength made what we were doing seem almost divine. 

I assumed that I had caught her interest because she saw a wrong that she knew she could redress. I realize that at its core it was just sex for her. But it was ALSO a gracious act of spiritual renewal. 

Last night she had helped me to rediscover my manhood, to recover my courage and faith in myself. 

I was also aware that she was doing the healing through her own superb sense of self. 

This was a woman who simply operated on a different plane of existence. And she brought everybody she touched up to her level. 

After one night with Marigold Wilson I felt stronger and more self-assured than I had ever been in my life. 

More importantly, I was also aware that I could go back to Madison and do the right thing. She expected me to close the loop with Sarah. And I was not going to disappoint this superb woman. 

She was so fundamentally lovely sitting there in the snow white robe with her perfect face and her tousled auburn hair. The sight of all that beauty made my heart hurt. She was assessing me with that intimidating feline gaze.

She said in a voice that would brook no argument, "You need to hunt her up now and finish the job. It is probably over between you two. But you can't leave things hanging the way you left them. 

"You have to get complete closure with her or you are going to die an old and bitter man." 

---

As I was riding in the cab out to SFO I was beginning to wonder whether the person I had made love to was actually real. Or if she was some heavenly spirit who had taken a break from her angelic duties to touch the lives of two humble people. The experience was THAT far out of the ordinary.

I was drained. Sarah is fantastic in bed. But Marigold Wilson was in a different world entirely. It was like comparing a National Champ to an Olympic one. 

Bernie was curious about my evening but he didn't ask. He was flying on to New York when we parted company in Minneapolis. I got on the puddle-jumper to Dane County Airport. 

I hate west-to-east travel because two hours of the day just evaporate. So I was getting into my place at sunset even though it was only early evening where I left. 

I have a nice little condo off the Madison campus. It has an excellent view of Lake Mendota. 

Sarah got the house. I got the boat. I considered it a fair deal. If it weren't for my little boat I would have probably gone nuts last summer. I practically lived on the water. The peace and tranquility of the big lake kept me from going off the deep end perhaps literally.




To Have, & Have Not



The scene continued, and seemed to be almost torturous to Amanda. Quickly, she sat up, grabbed the remote, and turned the TV off. She threw the remote onto the floor, and began to weep.

Shocked, Rick stopped massaging and turned to her. "What is it?"

"I can't take it anymore. I feel like everywhere I look, it's sex, sex, SEX! It's too much! I should be able to enjoy sex!"

Rick was still stunned, but spoke. "So what's stopping you?"

"Myself. Did you know I'm a virgin?"

Rick sat silently for a minute, trying to choose his words carefully. "I had an idea. I wasn't sure. It was none of my business, so I didn't ask." 

"I think about sex. A lot. I want it to be special, and right, and amazing, and..."

Without another word, she jumped on top of Rick, and began to kiss him. Rick was still trying to digest the earlier shock when this happened. He'd wanted to taste her for so long, he kissed her back while wrapping his arms around her, pulling her body on top of his. Instinctively, she mounted him, her legs spread apart on top of him. She could feel his penis beginning to harden inside of his shorts. His hands gripped her hips as she slowly, almost subtly began to grind against him. Her nipples hardened as their kiss continued. Rick wanted to be inside of her. He's wanted that almost from the moment they met, but the longer their friendship had gone on, the more intense his longing became. He had initially become attracted to her physical attributes, but the more he was around her, the more attracted he was to everything she had to offer. He loved her humor. He loved her intelligence. He loved her compassion. He loved so many features she had, that he did not. He wanted to have her, but he also wanted this to be her night.

Amanda abruptly ended their kiss, and looked at Rick, somewhat frightened. Rick took her hand in an effort to comfort her.

"What, Amanda?"

"I'm scared of what I'm feeling right now. I've never really had these thoughts before."

"Can you tell me what you're thinking?"

"I'm thinking that...I want to be with you. I'm thinking that I trust you more than anyone I've ever known. I'm thinking that nothing has ever felt more right than this moment. I'm thinking that I want you to teach me...how to be with a man."

Rick contemplated what she had just said, momentarily. "I'll make you a deal. I don't want to teach you how to be with a man; I want to teach you what it's like to be with me."

Amanda smiled at him lovingly. Before she could speak, Rick added, "On one condition: NO inhibitions. Not tonight." She nodded her approval, still a little nervous.

Rick pulled her back to him, and began to kiss her again. She wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him with more furor than she'd ever known. She was in a state of mind and body that she'd never found herself before, but was quickly growing to like, particularly because she was sharing it with Rick. 

Rick stood up, and took both of her hands in his. "Come on." He began to lead her back into her bedroom. She was anxious, but willing. She allowed him to lead her into the most private place she knew. They moved onto the bed, still kissing, but now laying beside one another. His hands moved up and down her body, touching her legs for the first time. He slowly slid his hand inside of her shorts, touching the cloth of her panties, and then sliding past that to feel her buttocks. She emitted a feeling of comfort at his hand's placement, and began to realize that her thoughts of being with him were about to come to realization.

Rick had made love to Amanda many times in his mind, but never imagined he would get to actually have his wish. In his fantasies, he had never dreamed of anything smutty or dirty with her. He held her in the highest regard, and wanted to make this night the most special one in either of their lives, but particularly for her. She needed, deserved, and seemed to want it.

Rick stopped kissing her enough to look at her beautiful green eyes again. Her eyes confirmed that she wanted this. He moved back to her, and began to kiss her neck. She gasped as she began to run her fingers through his hair. Her breathing increased slightly as his hand pulled her hips next to his. He began to grind his crotch into hers, slowly but rhythmically. Amanda was beginning to let her guard down for the first time in her life. She could almost feel the fear diminishing, and felt it being replaced by passion and eroticism. 

Rick pulled her upright, and then slowly removed her shirt from over her head, never losing eye contact with her. He wrapped himself around her, and removed the clasp from her bra. Immediately, her hands went to her breasts cupping her loosened bra between her breasts and the palms of her hands. Feeling more confident by the moment, she slowly began to lower her hands, revealing her breasts to a man for the first time. Rick's eyes immediately moved to admire them, as he cautiously reached his hand out to touch one. Amanda smiled with delight at his approval of her body, and shivered when his hand touched her breast.

He began to massage her left breast slowly, alternating between looking at Amanda's face, and her breast. He gently guided her back, to lie down again, as he moved his mouth to her stomach. He began to kiss and lick her stomach, moving back and forth, up and down. Rick realized as her hands moved up and down his back that he was still fully clothed. He stopped his licking, and sat up.

"Take off my shirt." he ordered, gently. Amanda sat upright, and took the bottom of his shirt and slowly began to roll it upward on his body. Rick raised his arms, and Amanda slid the shirt off of him, and tossed it to the floor. 

"Now touch me." Amanda barely hesitated to reach out and feel her lover's skin. His skin felt magnificent to her. Rick breathed deeply, as he felt her touch him. He was now kneeling on the bed, wearing only shorts. She noticed that his penis was beginning to harden again. Rick noticed that her eyes had moved to his crotch. He began to stroke her hair.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked. She had only seen 'it' in anatomy classes in college, and the occasional show on the Discovery Channel, but she had never actually seen one, touched it, held it, had one in her mouth or any other orifice. She nodded yes, still staring at his crotch.

"Remember I said 'no inhibitions'? That starts now. Sex is about the ultimate intimacy between two people, and not just physically. Say 'I want to see your cock'". 

Amanda looked shocked. She couldn't imagine that she would ever say this word. She looked nervous again, but Rick did his best to put her at ease. "It's OK," he said. He realized that he might have made her uncomfortable; the exact opposite of what he'd promised her. He contemplated apologizing, thinking that he'd just ruined the moment. He was kicking himself on the inside, when...

"Show me your cock."

She said it. It was humble, but assertive. Her guard was starting to lower even more as her eyes shifted to Rick's crotch. He slid his hands inside of his sweats, and began to force them down to his knees. Amanda's eyes opened as she viewed her first penis, three-quarters erect. She felt something that she'd never felt before inside of her; a combination of curiosity, longing, and another feeling that she couldn't describe to anyone. It felt like nothing else she'd known, but somehow she knew that Rick would be able to relieve her of this feeling. 

"What are you thinking?" Rick asked.

"I'm not sure. I do know that...I want to touch it."

Rick lay on his back while Amanda stayed upright, her eyes still locked on his cock. She removed his shorts from his legs, and tossed them to the floor. For the first time in her life, she was alone with a man, and he was completely naked. Her hands began to move up his legs, towards his crotch. She rested to his side when she reached his cock, and took it in her hands. She examined it, as if she were the first person to ever see one. She lightly massaged it, and stroked the shaft. She then looked at Rick, who was anticipating her next move. Her eyes reflected a kind of sadness.

"What is it?"

"I don't know what to do. I want to please you, but I feel embarrassed."

Rick sat up, and embraced her. "Don't be," he whispered in her ear. "You are completely turning me on. Just relax, baby."

Amanda loved that he called her that. Baby. Somehow, she felt like she was his at that moment. His saying that also seemed to be the confidence booster that she needed. She pushed at Rick to lie back down, and she put her mouth back down near his cock. Again, she took it into her hands, studying it closely. 

"Put it in your mouth" Rick told her. She moved her head to the base of his shaft, and began to gently kiss it. She loved the feeling of power she had doing this to him. She also loved the look that he had on his face, while he watched her, waiting for her next move. Her confidence rising, she took the head of his cock into her mouth.

Rick moaned his approval. Without removing his cock, she looked up at him to verify that he was enjoying it. There was no mistaking that he was. His hands reached down to touch her skin again, as it had become his newest addiction. She began to take more of him into her mouth, inch by inch. Her hand moved to his scrotum unconsciously. Instinctively, she began to massage it as, after twenty-eight years, she started to suck her first cock. 

Rick began to slowly thrust in her mouth, and she could feel him growing fully erect. Her nipples hardened with excitement, and Rick could feel her breasts resting against his legs. She moved her mouth up and down slowly, but with earnestness; this was clearly what she wanted. The more she sucked him, the more she wanted to. Her hands began to move up and down on his shaft, increasing the tension. He rolled his eyes back in his head, and allowed his pupil to have her way with him.

He was aching to be inside of her, but he first wanted to show her what it felt like to have her entire body appreciated for its beauty. Rick abruptly stopped Amanda, which caused a slight wave of uncertainty in her.

"Am I doing it wrong?"

"NO! Amanda, you are amazing. It's just time for me to make you feel a few things." He placed her on her back, kissing her lips again. She kissed him harder than she did before, feeling more at ease with him than she had any man in her life. She had longed to be touched, and she was finally getting her wish, and with the perfect man for her.

Rick kissed his way down her body to her breasts. Her nipples were still erect, and waiting for his mouth. He looked up into her eyes, watching him, and said, "They're beautiful, Amanda...just like you." Amanda smiled at him in return, not quite sure what to say. Before she could think of anything, he took her left breast into his mouth, tickling her right nipple. "OOOH!" she cried out. The warmth of his mouth cupping over her breast was even more than she'd imagined. 

He continued to suck her breasts for a few minutes, alternating between them, and then he began to kiss his way further down her body. The closer he got to her pussy, the more her body trembled with anticipation. He settled in his face between her legs, and wrapped both of his arms underneath her thighs. He began to blow lightly on her moistened slit. Amanda's breathing was at a fever pitch. She had grabbed tightly onto the blankets on the bed on which she lay. She continued to bunch fabric into her hand as she could feel Rick's breath getting closer and closer to her. Very slowly, he began to slide his tongue inside of her.

"OMIGOD, OMIGOD, OMIGOD, OMIGOD!" Amanda shouted, as his tongue was penetrating her soft, pink flesh. Her juices flowed with anticipation of him entering her. Rick was watching her reactions from where he was, and enjoyed watching her somewhat torturous reaction to his teasing manner. He considered sliding his finger inside of her, but he wanted her to experience another kind of penetration first, so he waited.

He slid his tongue around inside of her, quickly locating her clitoris. In twenty-eight years, she had almost always been able to resist pleasuring herself, and never produced an orgasm for herself. Now here was this man with his tongue inside of her, pleasuring her for the first time. 

Rick sped up his tongue's movements over her clit. He even began to jerk his head back and forth, whipping her clitoris with his tongue. Amanda began grinding her pussy over his face with more intensity. Her body began to tighten, as she felt something internally that she had never felt before. She wasn't sure what it was, but she knew it felt good. As if she'd received an epiphany, she said, 

"I'm going to come."

It was said in a normal tone of voice, almost as if she were asking herself. Realizing what she had just said, and the vastness of it, she said it again, only with far more vigor and volume. "Oh my God...Rick, I AM GOING TO COME!"

She shouted as loud as she could, as if she was able to speak for the first time. She didn't care who heard her, or what they thought. She felt a kind of freedom that was unimaginable to her before tonight.

Rick took her soft hips into his hands, and braced her body as she erupted. Her inner thighs were quivering as she climaxed. 

"OOOOOHHHHHHHH!!! OOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!! AAAAHHHH!!!" 

The release she felt was incomparable. She collapsed on the bed, and was trying to catch her breath when she uttered "Thank you." Tears were welling in her eyes when the words came out. She had just experienced something that she couldn't describe to anyone if she'd tried. The combination of emotion, satisfaction, passion, and fulfillment she felt right now were unsurpassed.

"Lay back, baby. The night is just getting started." Following her lover's orders, she laid back on the bed, and relaxed. She only wanted to feel what she just felt again. She laid back, and allowed Rick to take control of her.

Nearly an hour had passed, and Rick had produced six orgasms for Amanda with his tongue alone. He hadn't penetrated her with his fingers, or anything else. He only wanted to taste her, and have her enjoy being tasted, teased, and titillated. He'd chosen to enhance her experience by massaging her breasts, gently pinching her nipples, and only removing his mouth from her pussy when she requested a moment to recover. He decided, however, it was time to consummate their friendship.

As Amanda lay on her back, Rick pulled himself to her on the bed, making sure her legs were wide open. She stared at him lovingly as he prepared to enter her. Looking down at her, he said, 

"This was supposed to happen tonight. It was meant to be you and I."

"I know." was her only response, still a little teary with emotion.

Grabbing his hardened cock, he slowly entered her. His eyes opened wide as she felt a man inside her for the first time in her life. She was so wet that sliding inside of her was easy. He focused on her facial expressions as she took him inside of her. Slowly, he began to thrust inside the tightest pussy he could imagine. Rick had been with several women, but never a virgin. 

Amanda wrapped her legs around his body and reached out to touch his chest as he pumped away. His cock was like steel inside of her. She never imagined sex could be this good. She listened intently to the moans coming from Rick's mouth, and was fascinated that she was providing this kind of pleasure to someone she felt so much for, as well as receiving a deal of pleasure in return. 

She began to buck her hips in perfect rhythm with his, pulling him as deep inside of her as she possibly could. He began to pump faster, then faster, until he reached a fever pitch. He stopped, and pulled her over to the side of the bed as he stood up. He held her legs in the air as he re-entered her, and began thrusting inside her again. He rested her left leg against his body, and used his thumb to massage her clit. Amanda's eyes rolled back in her head as she enjoyed the sensation of Rick penetrating her, and clitoral stimulation at the same time. 

Her hands reached out to touch any part of him that she could. She wanted to feel all of him. He took his hand away from her pussy, and grabbed her wrist. Placing her fingertips on her clitoris, he told her "You do it."

It was as if he knew that she'd never pleasured herself. Twenty-eight years had passed, and she had never experienced anything that rivaled this. She began massaging her clit. It felt like freedom. She felt like she was participating again, and adding to not only her pleasure, but his. His eyes watched her hands as she massaged her pussy furiously, his cock crashing inside of her the entire time. 

"Oh God...Oh yeah...Amanda, I'm gonna come...!" With that, he pulled himself out, and ejaculated all over her stomach. Amanda looked down at his cock to witness his come erupt all over her body. She wanted to see the result of how she made him feel. The immediate warmth of his sperm provided yet another kind of gratification to her.

Rick climbed back on the bed and collapsed beside of her, exhausted and panting for air. He had poured every ounce of energy he had into her. It was amazing, and surpassed even the fantasies he'd had of her. Amanda snuggled herself next to him almost immediately, and he wrapped his arms around her in kind. Not a word was spoken between them, and it didn't need to be. Allowing the silence and moment to speak volumes for each of them, they peacefully fell asleep in one another's arms. 

Morning came quickly, and sunlight began to beam through Amanda's bedroom window. Slowly she awakened to the sensation of Rick's touch. He was already awake, and had been tracing his fingers up and down her bare body for a while now, and was examining every part of her. He was memorizing every detail of her skin, from head to toe. 

She smiled at him as she awoke. "Good morning."

"Amanda...I love you. I know that I shouldn't, and that we have no chance to have a successful future together, but you can't help who you care for. I've never known anything that was as right or as perfect as last night. I hope that you feel the same."

She was moved by his honesty. She felt she owed it to him to be honest, as well. 

"Rick, I've thought so many times of how I'd want to be with you. Not physically, per se, but as a couple. I've tried to envision a scenario where it would work, and I have to admit : the odds are stacked against it. I want a house full of children one day. My faith is also a huge part of my life. I can't lie to you though...I love you, too."

Rick and Amanda fell into one another's arms, holding each other tightly. They had shared everything before, but deep down, they just knew that they couldn't be together. 

"I've never understood why people said 'I don't want this night to end'...until last night. I wanted it to go on forever. You have no idea what it was that you made me experience. I now know what love feels like. You also made my first time...more than special. 'Special' doesn't even approach what last night was to me. I have no regrets. There were times when I wondered what it was I was waiting for. Sometimes, it was about marraige, other times it was about faith. I realized last night what it was about. It was about being with you."

Rick was touched by her words, and attempted to mask his own heartbreak. He knew that he could give everything to her, but they would both end up sad, because of the obstacles between them. 

"Last night was an anomaly. It was a ripple in time, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing that happened between us last night will change how I feel for you. In fact..." His words trailed off, as he began to stifle back his own emotion.

Amanda sensed his sadness, and felt that this moment was about happiness, not being melancholy. There was only one thing she could think of to make them take their minds off what heartbreak tomorrow might bring. She took his head into her hands, looking into his eyes.




To Have, & Have Not



"Make love to me again. Teach me everything."

Rick swiftly met her lips with his, as the sunlight continued to brighten her bedroom.