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April's Fool

By: geronimo_appleby



Foreword

Well, these April Fool themes are a little difficult to find. Coming up with ideas for something different [I hope] takes some doing.

Anyway, here's one which isn't set on April Fools' Day itself, but which I hope encompasses some of the elements involved.

April isn't a happy lady, and she's in for a surprise...

The scene which follows is in the Non-E category 'cause there's no rude stuff in it. I hope it manages to entertain a few readers nonetheless.

Feedback would be appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

GA -- Da Nang, Vietnam -- 7th of March 2015.

One

"No, I'm not going with you. You know I can't stand her."

Simon looks at his wife and sees the curl of her lip. His fingers flex -- it would be so easy to slap her one. He allows himself a quick fantasy: April's shocked face if he just punched her in the mouth.

He doesn't do it. Simon merely sighs, defeated by years of April's obdurate petulance. "Yes, April, I know. But she's my mother. It's been a long time. I've got to go. I thought you might, just this once--?"

April waves a hand. It's a dismissive gesture, her mouth a moue of disdain. "Well she's not my mother." She pauses and looks at Simon. "I hope you're taking holiday," April sneers. "You're going to get paid for the time off, aren't you?"

The muscles in Simon's jaw tense. "Money? Is that it, April?" His arms flap by his sides. Simon shrugs, throat working, his eyes imploring when he adds, "Please, April ... Please come with me. I want you to--"

April rolls her eyes. "Don't be so soft," she sneers. "I'll be bored shitless. I hate it down there, Simon." She regards her husband with cold, dispassionate eyes. It's like she's studying a scientific specimen. Following a long pause and a deep sigh of her own, April shakes her head and breathes, "What happened to you, Simon? You used to be such a man. Where did he go?"

Reasons well up in Simon's mind. He has answers, lots of answers, but he knows his wife wouldn't want to hear. Anyway, if she did listen she'd only have some counter-argument of her own. April would give him one of her withering looks, emasculating him with her scorn while she made it All ... His ... Fault.

"You know, April," Simon breathes, the fight in him fading. "I don't know where that bloke has gone. I wonder where the April I used to know went, too." He would have added more, would have thrown her infidelities in her face - challenged with her deception, but he's too worn out to fight.

And what was the point?

Simon shrugs again, turning away. Resigned, he mumbles, "I'll get some stuff together and be off."

"Yeah," scoffs April. "Missing you already."

It takes less than fifteen minutes to pack.

April is sitting in the tiny living room, smoking. The television flickers with some mindless 6 p.m. gameshow. Simon pauses, looking in at her from the hallway. It's a matter of a few steps from the living room doorway to the front door. He dimly registers Bradley Walsh on the screen.

"Are you sure you won't come with me, April?"

She turns a slack, indifferent face towards her husband. April's reply is dull and listless: "No, I'm not coming."

Simon hauls the rucksack to his shoulder. He stares at his wife, who ignores him, the cigarette going to her lips, her eyes fixed on Bradley. April inhales deeply and then ejects a dragon's breath from her nose.

"Okay. See ya," Simon murmurs.

There's no reply before the front door clicks shut behind him.

April gives it ten minutes, smoking two more cigarettes. She rises and moves to the hallway, throwing a glance at the door. Standing there she pulls a mobile phone from the pocket of the man's shirt she's wearing.

"It's me," she says when her lover answers. "He's gone away for a few days." April giggles, her face breaking into a beaming smile. Suddenly she's beautiful again. "I was wondering," she breathes. "Would you like some company?"

Two

Adam Brookes watches her as she walks from the bed towards the ensuite. He settles back into the pillow, hands behind his head. He thinks it's a pity he has to end it. The affair has run its course and she's got to go, but he'll leave it until the morning before breaking the news to April. Lying there, he listens to her water tinkling into the bowl. He pictures her sitting on the seat, his resurgent erection thickening. Adam strokes himself and smirks, his mind filling with thoughts of the night ahead.

The toilet flushes and the sound of April washing her hands comes to him. Then she's back, smile feline when she sees his fist slowly working his length.

"You here for the entire night?" Adam asks, his eyes moving over voluptuous curves.

April shrugs, feigning nonchalance. "You want me to be?" Her attention focuses on Adam's busy hand. "It isn't a problem. I had a text. He's on the train. Simon won't know anything."

"You're a bitch, April," Adam says, chuckling. "A cold-hearted bitch."

April's eyes flash fire. She stands at the foot of the bed, fists on her hips. "He's such a fucking wimp. He's such a fool. You know, I don't think he'd even be bothered if he caught us fucking."

Adam's smirk slips from his face at the vehemence in the woman's tone. He blinks.

"I can't believe he was ever a Royal Marine," April adds, grimacing. "Talk about cheated. I thought I was marrying a fucking hero ... Now he's a fucking bus driver." She sweeps an arm to encompass the opulence of Adam's bedroom. "This room is as big as the whole floor area of our house," April pouts. She regards Adam with a petulant moue twisting her lips. "I married him because I thought I was in love ... I thought he'd take me away from this shithole and we'd travel to exotic places.

"But what was it really like? He was always away on some fucking course or other. I was left in a crappy house in fucking Plymouth -- alone for weeks and months at a time surrounded by moronic wives who thought the sun shone out of their husbands' arses.

"It was fucking shite, Adam. But," April cries, waving her arms, "what happens next!?"

She eyes her lover as though expecting Adam to furnish a response.

Adam gawps back at her, wide-eyed with surprise at the unexpected rant.

"Uh- I dunno, April," he shrugs.

"He gets out," April informs him. "He leaves it and we come back here and he gets a job driving a bus. This is where I end up -- back in the town I was fucking born in 'cause Simon thinks it's what I want.

"I'm forty-two, Adam," April snaps, bitterly. "My husband's a bus driver and we owe forty thousand on a two-bed terrace in this shit-tip of a town. Fifteen years I've been with the pathetic bastard ... Fifteen fucking years."

The reminder of her husband's military past makes Adam gulp. He's always been slightly afraid of the fact, imagining a steely-eyed killer with lethal weapons instead of hands coming at him one day. Supressing a shiver of anxiety he tries to make light of it all. He can't be arsed with the spoilt bitch's whining any more. It's one of the reasons he's going to ditch her in the morning.

Forty-two, Adam thinks. Still got the looks and the body but they're on the turn. Another five years and you'll be a faded, jaded fat old toilet, April.

A sudden image of April with sagging jowls and tits to her stomach pops unbidden into Adam's head. He sees her as she might be: scrounging smokes off men in pubs, flaunting a crepe décolletage and an arse the size of a small country at them while rasping a phlegmy laugh. She's pissed on cheap vodka and desperate for affection, sucking them off in the toilets so they'll like her and buy her drinks.

His erection deflates like a leaky balloon.

"You want a drink?" Adam asks in an attempt at deflection, deciding April is definitely history.

"Don't you want another little fuck?" April pouts, lisping in a little-girl voice. "You were big and hard a minute ago."

Adam's tongue feels gloopy and too big for his mouth. It touches his palette and he swallows, distaste for April foul and lingering like a shit sandwich he's been forced to take a good bite out of, his mind polluted by the prescient scene of the future April still in his head.

"I could use a drink," he snaps, wondering if he could get rid of her sooner. Suddenly, spending the night with her has lost its appeal. Intentionally cruel, he adds, "Why don't you fuck off downstairs and get me a gin and tonic, April? Make yourself useful."

Adam sees the retort forming on her lips. There's a flash of ire behind her eyes, but he knows inherent avarice will keep her mouth shut.

"Okay," April warbles, bottom lip quivering.

He sees her eyes glistening on the brink of tears and immediately feels bad for his mean thoughts and harsh tone.

"Why don't you pour yourself something and then come back to bed," Adam sighs.

She's passive and grateful when she warbles, "Thu-thanks."

Adam watches April's bottom jiggle when she pads barefoot from the room. The feminine shape of her is a tonic to his cock. April has something which draws him in, and despite his aversion for her as a person he thinks he can manage one more night after all.

He drifts, thoughts softening, impressions furring at the periphery while he floats in the never-never between sleep and consciousness. Time is meaningless, amorphous and completely unreal. He dreams of April as she was when he first met her, her physical appeal and insatiable appetite for sex blinding him to her faults.

The things she was willing to do for a gift or some cash...

Inside Adam's head, April is just about to take him between her lips. She's on her knees where he likes her, breasts shivering while she jacks at him, her mouth opening.

Then something blows the cloud away and Adam levers upright. He blinks, confused, heart accelerating for no discernible reason other than his reaction to ... something.

He hears shuffling on the stairs. A strange muffled mewling sound reaches him.

Adam doesn't know what to make of it, but it definitely isn't right. He hesitates, sphincter loosening, a fart rasping out.

The thought occurs: April's husband! Simon is here. He knows -- he fucking knows!

Flinging back the covers, his feet make contact with the carpet at the same instant April appears at the door. Adam blinks, too shocked to make sense of it.

"ON YOUR FRONT!" a man bellows at him. "NOW, YOU CUNT! GET ON YOUR STOMACH. DON'T FUCKIN' SIT THERE!"

Adam registers a black balaclava, blue eyes, and dark clothing. He sees the pink glisten of the man's open mouth, the lips moving while the awful voice booms at him -- slaps him with its ferocity.

April's eyes are huge and terrified. Her hands are bound in front of her, a cloth gag of some kind shoved into her mouth. She's keening and groaning, blubbering as tears stream.

Adam sees the knife, a dagger the man waves about while his free hand has a tight hold on a length of twine looped round April's neck.

"Get on the fuckin' bed, bitch," the intruder snarls, his accent a harsh and grating to Adam's ears.

Scottish ... Glaswegian? Then the vague question of the intruder's nationality evaporates when April yelps, the cry muffled around her gag.

She stumbles, falling onto the bed when the masked man gives her a rough shove in the back.

Adam is mindless to the squirt of piss jetting from him when the man waves the knife at him and yells, "I told ya, ya cunt ... "ON YOUR FUCKIN' FRONT!" The maniac advances, knife raised. "Stop fuckin' eyeballin' me, ya bastard. Close your fuckin' eyes and roll over. Do it. Do it fuckin' NOW!"

The sheet is soaked with Adam's terror as he complies. "Oh God," he whimpers. "Don't hurt me. Please..."

"Shut your snivelling," the man snarls at him, while to April he says, "You shut your hole an'all, ya whining bitch. He regards Adam again, then barks, "Put your fuckin' arms behind your back."

Adam cranes round, neck twisting as he looks at the man. "Wuh-what?" he blubs. "Why?"

"You look at me again and I'll pop your eyeballs with this fucker." He holds up the knife. "Now, shut up and shove your hands behind you."

Adam's breathing is harsh and loud as he reluctantly obeys. He gulps and moans when the bed dips and he feels the man's weight next to him. Before he can comprehend what's happening, Adam quickly bound by a length of washing line cut from the rotary in his own back garden.

"Is there anyone else in the house?" the man asks, grunting as he grabs a handful of Adam's hair. "Tell me, ya fucker ... Is there anyone else here?"

"Nuh-no," Adam yelps, scalp stinging.

"Just you an' the tart, is it? You sure there's nobody else." Hot breath wafts over the back of Adam's neck. He gags on the stench of cigarette's and stale beer. "Tell me the truth or I'll jab this blade into your kidneys."

"I swear," Adam whines as his sphincter threatens the ultimate humiliation. "It's just us," he gasps.

The man deftly ties Adam's feet and then moves around the room. "Where's your moby?" he asks.

Adam doesn't understand. "What?"

"Your mobile-fucking-phone. Where is it? I dinna want either of yuoz calling the police." He pronounces the word poh-liss, emphasising his concern with the sharp point of the knife resting against Adam's left buttock.

"In my trouser pocket!" shrieks Adam. "Uh-over there on the chair."

"Hers too. Where's her fuckin' moby?"

Adam moans in relief when the man moves off him. "I ... uh ... I think it's downstairs," he gasps.

"Okay. Now, you just lie there for a wee spell. You move and I'll slice your fuckin' balls off."

A minute passes. Adam lies on the bed while April sobs and snuffles next to him. He sucks in deep breaths, mind racing.

"Is that your husband?" he eventually croaks.

Pain immediately flares in his back. At first he's sure he's been stabbed, but soon realises it was a punch - a hard one.

"Naw," the man said. "I ain't her fuckin' husband."

Adam sucks in air while the area over his right kidney throbs.

"But I wouldnae mind a go on her, like. Nice big titties she's got on her, eh?"

The voice comes closer, the man's breath making Adam gag.

"Now, I thought I told you not to fuckin' move," the intruder hisses. "That goes for talkin', too. Keep your mouth shut and your fuckin' eyes closed. There's a good lad, eh. Any more nonsense an' I'll beat you black and fuckin' blue.

"Got it, ya cunt?" the man asks, slapping the back of Adam's head.

Shocked at the violence, Adam daren't move while the sounds of general ransacking come from different points in the house. Jesus -- What's he going to do to me?

Three

She's in the kitchen when the loop of clothes line slips over her head. The shock if it immobilises April. It's so unexpected and so unbelievable she can't register what's going on.

She gasps, stunned, then the twine bites into her neck and she feels a weight press against her back.

The first coherent thought is he's going to rape her. She's naked and vulnerable and scared stiff.

"Not a fuckin' sound," April hears, the words hissing into her ear on a wave of foetid breath.

She gags and reaches for the rope around her neck.

"Not a sound and don't move," the man whispers, pulling tight. Then the knife appears. He's extended one arm to show her the blade. "I dinna wanna hurt you. I'm only here on the rob, but if you make it fuckin' difficult--"

April moans when she sees the evil glint of the blade winking at her.

"I'll slice a piece off your face if you give me any shite. Hear me, ya cunt?" He emphasises the last with another jerk on the cord.

"Oh God," April whines. "Please--"

She's shoved forward, gasping when she hits the kitchen table with the front of her thighs.

"Not another sound, bitch."

He's quick, and before April fully realises it she's gagged, hands bound in front her. April is closed down frighteningly fast. She moans, scared out of her wits -- it's all so dark and sinister. That knife!

Then she's being pushed up the stairs. April can hear herself keening, but can't stop herself.

They reach the bedroom and it's all suddenly chaotic.

There's shouting right in her ear, bellowed commands before she's shoved hard from behind. Reeling, April hits the bed, bouncing. She hears questions about mobile phones, rolling closer to Adam during the mayhem. The mattress is wet and she vaguely wonders why, then Adam yelps in pain after asking the absurd question about the psycho being her husband.

There's some more to-and-fro and then she's hears the man rummaging around elsewhere.

April struggles against her bonds.

"April, for fuck's sake," she hears Adam grunt. "Don't try anything. Just let him take what he wants. Don't make it worse. He's got that knife, April--"

She rails, seething with anger and frustration. What is it with these men? Simon and Adam -- they don't have a pair between them. If she got free she'd claw the Scottish bastard's eyes out. She'd show them; she'd blind the wanker and stamp on his balls.

Is that piss she's lying in?

"April," Adam hisses again.

Then the terror is icy cold in her veins when she hears, "Yeah, April. You should listen to him. Stop your fuckin' wrigglin'."

***

He doesn't object when April squirms around and backheels herself semi-upright, her shoulders against the headboard.

April sees him sitting in the tub chair. He's taken it from near the window and placed it in a corner where he can watch the pair on the bed while also keeping an eye on the door.

He's looking at her tits and nodding.

"So," the man drawls, leering. "You two up to a bit of naughty, eh?"

Adam wriggles until he's on his side. He's facing April, but can see the intruder from the corner of his eye.

"Yuh-you've got what you wanted, haven't you?" he stammers. "Cuh-can't you leave us alone now?"

His eyes go to Adam.

The man's head tilts as he says, "Naw, I want you r credit cards. Debit, too ... If you're naw too posh for 'em. You got debit cards, eh?"

"You can have all of them if you'll go -- Now."

The intruder tut-tuts and shakes his head. "What's the rush?" His chin nudges towards April. "I'm enjoyin' the view." He leans forward, elbows on his knees while pointing with the knife. "And I'll leave when I'm good and fuckin' ready. He settles back in his seat and adds, "Who knows, I might hang about for a day or two. See if me an' the lady can't get better acquainted." He leers at April and winks. "What about it, hen?"

Sounds come from April. It's obvious she's seething while she wriggles and glares at the masked intruder.

The intruder lunging upright stills April instantly. She's all rabbit-eyed and anxious as he approaches, muffled pleas coming around her gag.

April squeals and Adam gasps a breathless, "No." when the man raises the knife.

"I'm cuttin' the fuckin' gag away, you thick shite. Stop your fussin' and wrigglin' about. You wouldnae want me to slip and cut yer face by accident, hen, eh?"

He chuckles and slips the point of the blade beneath the cloth binding in April's mouth. A quick flick of the knife and April spits the sodden binding away.

"You pig," she gasps, eyes fiery pits of loathing. "You bastard. You absolute wanker."

"Fuckin' hell," the man grins, stepping back. "You must know my missis! She's got the same opinion." He chuckles and goes back to his chair.

"Let me go," April hisses, struggling, an exercise in futility.

He watches her for a few seconds. "Naw, I reckon I'll keep you tied up." He settles into his seat, the knife loose in his hand as splinters of ice flicker in his cold gaze. "An' I'll tell you what. Why don't you shut your fuckin' yap?"

His tone matches the steel in his hand and April shuts up.



April's Fool



"Now," he continues, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Tell me ... are the two of youz..." he points the knife at each in turn. "Are the two of youz doin' the dirty? Did I hear it right? Did you ask if I wuz her old man?"

"I ... We ... Uh..." Adam babbles.

"That's none of your business," April interjects, indignation superseding her fear.

The man nods, grimacing, apparently chastened. He pauses for a few rapid beats. "Well, yeah, I suppose you're right, eh? But I was just wonderin' ... If you're givin' it to him," the knifepoint moves to Adam like a compass needle. "Mebbe's you wouldnae mind givin' me a go, too?"

April's throat works. "Oh," she mewls. "Please don't rape me."

"Rape?" His tone is astonished. "Me? Who said anythin' about rape, luv?" His head shakes side-to-side. "Ah'm naw a fuckin' rapist, pet." He grins and shrugs, blue eyes gleaming inside the cut-out holes of the balaclava. "Naw, I was just thinkin' you might be a bit free between the legs. Ah'm lookin' at you and I like what I see. You're a bonnie lookin' woman." He squeezes his groin with his free hand, an action that brings a wince and a whimper from April'. "You never know," he adds, smirking. "You might enjoy it, hen. I hear some women get off on danger -- an' ah'm a right dangerous bastard. Waddya say? How about me an' you show this ponce what it's about?"

He watches them both, guffawing when he sees their faces. "Jesus, look at you two!" Still shaking his head, amused, he clicks his tongue and winks at April. "You sure you don't want a little ride with me, hen?"

Then he stands and places the knife on the seat.

April quivers when he approaches, the man pulling off his gloves.

"Adam," she whines, focussing on the crude swallow tattoos on the webs of the man's hands between forefinger and thumbs. "Adam, help me," moans April.

"What can I do, April?" Adam gasps. "Just what is it you expect me to do? I'm tied up here, you know."

LOVE and HATE confront her, crude prison ink on the man's knuckles as he looms over April, fingers reaching for her breasts.

"Please," she gasps, chest hitching as the sobs overwhelm her. "Oh God..."

"Only messin'," the intruder smirks, levering upright. He sneers at April and then throws her a contemptuous look. "I don't think I'd wanna touch a slut like you, missis. You're a good lookin' woman an' all that, but you strike me as bit of a cunt all the same.

"Naw," he continues, shaking his head. "I wouldnae risk puttin' me cock into an' old slag like you."

From somewhere Adam finds some backbone. "Don't talk to her like that," he gasps.

The man's head whips round.

Abruptly dangerous again he rasps, "Why not? What're you gonna do to shut me up?"

He moves away to the chair and grabs the knife. Seconds later, serpent-quick, he's at Adam's side of the bed.

"Shit! No!" Adam yelps. "Please...

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything." He writhes about, blubbing while squirting little bursts of piss over himself. "Please," he sobs, on his back, genitalia a shrivelled giblet.

"Hold still, ya great jessie. I'm naw gonna cut ya." The man cuffs Adam's head. "Stop your fuckin' carry-on. All ahm doin' is cuttin' the rope."

Adam snuffles. His chest hitches while he stares up at his assailant. "Wuh-why?" he moans, blinking, snot bubbles frothing at his nostrils. Fear at this new twist curdles in his watery guts.

The knife does its work and Adam is surprised to find his bindings cut.

Without a word, the man moves away and places the knife on the chair.

"Okay, gobshite," he purrs, turning to face the bed. "You're free." He beckons to Adam, a come-on flick of his fingers. "Get up, wanker. Get off the bed and make me shut up about that slag cunt next to you. You want a go at me, eh?" The man gestures to himself, pointing at his own chest with a forefinger. "Now's your chance."

His contemptuous smirk fixes on April for a second or two before he continues with a sneer. "Show the ... lady. Be her shinin'-fuckin'-knight."

Expression feral, April hisses at her lover. "Do it, Adam ... Go on. He's half your size. Go on, Adam," she urges, straining at the ropes around her wrists. "Be a bloody man!"

"But I'm naked," Adam squeaks. "I ... I can't."

The man scoffs and taunts April with, "He's no fuckin' hero, eh, hen? You sure you don't wanna come away with me? I'll show you what a real man is made of."

"Fuck off," April snaps.

The gloves go back on quickly. The man is at the bedside before April can gasp. She yelps when he hauls her up by the hair, his arm going back, fist raised, leather gloves creaking with the strain.

"How about now?" he hisses at Adam. "What about if I punch this gobby cunt's teeth down her fuckin' neck, Adam?"

Adam trembles, immobile. He's on his side, mouth working while he gapes up at the terrible threat at the opposite side of the bed.

April sobs and closes her eyes, braced for a blow which never lands. Instead, she gasps when the gloved fingers caress her cheek.

She blurts a sob when the burning in her scalp eases.

"Credit cards," the man says.

The random comment confuses Adam while April blubbers and groans and adds to the chaos inside his head.

With Adam reeling, the intruder confronts April. "Oh, hen, give us a smile," he quips, pulling off one glove before fishing a mobile phone from a pocket. "Just a little souvenir," he grins from the foot of the bed. He winks and takes several pictures, then slips the phone back from whence it came. "Mebbe I'll have a little wank and think about fuckin' my cock between your big tits, April," he smirks before blurting a nasty laugh and adding, "I can just see you with a pearl necklace."

Then, all business again he points at Adam and says, "Get up, knob-cheese. I want all the cash you have." He eyes Adam and adds a menacing, "I wanna see the safe, too. And don't gimme any shite about there not being a safe." He glances around the bedroom, his focus going to a framed print on one wall. "A place this size ... There has to be a safe. Rich arses like you always have loot stashed away."

"Cuh-can I put some trousers on?" Adam warbles.

The man shrugs. "Yeah," he says. "And a shirt. You'll need 'em anyway 'cause you an' me are going for a wee drive."

His face slack, eyes round, Adam gasps, "What? Wuh-where?"

"To a cash machine. You'll cancel the cards as soon as I'm gone, eh? So you an' me are gonna take a drive. You can get me some cash outta the cash machine and I'll be away." He looks around again, quickly scanning the room. "Now," he says, pointing the blade at Adam, who's still on the bed. "Off your arse, put some clothes on and then make me a happy man."

"What about me?" April whines.

"You can lie there and dream about me, hen." The man pauses and then grins. "Or mebbe you'd like to come along? We could dump this toss-pot here an' have a good time." He eyes April with a lascivious leer. "I didn't mean it before. I was lyin' when I said I wouldn't poke me cock into you. You're fuckin' lovely. I wouldn't mind a bit."

"Go with you?" hisses April, the fight back in her. "I can't think of anything that disgusts me more."

Apparently unconcerned, the man pouts and says, "You don't like me, do you?" He sighs and feigns emotional anguish, clutching a hand over his heart. "I'm crushed, hen; really hurt. I thought we could have a bit of a time of it. You know -- drinkin', dancin' ... Shaggin'.

"I just don't get it," he continues, shaking his head, focus going from April to Adam and back again. "Unless it's his money? Is that it, April? You turn me down -- and I'm guaranteeing you the best shag of your life." The man leers at April, winking again as he clicks his tongue. "But you're spreading your legs for him? For this fuckin' posh fuckin' wanker?" The knife point goes to Adam again, jabbing to punctuate the end of the sentence.

"Are you not getting dressed?" the man says to Adam.

"What will you do when you've got what you want?" Adam asks.

The balaclava cants to one side. "Have a piss-up ... Mebbe get meself a woman ... Or two."

"I meant," Adam gulps. "I meant, what will you do with me? With us?"

"Fuck-all. You get me a few grand and I'll be off."

A sigh comes out of Adam. He blinks at the man, throat working. "Honest?" he croaks.

"Scout's honour."

A shrill cry from April. "What?" she yips, squirming to look at her lover. "You believe him? Are you mad, Adam?" The woman nudges her chin towards the masked man. "He's a thief and a bully," she splutters, indignant, rising ire making her reckless regardless of the knife. "He sneaks into people's homes and terrifies them. He's nothing but nasty, horrible parasite. You can't believe him, Adam. Don't give him anything. Call his bluff. He hasn't got the balls to hurt us. Not really."

Surprisingly, the man nods. "A fair assessment," he says. "I'll go along with the thief bit. I'm not too happy with the bully part, though," he adds, tone thoughtful. "Oh aye, I ken me popping up wielding this fuck-off knife scares the shite outta people. But that's kinda necessary. Otherwise it'd be mayhem. I gotta have some leverage or else nobody's gonna take me seriously."

April, however, isn't having any of it. "You're a gutless, sneaky, thieving bastard," she spits.

Adam is horrified. "April, just shut up, will you. He's said he'll let us go unharmed. Shut up, please."

But April is flying. Her contempt knows no limits. "You!" she shrieks. "I'm laid in piss because you're a bloody coward. Look at you," she scoffs. "Too bloody scared to move. You're free, if you wanted to...

"If you had any bollocks at all you'd be up and fighting him. You had your chance, too. He put the knife down and gave you the opportunity.

"But what do you do, Adam?" April cries, eyes rolling. "You lie there and whinge on about being naked. About how you can't stand up and fight.

"What is it?" she says, the rant rolling on. "I've got a useless drip for a husband and a sad, soft-dicked tosser for a lover. What did I ever do wrong to deserve this?"

"Jesus, mate," says the intruder to Adam when April finally stops. "She must be a great shag. I dunno how you can put up with such a whinging cunt." He blurts a laugh, mouth twisted into a mocking smirk, his tone matching as he adds, "And you're not even married to her? You picked a right one there, didn't you? Mebbe you should keep the gag and use it next time you're poking her."

Without realising it, Adam blurts, "There wasn't going to be a next time. I was going to end it."

The silence stretches. Time is elastic while the man waits for a response from April, the woman herself gaping at Adam, her jaw hanging in surprise.

It goes on. April's mouth works but nothing comes out.

Then she explodes.

Four

April's fool is sitting in the bar of a hotel near London's Gatwick Airport. He has a pint of some kind of fancy-name lager in front of him. He picks the glass up and sips, smiling when he sees a man enter. He lifts a hand in acknowledgment. The man sees him and smiles in return, waving as he makes his way to Simon's table.

"Good evening, Simon," the man says, his diction English Home Counties. "Can I get you another?"

Simon shakes his head and indicates the chair opposite. "I'll get you one," he says. "Sit down, Paul."

"Very kind," says Paul as he pulls the chair away from the table. "But I suppose you can afford it now, eh?"

Simon grins and nods. "Yeah," he drawls. "So, what's your poison these days, Paul?"

Paul's lower lip curls out. He nudges his chin at Simon's beer. "What's that like?"

Shrugging, Simon replies: "Fizzy yellow piss."

They both laugh.

Paul grins. "In that case ... Gin and tonic. Bombay sapphire," he adds when Simon rises.

A few minutes later Paul sips and closes his eyes, leaning back in his chair.

His eyes snap open. "So," he says, "you're off?"

Simon nods. "Yep."

Paul takes another sip, eying his friend. "Sorry about the missis."

Simon shrugs. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Does she know about the money yet?"

Simon shrugs. "I sent a letter. She's probably got it by now."

Wincing and pouting, eyes closed as though warding off a physical blow, Paul says, "I'd love to see her face when she reads it."

Simon chuckles. "I'd not get too close. Not unless she was in a cage." He looks at the man opposite, expression suddenly altered. Simon pouts and says, "She had her chance, Paul."

"She did, yes. But I don't know why you'd just walk away and give her the house. I'd leave her without a bean. I don't know how you stuck her for so long," Paul sighs, looking at his friend. "I can't imagine me being so bloody patient." Paul shakes his head. "All those other men--"

Simon's throat works. He grimaces, face warming while holding up a hand. "Yeah, okay. I know." He examines the silver plate fixed to the table-top, his fingers tracing the number 11 embossed into its face. "You think you're clear of it?" he asks.

"What, with those two?"

Simon nods.

Paul shrugs and grins. "Well," he says, "first off they'll be looking for a mad jock with blue eyes. I wore the contacts, Simon." He bats his eyelids in an exaggerated Hollywood starlet fashion, eyes going wide to show Simon green irises. "Ya ken, Simon? A loud-mouthed cunt with tattoos on his hands!" Paul adds, raising his voice and winking. He holds up fists devoid of ink, the LOVE and HATE washed off.

"It was classic, Simon," Paul grins, rueful as he shakes his head. "I wish I'd filmed the lot. He pissed himself. And when he let it out he was going to dump April anyway..."

Simon holds up a hand. "Spare me the details, mate. I don't want to know."

"I got some pictures of April," Paul reveals, expression feral. "You know," he adds, smirking. "I might have a crack at her ... If you don't mind, of course."

Simon snorts a laugh. "You don't change, do you?"

"Cracking set on her, Simon," the man grins. "A few hours tumbling about in bed with your wife ... soon to be ex wife," he amends. "I wouldnae mind a long ride on her," Paul continues, slipping into role.

Simon's shoulder lifts. "Be my guest. But be careful, Paul."

"Where you going?" Paul asks, changing the subject. "Somewhere she can't chase you for the money? Three million quid, mate? She's bound to come after you."

"Belize to start," Simon informs his friend. "Then, after that, I'm going to drift."

Paul nods, a moue of approval pursing his lips. "Belize, eh?" he says, eyes glazing as he slips back a decade. "Some mental piss-ups there, eh?"

"Different life back then, mate," says Simon.

"Good life," Paul agrees. "Great lads."

"Special Forces treating you all right, Paul?"

Paul nods. "Can't complain. You never should have left Royal because of her you know."

Simon sucks in a breath and takes a deep swallow of his beer. "Yeah, yeah, my mother said the same."

"How is your mum?"

Simon grins. "Fit as a fiddle, mate. Thanks. Look," he adds, "can't I give you some money for doing it?"

Paul grimaces. "No need, old chap. I got quite a substantial sum off your wife's friend." He grins. "Nowhere near a lottery win -- well, not in your league, but--" He grins and gulps his drink. "I'd better get off," he says, rising to his feet. "Send me a postcard from wherever."

Simon watches his friend walk away, mixed emotions turbulent inside him.

Near the door, Paul halts and turns. "I'll give your wife a kiss when I see her," he smirks. 



April's Fool



This one's a change for me. It's in a different category than my previous work. And it's currently a one-off short story. I see some potential in it for more—either elaboration or continuation—but I haven't decided yet whether I'll do either.

I value your comments and feedback. Circumstances permitting, I'll respond to either—eventually.

—CarlusMagnus

+ + + + +

The Norns had woven the web of my weird, and there could be no escape. She walked into my classroom on the first day of classes in August of 1994. She caught my eye immediately. 

I didn't know, then, that my doom had come upon me. I didn't even suspect. It was a first-semester advanced calculus class of about twenty students. I was to be the professor; she was to be one of my students. I was fifty; she was twenty-three. I was a stuffy, pompous, foolish, middle-aged (to be charitable) man; she was a vibrant, unaffected, judicious young woman. 

It was her body that attracted me, naturally. (Double meaning fully intended.) I've just admitted to being an old fool, and what could be more foolish than for a mathematics professor of nearly thirty years' experience teaching to allow the physical attributes of one of his female students to influence him?

An academic I am and have always been, but my experience did extend to things outside the ivory tower—including women. I was a mathematician, not a monk. Nor was I a saint—certainly not a saint! 

There had been young women when I myself was young and a student, and there had been older women when I myself was older. Some of those women were beautiful; some of them not. Some of them I'd bedded; some of them not. Some of them I'd loved; some of them not. Some of them had loved me; some of them not. The four divisions hadn't been the same, needless to say. Except maybe for the last two. When I was younger, those two had lined up with each other almost perfectly—but the wrong way!

I'd been married to the one exception to that alignment at the beginning of my academic career—back when I was a young Ph.D. Married briefly. Disastrously. Oh, we'd been deeply in love with each other—before that marriage, and during it. And, sad to say—indeed, almost too sad for words—after it. That we loved each other had made our breakup exquisitely painful for us both. In spite of the pain—or maybe because of it—our settlement had been amicable. In fact, I still lived in the house that she and I had bought early in that ill-starred marriage. As part of that settlement, I took sole possession in return for a few years' monthly payments to compensate her for her share of the small equity we'd built in it.

But the only other good thing either of us could say about that divorce was that there were no children whose lives our disaster would blight.

She'd needed more from me than I could supply. I was a young man dedicated to an academic life—a life of doing research in an obscure and esoteric corner of mathematics. Research, essential for earning tenure, requires devotion—even more devotion than a spouse requires. As it turned out, my mathematics didn't leave enough of me for a wife.

There had been other women after the divorce, but there'd been no more love—not on my part, anyway. I had discovered, back when I was a graduate student, that university language departments (particularly, and fittingly, the Romance language departments!) were full of single—and libidinous—women. It was a discovery that had served me well as a young man and continued to serve me after my divorce. The most recent connection had been a couple of years ago with a woman, about my own age, in the French Department. 

None of those attachments had lasted for more than a year or so, and they all ended without rancor. In some cases an end to a relationship had probably been a good thing; in others, maybe not. But I'd been burned, and I wasn't going to be burned again. After all, a cat that sits on a hot stove will not do so again. But it won't sit on a cold stove, either.

And then… 

And then she walked into my classroom. 

I fell in love with her—immediately! Well, I fell in lust with her immediately.

I'm not sure why. Objectively speaking, her appearance wasn't especially striking—she was an average-looking, healthy young woman. Her body had all of the standard female equipment, of course, and it seemed to be in the usual places on a moderately athletic figure. Her clothing wasn't particularly revealing—though it wasn't particularly modest, either. But there was an air about her—something in the way she carried herself that spoke to me, saying I am Femininity!

Falling in lust with a female student had happened to me before. It's something of an occupational hazard. University professors, even of a male-dominated subject like mathematics, encounter quite a few stunningly attractive young women in the normal course of their work. After all, the campus of any university of reasonable size is populated largely by young people—thousands of young people—at least half of whom are women. 

Where there are that many young women, it would be surprising if there weren't quite a few very sexy ones. Some of those young women, including some of the sexy ones, come to the offices of male professors and suggest—sometimes subtly, sometimes not—that they are willing to do anything in order to get a good grade. Or, in some cases, just to get a passing grade. 

It must be understood that when they say anything, they really mean anything but study.

Why do I call that an occupational hazard? Because there's nothing more hazardous to a professor's occupation than getting caught trading a fuck for a grade—unless it's enjoying the fuck but not delivering the grade. 

Sex, like any other worthwhile activity, requires that, in order to be very good at it, one exercise discipline and practice thoughtfully. The young women who want to take the easy route to a grade are precisely the ones who are trying to avoid discipline and practice. That is, they're exactly the ones who're likely to be bum lays. So the odds are that what some of us call quim pro quo (meaning if I, the pro, can stick my quo into your quim, then you'll be happier with your grade) isn't really worth the risk.

I'd understood all of this from the time I'd first started teaching as a graduate student working on my doctoral degree. So I'd managed to resist the temptation to fuck with any students.

But then she walked into my advanced calculus classroom, and I was smitten. She took the center seat in the front row and looked up at me where I sat on the corner of the desk at the front of the room. And she smiled at me. 

It seemed a perfectly innocent smile, of the kind we all exchange with each other when we meet someone we've never met before. If there was guile in it, or seduction, I didn't see it. Later—much later—she denied that there had been any of either.

In the daze that resulted, I said something like "Good morning." 

Her smile deepened and she returned my greeting: "Good morning, Professor Harrison." Her voice, which, really, was just an unexceptional female voice, resonated with something deep in my groin.

As she spoke and I resonated, the bell in the clock tower just outside the classroom building tolled the beginning of the class hour. Maybe I should have sent to know for whom that bell tolled.

But it was time for the class to begin, so I read the roster aloud, calling off names and trying to form connections between names and faces. After half a dozen names, I came to "Fiore, April." 

"Here," she said, simply. My groin resonated again. Now I knew her name. Somehow, I carried on.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For the first couple of weeks of class, things went along almost routinely in that advanced calculus course. Almost routinely, that is. Usually, after the first few days of a semester were past, I got to my classes just in the nick of time—if on time at all. This course, I found, was an exception to that rule, because I discovered that I loved watching April walk into the room and take her seat. I wanted to be there in time for that event. Of course, I had to watch everybody walk into the room and take their seats, lest people see how stricken I was with her.

There were several other young women in the class. A few of those women had bodies to die for, and I certainly appreciated watching those bodies walk into the classroom and take seats. But only the thought of watching April's body could bring me into the classroom seven or eight minutes before class started.

Every time she seated herself in my classroom, she granted me another of her engaging smiles and greeted me warmly. Always, too, I was aware of commotion in my pants—not enough to cause embarrassment, but quite enough for me to be aware of it.

I must admit that I was almost disappointed, near the end of the second week of class, when I read the first homework papers from that class. I begin my advanced calculus course with a few weeks of "epsilon-delta arguments" about "continuity" and "limits." (Don't worry about what these technical words mean—there won't be a quiz.) Most students find this material very difficult at first. Many find it very difficult at second, at third, and so on down the line for quite a while. This class was no different in that respect. The notions these arguments involve caused the usual trouble.

April was different. Her work demonstrated that she grasped the ideas well and that she had unusual control of the algebra required. What she'd written was better, overall, than I expected most students to have accomplished with these matters by the end of the semester. Consistently, she presented all of the things needed for complete arguments, even for the most difficult of the problems I'd assigned. She had the necessary insight—extraordinary insight, in fact—and, on that count, these initial efforts easily deserved the A that I gave them.

But she didn't organize her facts into arguments. Reading her work on each problem was a bit like reading a recipe that gives all of the ingredients and explains all of the procedures needed for a dish, but lists those elements in random order—without regard to how one actually prepares the dish. I wrote a note on her paper saying that her observations were astute and complete, but that she needed to organize them. I told her that she couldn't continue to get away without organization. 

Still, her paper was, by far, the best in the class and she had earned that A.

Why did this almost disappoint me? Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I'd entertained the fantasy that she would need "help" if she were to pass the course—"help" that I would be happy to supply in a private setting: In a bed, say, with both of us naked! That fantasy hadn't reached the level of my consciousness, but it must have been there and it couldn't have been too far below that level. Well—I was conscious of the bed part and the naked part, but not in the context of "help."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I handed those papers back at the beginning of the next week. A day later, April appeared in my office during my regular office hours. 

She wasn't sure what I meant by "organization." She thought she'd presented complete arguments; she had difficulty understanding what I had meant when I had said that she hadn't. She had brought her paper with her, and we went through her work, one problem at a time. 

In doing so, we did something that's very common when mathematics students consult with a professor. She sat in a second chair at my right side, and I pulled the leaf above the right-hand column of drawers out of my desk and placed her paper and a blank pad on it—where we could both see what we wrote as we talked about things. 

There is absolutely nothing unusual or suspect about this; discussion of mathematics almost requires it—especially in offices like mine, which had no blackboard. It does, however, mean that a wise male professor who is consulting with a female student must leave his office door wide open. That was a practice I had observed conscientiously throughout my career.

Any observer would have said that it was an ordinary student-professor consultation. Our conversation was strictly about the mathematics and how she could arrange her insights to lead a reader through the points she had made in a way that would lead to an inescapable conclusion. I could see that she was beginning to understand what I saw as a problem with her writing.

But there are things that observer would have missed. The first was the resonance her voice again struck in my groin—this time from her position at my side!

The second was her scent—the delicate, female scent of her body that our proximity made inescapable. It whirled in my head through the entire session, bringing me fantasies of the delights that body might hold for me. 

I knew that I must not stare at her—especially not at her most interesting parts. But that didn't keep me from stealing glances when I knew that her eyes were on our work. Those glances did not, let us say, discourage my fantasies. 

Nevertheless, I controlled myself. 

Rigidly.

So to speak.

As we began discussing the last of the problems on the assignment, she leaned forward over the piece of paper we were writing on, and her knee pressed against my thigh! She gave no indication that the contact was anything but accidental—indeed, no indication that she was even aware of it. But that touch intoxicated me almost beyond reason, and it was all I could do to maintain enough of my concentration to make appropriate comments about the thoughts she was expressing. That is, I think that they were appropriate, though I don't recall them—or the thoughts they were responses to—very well.

For the rest of our session, her knee continued to rest against me. Sometimes it pressed gently; other times, it thrust vigorously; on a few occasions it rubbed against me. I was nearly paralyzed with the fear that she would notice the contact, find it inappropriate, and chide me, or herself, or the two of us, for allowing it. Even worse, she might come to think me a lustful pervert—which, of course, I was, but she didn't know that. (Did she?)

At last, we finished our discussion of her paper and what she could've done to improve it. She rose from the chair beside me, and her knee broke its contact with me. She gave no indication that she'd even noticed anything unusual about our conference, but she looked into my eyes and smiled warmly as she thanked me for my time. Although I usually rise politely at the close of such a consultation, I thought better of doing so this time. The embarrassing bulge in my crotch was well hidden by my desk; I thought it best that it remain so! When she had gotten her things together and added the work we'd produced to them, she smiled again and was gone.

I was disappointed when our session ended. Not because nothing—nothing of an overtly sexual nature, that is—had happened; I hadn't expected that with a student as talented as she. I was disappointed that the opportunity to spend time in thoughtful discussion with her was over. Later, when I was no longer spellbound by her physical presence, I reflected on the incident. I was surprised to find that it didn't matter to me that we'd been talking about mathematics; anything would've done. With other students, the subject matter formed the bases of our relationships; with April, it was something else. That something else surely included the sexual attraction she held for me, but I then began to understand—though dimly—that there might be more to it than that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several weeks passed, and April's work improved. The course material got deeper and harder, but her insights were becoming deeper. They penetrated in ways that continued to impress me. More importantly, the way she organized her thoughts in her writing changed for the better. She was taking big steps toward abandoning chaotic lists of observations in favor of real arguments.

Most of the responsibility for that improvement came from her own efforts. But those efforts included weekly visits to my office, where we discussed ways of writing arguments. We soon had an informal standing appointment—three o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesdays—and our meetings usually lasted for an hour or so. I keenly anticipated those meetings. April's presence invigorated me. 

She was an unusual student. I've always been willing—eager, in fact—to discuss mathematics with anyone who will sit still long enough. April was not only willing to sit still; she was eager to learn how to do and how to write mathematics. I think it was about then that I began to think that she might have both the talent and the interest needed to become a real mathematician herself.

In some ways, our weekly conferences proceeded much as our first had. She was always thoroughly prepared, and she always sat at my right, facing the same way I faced, as I pulled the leaf out from my desk and placed a pad of paper on it so that each of us could write out thoughts where both could inspect the results. But our discussions deepened and the topics we investigated grew further afield, as I learned that she very much wanted to pursue avenues that were not an official part of the course she was taking. I found myself actually preparing mathematical explorations to discuss with her.

April's body continued to allure me, too. The appearance of her rounded shapes; their imagined softness; the subtle, natural perfume of her body—all of these things aroused me, and not just figuratively. 

By the end of those first few sessions, her knee usually pressed against me as we carried on our discussion. She seemed wholly unaware of the contact, and I did my best not to reveal the transports of delight her touch brought me. As the semester's end approached, that accidental (?) contact grew deeper and broader. By December, three-quarters of the length of her thigh would come to rest against mine well before the end of each meeting.

She seemed completely unaware. Fearing that the touching would end if she became aware of it, I maintained a pretense of ignorant indifference.

Always, when we concluded our business, she looked into my eyes and smiled her warm smile. As the semester progressed, I thought that those looks deepened and the smiles got warmer. But, I guessed, that was my imagination. She was, as I've already said, young, vital, and my student; I was middle-aged, stodgy, and her professor. Nevertheless, I found myself returning her looks more fervently and her smiles in a way that I hoped was warmer.

The semester ended, and April earned an A in the course. From the first assignment, I'd had little doubt that she would, and I was pleased to be able to assign her that grade. I was especially pleased at the improvement I'd seen in how she wrote arguments. There were two or three other As in the class, but none as solid as hers. Those other folks had done good work, but they didn't have the same feel for what they were doing that April had.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The month-long winter break between semesters seemed interminable. I did have my research to keep me company—it had been a while since I had published a paper, and before long my department chair would be nagging me. (Not that there was much else that he would, or even could, do about it—I was tenured and effectively immune from any action he could undertake.) I also had my preparation for courses during the coming semester to work on. I'd be offering the second semester of advanced calculus, along with another upper division course—Numerical Analysis I. So I had plenty to do.




April's Fool



But I missed those weekly conferences with April. At first, I had a gnawing sense of unease and couldn't figure out why. All I knew was that something was missing! Then, one day after lunch, in the second week of that break, I caught myself unthinkingly preparing for my routine Wednesday afternoon meeting with April.

I laughed at myself when I realized what I'd been doing unconsciously. But the incident gave me the clue I needed, and, a day or two later, I identified April as the thing that was missing. I found that I hoped, fervently, that she was going to be in my second semester advanced calculus course—and not only because her performance the previous semester had convinced me that she belonged there.

So it was, on the mid-January Monday when classes began, that I reached into my departmental mailbox, my hands trembling, for the class rosters that awaited me there. There was no one else in the mailroom, so I didn't have to explain my immense sigh when I saw her name on the list of a dozen students in advanced calculus. I'm not religious, but I came closer then than I ever have to believing that there must be a God in Heaven.

A few moments later, when I reached my office, I looked at my other roster—the one for the numerical analysis course. Maybe you can imagine what I felt when I found April's name there, too. And maybe you can imagine what other things of April's I wanted to feel!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I sat in my office, the following Wednesday afternoon, wondering. Three o'clock had arrived, but April hadn't. Disappointedly, I told myself that I hadn't been expecting her: Though she was taking two courses from me, we weren't deep enough into the semester that she would have much academic reason to come in. Dejectedly, I began preparing to leave the office for the day.

But a quarter of an hour later, as I was stuffing a couple of books into my briefcase, an apologetic April presented herself. "The bus was late!" she offered, breathlessly. 

I smiled, in relief as much as in greeting. "Well, it's not as if you had an appointment! But it's nice to see you. How was your break?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

April and I easily fell into another routine. She had even more reason to visit me this spring than she'd had in the fall: She was taking two courses from me this semester, and she said that she was thinking about going to graduate school in mathematics. It was a bit early, she knew, for such thoughts, as she was now only in the second semester of the third year of a four-year undergraduate mathematics program. Could she talk to me as the semester progressed, she wondered as she sat by my desk at our third meeting, for advice in pursuing graduate school applications.

We were soon meeting twice every week, at three o'clock every Monday and every Wednesday. I looked forward to those meetings, perhaps even more enthusiastically than I had to our first meeting of the new semester, even though nothing the least bit improper ever took place during any of them. Except that, still, April's thigh never failed to press against mine as we worked, together, on her growing understanding. But, just as the first time she had pressed her leg against mine, neither of us ever said anything about the contact that so delighted me.

Late that February, as winter was showing signs of ending, April came to our Wednesday afternoon consultation in something of a dither. She had seemed distraught the Monday before, though she had managed to hold herself together that day. This day, she was distracted and crabby, unable to concentrate on the matters we were discussing. 

Somehow, we made it through a singularly unproductive session. When it was over and she was getting ready to leave, she looked me in the eye. "I'm sorry, Professor Harrison," she said, acknowledging for the first time that we hadn't accomplished very much. "I haven't been able to keep my mind on business this week, but…" She paused. 

"Oh," I offered, breaking in, "we all have 'off' days. I'm sure you'll be in a better mood next week."

"I hope so," she replied. "I'm worried about Kay—my little sister. She's been hanging out with a guy who isn't very good for her."

I could see that she wanted to expand on that statement but didn't know whether she should. So I simply said, "Oh?" and looked at her expectantly. 

She sat down again, and the dam broke.

There ensued a tearful half-hour, during which I learned many things about April and her family. She had already completed a baccalaureate degree in art history. And she had completed that earlier degree even though her mother was an abusive alcoholic who required a lot of care. April had moved out of the family home when she turned eighteen, though she had continued to spend a lot of time there looking after her mother and refereeing her mother's interactions with Kay. 

In order to support herself, she had held down two part-time office jobs, requiring a total of about twenty hours every week, while completing her degree in just five years. When she was nearly done with that degree, she had discovered an interest in mathematics, which she wanted to pursue. Her family responsibilities had not diminished, but she was still holding down those office jobs—the market for art-historians being rather weak.

Her parents had separated at about the time April began her university studies. Their father had stayed in touch with his daughters, and he had given April a small house he had inherited but didn't live in. He was, in other respects, useless as a parent. Two years ago, then-twenty-one-year-old April had legally adopted her eight-year-younger sister. April and Kay now shared April's house, where both were safe from the physical abuse their mother still tried to inflict.

She told me about Kay's worthless boyfriend, with whom April was almost sure Kay was having unprotected sex. He was involved, April said, on the margins of the illegal market in hard drugs, doing a little dealing. She thought he was probably on the road to addiction himself, and she was desperately afraid that he would start Kay down that same road. April stopped after those revelations—a look of amazement on her face. I looked at her expectantly again. "Why?" she asked rhetorically. "Why am I telling you all my troubles? You're not my parent!"

Like most university professors, I have absolutely no formal training in counseling, so I had no professional qualifications to handle situations like the one that was then unfolding in my office. But professors—especially professors at an institution like mine, where the student body is composed largely of commuters—hear many stories of difficult family situations. So, of necessity, we develop some ability to deal with them, even though few of them concentrate so many problems—or so much strength and determination—in one individual. Thus, I found something useful to say: "No," I agreed. "I'm not your parent." As I said it, a part of me reflected on the fact that she seemed, in spite of her own dysfunctional parents, to know how a parent ought to behave. I continued, "But I'll listen to you whenever you need me to."

I could see the tension leave that remarkable female body. (Even under the circumstances, I couldn't ignore her femininity.) For the first time since she'd walked into my office—possibly for the first time in days—she relaxed. An expression of heartfelt gratitude flowed across her face as she said, simply, "Thank you, Professor Harrison." 

Then a different kind of tension gathered in her, and she continued, "But I've bothered you enough for one day. You shouldn't have to listen to my problems. Besides, I have to go now, or I'll be late for work." 

She got up and resumed gathering her belongings. Meaning to help her, I reached for the coat she'd set aside when she'd arrived. As she finished collecting things, I held it open for her. Seeing my offer, she smiled nervously at me and inserted an arm into a sleeve. I moved the garment to help her find the other sleeve. As she put that other arm into that sleeve, she looked up at me. Her smile lost its timorous quality and deepened.

Without warning, she reached up and kissed me on the lips!

It wasn't just a quick peck from a woman who was grateful that someone had listened to her troubles.

No! It was a real kiss—one that promises other, deeper, intimacies! Her soft moist lips pressed gently against mine, partially open, inviting my almost automatic, if shocked, response. 

It didn't last long. It lasted, nevertheless, too long! But not long enough!

I regained my senses and withdrew my tongue. We separated; I looked again into her smiling eyes; and I uttered an astonished "April!"

Her smile deepened again. "Yes, Professor Harrison?" she asked sweetly, as if she thought I was about to ask her if she was prepared for class tomorrow.

Confused, stumbling over my words, I apologized: "I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have let that happen! I don't know what got into me! That was so…" I fumbled for a word, found one. "…inappropriate of me."

"Yes, it was!" she agreed, giving me a sneaky little smile as she picked up her books and her purse. "It was very unprofessional of you! But it's something I've wanted to do for a long time." 

And then, suddenly, she was gone.

The scent of her hair remained in my nostrils for an hour, and the taste of her mouth lingered in mine through the rest of the day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later that evening, I remembered that my office door had been open when April had unexpectedly kissed me. I couldn't remember if there had been any activity in the hall then, so I had no idea what kind of trouble she might have made for me. With the realization of that state of affairs, came another realization: I wasn't worried about it.

Maybe I should have been.

There could be complications if someone had seen us. For one thing, my academic reputation was at risk. For another, the University frowned heavily on sexual relationships between a professor and a student enrolled under that professor—although there was little it could do about a tenured professor's behavior unless it could substantiate academic dishonesty or sexual harassment.

But April wasn't a selfish nineteen-year-old who was looking for an edge. I knew her pretty well by then, and I trusted her. Somehow, I knew—was certain—that if the University should take an interest in what was happening between the two of us, she would give a truthful account in which there could be nothing for me to be concerned about. 

Moreover, I knew that my department colleagues, including the chairman, trusted me enough to believe me if I denied that April's physical charms had in any way affected my evaluation of her work. I did think that it would be wise for me to make copies of everything she submitted in the future. Then, if push should come to shove, disinterested people could verify that she had earned any grade I gave her. Covering your ass, I remarked to myself, never hurts!

Nevertheless, it was with some trepidation that I arrived early in my numerical analysis class the next day. Edgy as I was about seeing her after the previous day's misstep, I still enjoyed watching from my habitual perch at the front of the room as her delightful female body settled into its seat in the center of the first row. I was even more entranced that day than usual, because, for the first time since I'd become acquainted with her, April was wearing a skirt—a short skirt. And she contrived to show me bare thigh—a lot of bare thigh—as she seated herself.

I think I managed to conceal my lechery. I didn't let my eyes bulge nor my jaw drop; other members of the class seemed unaware. But, as she came to rest in her seat, knees together, legs uncrossed, I raised my eyes to look at her face. She was looking directly at me, and there was the sneaky little smile—the one I'd seen when she'd confessed wanting to kiss me. 

That look told me, unequivocally, that she knew I'd been looking up her skirt. More, it told me that she'd planned that she would make a display, that I would look, that she would catch me, and that she approved! As I digested this bit of information, her smile deepened and she separated her knees a bit—quite a bit. Reflexively, my gaze dropped to the resulting sight of pink panty.

Good fortune came to my rescue, and the clock tower bell chose that instant to sound. Literally saved by the bell, I carefully swung myself off of my seat and turned toward the blackboard to begin the day's lecture. It was important that I not be too abrupt. I had to conceal my agitation. 

When I looked back at the class after a minute or so, it seemed that I had succeeded. Mostly. Heads bent over notebooks wherein pencils recorded my words and symbols of wisdom. But April was looking directly at me. Her smile was no longer sneaky; it was a broad, deep grin. She knew exactly what she'd done, and my response had been exactly what she'd wanted from me. Ahh, well! I thought to myself as I dove deeper into the mysteries of Lagrange interpolation. This teacher-student relationship never has been quite normal.

She gave me that sneaky little smile again as she left the classroom at the end of the period.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was no surprise, the following Monday morning, when April took her seat in my advanced calculus course and, from under another short skirt, flashed the crotch of her panties at me again. They were green this time. Nor was the smile—the sneaky little smile—a surprise! I smiled back at her; I wasn't going to let her fluster me this time. I even summoned the courage to greet her: "Good morning, April! How was your weekend?"

She responded with something trite that I don't recall, and then it was time for class to begin. Somehow, I managed to conceal the turmoil that had begun, yet again, in my trousers. But I knew, then, that something had to give.

I stumbled through that lecture, through the lunch hour that followed, and through the hours that intervened between lunch and our informal standing appointment at three. I had mixed feelings about that meeting—feelings of anticipation and of dread. As always, I wanted—no, needed—to see her. But we had crossed a line, and I couldn't guess where we were headed. 

I did know where I wanted to head. And I was all but certain that April was of like mind. But I also knew that the destination we both wanted was forbidden to me.

At three, when she arrived, I tried to pursue the ostrich strategy: I stuck my head in the sand, and I pretended that nothing had changed. We had a fairly disorganized session, in which we accomplished very little—each of us being lost in thoughts about what had happened between us. And she was still wearing that short little skirt, which didn't bring any order to the chaos in my mind.

We'd wound up the session when she made it clear—very clear—where she thought last week's transgression, and her more recent exhibitions, should take us. I thought she was preparing to leave, when, without warning, she closed the office door! Before I could even remark that I didn't think closing that door was a good idea, she had stepped up against me, thrown her arms around my neck, and reached up to press her lips against my own.

After a short (very short) struggle with myself, I responded: I wrapped my arms around her, and I pulled her tightly against myself. My tongue again found its way into her welcoming mouth. Unlike that first fleeting kiss we had shared four days earlier, this kiss extended, seemingly, into eternity—as if we both knew that we had found something worthwhile, something that could endure. Her tongue chased mine into my mouth, and then mine chased hers back. We repeated that action several times. When, at last, our mouths broke from each other, we looked into each other's eyes. We continued to hold our bodies together, and I delighted in the curves and shapes she pressed against me. 

One of my own shapes was changing—becoming more prominent! She announced that she was well aware of that change by rubbing her body against the growing bulge in my pants. 

"We can't, you know," I finally managed to say, weakly, hoping half-heartedly for contradiction.

"I think we're going to," she answered. "In fact, I think we'd better!"

That was the contradiction I'd wanted, but now I wasn't sure whether I had really wanted it or not. We held each other, quietly, for a bit. The double armful of willing woman didn't strengthen my resolve to avoid sexual entanglement with a student. At length, she wiggled against my cock again as she asked, plaintively, "Why can't we?"

I have to admit that I wiggled back against her as I replied, "It would be unethical. I'm your professor. I assign grades to you." There it was: I held a position of power over her, and I wasn't ready to overlook the ethical problems that a sexual relationship with a student would raise.

She, evidently, was in a position of power over me, too. Such was her power that my hands began roaming up and down the sides of her body, cupping the cheeks of her ass now and again, wandering occasionally to her tits, as she continued to hold us against each other. She did nothing to stop the trespassing.

I was still looking into her eyes, and she was still looking back. "You might be right if I was nineteen or I was a weak student," she said. "But I'm neither, and you know it. And I'm not some fifteen-year-old virgin who doesn't know any better than to let you knock her up. I've had men before, and I'm on the Pill!" 

I began a reply, half-hearted again, my hands still wandering, "But—"

"You've got tenure!" she interrupted me before I was even sure what I was about to say. We were still wiggling lewdly against each other. "What's tenure good for if you can't fuck a student you want? Someone who wants to fuck you!"

Until the last few days, our relationship had been completely professional—well, except for a little covert rubbing and some unexpressed thoughts. Neither of us had used such language in the other's presence; though, naturally, I was no stranger to foul language in my private life. But her coarse words brought me, finally, to my senses.

Gently, firmly, sadly, still looking into her eyes, I pushed her enticing body away. "No!" I said, resolutely. "Much as I'd like to, it can't happen."

She pouted, but though she continued to look into my eyes, she made no effort to renew the embrace I'd broken. At length, she said, with an air of defeat, "I guess I understand. I hope you aren't angry with me."

"No," I said. "Never! I don't think I can be." I looked again at her body. I am Femininity! it fairly screamed at me for the ten-thousandth time. "I'm just disappointed about what can't be." I smiled at her. "Let's try to carry on as though this hadn't happened between us."

Doubtfully, she smiled back at me. But I could see the reluctance in her agreement and in the way she carried herself as, minutes later, she left my office.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We stumbled awkwardly with each other during our next few meetings. We fumbled with the ideas I wanted her to think about; both of us had trouble focusing our thoughts where the professor in me thought they belonged. Those thoughts now focused where the man in me knew they belonged. So it didn't seem, during that period, that we accomplished very much in the way of mathematics—or anything else. 

But we effected more than seemed apparent at the time. It probably helped that school was out for Spring Break during a week near the beginning of March, so that we were out of touch with each other during that week. Soon, we had repaired—pretty much—our broken teacher-student relationship, and we were again dealing with the mathematical concepts that I had loved for decades, but that she found new and exciting. Mathematics, at least, was something that we could share whole-heartedly.




April's Fool



We'd managed to suppress the sexual tension between us, but we hadn't eliminated it. I continued to enjoy watching her take her seat in my classrooms, and she knew it. But (to my regret) she stopped teasing me with short skirts and returned to wearing jeans to class. I still looked forward to our semiweekly sessions in my office—and not just for academic reasons. 

We had been open about our lusts for each other, and each of us now knew, not only our own desire, but the other's as well. She still rubbed her knee—sometimes her whole thigh—against me "accidentally" during each session. I knew, now, that she fully intended that touch. And she knew how much I enjoyed it. But we both pretended it wasn't happening. We both (Both? I believe so.) had accepted the impossibility of the sharing we wanted, but that didn't stop sneaky little smiles from passing between us—in both directions. 

By the end March, our relationship had returned to one that was at least superficially an academic one. We didn't speak about what we had shared, or were still sharing. But each of us reveled in the secret of our own desire—and in the secret of the other's.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The telephone at my bedside rang insistently, dragging me from a deep sleep. As I reached for it, I looked at the luminous face of the clock next to it. It was one in the morning; I'd gone to bed only a couple of hours earlier. I picked up the phone and, through the fog of broken sleep, I mumbled something.

"Professor! Thank God, you answered!" the phone replied. The voice was April's. It was distorted by panic and I could hear her hyperventilating.

Her panic furthered what the telephone had begun, and I was now almost fully awake. "What's the trouble, April?" I asked, almost normally, almost caringly.

"It's my sister! It's Kay! The police! She's… I don't have… I'm… I can't… Oh, God! I don't know what to do—"

"April, I'm here!" I said, interrupting. Panic was running away with her; I had to slow her down, help her control herself. "I'll help you get through this, but you have to slow down and tell me about it."

I could almost feel it as she returned to something like herself. As she spoke again, her breathing slowed and the panic receded from her voice—though now it was heavy with pain. "Kay overdosed on heroin this evening. They have her at the hospital. They think she's going to be okay. I don't know what to do. I'm at home. I called our mother, but she didn't answer. She's probably too drunk to stand up—let alone accomplish anything. And God knows where our dad is!" She paused and took a deep breath before she went on. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have bothered you. I couldn't think of anyone else to call, but that's no excuse. I'll let you get back to sleep." She seemed to have gotten a grip on herself, but she was about to break our connection.

"Wait! April! Don't hang up!" I didn't know if I should, or even could, do anything for a student in a situation like this. But she was a friend, at the very least, as well as a student, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try. Moreover, I'd just told her that I would help her.

She said nothing, but she didn't hang up. I realized that I had stopped her, so I went on. "Are you alright? Do you need help getting to the hospital? Is there anything else I can do?"

"I'm fine, but I do have to get to General Hospital. I don't have a car, and the buses aren't running at this hour," she said. "I don't have any cash for a cab. I don't know what to do."

"Where you are? I'll come get you," I said. "I'll take you there."

She protested, saying that she didn't want to put me out. But eventually I prevailed, and she gave me an address only a few miles from my own house. I told her I'd be there in twenty minutes at most, I gave her a few more reassurances, and we hung up. I was naked, because I sleep that way, but it took me only a minute or two to throw some clothes on and run to the car.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wasn't long at all before we were at the hospital. On the way there, April told me what little she knew. Kay's boyfriend shared an apartment with a guy who had come home a bit before midnight. He had found Kay and boyfriend, both unconscious, unresponsive, barely breathing. Fortunately, but—according to April—not predictably, he'd had the sense to call 911. A policeman had arrived quickly, paramedics shortly thereafter. 

Once we arrived at the hospital, we found that, as always in a medical setting, there was an interminable wait for anything to happen. We spent the wait on a couch in an otherwise deserted waiting room; April clung forlornly to me. I put my arm around her and she put her head on my shoulder. When I recalled how we had, just recently, clung to each other for another reason, I had some doubts about the wisdom of being so close to her. But when I thought about what she was going through, my heart went out to her; and I put those doubts aside. 

There weren't any confidentiality issues, because April identified herself as Kay's sister. Even though the medical people thought that Kay was out of danger, they were going to hold her for twenty-four hours for observation. But the police would then be holding her for longer than that. They said that there had been heroin in her possession when they'd arrived, so, even though she was hospitalized, she was now in police custody, locked up in a secure ward. They had their own plans for what would become of her after the hospital released her.

The boyfriend, the wannabe drug dealer, hadn't been lucky enough to be taken into custody. He was in the morgue; he wouldn't be dealing anything to anyone, ever again. I hadn't known the guy, so I could be a little more charitable toward him than April could. She didn't seem to think him a big loss to anyone—certainly not to Kay. But, even to me, his removal from the gene pool seemed to have been a pretty good example of evolution in action.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We drove out of the hospital parking structure at about three-thirty in the morning. (It was a Saturday morning—the first day of the new month. I had no classes, and April didn't have to work that day or the next. That seemed then the only silver lining to this black cloud.) 

The police, it turned out, hadn't allowed April to see Kay. Their attitude seemed to be, "She has a right to see an attorney—but not to see a sister!" (We later learned, from Kay's public defender, that April's status as Kay's legal guardian would have trumped that attitude—but we didn't know that when we needed to.) So in spite of her relief at the news that Kay would recover fully, April was in tears. 

She was exhausted. I didn't think I should her take back to the house she shared with Kay, where she would have to spend the rest of the night alone. And she certainly didn't belong with her drunk mother. So I did the only thing that came to mind: I offered to take her to my house. "You can get some sleep in my guest room," I told her. I looked briefly across the car at her before going on, "And I'm an old man. You can trust me not to put the moves on you."

She looked at me incredulously. "You'd do that for me? Let me sleep at your house?" she asked. "After I ruined your own night's sleep? That's… so… so kind of you. But you can't! It's too much! I shouldn't have bothered you in the first place. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Don't be stubborn, April," I said. "You're not just a student anymore; you're a friend, too. This is the kind of thing that anyone would do for a friend. I'm glad that you thought to call me—even if it did cost me a night's sleep. A night's sleep is replaceable. A sister isn't. I'm even happier that I was able to help you a bit."

"You've helped me more than bit, Professor Harrison," she answered through the tears that still tracked down her cheeks.

She was about to go on, probably to refuse my offer, when I broke in. "I won't take 'No' for an answer! We're in my car, and I'm driving. So we're going to my place. I can't stop you from deciding that I'm kidnapping you, but you'll have to wait until we get there to call the police about it!"

She smiled at me—smiled for the first time that awful morning—and wiped away her tears. "Thank you. I won't fight," she said, gratefully. "And I won't call the police. I've had more than enough to do with them in the last few hours! I know you won't put any moves on me. You aren't that old, but I trust you about that. Still! You shouldn't put yourself out so!"

So it was that, a little before four that morning, I stripped and lay down again in bed, April having almost literally fallen, fully clothed, into my guest bed before I could even close the door behind her. I had meant what I had said about friendship, as well as what I had said about 'moves.' I was tired, and I had no motive beyond seeing that she—and I—got some rest.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fragments of consciousness percolated, as if rising through viscous liquid, from black depths toward light. Slowly they coalesced into a large bubble that broke into awareness as it reached the surface. In the disorientation that accompanies waking, I realized that I lay naked in my bed on my back. Something—someone—warm, soft, curved, rested against the left side of my naked body. It was someone warm, soft, curved, and wonderfully, nakedly feminine! And I had a hard-on. Whether morning wood or a response to the hand that was wrapped around it, stroking gently, I couldn't tell. Nor did it matter.

I could easily blame April for what happened then. For it is almost certainly true that what followed would not have happened, or, at least, would not have happened that morning, if she hadn't come, naked and needing, to me in my bed as I slept.  

I could blame instinct even more easily. There is no question but that instinct—instinct blind and animal—made itself felt that morning. 

But I chose, knowingly and willfully, to respond to her as I did. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and I drew her more tightly against me as I reached toward her head where it rested on my shoulder—reached with my lips for the soft moist lips whose sweetness I remembered from just a few weeks earlier. 

She moaned as her lips parted and my tongue entered her mouth. The taste of her sleep was still in her mouth—and the taste of her need filled mine. She tightened her grip on my cock a bit; my hips rocked gently in response. I pulled my upper arm from where I had wrapped it about her waist, brought my hand to her side, and stroked from her waist down over the curve of her hip to the middle of her thigh. Cool though her skin was, it was like flame against my palm. 

She moaned again and pressed her lips against mine more hungrily; she chased my tongue back into my mouth, where it danced joyfully with hers. I returned her moan and moved my hand, caressing as I went, up the front of her leg, moving my fingers toward the mound at the base of her torso.

I found her heat and her slick wetness, and I explored her pussy's folds with inquiring fingers. She answered with stronger strokes from the hand on my cock. We moaned yet again at the sensations those touches brought us both. I drew away from her mouth so that I could look into her eyes. Hazel pools returned my gaze. 

Each of us read the need in the other's eyes. Together, without breaking our locked gazes, we rolled her onto her back as I came to my knees and elbows over her. Her thighs separated around me as her knees moved upward. Her hand didn't leave my shaft, but directed it toward her entrance. 

My crest engaged the heat and the moisture of her opening; she let go; and I slid my rigid cock slowly, slowly, slowly into the welcoming clasp of her slippery, seething flesh.

We lay there, bodies united, for a while. My gaze into her eyes, and hers into mine, remained unbroken. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she uttered. "I need you so much!" It was the first time either of us had spoken since she'd come to my bed. I answered her with a shudder as she wrapped her legs about my thighs, her arms about my waist.

I was beyond words, then, but not—certainly not—beyond action. I lowered my head, closing my eyes again as I did so, and I reached again for her with my lips. Her lips opened at my touch, inviting my tongue into her mouth as our bodies adjusted to the intimate connection at our groins. 

Our kiss lengthened, and then I felt her tighten the embrace of her legs, pulling me deeper into her. She paused briefly, before loosening her legs' grasp. My body rebounded, and my flesh slid partly out of her body. She paused again, and then pulled me back into herself. 

She continued, establishing a rhythm which I took up. Before long I was actively withdrawing myself—almost all the way—as she released me, and then driving myself deep, deep into her as she tightened her embrace. Blind animal instinct did reign now, and I had no choice but to drive toward culmination.

As I thrust repeatedly into her, I broke from her mouth and looked back into her eyes. She looked at me intently, and her hips rocked under me in response to the action of my own hips. Her channel caressed my cock with heat, moisture, and divine friction that pumped the pressure within me toward detonation.

Compulsion doubled and redoubled itself within me until it reached an unbearable peak, and the storm broke within me. My muscles locked, forcing me deep, deep into her. Cataclysm overwhelmed me as she tightened her arms and her legs about me. Intense spasms brought nonsense from my mouth, while they expelled fiery semen, which flowed again and again, again and again and again, through the length of my cock and into the depths of her body.

Overcome by the power of my orgasm, I lost awareness of everything outside myself except for the grasp of her body around me. I emptied my need into her, and nothing existed for me but my body's triumph and the body that had brought it about. Unknowing, then, I collapsed onto her.

When I came back to myself, I found that I lay on top of her. My cock was still hard, still buried in her pussy. She stroked my back and my sides as I regained myself. I raised myself, and we looked again into each other's eyes. She smiled at me and reached for a kiss. 

When the kiss ended, she looked again into my eyes. "I'm close," she whispered. "Can you…" 

I smiled at her and at the hunger in her gaze; I started to move in her again.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on something within herself—something that I couldn't know—as we began our motion anew. My motion was steady now, and for her—not driven, as before, or concentrated upon my own release. Her sheath, lubricated by my own emissions as well as hers, continued to caress the stiffness we'd embedded in it. Her actions maintained my stiffness so that I could return those caresses as we sought for her a release like the one we'd found for me. She rocked her hips under me, and she continued to draw me in and release me. 

Happily, I stroked into her, enjoying not just the sensations her body brought me but also her body's responses to mine and the expressions of desire and concentration that fluttered across her face. Her expressions deepened and grew more intense, as we brought her nearer and nearer, and her hips answered my thrusts more and more insistently. It wasn't long before she shuddered and clutched at me. She pulled me tightly against herself, moaning—almost shrieking—as her channel contracted around me, again and again, in the convulsion of her own climax.

As she subsided, I continued thrusting, gently, into her. Soon, she responded, thrusting back, gently also, in rhythm with my thrusts. When she was again aware of things outside herself, she looked back into my eyes. She smiled at me and, against the counterpoint of our mutual thrusting, she asked softly, "Do you need more?"

"It's good!" I said. "It's really good! You were really good! But I don't need to keep going. Do you?"

"I'm okay," she said, still smiling. "You were really good, too!" Her hips stopped rocking, and she drew me down into another kiss. Unlike the demanding kisses of only a few minutes earlier, this one was a tender, appreciative touch of lips to lips. My hips, too, stopped moving as our kiss progressed, but my cock still pulsed inside her, responding as her pussy contracted periodically around it.

Slowly, her contractions subsided and so did my pulsing—although we continued to enjoy our bodies' union as we exchanged kiss after tender kiss. At last, looking into her eyes once more, I slowly levered myself out of her body and rolled onto my back beside her.

As I withdrew, she took my hand and pulled it so that it rested, palm down, on her nearer thigh, where it joined her hip. She placed her own hand over mine. I squeezed her thigh gently, and she tightened her hand in response. The first light of dawn filtered through my window shade, and we lay together in it, naked, each enjoying the other's close presence.

At length, I spoke: "I really will be an old man when I get out."

"What?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

"Kidnapping," I said, "and rape. That's got to mean twenty years—at least!. But it was worth it!"

The hand that had squeezed mine left its position so that the elbow more directly attached to it could deliver a dig to my ribs. Then the hand returned and squeezed again. In response, I momentarily tightened my grip on her hip again. 

"I think it's ten years each," she murmured. "You're just a kidnapper. I'm the rapist!"

I turned my head to look at her; she turned to look at me. "Maybe," I said, "we should just call it even."

"That would work," she agreed.

"Do you think we'll do this again?" I asked.

She squeezed my hand. "We have to do this again, Bub! I don't do one-night stands!"

It took me a moment to respond, while the cat considered the attractive seat it had just found on the stove. If it didn't sit there, it would never know whether the stove was hot or cold. It made up its mind. 

"Do you do lifetime stands?" I asked.

She thought for a few seconds. "I like that idea! A lifetime stand! With you!" she answered. "We should work on it."

"I like it, too," I answered. "Even though I just figured out that you've made a fool of me. But this is a good day to find that out."

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "It is the first day of the month, isn't it! But you're nobody's fool."

"I'm your fool!" I pointed out. "Turning you away has to be the most foolish thing anyone's ever done."

"Maybe," she agreed as she rolled toward me. I rolled toward her, and I put my arms around her again. She put her arms around me and she looked into my eyes again. She smiled and continued, "I sure am glad that I didn't promise not to put any moves on you!"

"So am I!" I managed to reply before we fell asleep again, relaxed in each other's arms.