4 comments/ 37826 views/ 3 favorites What It Means To Miss New Orleans By: truman5 After three days of the sales conference, Steve was sick. Sick of giant pieces of paper stuck to the wall covered with vague, ridiculous words regarding goals and mission, sick of pointless team building exercise but mostly sick of long evenings spent with amateur drinkers who felt free to let loose, particularly since they were far away from home in the French Quarter of New Orleans. After numerous glasses of beer or sickly sweet tropical concoctions, each inebriated man thought of himself as charming, witty and so very attractive to women, what Cary Grant would be like if he sold outdoor home products. In truth, the alcohol only made them clumsy, loud, boorish and, most importantly, completely tone deaf to their own ridiculousness. That was why Steve was alone in the French Quarter Hotel next to the one his company had reserved for the sales conference. He sat in blissful solitude drinking a quite nice Syrah and enjoying a particular flavorful etouffee, fragrant with the smell of shellfish which had not too long before been scuttling along the floors of swamps close by in the Louisianna bayou mixed in with hot andouille sausage and spices all of which combined to reflect the rich stew of cultures and races which called New Orleans home. And although it was true that there was a loud and obnoxious group of drunken idiots at the bar, they were strangers from another company. They were someone else's idiots and he was under absolutely no obligation to deal with them. Steve was so engrossed in his meal and his copy of the New Orleans Times Picayune that he missed the quiet voice addressing him at first. It was only when it repeated, "I said, may I join you" that he looked up. The owner of the voice was an attractive woman, the type whom you might not notice immediately when she walked into the room but who, once she caught your attention, would be hard to take your eyes off of. She stood about five foot six, with an athletic look and a look of quiet confidence. Her perfectly styled, light brown hair was fairly short, framing her face. Her clothes were flattering but not flashy. She wore a white silk blouse underneath a blue blazer. Her skirt was a fine, charcoal gray wool and her shoes were relatively low-heeled but obviously expensive. Her only jewelry was a simple pearl necklace, matching small pearl earrings and a simple gold bracelet. The overall effect was paradoxical. Although her outfit was quiet and tasteful it fairly shouted out "here is a woman with sophistication and taste." Steve was so stunned by her sudden appearance that she was compelled to ask for a third time if she could join him. She watched him, following his gaze as he looked out over the the sea of empty tables. "I know there are a lot of empty tables but I know if I try to eat alone that I'm going to be spending the evening fighting off the advances of god knows how many men." She blushed, gestured toward the bar and said, "I'm sorry, that sounds so conceited. I didn't mean to suggest that I think that I'm that irresistibly beautiful, only that those guys are that drunk." Steve pulled out the seat next to him, asked her to sit and introduced himself. She replied that her name was Kathy and Steve glanced toward the bar where she had gestured, just in time to see the men there engaged in a contest to see who could do the best moon walk, all the time clumsily falling over each other. "Yep, they are that drunk," Steve said. Pausing slightly, he then remarked in the most natural voice that he could muster, "Not that someone would have to be drunk to find you attractive." She smiled briefly and gracefully nodded her thanks. Steve was immediately won over by the gesture. He was familiar with many beautiful women, women who knew they were beautiful and would spend hour upon hour preparing to make themselves look as good as possible only to object strenuously to any compliments they received ("Oh this old thing, I look perfectly dreadful"). It had always made Steve feel foolish, like they were questioning his judgment or accusing him of dishonesty. Even though he knew that they were really only fishing for additional and more extravagant compliments, it always enraged him. He always had to fight the temptation to say, "You know, at second glance, you're right. You do look like shit." But even after knowing Kathy for only a matter of minutes, he knew intuitively that she would never play that game and embarrass someone who was trying to compliment her. "So where are you from and what brings you to the Big Easy," Steve asked. "New York City and I came for an argument." "That's a long way to travel to disagree with someone. Plus I never had the impression that anyone would ever have trouble finding someone in New York willing to argue. Mets versus Yankees, who has the best pizza, New Yorkers have always seemed like the most argumentative group around." She laughed and said, "No. I meant a legal argument. I had a case in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals." "Oh, a lawyer. That explains the exquisitely tasteful and obviously expensive attire." "I'm afraid not. I had to save up for a long, long time for this outfit, I only use it for court and testifying before legislative committees. Most of the time, I'm in jeans and tee shirts and clunky old hiking boots." "What kind of law office let's you dress like that?" "The low-paying, public interest kind. I work for Earth Defenders, an environmental group. What business are you in." "I'm a landscape architect. Or at least that's what I studied. I'm working for a company that sells and installs high-end pools, you know the kind that look like more like a pond than a pool in someone's yard? We talk about the environment too. Green is one of our biggest selling points." "Is the company really committed to the environment or is it just a way to make a buck." "Not sure how to answer that. I don't think they're opposed to the environment. They want to make money, though, that's for sure. I don't know, maybe the bottom line isn't why they do it but whether they do it. But enough about work, is this your first time in New Orleans?" "Yes it is." "What do you think of it." "Well, unfortunately, even though I've been here for three days, I haven't had a chance to see much of it. My flight got in late at night so I couldn't see much during the cab ride in. Other than that, I've only seen the conference room at the law firm who's helping us, the courtroom and the inside of my hotel room. I couldn't bear to have another meal in my hotel room so I came down here, saw someone who looked safe and the rest you know." "I'm not sure how I feel about looking safe." "Would you rather look like them?" she asked, pointing again to the bar where one of the men was holding a bar stool on his head pretending to be a bull charging another man who was holding his jacket like a toreador's cape. Steve winced and said, "No, I guess not." "Is this your first time here?" "God no. We've had a number of conferences here and I lived here for six months after college, painting houses with a friend and doing other odd jobs." "Do you like it?" "I love it. There's so much history and so many different cultures. Wonderful food and so much mystery. You get the feeling that every house has a story to tell and that each person who you see watching from a balcony has some deep dark secret that you'll never know. And I think every tourist who comes here, no matter how insensitive he or she is, can sense it and acts accordingly. Long before Las Vegas existed, New Orleans was the place where what goes on here stays here. But unlike Vegas, nothing is artificial, everything has built up over time and it's history includes some of the best and worst things around. New Orleans wouldn't be what it is without a history that includes war, voodoo, slavery, the invention of jazz, immigrants from Nova Scotia, food from all over the Caribbean, Spain, France, Africa and South America, quasi-legal prostitution, the influence of the Catholic Church, etc, etc, etc. There's no place like it in the United States, maybe not in the world." "I'm getting the sense that I really missed something by not getting out." "Yeah, you not only missed seeing things but having things affect you. The last time I was here for a conference, I heard the most amazing story." Steve then proceeded to relate a story about encountering a particularly mousy and quiet colleague at the bar the evening after a grueling day of workshops. She had clearly been drinking for a while and when Steve mentioned that he didn't remember seeing her at any on the sessions, she told him that she wasn't surprised because she hadn't been to any. When Steve asked if she had just arrived, she explained that she had gotten there late in the evening four days before and had stopped down for a drink in the bar. When she got there, there were two young Italian men, tourists in their twenties, who proceeded to buy her drink after drink. She was amused by their charming mis-use of the English language and their accents and was flattered by the rivalry that she saw developing between the two of them, each of whom clearly wanted to be the most highly regarded in her eyes. The woman paused in her story, sat silent for a while, took a long drink and then told Steve that eventually, closing time came and she then accepted their invitation for drinks in their room. She looked Steve in the eye with a curious, almost defiant look on her face and told him that the three of them did not leave the hotel room for the next two and a half days relying on room service for their meals. Steve concluded by saying,"I was unsure what to say after that and just said that I was glad she enjoyed herself and excused myself." "But that's not falling under a city's spell, that's just being drunk." "Maybe at the beginning. But at some point she had to wake up, sober and naked in bed with two strange guys. And she could have left then but choose to stay for another day of what must have been pretty wild sex. I'm not saying that it happened only because it was in New Orleans, but I think stories like that might be a bit more common here than anywhere else." Kathy sat silently, staring off quietly in the distance. Steve said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you by telling that story." Kathy replied distractedly, "No, I'm not disturbed. I was just thinking how dull my life is, I don't have any kind of secret story." Steve answered, "Come on, there must be some skeletons in your closet." "Nope, not even a toe bone. My family situation growing up was difficult. My father left when I was very young and my mother drank so I was responsible for keeping things going. I had to work in addition to my school responsibilities. I was always the sober young girl who acted like an old lady. I worked and took care of my brother and sister and never broke a rule. Never even shoplifted a lollipop. And I continued the same way in college, law school and in my current work." "Well, you never know. It's New Orleans and the night is still young, or at least early middle-age." "Would you excuse me for a minute?" Kathy asked. "Sure." He hesitated and then said "If this were a Penthouse letter, I'd take the opportunity to ask you to slip off your underwear and give them to me when you returned." Steve had never regretted something as quickly and as completely as he did making this suggestion. The moment the words left his lips, he wished he could pull them back. For her part, Kathy just looked him in the eyes, her face a blank mask that betrayed no emotion whatsoever. She then turned on her heels and walked toward the restroom, leaving him behind to anguish at the table. He briefly thought of following her to beg her forgiveness, but noticing that she had left her jacket behind, realized that she'd have to return at least for that and so decided to wait. That would at least give him the time that he needed to try to come up with the best strategy to repair the damage. He decided that he would try a jovial approach. He'd attempt to pass off the comment as a joke gone bad and pictured himself as a suave Sean Connery-type figure who would find a charming, funny way to erase the indiscretion. But the second Kathy returned to the table, Sean Connery left, leaving Steve to stutter his inarticulate apologies. Kathy sat down, shushed him by placing a finger on his lips and reached over the table to tuck her neatly folded white panties into the pocket of his jacket like some extra-fancy and somewhat feminine pocket square. Never having experienced anything even remotely like this, Steve was uncertain about what to expect next. Were this a Literotica story, there would soon be furtive groping under the table or stockinged feet rubbing against a burgeoning penis under the thin fabric of trousers. Instead, what happened next was particularly undramatic. There was no mention of sex, no smoldering, promising glances. Instead, there was interesting conversation about movies, politics, art and world events. If there were any change between pre-and post-panty exchange dining and conversation, it was only that Kathy seemed more relaxed but since she had always appeared at ease and graceful, any changes were minor. By the end of the evening, Steve was surprised to find he had forgotten what was tucked into his pocket and instead found himself concentrating on how he felt like he had known Kathy for years. In fact, he felt closer to her already than he did at any point with his former wife of fifteen years from whom he had just been divorced. At the conclusion of dinner the check was delivered prompting a fight over who would pay. The struggle was only resolved when Steve pointed out that he was going to expense dinner anyway and that it would be a small, unknowing contribution that his company would be making to support her organization's environmental work. Kathy thanked Steve and suggested taking a short stroll into the French Quarter so that she could at least say that she had seen it. With that, the two ventured into the warm Louisiana night. The French Quarter was a wholesale assault on the senses. Steve experienced it through Kathy's eyes, watching as she looked in wonder at everything going on around her. Music poured out of clubs on both sides of the streets. Walking down the street sounded like tuning a radio with different songs or styles of music fading in and out as they progressed. The scent of food filled the air from countless restaurants. Various bars advertised live nude girls and touristy voodoo shops advertised love potions guaranteed to move even the hardest heart. But what was most striking was the consumption of alcohol. Everyone seemed to be holding giant cups of alcoholic beverages.It was a common sight to see people bent over trash cans or the gutter feeling the effects of alcoholic excess. Kathy watched it all and, within several blocks, appeared to be overwhelmed. "Let's turn off on one of these side streets," she suggested and they found themselves on a smaller, quieter street. The further they ventured from Bourbon Street, the more sedate it became and the harder it was to hear the din from the rowdiest French Quarter establishments. Honky tonks and cheap restaurants gave way to restaurants with white linen tableclothes. Stores selling tourist souvenirs were edged out by used bookstores and fancy antique shops both of which piqued Kathy's interest in a way that nothing on Bourbon Street had. "Oh, look at that beautiful leather-bound Jane Austen set! Pride and Prejudice got me through middle school. And there's a first edition Willa Cather! These are the only times when I really wish I was rich, so I could buy some of these beautiful things." Later, they passed an antique store and Steve was amazed at how exhaustive her knowledge of antiques was. She could name every period, value any object, describe where each piece was from. Steve commented that her apartment must be beautifully furnished. She said it was mostly Ikea but that, in furniture as in clothing, she had a few good pieces and was saving up for more. Throughout the walk, Steve stared at her with increasing wonder. Not only was he amazed by her encyclopedic knowledge, but he was also touched by her open and guileless enthusiasm and her modesty about the breadth of her knowledge. As they walked further on, the restaurants and stores became more scarce. Kathy took Steve's arm so naturally that he almost wasn't aware it had happened. As they strolled into an area with aprtments built around quiet, vine-covered court yards, their pace slowed. Kathy laid her head on Steve's shoulder and he, overwhelmed by the scent of her hair kissed her gently on the top of her head. Kathy smiled up at him, gazing warmly into his eyes. They stopped to face each other and kissed on the lips, the kisses became deeper and longer. Minutes of kissing lead to mounting passion on both of their parts until Kathy pulled away from Steve, looked quickly in both directions down the street, and pulled him into the darkened entrance to one of the courtyards. Giggling, she crouched in front of him and started to unbuckle his pants. Steve was amazed and stood speechless as she pushed his pants and his shorts down around his ankles in the warm night air. She wasted no time. After briefly teasing the tip of his penis with her lips and tongue she took it into her mouth, while gently cupping his balls in her hands. Steve could do nothing but groan his encouragement. She rocked back and forth in her crouching position, each time taking him deeper and deeper into her mouth. After several minutes, Steve, announced that he was coming. He expected her to pull away but instead, she sucked more enthusiastically. And when he lifted on his tip-toes, no longer able to hold back any longer, she quickly rubbed her tongue underneath his shaft until he spurted his semen directly into her mouth. The two were so involved with each other that they failed to notice that they had an audience. Two men, clearly returning from an evening at a bar, had stumbled upon them and stayed to watch. One of them cleared his throat after the two had finished. Steve quickly pulled up his pants and Kathy rose to her feet." "That looked pretty good, how much does she charge?" the first man asked. Steve was enraged that they had mistaken Kathy for a common-street whore. He found himself stepping toward the men in anger, not sure what he was going to do once he got there, but still angry. As he felt his hands tighten into fists, he happened to glance at Kathy who, far from looking angry, was watching Steve with what looked like wry amusement. After catching his eye, she cocked her head as if to ask, "How much do I charge?" Steve was so surprised and confused that he immediately stopped and stood silently. Seeing that everyone seemed to be watching him for a response, he panicked and blurted out, "Uh, ten dollars?" Kathy's eyebrows raised as if to say, "I just learned tonight that I am a whore, now it looks like I'm a cheap one at that." Meanwhile, the man rushed over and said, "That's definitely a deal," reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ten dollar bill and offering it to Kathy. She nodded over to Steve, who took the money while marveling at how quickly things appeared to have spun out of control. But it seemed clear that Kathy was prepared to go ahead with it. If this were going to happen, he could at least make sure that Kathy was as comfortable as possible so Steve, knowing how hard it is to maintain a crouching position, took off his jacket and laid it on the ground so that she could kneel on it. She smiled, called him "My own Walter Raleigh," and knelt in front of the man. Wasting no time, she unzipped his fly and fished out his penis with her hand. The man was hard almost immediately. Kathy looked over at Steve and then took the man into her mouth. The semi-intoxicated stranger was shocked at how gentle and thorough she was. He had expected something quick, rough and impersonal, particularly for the price he had paid. Instead, he had the feeling that she was savoring the experience and trying to draw it out as long as possible. At one point, he placed his hands on both sides of her head with the intention of fucking her face hard, but she gently removed his hands as if to say "Leave it to me," and continued her firm sucking. Finally, when all of the tell-tale signs began to appear, Kathy took him more deeply into his mouth and it soon became clear to the two men observing them that he was filling her mouth with his cum. Perhaps out of passion, but more likely to protect her clothes, she kept him in her mouth until he stopped spasming and then carefully licked him clean. What It Means To Miss New Orleans Ch. 02 This is a continuation of an earlier story. It would probably be best to read that first. This one goes over some of the events of that story from the perspective of the woman but then takes a darker, troubling turn. Be forewarned. * Kathy Allerton's testimony before the Environmental Committee of the State Legislature had been spectacular. Her weeks of late-night preparation showed in the quiet confidence of her presentation and the assured way that she handled each of the questions fired at her. So effective was she that even the most conservative committee members, not normally friends of the environment, were nodding in agreement at many of her points. So why did she feel so empty and dissatisfied? Many of her colleagues, looking at the exhausting schedule that she kept, accused her of being married to her work and she wondered if there wasn't something to that. If her work was a surrogate for romantic interests, children and family, perhaps her current feeling was the equivalent of post partum depression, the numbing emptiness that follows nine months of the preparation and anticipation of childbirth. As she sat in a stall of the women's room of the State Capitol Building, she tried to remember the last time she had worked so hard and had succeeded so impressively to see if this mini-depression was part of a pattern. And the realization of when that last time was brought a flush to her face and a flood of memories engulfed her. The last time had been the day and evening of her argument before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans several months before. The day had started with a court appearance capping months of preparation and had ended with an evening of sexual excess that even now seemed completely unreal to her, as if it had happened to another person. But it had happened to her. And, upon reflection, it occurred after a period of feeling the same disquiet she was experiencing now. On that night, after packing up her copies of the briefs and the binders of exhibits, she had begged off the post-argument drinks and dinner that the other members of her legal team were heading off to claiming, honestly, that she was tired and, somewhat dishonestly, that she was feeling unwell. She had intended to return to her hotel room in the French Quarter, order up a room service dinner and watch CNN before retiring early in anticipation of her flight out the following day. But once in the room, she found that Anderson Cooper held no interest for her and the prospect of sitting alone in a room eating by the light of the television screen seemed particularly unappealing. Although she was not inclined to venture out into the rowdy French Quarter by herself, she felt that she could at least eat in the hotel dining room and perhaps feel not completely isolated. Within minutes of leaving her room, she began to regret her plan. She got onto an empty elevator and pressed lobby, only to have the elevator stop on the floor below hers. At that floor floor, five men lumbered into the car. Although they were on their way out, they had clearly already started drinking. Boisterous when they boarded the elevator, they suddenly became quiet when they caught sight of Kathy, who, still dressed in conservative but elegant courtroom attire, was undeniably lovely. Kathy tried to disregard their blatant staring but could not ignore the comments delivered in the stage whispers used by people whose alcohol intake had drowned any sense of propriety or discretion . "Look at this one, she's a real piece." "Yeah, maybe we should push the emergency button, I wouldn't mind getting trapped in an elevator with her for a couple of hours." "You couldn't afford someone like her." "You think she's a hooker?" "Who knows, she could be one of those high-price escorts." "Whatever, she is, I bet she could fuck you to death, it's those quiet ones who are the hottest." Not a moment too soon, the elevator arrived at the lobby and the men stumbled out, giggling like high school boys. Kathy stepped out of the elevator red-faced and angry at the indignity to which she had just been subjected. She was surprised at the depth of her anger. What they said was ignorant and offensive, true, but the way men who were drunk and away from home behaved shouldn't have been a complete surprise to her. What surprised her, though, was her own response to their crude comments. Somewhere, beneath the seething anger was an emotion which confused her. She remembered their comment about her being a prostitute and remembered experiencing a quickening of her breath which she couldn't quite understand. Whatever her feelings, though, she decided that she was not going to be deterred from her plans by a group of drunken louts and she strode off to the hotel's dining room. Her first thought when she entered the dining room was that she was glad that she gone ahead with her plan to take dinner outside of her room. The dining room was beautiful, heavily mirrored with extravagant tropical floral arrangements, large glass chandeliers and wait staff in crisp black and white outfits. Her enthusiasm was dampened, though, when she looked toward the bar and saw her former elevator-mates joining a group of equally inebriated colleagues already at the bar. They saw her too and she watched with disgust as grins crossed the faces of the five men as they recognized her. She was just about to turn and leave when she spotted a man, quietly eating by himself and reading a newspaper. Thinking that her being with a man would protect her from the leering advances of the men at the bar, she impulsively and uncharacteristically approached and addressed the man. The lone diner was so engrossed in his reading that he didn't hear her the first time she asked whether she could join him and, looking up after the second request, seemed too shocked to respond. Only after the third request did he ask her to sit. When she explained why she was intruding, he reacted gracefully and quickly making her feel like it was the most normal thing in the world to be approached by strange women asking to join you in the middle of a meal. From the outset, Kathy felt comfortable with Steve (whose name she learned immediately upon sitting down). She could not remember the last time she had so quickly reacted so positively to anyone. Attractive but not drop-dead handsome, there was something about him that put her at ease immediately. The conversation (he did not return to his newspaper although she told him it would be okay to) proceeded smoothly as he talked about his work and, later, about his obvious love for the city of New Orleans. So natural was the conversation that she saw nothing amiss about his relating a story about a colleague, a shy young woman, who had ended up locked in a hotel room over several days with two Italian tourists whom she had just met. As Steve described the unassuming and quiet woman, whom none of her coworkers would ever suspect of potentially being involved in any extravagant sexual conduct, Kathy could not help wondering what her colleagues thought of her and what they might think she was capable of doing. Unlike the woman in the story though, she had never departed from the path in any way. She had no secrets. For the first time, rather than making her feel virtuous, her conventionality made her seem dull and lifeless. And, without realizing it, she found herself withdrawing from the conversation, feeling some tinge of regret at the fact that she had never once ignored possible consequences and simply let go. After being roused from her sad reverie, and with the feeling of regret hanging around like a deep fog, she excused herself to go to the women's room. Despite the turn that her conversation had taken, she was surprised when Steve tentatively and abruptly suggested that she surrender her underwear upon her return. As an experienced trial attorney, she had long before perfected the ability to appear calm in the face of any surprise, but underneath her poker face were overwhelming feelings of shock and astonishment. As she walked away, she found herself fighting with wildly conflicting feelings. Was he exactly like one of the men at the bar, only a bit less drunk? But her conversations with him and her inner sense told her no, that he was somehow different. His somewhat nervous request seemed more like a shared joke rather than a crude aggressive act. And although she briefly thought of throwing money on the table and storming off, she had an overwhelming sense that an opportunity was being presented to her that she would never have again. And so when she returned to the table, in what would be a continuing series of firsts that night of which she would never have predicted herself capable, she folded her panties up and placed them in the breast pocket of his jacket. And even though the ensuing conversation was entirely of a non-sexual nature, she could not completely ignore the voice in her head repeating with excited incredulity "I can't believe that you gave your panties to a complete stranger and that you're sitting across from him naked under your skirt and that you are SOOO EXCITED!" When the dinner was over, Steve picked up the check but managed to make it clear that he did not think it entitled him to anything more from her. And that lack of presumption contributed to her appreciation of him. Not wanting the evening to end, she proposed an after-dinner walk through the French Quarter to which he enthusiastically agreed. Stepping out of the over-air conditioned hotel into the hot, humid Louisiana night was only the first shock to Kathy's senses. Bourbon Street presented something to each of the senses and each presentation was somehow larger than life. The music spilling out from the clubs lining the street joined the cacophony of the street musicians and the calls of men lining the street trying to lure people into the various strip shows. The smell of spicy, Creole and Cajun seafood hung in the damp air and everywhere you looked, there was something unexpected and extreme to experience. Kathy found her attention being pulled constantly from one place to another until the stimulus overload became too much and she asked Steve if they could walk down some of the quieter streets. She instantly became more comfortable as they passed small, quiet restaurants with white table clothes, Spanish moss encrusted courtyards and antique shops and antiquarian book stores. The wine she had with dinner along with the exotic surroundings seemed to go straight to her head and she found herself speaking at great length about each of the beautiful things she saw in the shop windows. Steve listened intently to everything she said with a wry smile of appreciation and amusement and, as she grabbed his arm and they sauntered down the street, she found herself thinking that she could not remember ever feeling that close to anyone in her life. Just as Kathy began to wonder with increasing frustration when he would kiss her, he pulled her to him. One sweet kiss led to another and, abandoning herself to her sudden, spontaneous emotions, Kathy pulled him over to a dark alley and, to both his and her own surprise, squatted in front of him, quickly taking down his pants and taking his erect cock into her mouth. She could not remember how much time passed before he came in her mouth because she seemed lost to everything except for the excitement she was feeling and the reality of his hardness pumping in and out of her mouth. So lost was she that she failed to notice the appearance of two onlookers who, mistaking her for a hooker, asked how much she charged. As had happened earlier, she found her self conflicted about her reaction to the question. On one hand, she was embarrassed to be caught doing something so public and so brazen. This time she could hardly fault the men for thinking she was a prostitute. But with the accumulated excitement of the evening and her slightly intoxicated state, the prospect of, for the first time in her life, behaving like a slut with more than one man seemed thrilling and wicked. When she looked at Steve, she saw a combined look of confusion and excitement which only intensified her own feelings and she made a gesture with her head that indicated a willingness to go along with the men's misunderstanding. This time, her reaction was more than a quickening of her breath. She could feel herself growing wetter and her heart quickening as she thought with excitement, "I'm going to suck three cocks tonight, like a cheap whore". And she proceeded to do so, enthusiastically taking each of the men into her mouth and swallowing every drop of their cum. The taxi trip back to her hotel was one of the oddest journeys of her life. Although she feared that Steve would despise her, she was surprised to see him looking at her with wonder and a strange kind of appreciation as if he could tell that her conduct that night was atypical. He seemed to know that she was pushing herself to do something different, in the name of adventure and that, rather than looking down on her, he appreciated the impulse that had driven her. But what Kathy saw in herself had so surprised her so that she was unable to imagine continuing to have any contact with anyone who had witnessed it. And so she steadfastly rejected Steve's request to stay in contact. Although she thoroughly enjoyed what she remembered of the remainder of the evening with Steve in her hotel room, she felt confident that she had made the right decision in decreeing that the evening would be a one-night only occurrence. Her confidence that she had made the right choice disappeared with the morning light. She awoke, groggy and somewhat hung over with the worst case of morning breath she had ever experienced. She groaned with embarrassment as she thought about what had happened the previous evening but she was surprised how the feeling of shame was quickly replaced by regret at not having asked for Steve's contact information. That day, and in the months that followed, Kathy found herself thinking that her insistence on never seeing Steve again was one of the greatest mistakes of her life. All of this went through her mind as she sat in the rest room in the Legislative Building. She might have sat there indefinitely remembering that day had she not been startled back to the present time by the loud laughter of two women coming into the women's room. "I am so fucking glad it's Friday, I can't tell you. If one more person comes in asking where they can file something I'm gonna tell them, and they're not gonna like it." "You and me both. I'm not even going to think about this place for the next two days. So what are you doing this weekend?" "Me and Eddie are going out tonight. I don't know where, he told me its gonna be a surprise. Eddie and his fuckin' surprises. Did I tell you he "surprised" me by taking me to that place I told you he's been talking about for the last two months?" "What place is that?" "You know, the place I told you about, the dirty bookstore with the hole in the wall." "SHUT UP! He took you to a glory hole?" "He sure did." "So, what happened?" "We go to this place, it looks like a regular store except it's filled with dildos and blow-up sex dolls. Eddie bought some tokens from the cashier and we went into the back where they got these booths lined up along the side. Eddie's real careful about which one we go into. 'I asked what about this one?' and he says no, it has to be the last one. So we go in and close the little door and he puts a token in the machine and some women comes on the screen sucking this guy's cock. It's huge, I mean I've never seen anything that big. He could have played baseball with that thing . . . ." "Could you get back to the story, I'd like to get out of here before midnight." "Yeah, so we're watching the movie and I notice a hole in the wall and he's told me what it's for but I guess no one was interested because it stays empty. Finally, Eddie says he has to go to the bathroom and I tell him what the fuck, you're going to leave me here all alone and he says he'll be right back. And, ten seconds after he leaves, a hard cock comes sticking through the hole." "OHMIGOD!, What did you do, did you suck some strange guy?" "Strange guy my ass. Like I wouldn't recognize Eddie's cock after all these years. So I decide to fuck with Eddie and I say 'What a big cock, not like my boyfriend's, he's got a little one and he can't get it up half the time." "So what did you do?" "Whaddya think I did. Let's just say I did what we came there to do. Eddie obviously enjoyed it. So after he came, (and came and came), he comes back into the booth in a couple of minutes. I ask him what took him so long and he says they had a long line and then he asks me if anything happened while he was gone. I looked him straight in the eye and told him no. Like I said, I like to fuck with him." "So what was it like/" "Whattya mean, sucking Eddie's cock? You went out with him in high school, you probably know better than I do." ".... Uh, No I mean the whole adult book store, glory hole thing?" "I gotta admit, it was kind of exciting, I mean once I made believe it was some stranger who I'd never see again instead of my jerk boyfriend." "You guys going to go back?" "Yeah, that's probably what his surprise is. But to be honest, I was thinkin' of going back there sometime, only without Eddie. Maybe you can come with me, we can have a competition." "Get out of here. Where is this place, anyway?" "It's right off the Interstate, exit 14, you can't miss it. Listen, I gotta run, Eddie gets so mad when I'm late. See ya Monday." Kathy realized that the two women probably were unaware of the fact that they weren't alone in the women's room. After waiting a few minutes, she left the stall and while washing her hands thought about the conversation she had overheard. The two women seemed so different than she was, there seemed to be such a huge difference in their levels of education and sophistication. Yet, she felt that they had something in common in what they were willing to do for pleasure. Kathy wondered whether she had the nerve to ever visit a glory hole, even just once. Her first response was that she could never do anything like that but then she wondered whether there was any difference at all between what she had done in New Orleans and what had excited the woman so much about the adult book store. Kathy was also surprised that, at some level, she envied the women, envied them their casual acceptance of sexual pleasure, their sense of humor, no matter how crude, and the fact that, in some way difficult to explain, they seemed alive. They reminded her of the popular girls in high school, the pretty ones who described their exciting weekends with the boys on the football team and never seemed to be worried about homework and responsibility the way Kathy did. Kathy had always felt that there was a world that she was never a part of, a world in which people sometimes did outrageous things but in which they had fun. She on, the other hand, always did the right thing. She was the person who teachers pointed to as an example of the perfect student. But although it won her the admiration of the faculty, it did little to win her friends. And so, when she saw even a fleeting look at an easy going friendship like that of the women in the rest room, she could not help but feel a little envy. The conversation between the women stayed in Kathy's mind as she headed to her hotel which was located at Exit 13 off the Interstate ("one exit before the bookstore," Kathy thought). Their conversation kept bringing up images of her own experiences months ago. She remembered how thoughts about her night in the alley could cause her to blush uncontrollably when they came up during the day at work, so much so that her colleagues would ask her if she was feeling okay. She would say that she felt that she might be coming down with something. What It Means To Miss New Orleans Ch. 02 Nighttime was different. Shame and embarrassment was replaced with unbridled excitement. Many an evening ended with her recalling the events in the alley and in her hotel room while bringing herself to overpowering orgasms with her vibrator or fingers. Sometimes, she would make believe that the two men had accompanied her and Steve back to the hotel and she would imagine what it would be like to spend hours where there would be no time when she wasn't filled with a hard cock perhaps even two (or three?) at once. These were the thoughts that were going through her mind as she drove right past Exit 13. She realized her mistake and decided to get off at the next exit and turn around. When she reached that exit a mile later, she remembered the woman's description of the location of the adult book store. Sure enough, there it was, covered with purple and pink neon lights, "Sin City" in bright letters on top. The store was in an isolated section of town, surrounded by warehouses and service stations. She decided she would turn around in the parking lot and get back on to the highway but as she got nearer to the store, she experienced a feeling welling up in her that reminded her of the excitement that she felt that night in New Orleans. "Maybe I'll just take a look inside. I can turn around and leave if I want," she thought as she stepped out of the car. "I won't need this" she thought as she locked her purse in the trunk taking out a twenty dollar bill and placing it in her blazer pocket along with the car keys. She took a deep breath as she pushed open the door of the store. To her surprise, it was brightly lit and surprisingly undramatic. Were it not for the fact that every item in the room was sex-related, it could be any store in a suburban strip mall. She looked around and saw just a few men milling around. She wasn't sure what she expected them to look like, but noticed that there was nothing exceptional about them. No one was milling around in dirty trench coats or dark glasses, they seemed like the kind of group you might see buying wine for dinner at a liquor store on a Friday evening. She remembered the story she had heard at the state legislative office building and thought, "Could I do that?" She took the thought as a challenge and said to herself, "No one knows who I am here and, anyway I can leave at any time if I don't like it. Your biggest regrets are the things that you didn't do, right?" Remembering how careless she had been in the alley, she decided to exercise some restraint and good judgment and to take some precautions. She walked over to a display of condoms. She giggled when she saw packages with one hundred condoms and picked up a three pack, flavored, and thought, "I can always save one or two for later use." She then walked over to the cashier, a young man with long greasy hair wearing a black t-shirt like the kind sold at heavy metal concerts. The name of a band, Stomping Babies, was written in elaborate Gothic script above a picture of the members of the band viewed from the ground-up each with one heavily-booted foot raised. Knowing that nothing would please the owner of the shirt more than to know that his tasteless shirt shocked and disgusted her, she feigned nonchalance and walked poker-faced up to the counter, placed the package of condoms down and asked for ten dollars in tokens. He slowly looked her up and down and gave her a weaselly, greasy little grin saying, "Sure three will be enough?" When she pushed the twenty dollar bill forward, silently, he took the bill, gave her her change and said, "I think you'll really like booth number eight." She took the money and tokens and walked toward the back of the store with the sense that he was watching her walk away so intently that she could feel the heat of his gaze on her ass. Sure enough, booth number eight was the last one on the left. She took a deep breath, said, "Here goes nothing," and stepped inside. Right in front of a small stool was a video machine with a slot for coins, directly to her left was a hole of about twelve inches diameter about three feet from the floor. The room was surprisingly clean with a sharp, disinfectant smell. Over the screen was a sign saying that the only two choices were feeding the video machine or leaving. She dutifully fed a token to the machine and heard a clicking as the machine engaged. She had no expectations of what the movie would be but was still startled at the scene that appeared before her abruptly. There was no unfolding of a story or any kind of narrative, only the sudden appearance of a tattooed, heavily pierced blonde woman lying on her back at the edge of a bed with one man thrusting his cock in her mouth while a second, kneeling between her outspread legs, plowed hard into her. Kathy was so surprised that she did not notice immediately that the hole to her left, empty when she came in, was now filled with a hardening penis. Kathy felt a moment of panic. She knew what was expected of her but wondered whether she could do it. But the fact that the situation was so anonymous made things easier for her. This would be a purely sexual act, one in which there were no reasons to worry about what the other person thought of you, no fears about whether they would call you, none of the complications that attend a regular relationship. She could for a moment, and without consequence she thought, behave like the most immoral pleasure loving slut for a few minutes and then leave that persona in the room behind her when she left. With that in mind, she turned her full attention to the now rock-hard cock pointing. She had never really taken the opportunity to closely examine an erection before and because she could not see its owner, she felt that she could do so now without fear of embarrassment. It was, by now, decidedly hard although was it was neither considerably bigger or smaller than the few penises she had seen up to that point. She did not feel particularly aroused by the sight, if anything, it seemed a little silly being in a room with what appeared like a disembodied penis. "Maybe it will be more exciting when I touch it," she thought and she reached out and lightly traced underneath it with her finger. It twitched at her touch, which emboldened her to increase the intensity of her touch until she encircled it with her thumb and forefinger and stroked it rhythmically, causing the man in the next booth to sigh loudly. She heard a hoarse voice from the next room say, "Go ahead, suck it," and thinking that that was what she had come there for, removed one of the condoms from her pocket, ripped open the container and started to unroll it onto the hard cock in front of her. This time, the sound from the next booth was a loud groan of disappointment. "I won't do it unless you wear a condom," she said. He replied, "Alright, go ahead." Kathy moved the small stool over nearer to the wall, leaned over and slowly took the latex-covered head of the cock into her mouth. As she slowly moved her head back and forth, each time taking it deeper into her mouth, she could not help feeling that this was very different from what she had experienced back in New Orleans. Between the inhuman feeling of latex, the chemical minty taste of the condom and the antiseptic smell in the room, she felt that she was involved in some kind of impersonal medical procedure rather than an exciting sex act. Her unseen partner seemed to enjoy her attention, though. After a few short minutes, she heard a suppressed moan and than a long exhalation of breath. As she removed her mouth from his cock, she looked down and saw the reservoir tip of the condom filled with his cum. He removed his penis from the hole and she heard the sound of pants being pulled up and buckled through the wall. Kathy sat in the room, unsure what to think of the encounter that had just ended. She noticed that the video had ended and, as she weighed whether to put another token into the machine, she heard a sound to her side. A second man had clearly entered the booth next to hers. She tentatively reached up to stroke his member, but after touching it once, decided that what she really wanted to do was to leave. She faced the penis stuck through the hole and, addressing it as if it were a little person, said, "I'm sorry, I just can't do this," pushed back the stool and rose to leave the booth. She was surprised as she left the booth at running into three men milling around in the passageway outside of the booth she had just vacated. The four of them were quickly joined by the man who had previously occupied the booth next to Kathy's. In his anger and frustration, he had rushed out of the room without tucking himself into his pants so as he ran out his cock bobbed up and down in a way that would have been comical under different circumstances. He was not funny as he ran right up to Kathy yelling. "What the fuck are you doing? You think its funny, teasing some guy and then leaving?" "I'm sorry, but I just decided that I didn't want to stay." The man paused to look Kathy up and down. Taking in her expensive clothes, he said,"Oh I get it. You came slumming and thought you could make fools of some working guys and go and tell your friends at the country club over tea." "Listen, I'm not like that. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not what I want." Gesturing toward the other three me he said, "Yeah, well all I, I mean WE, want is the same thing you did for the other guy, so why don't you step back into the booth and finish what you started." "I'm not going to stand here and argue with you, please let me by." "What are you gonna do if I don't?" "I'll . . .I'll call the manager." He nodded his head toward the men standing behind him and said, "I think he's going to be on our side." She turned around and saw the store clerk in the offensive tee shirt who gave her a smirk and a shrug. "Then I'll call the police." "What are you going to tell them, that they have to come down and put some guys in jail because you came here to suck their dicks and they accepted? Here, use my phone," and he held out his cell phone to her. As she thought about what he said and how hard a call to the police would be, the man snapped shut the phone and reached for her arm. Meanwhile, the store clerk unlocked a door in the hallway and said, "We can bring her in here." Overwhelmed by the men surrounding her and unsure what to do, Kathy put up only slight resistance as the men pushed her into the room. The room was a small office used for storage and shipping. Boxes of x-rated items were stacked along the walls and an old, beat-up desk and chair sat in the middle of the room. Kathy was pushed into the seat and the man straddled her with his hard penis level with her mouth. One of the man stood behind her holding her arms while another one turned her face forward. The man in front of her pinched her nostrils shut and, the second she opened her mouth, shoved his cock in deeply. "You'd better not bite it either. Not like those pencil-dicked wimps you're used to, is it?" The man was not gentle as he forcefully fucked her mouth. He found it funny when she gagged after he pushed too far in and, just before he came, he grabbed her head with both of his hands and held her in place while he shot jet after jet of cum into her mouth. As he pulled out, she spit out what she had not swallowed onto her white blouse. One of the other men then suggested bringing her over to the desk. She was carried over by her arms and legst and spread out over the top of the desk. Her legs were released only long enough to push her skirt over her hips and pull her panties down and off her. The next man then dropped his pants and underwear and shuffled into place between her widespread legs. The store clerk reached behind him to a box and handed the half-undressed a tube of lubricant which the first man spread on his cock and squirted between Kathy's legs As the man positioned the head of his cock between Kathy's legs, the other men urged him on telling him to "go on and do it to her, fuck like she's never been fucked before." And the man obliged entering her suddenly in a way that caused her to gasp. "God she's tight, wait 'til you get a shot at this," the man said as he pounded into her each time withdrawing all the way before ramming his cock in all the way and grinding himself hard against her once he was all the way in. The man told the other men to release her legs and he then grabbed them and placed them over his shoulders so that her ass was lifted off of the desk while he pounded relentlessly into her. Kathy moaned in protest speaking only once to beg him not to come inside since she wasn't on the pill. The man greeted her request with a sneer gasping out as he pumped into her, "I think . . . that you . . . and me . . . can make . . . a real pretty baby . . " until reaching under her ass as if trying to pull himself completely into her, the man held her tightly until he was fully finished coming. He then withdrew from her and grabbing her ankles, handed them to the next man as he then stepped into place between her legs. Meanwhile, the men at the other end of the desk were holding her arms, afraid to let them go for fear of being struck. With their free hands, they did their best to strip her, pulling aside her jacket and unbuttoning or popping the buttons of her blouse until her bra-encased breasts were exposed. The men then pulled the cups of her bra under her breasts so that her bare breasts were exposed to the men's kneading and pinching fingers. One of the men, seeing that she was wearing a necklace, remarked, "What a nice pearl necklace, maybe I can give her another one," as he pulled out his cock and tried to feed it into her mouth. She turned her head away at which point the man on the other side of her head lowered his pants and started to slap her cheek with his erect penis. "The sooner we come, the sooner we get this over with, so you might as well open up." Kathy, reacting to a particularly hard thrust from the man fucking her, opened her mouth with a moan and soon found it stuffed with the cock of one of the men standing near her head. Realizing there was absolutely nothing she could do and hoping that the men would finish and let her go, Kathy suddenly halted all resistance and lay there limp as the men violated her. At this point, she felt like something she had read describing a near-death experience. It was if she had left her body and was watching a violent, pornographic movie in which a group of men seemed intent in either coming inside her as deeply as possible or shooting their come over as much of her face, body and clothing as possible. Although she had long ago lost any sense of time, she became aware that her hope that the men would tire of their attack was not going to be realized. At some point far in the back of her consciousness, she was aware of the fact that the door to the room had opened and closed several times and, judging from the taste of some of the cocks thrust into her mouth, that some of the men were staying for more than one go at her. She realized that her health, and perhaps even her life, depended upon her getting away. She could not imagine how that would happen but resolved to take any opportunity to get away that arose. Miraculously, the opportunity presented itself almost immediately. Two of the men, recent arrivals in the room, decided simultaneously that they wanted to explore new territory and so they instructed the others to turn her over on the desk so that she would be laying face down with her feet hanging down to the floor. The men separated her ass cheeks to expose the delicate, untouched rosebud within. But the two could not agree who would go first and a scuffle ensued. The scuffle, although minor, was enough of a distraction to create an opportunity. She pushed off of the desk as hard as she could, knocking the men off balance and immediately ran for the door. Once outside of the room, she lowered her shoulders and plowed through the crown of surprised men waiting in the hallway on her way to the relative safety of the main area of the store. Desperately pulling her clothes around her and trying to straighten them out as best she could, Kathy raced in the direction of the front door. She had lost one shoe back in the room but certainly was not stopping to find it so that her gait was uneven and choppy. One obstacle remained between her and the front door of the store and her eventual escape, though. Shortly after Kathy had entered the booth in the back of the store, a group of six young women had entered into the store. They had been meeting at one of the women's house to plan the bachelorette party of another friend when, fueled by the exuberance created by the gathering of a group of old friends and generous helpings of merlot, they decided to go to the adult book store to find items to liven up the party and thoroughly embarrass it's future guest of honor. As can be imagined, the group was particularly boisterous and descended on the store like a small, floral scented tornado. It might be expected that a group of attractive, slightly drunk women would be a welcome sight in a xxx store, but that was not the case. The overwhelming majority of people in the store, our protagonist Kathy excluded, were in the store alone on a Friday night purchasing supplies for solitary endeavors. These people were only interested in buying their dvds or sex aids as quietly and unobtrusively as possible and returning home alone for an evening in front of the tv and dvd player. For those people, the commotion that the young women brought with them was as unwelcome as it would have been in the middle of a church service. At the time that Kathy was bolting from the storage room of the store, the women were involved in noisily photographing each other with their cell phones as they posed with outrageous lingerie held in front of them or placed dildos upraised like horns behind each other's head. All but one of them were facing the front of the store when Kathy barged out of the back. The jubilant women could not help notice the look of shock and loss of facial color of the single woman facing the back of the store as she caught sight of Kathy. Each woman, in turn, turned around to look and caught sight of the apparition hobbling toward them on one shoe and with wildly disheveled clothing. Throughout the evening, the women had noticed men coming from the back of the store and whispering to other men, pointing to the back of the store. The women had wondered what the story was with the back of the store. "The story" was written prominently and clearly in the smeared makeup and drying cum stains covering Kathy's face and clothing. As the women stood open-mouthed watching her passage, Kathy, trying to salvage even a shred of dignity, murmured "excuse me" and walked head down through the scrum of women. Each turned as she passed and watched the retreating figure, who because one side of her skirt had gotten caught in her waistband, had one bare cheek exposed, perfect except for the marks of fingers which had minutes before been grasping it tightly. As Kathy pushed the door open, she glanced to the side and saw that the store clerk had resumed his station at the register. He gave her his most sickening smile and, affecting a fake hillbilly accent, said, "Y'all come back now, ya hear?" Face burning with anger and embarrassment, Kathy walked to her car, pulled the keys out of her pocket and sped away. It was only after driving quickly for ten minutes, looking in her rear view mirror to make sure that she was not being followed, that Kathy pulled over in a quiet residential neighborhood and permitted herself to cry about the ordeal she had just been through. The tears continued unabated for ten minutes, it was as if she were crying not only about the events of the evening but about everything bad that had happened to her and everyone else in the world. After essentially dehydrating herself with crying, Kathy sat trying to collect herself. She found some small consolation in the fact that, as relentlessly horrible as the evening had been, it could have been even worse. She was, at least, spared the pain and humiliation of being unceremoniously ass-fucked in the back room. What It Means To Miss New Orleans Ch. 02 As a lawyer, she knew that the events had turned to rape the second that she told the men that she wanted to stop. But as a lawyer, she also knew that proving that the events were non-consensual would be difficult and embarrassing. She found herself playing out the scenario the man in the store had set up and imagined herself going to the police station to report the crime. There would certainly be no problem collecting physical evidence, the greater problem would be a problem of too many DNA samples. But, physical evidence aside, she could not imagine the questioning that would occur even by a sympathetic police officer. She knew she would have to repeat her story multiple times and that the question that would be raised either explicitly or implicitly would be "Why were you there in the first place." And even assuming the police agreed to pursue the case, she could not imagine having to return to the state capitol for an untold number of grand jury presentations, hearings and individual trials, each of them attended by salacious courtwatchers, those old retired men who haunted the courthouses looking for titillating trials to watch. No, it seemed that any punishment these men would receive would have to come from some higher power, whether karma or God. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she found the two unused condoms which reminded her that she had had unprotected sex with an untold number of strangers. She remembered the comments of the man who, not satisfied with raping her, seemed intent on inseminating her also and decided that her first stop after a shower was a trip to the pharmacy to get a morning-after pill. Immediately upon her return home, she would go to be tested and, if necessary, treated for any sexually transmitted diseases. Finally she looked at her remaining clothes. This outfit had been special, the one that she wore for any special work occasion, the one she had worn that night in New Orleans. She could not imagine pointing out all of the stains to the kindly old man at the dry cleaners who would then dutifully attempt to mark each with a little sticker. And even if she were able to remove every stain, repair every tear, replace every button, she knew that the associations with these clothes were so overwhelmingly horrifying that she could never even consider wearing the outfit again. She would have to crumple them up in a bag and discard them as soon as she got back to the room. And so, as the evening that had started as being mildly depressing and turned into an unmitigated nightmare drew to an end, she found herself driving back to her lonely hotel room and terrible memories. Months passed before Kathy could even think about the events of that evening again. Although the bruises had faded and the test results revealed that she had, miraculously, avoided picking up any sexually transmitted disease, the event had been so traumatic that she avoided thinking about it at all for a long, long time. When she could finally bring herself to contemplate that disastrous evening, she found herself, as was her wont, analyzing the reasons that events had so quickly careened out of control and why it in no way resembled her expectations. There was no mystery about why the events that unfolded in the store room were so horrific and unpleasurable. She recalled the physical attack, but, most of all, remembered the constant verbal assault to which she was subjected by the men as they goaded themselves and each other on. It was not as if she were a stranger to foul language. In fact, one of her fondest memories was of a lover, ultimately separated from her because of a job transfer, who delighted in using the most explicit, foul language imaginable in bed. He loved to narrate what he planned to do to her, often using silly or bizarre images ("I'm going to suck your titties like a Dyson DC26 Vacuum Cleaner") and would then tease her by carrying out his threat or promise with excruciating slowness. He would continue to draw out the process until, adopting his style of speech, Kathy would urge him to "Do it to me, plow me like a field of winter wheat!). He was the first and only man who could make her cum and laugh at the same time. But his foul speech was nothing like that of the men in the store room. His was the product of humor and affection and the desire to please her. The men in the storeroom were completely uninterested in her as a person. At best, to them she was a source of friction, something warm to get themselves off on or in. At worst, she was something into which they could pump their anger and frustration at women or the world as a whole. She became the surrogate for every suburban woman in a Lexus who pulled into the service station in which they worked and rudely demanded that they fill the tank, or every girl who turned down their request for a date in high school and then ran to tell their friends laughing about the loser who had dared to ask them out, or, even worse, every woman who never noticed them at all. Kathy's story, her modest upbringing, her difficult upbringing, the financial difficulties she faced paying back enormous school loans with the salary from a low-paying public interest job, were of no interest to them. She was not an individual, fellow human being but a symbol of things they hated and she would be made to pay. No, it was no surprise that the storeroom had been a bad experience. But why was her time in the booth so unsatisfying? That was something that she had worked herself up into being excited about before hand, only to have it disappoint her. It could not have been the anonymity, the two men she had served in the French Quarter alley that night, the most exciting night of her life, were complete strangers who she would be unable to pick out in a line-up. Why was one so exciting and the other as sensual as filling up her car's gas tank. And then she realized that the difference was the presence of Steve. She remembered how fond she had grown of him and how quickly that fondness had arisen. She remembered carefully watching his response as she went down on him and, later, on the two other men. It was his obvious excitement at what transpired rather than their pleasure that she most valued. And the fact that his interest would have continued in spite of what he had seen touched her even more. What she missed from New Orleans was not the sex but the connection she made with Steve. Realizing this, Kathy's subsequent fantasies altered to emphasize Steve's role. She focused more on what had occurred in her hotel room and, when she dared to fantasize about things which had not actually happened, imagined a life together with him. These thoughts were so attractive to her that she found herself thinking of Steve more and more until he was in her thoughts anytime she wasn't concentrating on some other specific task. He became like the screen saver for her life. All the while, the regret for her refusal to see Steve again grew and grew. It was of Steve that that she was thinking one evening when she had stayed late at the office to complete a brief. She was tired of sitting at her desk writing and decided to take a brief walk through Grand Central Station to a Chinese restaurant to pick up take-out food which she could eat at her desk while working. As she walked by the information booth in the main hall, she was surprised by what she saw when she looked up. At first, she thought that she had been thinking of Steve so much that she had somehow conjured him up there in the station. Sure that she was just mistaking someone else for him, she quickened her pace. As she got closer, she realized that it was him. His eyes were sweeping the room as if he were looking for someone. Then he turned toward her and a wide grin burst across his face and he raised his arms. She quickened her pace even more until she felt something brush against her, a woman running. She ran past Kathy, and leapt into Steve's arms as he spun around her blissfully. Kathy, stung by the fact that his smile had not been for her but for another, much younger, woman, turned on her heel and veered away from the two. Kathy though, "Well for once, fate was on my side. I was just spared what would have been a very embarrassing scene." The old saying, timing is everything, is particularly popular among stand-up comedians and people who juggle fire. But it applies equally to us all. Kathy thought that timing had been her friend, for once, but fate had actually treated her cruelly yet again. Had she arrived at the scene just two minutes earlier, Steve would have greeted her enthusiastically and told her that the woman for whom he was waiting, the one who appeared young enough to be his daughter, was in fact his daughter meeting her beloved father for their annual New York weekend together. Steve would have told Kathy about seeing her legislative testimony, how well she spoke and how beautiful she had been, just like now. He would have told her that she was on his mind all of the time and that, now that they were being given another chance, he didn't care what had been said and what happened in New Orleans. He would have declared his certainty that they were meant to be together and that he would not take no for an answer. On the other hand, had she arrived two minutes later, she might have overheard the exchange that actually occurred between Steve and his daughter. The two had developed a standard greeting, one of the many little rituals that drew them closer together. Steve greeted his daughter, "How's my favorite lady in the world." She answered, as she always did, "I'm perfect. So have you found a second favorite lady yet?" Normally, Steve would have replied, "No, I'm too ugly, mean and old for anyone other than you to love." This time, though, a wistful look crossed his face, and he said, "Well actually, I did meet someone in New Orleans . . ." His daughter, slightly jealous but primarily concerned about his happiness said "Great! When do I get to meet her, I assume it's a her unless you've given up on women after you and mom got divorced." Steve just said, "It's complicated," and grew silent. His daughter, ever attuned to his emotions knew that it was time to change the subject and told him about the latest scandal between her high school friends in order to distract him from the gloom that had suddenly descended on him. But since Kathy was neither two minutes earlier or two minutes later she had no inkling that each of them felt the same and every bit as strongly about each other as they did. So, she returned to her office and gazed out of the window wondering how things might have been different as her untouched broccoli and brown rice grew cold on her desk.