3 comments/ 15555 views/ 2 favorites Amateur Gods (Ltd.) By: voxincognito56 Keith will get the bull whip and the fedora out again. Indiana Jones, last year, the year before, and the year before that. Not that he has any particular fondness for the films. Years ago, one of his clients invited us to their own Halloween gig and Keith had the fedora up in the closet already, don't ask me why. He bought or borrowed the rest and that's been his Halloween uniform ever since. Don't get the wrong idea. He's smart and I've known him to be really creative. He's the action arm of our company, after all. (I'm the business appendage.) It's corporate security, and staying one step ahead of today's criminals certainly requires no little imagination, I would think. Keith's mind is well adapted that way, really good at taking serious things serious, but as a result I think, has no "serious" left for fun. I occasionally worry about him that way. I mean, maybe fun is like a muscle that atrophies if you don't use it. It's up to me, then, to see he exercises it properly, works the fun muscles from time to time. I make sure he gets out to four or five ball games a year (Who knows? The Silver And Black might actually win!) I make sure our ATV's don't collect dust in the garage, make sure we get out of the house with friends. And annually, his half-hearted protests notwithstanding, I throw a Halloween party, insist that he take the business suit off and show select clients and coworkers that he actually has the ability to get goofy and light-hearted, if only as Indiana Keith. I think I was Little Bo Peep one year. You know, ruffled dress with ornate bows, pink staff shaped like a question mark? Keith says I carried a stuffed-toy lamb around, just to insure people got it. Last year? Kind of hazy. That was when that kid plowed into the back of my car. Don't ask me anything about that; mostly a blank. The official record: Juvenile offender, trying to outrun cops in a stolen car, loses control and runs into me where I'm parked in front of a convenience store. He's okay. Besides being in jail, I mean. Conscientious car thieves apparently remember to wear their seat belt and only boost rides with airbags. Me? They say I was parked, texting on my iphone, keys not even in the ignition. So they tell me. Then I opened my eyes in the hospital and there's this good looking guy eyeing me all concerned and asking if I'm okay. Two kids there too, adorable boy and a girl. Turns out the good looking guy is Keith, my husband, and the adorables are ours, and it was a little awkward that I had to be reminded several times before it sunk in. Yeah, PCS. For the record, My own take on Post Concussion Syndrome isn't so much that you forget things, it's more like the things you're trying to remember are wearing camouflage and playing hide and seek amidst the crowd of everything else in your head. If you can eliminate the obscuring thoughts, pull them aside, scrutinize them one by one, you eventually get to what you're looking for. Lots of wrong turns along the way, however. By the way, still no idea what I was doing in The City, in The Mission District that day. I can't even remember why I left the house. Kind of spooky, right? So that year (Last year? Year before? Yikes! Don't tell Keith I still think like that. Our little secret!) I was busy convalescing on the verge of resurrecting The Peep for want of any time left over for Halloween R and D. Sheer coincidence, however, I was helping my daughter with a book report about Marie Antoinette and, seeing a rather impressive portrait of Her Ill-fated Highness online, it dawned on me that my Bo Peep get-up was just a stone's throw away from something that might double as late eighteenth century French aristocracy. I ordered the mile-high Pompadour wig online, used white foundation to get my face aristocratically pale and overdid the other makeup. I thought of doing a line of costume blood around my neck, and then fake stitches to make it look like someone had sewn my guillotined head back on, but there wasn't enough time to pull it off. Or maybe I forgot. Time, or PCS. I can't remember which tyrant was ruling the moment. But Marie worked just fine, and it's always marvelous the way I get to explore that way. I've this distinct flair for things sartorial. The way clothing reflects and projects the etiquette, circumstance and desire of people from different eras, walks of life, etc. That's always fascinated me. Which brings me back to Halloween, this year. (Or is this year last year?) I was toying with the idea of Oscar Wilde. You know, male, Edwardian wardrobe with me femming everything else up to emphasize Oscar's celebrated androgyny. Quite a shocker, I think, but I was in the mood to shake things up a little. Frankly, I had been for a while. Okay, sorry, but put Halloween on hold again. I might as well get this out of the way. Google the terms "brain injury" and "increased sex drive." Then look horny up in the dictionary and see if my picture isn't there. I haven't talked to my doctor about it because sooner or later he'd suggest I tell Keith, and seriously, how do your tell your husband you suddenly ready to fuck every other guy you meet? No, seriously, every other guy. Gauge the frequency of my libido going full-throttle-crazy by the flip of a coin. Heads I'll fuck, tails I'll pass. Okay, maybe best two out of three. I'm at the mall, trying clothes on, and there's this middle-aged guy sitting outside the fitting rooms, holding his wife's purse. He's so thoroughly bored, glancing at his watch, reading something on his ipod, fidgeting. And his wife routinely emerges wearing garden variety office attire, and he's trying to pay attention, doing a fairly good job of coming up with constructive comments, and meanwhile he doesn't seem to realize that every time his wife ducks back into the fitting room, the sales clerk, plump little cutie about half his age, is flirting with him outrageously. I get it though. I do. And suddenly, I'm the new sales clerk, and to hell with being coy about this sly yen for older guys, I grab his wife's purse, toss it over my shoulder, sit in his lap and plaster my lips all over the surprise on his face. Eager to complete the sale, I guide one of his hands up under my skirt where he can feel the cleft of my panty hose already warm and spongy. That's it, Honey, cup it, rub it squeeze it. That's my pussy, wet and ready down there, but play with it all you want. I insist. His other hand inside my blouse, two top buttons already undone, and Jesus Christ, the way he's loving my tits between his fingers, gently pulling, pinching, hefting my breasts like ripe fruit at the market. Meanwhile, his wife has returned, and she's there in her pinstriped power suit, jaw agape while she watches me stroking her husband's engorged dick through his trousers. Serves her right, taking her hubby out and making him sit through this pinstripe shit, not even a quick, furtive, fitting-room blow job by way of compensation. (Then, by way of bonus, the choice is easy. The suit she takes home has to be the one with the cum stains.) Then a page turns in my mind and its different. I'm in one of the fitting rooms, listening for his wife. Once I'm sure she's going to be in there for a bit, I'm the one who steps out in red pumps, black thigh highs, purple, crotchless panties, and the bra that pushes my tits up and together so they look like nothing less than a plump little butt on a black-lace pedestal. "Listen," I say, feigning disinterest to wide-eyed shock offered by both he and the clerk. "I could really use a guy's opinion. Does this outfit make you wanna' fuck me? Does it get your dick hard?" Fucking "duh" on both accounts. And here in the real world, that's me sitting inside one of the fitting rooms, nude from the waist down, feet on both sides of the full length wall mirror so I can get a good shot of my fingers dancing over my glistening clit, dipping into my greedy cunt. That's me with a mouthful of the blue cotton blouse I've brought in. I've stuffed that fucker in like a gag because I'm afraid someone will hear me moaning while I fuck myself, hear that guttural, near-sobbing noise I make when I come hard and so fucking good that my orgasm is like the center of the universe. The motherfucker of big bangs. Don't worry, I pay for the shirt. Want more? Do you want to read about the grocery clerk? The guy working the potato chips? Guy in the bookstore, guys on TV, the mail carrier, and Oh! Bulletin! Not just the guys, as of late. By way of consolation, I'm sure I'm not the only gal who finds Hayley Williams a furtive, fantasy "paramour," not "The Only Exception." My doctor and his nurse always play hefty cameo roles in my fantasy life. Read about that? Me with my feet up in the gyno stirrups while I suck his dick and she eats me out. Given the right mood, I may have her probe up my bum with her professional fingers, or him fucking me hard and fast while she climbs up the table, straddles my face and plasters her cunt over my mouth like an oxygen mask. Do you want to read my fantasy about the teenager who mows my lawn, know what perverse, deliciously randy slut I've become? Hell with the fantasy, I'll tell you what happened: He was out there in the back yard, back and forth with the lawn mower, and I couldn't take it anymore, I opened the curtains on my bedroom window and just lay on the bed, nude, ram-a-lam-a-ding-donging my pussy with a dildo I'd hitherto ignored for about a decade, and God damned if he wasn't watching. Why else would he keep going over the same patch of lawn he'd already mowed? Next week, he brought a friend with him, sharing the voyeuristic bounty, I suppose, and at first I thought I'd found a grateful moment of restraint... Then I locked myself in the bathroom, stripped, lay naked in the tub and pretended the warm water trickling out of the faucet was his eager-to-learn tongue tapping Morse code on my clit. Dot-dash-dot-dashity-dot-dot... Oh yeah. Oh fucking yeah. And alright, Morse may not have been able to read that, but I got the message twice that morning. Let's hear it for hydrotherapy. No, I haven't crossed the line. I'm unabashedly loyal to Keith here in the real world, and serious betrayal is alien to my character. Save for that stray bit of performance art in my bed room, I've kept all my amorous trysts between my ears. Of course Keith is marvelous therapy. Such a reliably good fuck. If I haven't bore the full force of my libidinous mood swings by making love to him morning, noon and night, its only because I don't want to alarm him, because I know he has to go to work, has a life outside of tinkering with his wife's newly enhanced sex engine. Meanwhile, lots of time with The Finger Sisters, their pal Vibe, and certain sites on the internet. (God, if there wasn't already an internet, I'd have to invent one. Thank you Al Gore.) I've adapted to my new psychological environment with gusto. Halloween. This year's party. Right, I'm getting there. Give a girl a break, will you? My quest for Oscar Wilde took me online, and I ended up on this really cool costume site that was interactive like a video game. It opened on the facade of a store: Amateur Gods (Ltd.) and notwithstanding the name, (Absurdly ambitious, don't you think?) the store itself was a quaint affair, perennial "hole in the wall," something you'd stumble across cruising the back streets of Soho, Left Bank in Paris, Pre-war Berlin, or some fanciful, Hollywood blend of all. I cursored and clicked my way through the front door, to a little pedestal that had a "Welcome! Feel free to browse" sign on it; delicate cursive script and the sign itself not much bigger than an index card. And these, gratefully, weren't mass-produced, assembly line costumes the like of which you make do with from the local mall. Someone had taken the time to wade through second-hand theatrical costumes and real clothing, antique and otherwise, and then reassembled them into different themes. I perused and found Air Force Surplus astronauts garnished with sci-fi film accents. Parts of their Cleopatra costume looked like film props Liz may have dropped to the floor on her way to bed with Richard. There were several Frankenstein monsters--not all of them direct movie rip-offs, and the variations of his brides ran from agreeably grotesque to alarmingly sexy. (There's no rule saying a resurrected corpse-gal can't flaunt a micro mini and some lively cleavage, is there?) And then I came across a mannequin decked out in full bore, decadent Marie Antoinette, so honest-to-God beautiful that I started to doubt my fealty to androgynous Oscar. It was Her Highness dressed up for a masquerade ball, in fact, a costume within one, disguise to the power of two. She had full, blonde-feathered wings strapped to her back, a petite mardi gras mask bordered with matching feathers and colored gemstones. The mask itself was a work of art, the dress and wings remarkable for imitating what a 17th century monarch might improvise for a masquerade ball whose theme ran something along the lines of "Come as your favorite fairy." A chat-room dialogue box blossomed in one corner of my monitor and the word "Boo!" typed itself. The mannequin turned toward me, smiled. I laughed, typed in "Boo, yourself" in the reply space provided. Then I added that I loved the site. Marie: Well, that's understandable, I think. It's been a while, though, hasn't it? Me: Uh... Sorry? Marie: If you're checking up on us, Milady, you should probably do it from a different terminal. We know your web address. Me: Once again... Huh? Mannequin Marie waved her hand in the air dismissively, and I tried to imagine behind her mask, tried to decide which actress or celebrity the site's creators had patterned her after. There was definitely something familiar about her, and not knowing began to annoy me. Marie: Neither here nor there. Indeed, consider that if I ever had a motto, it would be the same as Prince Charles... (A full, one-leg-retreated, curtsey, formal even as her rueful smile remains intact.) Marie: Ich Dien, Milady. "I serve." She quickly suggested Marie Antoinette wasn't my style this year; Shook her head vehemently a few seconds into my pitch for Oscar Wilde. Marie: Too much, Milady. With due respect, let me suggest that this year, moins est le meillieur. Less is best. By way of inspiration, I think Sandro Botticelli is in order. Me: Je ne tus comprends pas. And how did you know I speak French? Marie shakes her head impatiently: Please, Milady, we both know I'm not a computer game. Don't play with me. If you please, enter "Birth Of Venus" into the site's search box. And when I did, my screen was in another room or alcove where Sandro Botticelli's masterpiece was reproduced on the bit mapped wall. There was a placard with text on a lobby stand before the painting: Surely, taken at face value, it's tongue-in-cheek burlesque, this naked woman standing in a fanciful little sea shell boat, a clothed woman to her left trying to cover her nudity in an enveloping cloak that a pair of contrary wind spirits on her right seem determined to blow away. Yet the painting before you has survived for eight hundred years, infiltrated into our modern cultural consciousness by way of cosmetic ads, movies, TV, comic books, etc. Legend suggests that Botticelli's nude model for The Birth Of Venus was a married Florentine noble woman, Simonetta Vespucci. She was, by some accounts, the unrequited love of Botticelli's life, and having lost her to another man, he refused to marry anyone else, spent the rest of his life alone and longing. Does that narrative shed light the painting's ageless appeal? Is the artist's simmering brew of love, lust and loss somehow part of the magic the painting conveys to viewers? And here in this cyberverse alcove, by way of homage, and surprisingly admirable by comparison, I'm looking at a costume (What there is of it!) inspired by the painting, perhaps another artistic descendant of Sandro's thwarted love. The Mannequin wearing the costume came to life and smiled below a mask fashioned to look like something sculpted from polished coral, and as the dialogue box had followed me from the other room, so apparently, had my hostess. Venus (rueful smile in place): Boo again. Venus, c'est moi. But seriously, isn't this closer to what you want this year? Here in the realverse, at my desk, I laughed out loud. Me: LOL. No, no. It's not that kind of party. Venus: Not yet. Though the costume before me made slight bows toward modesty that the painting didn't, it was obvious whoever wore it would be mostly nude. There was the teasing consolation of tiny, silver star fish over one's nipples like stripper's pasties. Small consolation for me as I've always thought of my aureolas as rather large, and wondered if this get up wouldn't simply draw more attention by failing to cover my nipples adequately. And below, a sort of V-string panty; the front panel improvised from a blue-ivory sea shell. Thongs that radiated from both sides and curved over the thighs were stylized vines of shiny green satin made to look like seaweed. Me: What covers a gal's butt when she wears this? Venus: Every eye in the house. And Venus D'Antoinette pirouettes to emphasize where there isn't any costume at all, save for a strand of faux kelp disappearing between her ass cheeks. Venus: You DID mention wanting to shake things up this year. This year, of course, my guest list had one slot set aside for someone we could anticipate never showing. Emily Cabenel. The reason she wouldn't be here was Tony Boland, currently Keith's head of cyber security. Cut to the chase and know there was a time we had Tony And Emily working for us under the same roof, and that was the time they clicked like lego blocks, found each other like north and south pole magnets rolling around in a box of marbles. Indeed, part of our corporate folklore is security cam footage that caught them together in the board room one evening, alone, after hours. In that video there was this stretch that looked like they were just sorting documents for a client's upcoming court date. They had faxes, and memos and e-mails and copies all lined up in neat little piles. And then Tony said something that made them both laugh--I never caught what it was. It came across on video as just a murmur--but it made them laugh out loud and look at each other and there was this moment where they held that mutual glance a second or two too long, and the only option that made sense was for Tony to lean over the arm of his chair and kiss Emily on the mouth. It was chase; it was pensive; a shot in the dark. And there was the possibility it would only go that far. You saw them both sit back, questioning one another with their eyes, both of them looking for some cue, some indication that they both wanted the same thing next. She made that move. It wasn't much, just a slight inclination of her body in Tony's direction. You have to watch the vid rather close to catch it. But then it was an explosion of hands groping, lips seeking, clothing being torn at--You clearly heard one of the buttons from Emily's blouse bouncing and rolling off the table. Keith found it on the floor, a day or so later. And there was Emily, usually so demure, on her back on the conference table, blouse open and bra down to bare her delicate little tits, full access for Tony's eager hands. And she had her skirt hiked up around her waist. the full bush of her untrimmed pussy revealed. She'd made a half-hearted attempt to get out of her pantyhose but in the chaos of that moment, they got balled up around one of her ankles, a knotted figure of eight. Amateur Gods (Ltd.) So that's where she let them ride, let them wave back and forth on the end of her leg like a nylon flag, beige semaphore to signal the joy of her heels bouncing up and down off Tony's ass while he fucked her deep, stabbed, plumbed and rode her welcoming cunt to the rhythmic sound of its wet kiss around his cock. The table creaked beneath them. It's a new table, but they were fucking hard enough to make the joints sigh as arthritic as any antique. Emily started this high pitched mewing sound, a frantic, closed-lipped sort of hum. Think of a misplaced kitten, trapped in a cupboard, or closet, or locked outside in the rain, pleading beneath your window. That's what Emily sounded like on video. Tony was grunting, breathing hard, his cock like a battering ram, Emily's orgasm the gates he would breech. And Emily came making this high pitched sort of wail, an air raid siren during the blitz, and Tony had this choking, almost gargling sort of sound while you saw the buck of his ass and shudder of his thighs and knew he was gushing the bounty of his balls into Em's grateful cunt. Don't judge me too harshly when I admit I watched most of that video with Keith plowing me deep and hard from behind. There was simply something magic about the two of them together. The energy was infectious. I remember my first orgasm that evening was watching Tony and Emily in post coital repose amid a bed of wrinkled documents, and afterward, my head down at the foot of the bed, my spent, used pussy still up in the air, I thought "This is it. These two are just so right for each other. They're in it for life." In retrospect, maybe I was drawing on the contentment Keith and I feel, and projecting. Still, there's a side of me that can't give up, even if Emily and Tony have. She got a fat offer from one of our rivals, an older, richer company that had cash to spare when Keith's brainchild was just a struggling little upstart. I don't know what transpired between Emily and Tony but time and our choice of business wasn't kind to their separation. As Keith and I successfully propelled our company into the fore of the marketplace, Emily's new employer became increasingly more paranoid about her dalliance with Tony. For the record, Keith and I weren't particularly exemplary with Tony either. Ours is a competitive business, obsessed with internal security, and we sat down with Tony on several occasions to discuss the ever-changing landscape of what was confidential, what he could talk to Emily about in private, what he couldn't. In the course of one of those conversations, Tony let something slip, something Emily would have preferred to keep out of our side of the court, an upcoming contract with a hotelier. And yeah, Keith and I used it, snatched one of the other camp's prospective clients out from under their nose, a lucrative gig that pulled us out of the red when we really needed it. The other guys would have done the same to us, given the chance. In our game, the playing field may be level, but rarely is it congenial. Tony started taking long lunches; calling in sick. The grapevine told us Emily was leaving the office to cry in the lady's room, outside in her car. I'm not sure our indiscretion actually caused the ruin of their relationship--probably just one in a host of injuries--but it certainly didn't help. So, fair enough, there's some guilt there. Getting those two back together would take a load off my conscience. The day after I e-mailed Emily, she called. I laid it out about the hotel deal, apologized as best I could. She listened but said nothing. I asked her about the party. Emily: I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Me: Yeah, Hon, but I'm not sure it's a bad one either. There's a certain someone who shows up for work here like he's just left a funeral. Just left Ground Zero. Guy wonders in like he's just survived a plane crash. Emily (after a pause): Really? Me: Seriously. Listen, we love the guy. We're very concerned. We're concerned about both of you. Emily: A certain someone never calls. Me: Uh, Em? Admittedly I'm getting mostly one side of this story, but didn't you rip him a new asshole a while back? Emily: He deserved it. He's the one who let the hotel thing slip, and seriously, who's to say he didn't do it on purpose? He was really angry with me for leaving, never understood why I did it. Me: You know he's not like that. Emily let that one lay. She let me ponder the full brunt of a long silence where I could assume the little sniffles I heard were allergies or something else. Me: Em? He's not like that. He's goofy sometimes, sure, but I've never known the guy to be cruel. Vindictive. After a while longer she tried to change the subject. I could hear the strain in her voice, though. Emily: I'm not sure I even blame you guys for exploiting the hotel thing. Business is business. Wish you hadn't, but... Me: How are you holding up, Hon? She managed to laugh a little. Then she was crying, perennial flood gates bursting off their hinges. Emily: Me? I'm a fucking train wreck. Can't sleep, I've already ate myself into another dress size, and I'm working my way up to another. I've started smoking again... I mean, things are fucked. Don't let this get out, okay, but I tried going out on a date the other night, and halfway through the meal I was thinking of Tony and just started crying. Guy I was with felt he'd hooked up with an escaped mental patient, I'm sure of it. End of the night, I couldn't find the keys to my place. I ended up calling a locksmith, and when I got my ID out to show him it was my house, my keys had been in my purse all along. Fifty dollar service charge to find something that should have never been lost in the first place. Me: Listen, give me a chance here. Give me a chance to set this right. It'll never be easy between Tony and you, given who you work for, but there are things in life worth fighting for. I've just got this feeling Tony and you are one of them. Emily (trying to collect herself): I haven't given any thought to a costume. Me: I'm e-mailing you the web address of a really cool site. Expensive, to be sure, but you're not worried about that because you're sending the bill to me... No, I won't take "No" for an answer on that one. Consider it a finder's fee for the hotel thing, and seriously, end of the day, you decide you just can't go through with this, wear the costume to somebody else's party. I mean it. Emily got the URL. Emily (skeptical; curious): Amateur Gods? Yes, I may have bandied that website around the office. I was fond of it even though I had reservations about Venus D'Antoinette's judgment. Given my doubts, I decided to give myself an out by renting winged Marie-A, also, and then let Keith be the judge. Don't think I wasn't on pins and needles going Botticelli for him. I'd solved that little conundrum around my nipples by painting my aureolas a shade of Lancome lip gloss that matched the silver starfish. From a distance, the edges of my nipples looked like part of the costume. Up close, of course, it was me exposing that much more of my boobs, but by the time you were there, you realized I was essentially naked anyway, not even a flesh toned leotard between me and what might be this year's most talked about scandal. One of the things I hadn't noticed online was this glistening ointment I was supposed to spread on my skin; make it look wet and shiny, just out of the surf. Marvelous stuff, actually, the way it set and wasn't sticky or greasy, and it held a property like gold glitter; little stars winking in and out of view as I moved. It also had a distinct odor. Call it roses mixed with the smell of the sea, but one might also judge it as perfume over the rich scent of intense feminine arousal. Look like a Goddess, smell like a pussy. That seemed to be the trade off. Maybe no one would notice. I gave Keith no warning, just emerged out of our bedroom in all my mythic, minimalist glory, and the poor guy just sat there holding his sports section, wide-eyed, slack jawed, and—mark this moment on the calendar—speechless. "It's too much, right? Don't worry I've got something else, but... I don't know..." Keith wrinkled his brow. "Hon, you're just sitting there. Say something." "Turn around," Keith said, and by now I suppose I was rose-petal pink with embarrassment, but I did a quick pirouette, got the piece de resistance au derriere out of the way." "Listen," I said. "It was just a whim, a crazy idea. This probably isn't right for the people we work with... Where are you going?" "Stay right there," Keith said. "What?" "Don't move a muscle." A moment later he returned with a camera and said, "Just when I think I've seen you as beautiful, drop-dead-sexy as could be, you decide to push the envelope even more. I need to get a picture of this, just in case you chicken out, Halloween night." After pictures, he fucked me hungrily. He bent over the kitchen table and nailed me like I'd joined The Army and was shipping out tomorrow. The anecdotal rule for throwing a party goes something like this: If more than half the people you invited show up, consider it a success. Cross the finish line at 50/50, and you need to re-evaluate your talents as a hostess, if not your popularity, but with as little as 51/50 you take the bragging rights. That night I got everybody, and there was a trend of sorts. I couldn't be absolutely sure Amateur God's LTD. was the source for all the costumes present, but it certainly looked like it. There was definitely nothing off the conventional retail rack. Just to name a few; what I remember the most: Frankenstein showed up in all his macabre, Victorian glory--Omar Kasal, a jeweler who owns several stores we maintain security systems for. His bride showed up via Brenda Thornton from accounting, micro mini up to her plump little ass, not to mention cleavage you could hide your lunch in. And why hadn't I noticed her fondness for jewelry before tonight? Rings, bracelets, a necklace. She had some commendable pieces--or so Omar told her. Laurie Timons and Walt Iverson were a pair of swashbuckling pirates; he looking like he'd just escaped from the caves beneath Disneyland, she the picture of what pirates might fantasize about, those long lonely nights at sea. ("ARrrrr... Bare 'dem titties all the way, you wanton strumpet!") Me? I was the object of male adoration, not a little female jealousy, the focus of "Oh's and Ah's" wherever I wandered. The eyes of everyone I passed followed me. Seriously, I left a room and could feel the adoration all over my bared bottom. A prospective client Keith invited—a very gothic, almost menacing take on Batman-- flirted with me so outrageously that I had to laugh out loud and point out that I was married to his host. By way of consolation, I was able to point out that a very daring, black vinyl Catwoman (Courtesy of Kathleen Villablanca, another prospective client we'd invited) had just shown up twirling hand cuffs around her index finger as if no less than begging (daring?) some capable hero to get it over with and arrest her. And Tony showed up, predictably late, and he was sporting this absolutely gorgeous renaissance get up: The broad, floppy hat with one feather; the red tunic with a coat of arms; the sword looked real. He was alone for the moment, looking very nervous and out of place, so I took his arm and led him about, asking him about the costume. "From the site you gave me," he said. And we talked some more, and then someone told me Geraldine and Christopher Pope had just shucked their gladiator and slave-girl costumes to go swimming. I've no problem with people using our pool, of course. That's what it's there for. Thing is, it's October, and the invitations I'd sent out said nothing about bringing a swim suit. On the way there, Keith and I crossed paths. "Hey," he said, "Where's Tony?" "I left him by the buffet, why?" "Emily's out in the back yard watching the Popes fondle each other in our pool. By the way, how in the world did you persuade her to do Juliet to Tony's Romeo?" "What?" "From what I've heard, they're both sporting these costumes like they just stepped off the stage at The Globe. Shakespeare all the way. Put Emily up on the balcony and have Tony recite to her. I'm not the only one whose made the connection. Everyone who's seen it says the same." I didn't think about this for long. "Okay, let's do this," I said. "Drag Emily away from water ballet, and tell her I need to see her at the buffet. Tell her it's important. I'll reconnoiter and make sure Tony's still there. Keith wanders off humming Matchmaker from Hello Dolly, I try to avoid actually sprinting back into the dining room where I find a lot of people who still love my costume, but not Tony. I ask several people. "Who?" "Romeo," I say, taking a chance, and suddenly everyone's seen him by the buffet, or wandering around, but with regard to his present location I get lots of shoulder shrugging, polite smiles and shaking heads. Keith shows up alone. "She was gone when I got back. Someone said she was talking about going home." "Shit. You go that way, I'll go this. I'm going to go get my cell phone, give Em a call." With nary a pocket in my costume, I'd decided to leave my cell in a drawer in the kitchen, check up on it every so often. Once there I gave Emily a call, then Tony. Neither of them called back, so I took my cell in hand and resumed asking people and found out that Keith was right. People who had no idea who Emily and Tony were had certainly seen Romeo or Juliet going this way, or that, but never Romeo and Juliet. I wandered, following leads that didn't pan out, and then my cell phone finally chirped a text message from Emily. One word: "Upstairs." The party was downstairs, of course. I'd purposely left all the lights off on the second floor to dissuade people from going there. Apparently some people read between the lines better than others. Up the stairs, into the dark, the sounds of conversation and laughter at my back, a spooky sensation came over me, an incongruous sense that the stairs and dark environs beyond were suddenly someone else's. I'll liken it to the feeling you might have when you first wake in the morning after a dream so vivid that the reality of your own surroundings seem strange and alien. I stopped at the top of the stairs, was about to call Emily's name, but there was something that stopped me, and a slight noise from my own bedroom, second door to the left. At first neither of them saw me. I have to assume I was just as visible in the half-light coming through the window from the patio below, but neither Romeo or Juliet acknowledged the presence of Venus standing in the doorway, watching them, listening intently as the soft, wet sound of their kissing somehow drowned out the racket from downstairs. Yeah, the party in my back yard was dialing up. Several more people had joined the Popes in the pool, I'm sure of it. (All that money for a costume, just to shed it midway through the evening!) Then Tony lowered his head slightly to kiss the side of Emily's neck, and don't ask me to explain how I felt a sense-memory chill on my own throat, tingly, delicious, electric. More to the point, as Tony bowed, my eyes and Emily's met over the top of his head, and I might swear she saw what I saw, two star-crossed lovers locked in passionate embrace, and I was explicitly aware of how I must look to her, standing there in the soft, dusky light, the glitter in my hair sparkling, the glistening sheen of my skin. A moment of mutual clarity. She looked at me, partially obscured behind Tony, one corner of her mouth arched in a devilish smile, and she somehow knew I struggled with an impulse to close the door, leave the two of them in privacy, or... "Stay," she said, her voice low, musky, somehow Emily's and yet not. "This is yours," she added, and I was momentarily confused because she was simultaneously sliding her shoulders out of her gown, lowering her renaissance bodice. In answer, her plump, little breasts seemed to recoil and bounce free from behind the descending fabric. She was talking about the situation, however. "This," as she put it, was her reuniting with her lover. Tony, in a trance, beyond caring whether anyone watched, followed Emily's lead and made it clear her breasts were now the only thing important. He locked his lips to her nipples, noisy, ravenous, the soft popping of his lips as he sucked, released, sucked again... Emily relinquished my gaze, took a deep, shuddering breath, leaned her head back, dark hair falling over her shoulders and behind her. She started saying something, mouthing it under her breath. I couldn't hear the three words she recited, over and over, solely for Tony, but I knew what they were. What were my hands doing up by the starfish on my tits, at that moment? These were my hands, to be sure, and yet they weren't. They weren't the hands of Tony's boss, Emily's former employer, and yet the nervous, warm flood of pleasure they delivered was all mine. I suddenly wished Tony would look at me while I took both my breasts and stroked them from base to top, those ornamental starfish dancing about as if caught in the current of a breaking wave. Surely both he and Emily heard my quick intake of breath, my own shudder of pleasure, but neither acknowledged. And in my mind, I saw this big, golden coin flipping end over end, slow motion in the darkness, and I was simultaneously dreading the way I knew it was going to land, and yet hungry for it. And two big, powerful, male hands reached from behind me to push mine aside, knowing, greedy hands that weren't willing to share. ."Indy," I said, leaning back into Keith's embrace, the warm musk of his cologne, the adrenalin rush of feeling his cock getting stiff through his trousers. Yes, that gorgeous fucker was swelling as Keith pressed it into the furrow between my ass cheeks, and I could feel it growing. Quickly, impatiently, Keith wanted to bare my breasts, took both the star fish in his hands and pulled. The adhesive behind the ornaments was just stubborn enough. Keith had both my tits stretched by my nipples, extended as far as they were going to, and it was just painful enough to be delightful before those trinkets relinquished their grasp of my swollen flesh with soft tearing sounds, one after the other. Keith tossed them aside, not caring where they fell, and rewarded his own effort with big, selfish handfuls of me. And we both watched, gave into the bawdy spectacle of Emily finding the bulge in Tony's Elizabethan pant leg, her hand coursing over and squeezing its tumescent shape like it was new sculptor's clay to be kneaded and firmly coaxed into the desired shape. Resting his head on my shoulder, kissing me on my cheek, his warm breath against my neck, Keith couldn't hide his delight when Tony's own exploration beneath Emily's heavy skirt revealed she'd chosen a daring nod toward period authenticity by forgoing panties. Indeed, with Tony methodically rolling and tucking the fabric of Emily's dress up about her waist, it seemed rather obvious he was putting the sight of Emily's bare sex on display. And yes, mark the surprise! Indeed, Emily's dainty little clam was now hairless, shaved as clean and smooth as any aspiring porn star, the delicate fold of her labia like garnish around her yawning cunt, and on that cue, I'll assume, Keith's left hand now released my breast to explore a trail down my belly and tug the half shelf covering my sex. I broke our embrace long enough to slide faux kelp down over my thighs and then gently kick my last piece of clothing off my ankle. This done, I now turned toward Keith and shoved my lips against his, indulged in long, breath-sharing kisses. Amateur Gods (Ltd.) This was passionate, to be sure, but also a surprising bow toward modesty. You see, having chosen to bare so much of myself to strangers this evening, I'd taken the time to sculpt that part of me still left unseen into something special only my husband would see. Nothing unique, I suppose; more women than you'd expect might trim their fleecy little pelt into the shape of a cupid's heart. It's not that unusual around Valentine's Day, I'll bet. But I'd wanted said indulgence to be a private token for my husband, and now the discrete fruit of my effort had an audience of three. My next best move was to show Keith first, so I disentangled from his arms, backed several steps toward the increasingly frenzied love making on the bed, and held both my hands down by my hips, palms outward. Yeah sure, I displayed my personal topiary so much like a stage magician at the end of a magic trick that I had to giggle. Keith didn't. He kneeled before me and began to kiss and explore my handiwork with his lips, with his tongue, and when he finally slipped his middle finger up my slippery grove and started pumping in and out, I was lost, absent to everything except the pleasures emanating from my resonating sex. Then I needed to sit down, my sense of balance near drowning in the flood of my own pleasure. I should, after all, be able to commandeer some space on my own bed, right? Keith followed me, going to his knees as if supplicant to my sex. He bowed between my thighs, doggedly determined to rule my pussy with his mouth, his tongue, and next to us, Tony did the same, got to his knees before Emily and worshiped that wet, warm, slippery altar with loud slurping noises, the greedy grunts and moans of a starving traveler with his first meal in days. At this moment, side by side with Em on the bed, I leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth, and far from recoiling, she received me without reservation, her devious tongue meeting mine, her teeth gently nibbling my lower lip. Only a moment or so later I was gently stroking her breasts, and she mine, and understand, I'd never anticipated making love to Emily, or fantasized thus, but right here, right now, how could there be anything more appropriate? I came once that way, low and gorgeous, shuddering with the force of my first climax that evening, Keith at one end of my body, Emily at the other. I tried to withdraw my lips from Emily, but she wrapped her fingers in the hair behind my head, insisted I sigh and moan my orgasm into her wanton mouth. Moments later, never at a loss to return a favor, I switched places with Keith, undid the fly of his pants and freed his beautiful cock. I held my hair back with one hand just so everyone could see me stroking his blue-veined, rod with the other, and then I sucked it full and greedy with my mouth, nursed on that fucker, got it deep and all the way down my throat. Certainly possessed by some competitive spirit, Emily quickly put Tony in the same position as Keith, and there we were, a pair of greedy sluts, down on our knees, each watching the other mouth their lover's rigid dick, a pair sex-crazed bitches whose reason d'etre began and ended, for the moment, at nothing more than giving the men they love good head. But Keith, bless him, wouldn't shoot his load in my mouth. He reached that plateau where he couldn't take more, and gently lifted my head from his lap. He bent forward, kissed me on the mouth and said, "I need to fuck you." Who was I to argue? Ours is a four-posted bed, four railings running from each pillar to support diaphanous curtains. From his belt, Keith took the bullwhip he'd been ignoring and unraveled it, his hard dick jabbing out of his pants and bouncing with his stride as he moved to the foot of the bed, lobbed one end of the whip high over the railing there, and beckoned me. Totally his toy for the moment, I let him loop the dangling end around my wrists in restraining loops and then pull my arms up above my head like I was this contrary, naked slave girl, or chattel taken as the spoils of war. Pulling the opposite end of the bullwhip in one hand, Keith grabbed his dick in the other, guided that fucker into my cunny, Slow and deep, he fucked me from behind, occasionally indulging one of my favored, if embarrassing, predilections by slapping my bottom just hard enough to echo, sharp and staccato, off the walls. Consider the leather around my wrists, Keith's solid member riddling my pussy, the flesh of my ass blushing beneath his hand. I'll never do those sensations justice here; there are certain, naughty, rogue, raw experiences shared by lovers that are magic precisely because they defy description. They exist in a world apart from that of syntax, and put vocabulary to shame. Poets might lose sleep and turn gray trying to capture this, but their enterprise is doomed from the start. I'll take a shot however, humbly bow to cliché' and brag that fucking with Keith, that moment, was transcendent. It was out of this world. It blew my fucking mind. Emily found the sight of me getting fucked this way so absorbing that she maneuvered Tony prone on the bed, and rode his dick facing Keith and I, a randy, humping "reverse cowgirl" just so she could watch me getting it from behind. Savor the moment where I tried to lean toward her, steal another Sapphic kiss, but we were too far apart, and the restraint above my head hindered me, and Em was reluctant to release the glove-like grasp of her fuck hole around Tony's cock. In the end, stretching and straining, the only parts we managed to unite were the tips of our tongues. And there might as well have been a spark passing between us. Static electricity. The pleasure we both felt was suddenly augmented. I'm not going to say I came again, but it was marvelously close. And the way Keith shoots his load up into me is nothing short of epic. He growls and groans and then goes into a sort of spasm as he comes, something so much like an epileptic fit that it's a little scary to the uninitiated. At the moment of climax, he released his grip on the bullwhip and fell over my back, pushing me down, pinning me against Tony's knees, my face into Emily's belly. And there I was, so close to Emily's cunt around Tony's dick that I could kiss both at the same time. And yes, later Keith took Emily, and watched in wonder as my heels bounced up and down off of Tony's backside. We fucked side by side, he holding my hand as another man plumbed the depths of my cunt, me looking into his eyes he plowed Emily's cum-sloppy little groove, my big, randy husband out to stud with this young mare while he shared his with Tony. Why not? It was clear that the rules that might govern everyday life were somewhere else tonight. Other people were at home, watching cable TV, handing out candy, recounting the course of yet another dull day with their spouses. Those rules had ceased to apply to us. Tonight, all roads led to pleasure and like sharks that will suffocate if they stop swimming, we fucked as if life depended on it. I came a second time, loud and wild. No doubt, party goers down stairs heard their hostess howling like a coyote and knew exactly what the score was above. Emily's orgasm, by contrast, rose slow and peaked in a long undulating current, an earthquake with aftershocks. mounting, peaking, diminishing, an exact start and finish hard to define. I may have dozed then, slipped into a moment or so of post-coital slumber. Perhaps I dreamed momentarily, and in that dream, grasped a hitherto repressed memory, for the next thing I remember is Keith asking me where I was going, me saying I'd be right back. I rose from the bed nude with an insistent notion there was something to be done, something I couldn't have done before because. I left Keith with clear permission to fuck Emily again, and the promise of something daring and unusual when I returned. I think he knew what I meant. We don't do anal that often; it's more a novelty than any kind of standard for us. Mark a delightful perversity in the moment however. I would offer the rarity of my asshole up to Keith while strangers watched, make the loving transgression of my back pocket a spectator sport. But first... I'd been aware for some time that noise from downstairs had changed. Raucous laughter and casual conversation had given way to cooing moans and the staccato rhythm of flesh against flesh. I'd been aware of this, but unconcerned. For the past hour or so, the inventory of things I'd cared about had started and stopped within my bedroom. If my ascent up the stairs in darkness had possessed some air of the surreal, my descent into my own living room was just as hallucinogenic. Here, someone had taken time to dim lights, but I could see clearly enough. There was Batman, still in his cowl, hands cuffed to the leg of the coffee table, Catwoman astride him, galloping, nude save for her vinyl mask and hip-ridding leather boots. There were my two buccaneers ravishing The Duchess of Windsor, her Georgian-period attire strewn about like a careless still life tableau. Our clever she-pirate was sitting on the coffee table, pressing the Duchess' face into her open cleft while her male accomplice sheathed his tool in Her Ladyship's behind. The Popes were totally nude, sitting in the middle of the floor, she in his lap so he could love her swaying tits with his mouth as she undulated, shimmied and ground her sex down on his cock. Cleopatra on the sofa, legs raised in a wide, uninhibited "V" while Caesar plundered her treasury with his tongue. The astronaut was expanding interplanetary relations to a green-skinned alien lass—a curious diplomatic ritual that involved taking her by the hair and fucking her green mouth. I moved through this panting, moaning, squirming crowd, regal in my nudity, extending a hand to graze fingertips here, a smile of acknowledgment there, a sincere compliment whenever the fucking was so heated and advanced that lovers involved paid my passing little or no attention. I moved through this bacchanalia with a surety that Emily had been right: This was in fact mine. I was the catalyst, the author, the high priestess who had led these sexual acolytes to a promised land they would never dare to visit unless I showed them the way. I cleared the front room, passed the breathless, racing assignation of two randy nuns on the kitchen table, a pant-less priest watching, rosary in one hand, cock in the other, and found my home office. No fixed idea what I was after. A sleepwalker led by her dreams. I automatically turned my computer on and opened a file I'd forgotten was there. Here were invoices for costumes culled from around the world, the surplus inventory of theatre companies, the troves of film studio auctions, numerous antique stores. Here was a new bank account, its coffers suddenly swelling with the advent of Halloween. Here also were the pentagrams, incantations, and ancient symbols I'd used to make it all magic, and an email account I hadn't opened for a while. I still didn't open it. Instead I went to the internet and found Amateur Gods, entered the computer generated store and typed in "Where are you?" From another part of the room, a mannequin in dark blue robes came to life. The gold-embroidered symbols of her garment were moving of their own accord, flashing in and out of view like exploding fireworks glimpsed from a distance. "Here I am, Milady." Her new mask was like someone had taken laser-edged scissors and carefully trimmed reality in order to leave a mask-shaped hole. Through that hole, behind her blinking eyes, was a whirling, dizzying view of something like stars, planets and galaxies simultaneously falling in and out of view. "Take the mask off," I said. She did, and of course she was me. And I leaned back in my chair and remembered where I'd been the day of the accident, and it was deliciously subversive, but also painful for being nothing I'd ever be able to share with Keith. Girl, I thought, What the hell have you been doing? What the hell, indeed. Then I turned the computer off. Went back upstairs.