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Tapestry Ch. 01

By: HLD



Chapter 01: A New Love

The relationships we have are threads in a tapestry, each woven together to show the life we have lived and connections we have with one another. This is the first of an open-ended series that will feature characters from some of my past stories, and introduce some new friends for us to get to know. It picks up right after "McKayla's Miracle Revisited" left off.

In a bit of shameless cross-promotion, I suggest that you check out some of my other stories to learn a little bit more about Amberle, Kevin, McKayla, Melanie, Melinda, Nichole and some of the others who appear here. As with many of my tales, if you're looking for quickie sex, these are probably not the kind of stories you want to read. I love to hear from readers, so please leave me a comment or send me an email.

****************

"I will give you fifty bucks to get on the bull and ride it," Melanie slurred. The music in the club was deafening and we could barely hear her.

The rest of us giggled. I was half covered in the champagne my friend had spilled on me earlier in the night, but I didn't care. We were all blitzed. It's a good thing that there was a limo waiting outside so none of us would have to drive.

"Not a chance in hell!" Nichole shot back.

"I rode it! You bitches can, too!" Melinda pounded on the heavy wooden table and put back a shot of straight tequila.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I had allowed myself to be dragged along with my good friend Melanie Westcott and some of her friends for a girls' weekend out. I had known Melanie for about fourteen years. She was married to my wife McKayla's old college roommate, Kevin. This was something she had planned with some of her girlfriends and they invited me along.

Melinda went to high school with Melanie and Kevin. She is an English professor and bestselling author of trashy romance novels that she writes under a pseudonym. Melinda was also the most outgoing of the bunch and some of the crazier things we did that weekend were her ideas. Like me, she was in a "non-traditional" marriage, only where mine was a lesbian marriage, she was in a plural marriage that involved her husband, two co-wives and 8 kids.

I had met Becky before when McKayla, Kevin, Melanie and our kids took a Disney World vacation a dozen years ago, and have run into her with Kevin and Mel a couple of times since. She was one of Melanie's friends from college, and she had stopped by with her husband for a few days on the way to a cruise ship in Miami. Becky was normally quiet and reserved, although I think she was one of those wild, freaky animals behind closed doors.

The fourth girl in our group was Lara, and if there was ever someone who should have been a spoiled princess, it was her. Both of her parents came from old money, Ivy League families. Yet, they were also good, old-fashioned northeast liberals in the tradition of the Kennedys. Lara never needed to work a day in her life if she didn't want to, but she spent her days as a public high school guidance counselor and volunteered at more charities than you could count, including Kevin's scholarship foundation. As I recall, she and her husband knew Kevin from graduate school. She was a fun drunk, and I don't recall ever seeing her without a glass of wine in her hand that weekend.

The youngest of our group was Nichole, who was the reason for our little soirée. She was slender and fit. Born and raised in New York, she had the sensibility of a big-city girl. She could be loud and boisterous, but also incredibly kind and compassionate. She had just turned forty a couple of weeks before and we were ostensibly out for her birthday. Melanie and Melinda were ten years older, and the rest of us fell somewhere in between. I found out later that Nichole spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and she met Melanie when they both worked as translators for multi-national companies.

I also found out that like me, Nichole was a widow, having lost her husband to a car accident a decade and a half before.

"I'll give you another fifty to ride the bull!" Lara shouted.

Reaching into my purse, I drew out a Benjamin, doubling the pot. "Two hundred!"

Melinda waved to one of the hunky, young guys working in the bar. He came over and took Nichole's hand and led her to the center of the crowd. There were hoots and hollers as she adjusted the sparkling tiara on her head and climbed up on the mechanical bull.

Very quickly, she was back on the ground; I'm sure the alcohol played a considerable role in her incoordination. But she was laughing as she rejoined us, and laughed even louder as Melanie played back the video on her iPhone.

The six of us were staying in a beach house south of where I lived. It was on the other end of town, and not quite an hour from my house. I invited Melanie and her friends to stay with Maureen and I, but she said that I had to come stay with them. She didn't want me to feel like I had to be the hostess, keep everything clean or make sure there was enough food and liquor around.

"This is a vacation for you, too," Melanie said. And that was that. The house she got was beautiful and spacious. It had a private pool and hot tub. There were three big bedrooms, each with its own bath. Melanie had also made arrangements to have a driver on hand for almost the entire long weekend. Really all we had to do was have fun.

Lara leaned over and had to shout into my ear over the music. "That guy over there is checking you out!"

"He's my daughter's age!"

"I'll bet he'd rock your world," she giggled.

"Shit," I snorted. "I'd kill that boy."

When I was in college, I thought there was nothing more pathetic than seeing a group of old women out pretending that they were twenty-one again. Now that I was one of those women, it didn't seem so bad. Of course, over the past two decades, being a "cougar" or a MILF somehow became acceptable, and even desirable.

The six of us stayed at the club for another hour or so, and sure enough, that young man came over and asked me to dance. Despite the taunts of my friends, I didn't leave with him, nor did he get my number, but if I said he didn't make an older woman feel pretty for a night, I'd be lying.

All of us had kids and only Nichole and I were single, but we very quickly realised that we weren't in college anymore and 1:00 AM was definitely past our bedtime, so we piled into the limo, which took us back to the house.

Melinda, Melanie and Lara broke out the Captain Morgan's and started doing shots. Becky started up a pot of decaf coffee. I took a handful of ibuprofen, said my good nights, sent a text to my daughter letting her know that I hadn't been roofied and went to bed.

Some time later, Nichole quietly slipped into the room we were sharing and got in the big, king-sized bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I heard her rhythmic breathing and felt her arm draped around my waist.

And for just a moment, I realised how lonely I had been for the last six years.

****************

The rest of the house slept in until almost noon. I have never really been a morning person, but I have a certain routine and I'm usually up by about eight, even on the weekends. Have I mentioned that I'm 44 years old, basically retired and that I only work when I want to?

I went out into the living room and turned on the TV, careful to keep the volume low. The sun was up and there were two empty rum bottles on the table.

Rummaging through the cabinets, I found some Diet Pepsi and cereal. I dug my iPad out of a bag and began scanning the news. I also read a couple of chapters about the Starks and the Lannisters on my Kindle app and snuck in some Angry Birds.

Although I have lived at the beach for the last 20-plus years, I still love the early mornings, listening to the waves crashing against the shore and feeling the warm breeze blowing through the open windows. As the day wears on, more and more people head to the beach and the temperature goes up. The sounds of boats and jet skis and four-wheelers interrupt the calm. The early morning hours are the time when it's just me and the ocean.

The only other person to wake was Melinda, who made a brief appearance to whip up two cups of chai latte tea in the Keurig, then she disappeared back into the biggest of the bedrooms.

I was out on the back deck when I heard Nichole rustling around in the kitchen. Going inside, I found her brewing up a pot of coffee and looking for something to eat. We had packed some snacky foods and a lot of wine, but there really wasn't much by way of actual food. Especially if you wanted to ward off a hangover.

The night before, I was plenty buzzed, but I knew when to quit, which was well before the rest of them. In college, I got into the habit of taking an ibuprofen or four before going to bed, and found that usually preemptively wards off a hangover.  

"Good morning," she said with a smile.

"Sleep well?" I asked casually.

"Very well, thank you," she replied. She, too, found the cereal and poured herself a bowl. "I hope my teeth grinding didn't wake you."

"I didn't even notice." That much was true; once I get to sleep, nothing short of a tornado will wake me. McKayla used to tell me that I often slept through her molesting me and Maureen crying in the middle of the night, although in my defense, as I got older, I got better at listening for my daughter, especially when she was coming in after curfew.

"Do you know what the plan is for today?" she asked. We both had a little chuckle at that. Our friend Melanie is a planner. She used to be a commercial lender, but now is a loan officer at a credit union. If you know accountants, think of every organisational stereotype you know, multiply it by ten, and you have Melanie Westcott. Her husband bought her a shirt one year that said "Does anal retentive have a hyphen?"

I think her whole life is scheduled and planned. She has contingencies for contingencies. She can tell you at any given minute exactly what her checking account balance is (down to the penny!), how many more miles she can drive in her car before it will need gas, and when all of her bills are due for the next three months. That's not to say that she's rigid or inflexible, but she is compulsively on-time and is always thinking two events into the future. That is, unless she's been drinking, and then all bets are off.

"I'm not sure, but I'm going to go with hangover recovery from now until five, dinner some place nice, and then more drinking later," I replied.

In one of the other bedrooms, I heard the shower start up.

"I am so not in the mood for Cheerios," Nichole muttered. "Are you hungry?"

"Starved, actually," I said. "I know a nice little place up the road. They should be serving brunch right about now."

"I'm going to get cleaned up and let's go. I'm buying."

Not being one to argue, I poked my head into each of the other rooms. None of the other four were in any condition or mood for breakfast. I guess there's a reason why people in their forties eventually stop going out like we did the night before.  

Nichole and I changed into something casual, then got into my convertible and went out for brunch.

"Stick shift, huh?" Nichole asked as we pulled out of the under-house parking area. Many of the houses at the beach, especially the rentals, are built up on stilts. We don't get many hurricanes where we are, but when we do, they're doozies and the storm surge has been known to wash entire neighbourhoods away. There was parking for four cars under the house, but there was only my car and Melanie's rental taking up the spaces.

"Yeah," I slipped off my shoes and drove barefoot. McKayla was a BMW girl. In the fourteen years or so that I knew and loved her, she only drove 3-series convertibles, and they all had three pedals. Maureen drives the last car her Mom bought, a red M3 with a retractable hardtop that we have lovingly maintained. After my wife died, I picked out cars I thought she would like. I guess that's one of the ways I try to hold on to little pieces of her.

Over the years, we've done so much business with the local dealer that I can call the sales manager on Monday and tell him I'm looking for a new car, and by Thursday, he will have the perfect candy-apple red car waiting for me in the showroom at a price that is a good deal for me, but still makes them some money. "They're too much fun."

"I can't drive a stick," Nichole admitted sheepishly. "There's no point in having one in New York. You'd burn the clutch out in three months."

"If you can ride a bike, you can drive a stick," I repeated the words my father had told me in the year or two before he died. Before he would let me get my driver's license, there was a list of simple automotive things I had to master: check tire pressure, top off fluids, jump start a dead battery, change a flat tire, change the oil, replace headlamps and taillights and drive a manual transmission. I made sure Maureen had to go through the same check list, too. "And if you can drive a stick, you can drive anything. If you were going to be around for more than a couple of days, I could teach you."

She just smiled.

The drive to the restaurant was quick. It was in one of the artsy communities on the intercoastal side of the main drag. We got a table right on the water and spent longer than either of us expected just talking.

Nichole had been married three times, but was now single. Her first husband was a dear childhood friend who was killed in an automobile accident. She didn't talk much about him and I didn't ask. She met another man a few years later and she remarried. They had a son, who was now nine, but they divorced after six years because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Her third marriage ended in annulment only a year before. Apparently, he has a gambling problem, and prior to their marriage, he failed to disclose his substantial debts and credit issues.

"In fact," she told me, "It wasn't until we were married for three months that I had a clue about his issues. I started getting bills for credit cards I didn't know I had and calls regarding credit checks for loans I was allegedly applying for."

This was very disconcerting to her because she was a fairly successful businesswoman in her own right and luckily had insisted that he sign a pre-nuptial agreement. She found relief only after doing a lot of digging into his finances, which she acknowledged that she should have done before they got married. The marriage was annulled due to fraud, but her credit had still taken a minor hit and she was gunshy about dating again.

I talked a little bit about McKayla and living at the beach. I found out that she was a Yankees/Jets girl, while I was Braves/Falcons. Since she was from New York, at least she came by her fandom honestly, and wasn't one of those hangers-on who jumps on a bandwagon just because a team wins a lot. We compared notes about our kids. She was funny and smart.

About halfway through the meal, I noticed just how pretty she was, too. She was neither drop-dead gorgeous, nor simply plain. Neither of us were young, hot things anymore, but Nichole had a certain kind of confidence that radiated vibrance and vitality. She had something of the girl-next-door appeal, but she was also very fashionable in the Sex-and-the-City-on-a-regular-person's-budget way.

As we drove back to the house, I felt something in the pit of my stomach, which I hadn't felt for many years: butterflies. They both scared and excited me at the same time.

****************

After our big wild, Friday night out, we had a more subdued Saturday night. The other girls had come in on Thursday afternoon or evening, and they were all heading home on Monday. We went out to dinner at a nice, upscale local seafood restaurant (that's why you go to the beach, right?) and then came back to the house to talk and gossip and just hang out.

At some point during the day, Melanie had gone out and gotten some real food and a couple of bottles of wine, so we weren't starving.

I love hanging out with other girls. We talked about everything under the sun, from football to spouses to kids to cooking to vibrators to retirement plans and everything in between. Although I had just met some of these women only a couple of days before, they were a fun, non-judgmental group. Each was successful, confident and pretty. They were full of supportive words and witty zingers, sometimes in the same breath.

We swapped email addresses and friended one another on Facebook. I found myself sitting next to Nichole on the couch. My pulse raced when our hips inadvertently touched.

All the while, I wondered if it was my imagination, since she didn't seem like the type who would be in to girls. Maybe it had just been so long since I'd been intimate with anyone that my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe I had been out of the dating game for so long that I could no longer recognise when people were attracted to me and when they were just being friendly.

Or maybe, she was genuinely interested in me.

I made myself cut back on the wine or I knew I'd probably do something I would regret later.

At about 10:30, the six of us were sitting around, still talking comfortably, when there was a knock on the door. Melinda went to answer it and soon two police officers came in, looking for Nichole. Apparently she was wanted for outstanding parking tickets or regicide or something silly like that.

They had us going for about a minute, and then Melanie started up some loud dance music on the house's stereo. Soon enough, the two (very good-looking) young men were peeling of their "uniforms", Nichole found herself wearing the "Birthday Girl" tiara again, and somehow a champagne flute found its way into my hand and it never seemed to empty.

I think the guys would have let us have our way with them if we had wanted to, but they settled for the fair number of large bills which found their way into their g-strings. The side effect was that when the show was over, there was a house full of six tipsy middle-aged women in various stages of menopause who were suddenly very horny.

After they guys left, Melinda excused herself to go Facetime with her husband and/or wives, Becky retreated to the other bedroom for some time with Mr. Rabbit and Lara found herself suddenly needing to take a bath that involved candles, champagne and the jacuzzi jets.

Nichole, Melanie and I stayed up talking for a little while longer, then we all went to bed. I needed a few minutes to sober up or I'd be paying for all of the champagne in the morning.

I changed in the bathroom, but Nichole came in after a few minutes as we brushed our teeth and pulled our hair back. Neither of us were particularly modest, but nor did we go out of our way to expose ourselves to one another. Since we had both been married, we weren't strangers to having other people in the bathroom while doing our business.

As she was finishing up, I plugged in my iPhone, tossed back some ibuprofen and climbed in to bed. Nichole shut off the lights and slipped in afterwards.

We lay there for a few minutes, not speaking. Her body jerked a couple of times, and then her breathing became regular.

I spread my legs and found the space between them to be surprisingly wet. Trying not to wake the other person in the bed, one of my hands found its way to my breast and the other began to gently stroke my clit.

Although it was the male strippers who had gotten my libido going, it was thoughts of women that fueled my fantasies. Usually when I masturbate, I think about McKayla or Jessica Alba or Salma Hayek or someone similar; you know: brunette, voluptuous and gorgeous (although Christina Hendricks somehow finds her way into some of my redhead fantasies).


Tapestry Ch. 01



Don't get me wrong; I like men and I loved feeling a nice hard cock inside me, but I think women are so much more attractive than men.

I'd like to think that I've aged well. I try to stay in shape, although I'm a little heavier than I want to be. In college, my rear end was amazing, but now I think it's merely very nice. My breasts were never big, but that means now they're not too saggy and hanging down to my waist.

My nipples are still sensitive and I punched them as I rubbed my sex. I had to bite my lip as I flicked the hard little nub of my clit.

In my mind, someone was nibbling on my breasts and cupping my ass. I began to buck my hips ever so slightly, meeting the strokes of my fingers.

My lover kissed and caressed me. I ran my fingernails along the skin on my sides, from my hips to my chest.

A little faster. A little harder.

I felt my pussy flood with warmth and cried out just a little.

Just when I was about to climax, Nichole shifted in her sleep. I stopped moving, lest I wake her.

I could hear the blood pounding in my veins, and the thought of getting caught masturbating by someone I had just met a couple of days ago was oddly exciting.

When her breathing was regular again, my fingers resumed their ministrations.

It didn't take much longer and soon my body tensed for just a moment, and then my clit seemed to explode against my hand. I gasped louder than I should have, then I fell back into the plush pillows.

My sex pulsed as my orgasm was released. I curled up into a ball and rolled over on my side, the waves of pleasure receding.

A few minutes later, I fell into a contented sleep.

When I awoke the next morning, Nichole's body was pressed up against me, her arm once again draped around me. Instead of feeling strange this time, I pushed back against her so we were holding one another underneath the covers.

My fingers wrapped around hers and I went back to sleep, happy to once again feel close to another person.

****************

A little while later, I stirred again. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I realised that I was alone in the bed. The sun was trying to peek in from behind the drawn curtains.

I padded out to the living room in my pajamas where I found Nichole and Melinda. Our other three friends were still in bed, but it was early. A pot of coffee was warming.

Melinda gave me a warm greeting, but Nichole only winked at me. I blushed slightly.

We sat around and talked quietly until the rest of the house was up. After everyone was dressed, our limo came around and took us out for Sunday brunch and then to the touristy area by the fishing pier. We walked around and did some shopping while our food digested, but then found out Melanie and Melinda had made arrangements to go parasailing, which was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. I'm normally deathly scared of heights, but after a couple of mimosas, my courage was up.

The girl and two guys operating the parasailing boat were young, tanned and pretty. Melinda had paid a little extra and rented the entire boat, so it was just the six of us. That also meant that we could spend a little more time up in the air.

Lara and Becky went up first. For us, they had a side-by-side harness for two people. The ocean wasn't too rough or choppy. They put the parachute up first, then strapped us in the harness. Once the riders were airborne, a tether bound the riders to the boat, and then we rode around for a while before reeling the line in.

After the first pair was done, it was Nichole's and my turn. The cute guys strapped us in, and then began unwinding the tether.

Once we got about a hundred feet up, all of the noise from the boat and the ocean faded away. There was just us and the wind. It was actually very peaceful. Melinda had gotten us the 1200 foot spool instead of the 800 foot tether and it took awhile for the line to let out.

"So did you spoon me, or did I do you?" Nichole asked once we got up to the apex.

I blushed. "I think it was a little of both."

"I liked it," she said gently. "Thank you."

"That's the worst part of being single," I admitted. Before I met McKayla, I really wasn't much of a cuddler. I hated sleeping and feeling my boyfriend or Travis (my daughter's father) touching me. Yet from the first night I spent with McKayla, I never wanted to sleep without feeling her next to me. I don't know what it was about her and I can't explain it. I just needed her near me. "Not having someone to hold me at night."

Nichole looked away for a moment. She took a deep breath. Her voice was soft, and I could just barely hear her above the wind. "The first year was the worst. I cried myself to sleep every night after Michael died."

I took her hands in mine. It wasn't sexual or even casual-friendly. It was the intimate touch that only people who have lost the one and only love of their life know. We didn't speak for the remainder of our parasailing flight.

After about ten minutes, they began reeling us in. Her hands never left mine until there are only about two hundred feet left on the line.

"I hope you'll spoon me again," I said, only half-joking.

She squeezed my hands before letting go. "Play your cards right and we'll do a lot more than just spoon."

Behind her sunglasses and wry smile, I couldn't tell if she was serious or not.

****************

After we got back to the house and changed, the waiting limo took us to dinner. It was a nice, upscale fusion restaurant that featured a menu of Pacific Rim-style seafood and sushi, with a little bit of Polynesian/Hawaiian thrown in for good measure.

We ordered all of the appetizers on the menu, half of the main entrees and passed everything around. The grilled seabass over rice pilaf was especially good and the house sommelier matched our meal to the perfect wines. In a check-grabbing coup, I managed to pay the bill without the others finding out until it was too late, a move which would have made McKayla especially proud.

Our next stop was a bar that featured dueling pianos. The guys playing were absolutely brilliant, and we tried to stump them with requests that ranged from Big Country to Jimmy Buffett to Lady Gaga to the Indigo Girls. All night long, I kept looking nervously over at Nichole. A couple of times, I found her looking back at me. She smiled nervously, and then turned away.

A gazillion things ran through my mind.

What signals was she sending? My gaydar has always been way off; hell, the first time we met, I had no idea McKayla was a lesbian or that she was interested in me. I certainly would never have pegged a woman who married three different men to be into girls, too.

And what was I thinking? Was I just lonely? Was I ready for another relationship? If she was interested in me, did Nichole even want a relationship? And what about the distance? She lived in New York. I was well established at the beach. What would my daughter think? Would her family like me? Would her family kick her out for being gay? Would I be betraying McKayla if I got involved with someone else?

Can you tell that I tend to over-think things?

I lost track of the time, but I knew it was late when we left the bar. I think the other girls figured that since they were flying home the next day, they could go a little crazy. Again. About half way through the night, Melinda and Lara started ordering shots for everyone. I think the instructions were, "Everyone gets two shots every ten minutes until someone passes out, then it's every five."

Becky was the first one gone. Although she didn't quite pass out in the bar, one of the bouncers had to pretty much carry her to the limo. We tipped him well and I think Melinda even inadvertently flashed him with her big, round bosom that was falling out of her V-neck top.

We got back to the house and the limo driver had to help us stumble up the steps. He also got a pretty nice tip.

Everyone pretty much went straight to bed. I changed into a set of cotton pajamas with loose-fitting long pants and a short sleeve top. Nichole's were similar, but with shorts that showed off her shapely, athletic legs.

I took my customary dose of ibuprofen, brushed my teeth then got into the bed, nervously wondering what the night had in store for us.

Nichole turned out the lights, so only a soft glow came through from behind the curtains. I felt her get in on the other side of the bed. I was laying flat on my back, under the covers.

Her hand brushed my shoulder and she snuggled up close to me.

Neither of us spoke. I think we were each waiting for the other to make a move.

My heart raced. I hadn't felt this way in years.

It was terrifying.

It was exhilarating.

I took her hand in mine. Her breaths were short. I heard her lick her lips in anticipation.

She took a deep breath. My nipples crinkled up when she squeezed my hand.

"I want you to kiss me," she whispered.

Pushing her over on her back, I rolled on to my side. Our legs intertwined as I pressed my body against hers.

My hands cupped her face. I felt desire building within my gut. Any guilt I might have felt was washed away by the alcohol, and the burning touch of the woman with whom I was sharing a bed.

Nichole tilted her head back and I leaned in. Our lips met, briefly at first. I went in for a second pass.

She threw her arms around my neck and pulled me in to her. Our noses brushed. Her kiss was soft and tentative.

Our clothed breasts pressed together.

Her hands brushed the hair out of my face.

She gasped when my lips left hers and went to her neck. She dug her nails into my shoulder when I gently bit her ear.

I felt like I was going to pop when she sucked on my collarbone.

We lay in the soft bed for what seemed like an eternity, just kissing and exploring one another. She made no move to undress me.

The thought of touching her breasts or sex never even crossed my mind.

The closest we came was when her hands went to my hips and she began to slowly grind against me.

She cupped my ass with her palms for just a second, but then went back to pulling my neck close to hers.

Some time later, Nichole rolled me over and she took a turn on top. I ran my hands up and down her back over her pajama top. Our tongues dueled and she suckled the soft underside of my chin.

I fell asleep with Nichole's head resting on my shoulder and her arms around me.

When I woke up, I was spooned up behind her, my arms pulling her close to me, a contented smile on my lips.

And that's when the guilt started.

****************

Look, I know that I really didn't have anything to feel guilty about. My wife died six years before from pancreatic cancer that spread very aggressively to her colon and brain. She'd had one bout with colon cancer a few years earlier. The doctors found the cancer's return in May and she died in October, not long after our thirteenth "wedding" anniversary.

I think there was a part of her that was happy that the cancer got her. You see, she also had Huntington's Disease, which is a hereditary degenerative neurological condition very much like Parkinson's with Alzheimer's thrown in. She had some tremors and physical symptoms, but the cognitive parts hadn't begun to manifest themselves. Relative to the Huntington's, which she may have lived with for another five or for thirty more years, the cancer took her quickly.

Still, when I woke up in Nichole's arms, all I could feel was guilt. Guilty for waking up with someone other than my beautiful, devoted wife. I know I shouldn't have felt that way, but a part of me thought that I was cheating on the woman with whom I shared such deep mutual adoration, and with whom I had fallen so completely and madly in love.

At the same time, it also felt good to be held once again. Even before she died, McKayla made me promise that I would find someone else to fall in love with. I promised only to placate her, and truly, I never conceived the notion that I would ever find anyone who could even come close to matching my feelings for McKayla.

Like her Mom, our daughter is a cuddler, and after McKayla died, we spent many nights crying in each others's arms. That ended as we adjusted to the fact that she was gone, and then Maureen started high school and went to college.

It just felt so good to be held, even if it was by a woman I barely knew.

Nichole stirred a few minutes later, and pressed herself back against me.

My arms were still wrapped around her and I pulled her close, feeling the warmth of her body. She turned her head and I reflexively kissed her.

Her lips lingered on mine for just a second, then she pulled away and turned so that we were both laying on our sides, facing one another.

"Regrets?" She smiled knowingly. I didn't say anything. It was like she could read my mind. "You've never been with anyone since she died, have you?"

All I could do was chew on my lip. Nichole's hand caressed my shoulder and then she took my hand supportively.

"I understand," she whispered gently, and a chill ran down my spine. "I can see it in your eyes. It was almost two years after Michael died before I would even consider going out with anyone. I know you're comparing me to her. I know you're wondering if she's upset with what you're doing. I've been there."

I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath.

"It's been six years," I said softly. "I should be over this by now."

"Over this?" Nichole shook her head sorrowfully. "Amberle, listen to me: You will never get over it. Not ever. I think about Michael every day of my life, and he died sixteen years ago. I knew him growing up, and even though we were only together for three years, he was my one and only true love."

I choked back tears.

"How did you go on?" I whispered.

"I got up every day because Michael would have been pissed off if I didn't," she said simply. "We had no kids, but our families are close. I had to go on, for his parents and mine, for my brothers and sisters and his, too. I met another man, who was wonderful to me, and we were happy, at least for a while . . . happy enough to have a beautiful baby boy. Not a day goes by that I didn't wish I have Michael's child, too. At least then, I'd have a part of him with me always."

Her voice trailed off for a moment.

"You are too young to dwell on your wife's death for the rest of your life," Nichole said after a long moment. "But finding someone new doesn't mean that you've forgotten her, or that you love her any less. Your heart will always be hers, just as mine will always be Michael's. I think that's part of the reason why my second husband strayed so often. He knew that as much as I loved him, there was always going to be a part of me that would never be his."

"Did you love him?" I dared to ask. "Your second husband, I mean."

"Yes." There was regret in her voice. "He's a good man, and a wonderful father. We met in graduate school, and he deserved more than I could give him."

I reached over and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "So am I going to be damaged goods for the rest of my life?"

"Only if you want to be," she replied. "When I got married again, I wasn't in a good place to be in a relationship. You might be ready. I wasn't then, even though I wanted to be. You are the only person who knows if you're ready."

Nichole took my hand in hers and kissed it. We lay next to one another in silence for a moment before she spoke again. "So what about last night?"

"You tell me." My face flushed at the memory of her soft, gentle caresses. "I didn't figure you to be into girls."

"I went to Wellesley. If you didn't at least make out with another girl, they thought something was wrong with you," she giggled. Wellesley (not to be confused with Wesleyan) is a selective all-women's college in Connecticut, one of the Seven Sisters. While she was most certainly exaggerating a little, it's probably fair to say that there are more than a few LUGs (lesbians until graduation) in the student body. "What about you? You seem very straight to me."

All I could do was shrug. "I guess I'm more bi than gay. I'm not really sure if I believe in gay or straight anymore. If McKayla taught me anything, it was that love doesn't care about chromosomes or sex or anything like that. I think we fall in love with people, regardless of their sex. Have you ever been with a woman?"

"Beyond making out? No," Nichole flashed me a pernicious smile. "And even then, that was when I was in college . . . over twenty years ago. Maybe we were both a little too drunk to be thinking clearly last night."

She paused for a second and squeezed my hand before I could speak.

"But I feel like there is just something . . . something." Her voice trailed off as she searched for the words. "Something I can't explain."

We lay there staring into each others's eyes for a minute. My mind raced.

Yes, it could have been the liquor the night before, but deep down, I knew there was something else. We both knew what it was like to lose a spouse. We had both held them as they died. We soldiered on for our families. We acknowledged birthdays and anniversaries and wondered what might have been. We burst into tears over simple things, like being unable to open jar of pickles or fill car tires with air because those are things McKayla would have done for me.

That didn't explain our seemingly-mutual attraction.

Plenty of people have lost a loved one. There are support groups that help one another through the dark days. And almost none of them encourage their members to make out with others in the group as part of the healing process.

When I met McKayla, I think I knew deep down that we were going to fall in love from the moment that I first saw her. It took a couple of months for me to come around, but it was always there.

I didn't feel that way about Nichole. Sure, she was smart and pretty. We shared some common interests, but even as we lay in the bed together, there was a little bit of doubt in the back of my mind as to where our relationship might go, if we were to have one at all.

"You're a wonderful kisser," I said, and that made her smile.

"So are you. I told you yesterday that you might get more than just the spoons."

We both laughed.

"May I call you?" I asked playfully.

"You most certainly may," she replied. Her lips pressed against my fingertips. I closed my eyes as she suckled on the pads of my index and middle fingers and gasped.

"I don't suppose you can stay for a couple of days?"

"I'm sorry, but no," Nichole signed. "My ex and I are on a week-on/week-off schedule with Stephen. I was supposed to get him back yesterday, so he's staying with my brother and his wife until I get back."

A part of me was actually kind of relieved that we wouldn't be able to pursue our relationship . . . well, whatever it was that we had going on . . . immediately. I needed some time to think, and to talk to my family and friends.

"Maybe you could come up to New York and stay with me," she said after a minute, a hopeful tone in her voice. In truth, that would be very easy. I didn't have any commitments I couldn't get out of, and no real obligations, but I didn't want to rush into anything.

"I'll see if I can clear my schedule," I smiled.

Without another word, she leaned in and kissed me gently. My heart skipped a beat and she caressed my cheek with her hand.

I knew I was in trouble when she pulled back and I felt disappointment.

She went in to shower first and I was tempted to follow her in, but she didn't invite me and I didn't ask. I lay in the bed, resisting the temptation to masturbate, until she came out. A part of me wanted to watch her dress, but I resisted that, too.

By the time both of us were cleaned up, we found the other four in various stages of packing/dressing/hangover recovery. They had all planned for early/mid afternoon flights, and since that was something I didn't have to worry about, I told them I'd take care of the check-out with the rental agency.




Tapestry Ch. 01



Melinda cooked breakfast for the six of us, which she says was the easiest meal she had prepared in a long time. Apparently, in her marriage, she has herself, a husband, two wives and eight children: quadruplets who were sixteen and in high school, three who were nineteen and in college, and a daughter who was twenty two and had just graduated from the Naval Academy and received her commission.

I love my little girl . . . excuse me, young woman . . . more than life itself, but I if I had eight children, I think I'd go bananas. Although her living arrangements seemed odd to me (and this is from someone who had a lesbian marriage before they were legal), they worked for Melinda and her family, so who am I to judge?

We took care of the things on the check-out list and then the other five girls loaded their things up in Melanie's rental SUV. I gave my old friend a warm hug and thanked her for inviting me along. I promised to keep up with my new friends.

Nichole was the last to load up. We shared a secret smile, and then she gave me a quick embrace. I turned my head and found her lips pressed against mine for the briefest of seconds.

"I'll be back to see you," she whispered in my ear.

"I can't wait," I replied.

I'm sure the other girls saw us, but no one said anything, at least not to me. Nichole got in the car and they drove away.

****************

I have been out of the dating game for so long I don't know what the proper etiquette is anymore. Could I call her the next day? Three days? What about text or email?

Melanie posted some pictures on the Facebook that night when she got home and tagged us all, so I got to make some snarky comments about my new friends.

The next day, Nichole called me. I was sitting out on the deck beneath the awning and reading a book on my iPad. Maureen was off at her part-time job.

"Hey, there," she said.

"Hey, there, yourself." All I could do was smile. "I take it you got home okay."

"Yes," she replied. "Although I got stuck in Charlotte for three extra hours."

"See?" I said in a teasing tone. "You should have stayed for a day or two."

"I wish I could have." There was a wistfulness in her voice. Of course, she had to work and be a mother to her son, where I could pretty much lounge around whenever I wanted. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "About that . . . would you like to come up next weekend?"

"This coming weekend or the next one?" I asked. I switched over to the calendar app.

"Um, not this weekend; I'll have Stephen," she said. "How about the sixteenth?"

I frowned to myself. "I can't. Maureen goes back to school and we're moving her into a new apartment. What about the thirtieth? You could come back here and stay though Labor Day Monday if child care wouldn't be an issue."

She didn't say anything for a minute, and I could hear here shuffling a calendar. "Don't want to come to New York?"

"I love New York," I said. "There's only one problem with me coming to visit you."

"What's that?"

"I'm out, and you're not."

Nichole started to say something, but stopped herself. She knew I was right.

"Look," I took a deep breath. "I don't know what you think about us. Hell, I don't know what I think about us. I like you, and if you don't want anything more than just hanging out, that's fine with me, but if you do want more than that, I need to know if you're at least interested."

"I like you, too," she said, and I could hear a tremor of fear in her voice. "I mean, I really like you. But you're right. Coming here might not be such a great idea . . . at least not right away."

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

"What are you thinking?" I finally asked quietly.

"That I've lost my mind." Although her words were flippant, I knew exactly how she felt. The conflict, the doubts, the uncertainty; all of those had raced through my mind just before my first date with McKayla. "What are you thinking?"

"That I can't wait four weeks to see you again," I whispered. Sure enough, because of her custody arrangements and my schedule, it would be almost a month before we could get together again.

"Can you travel during the week?" she asked suddenly.

"I'm retired," I replied simply. "I can pretty much travel any time."

"I have a business trip next week." I could practically hear the gears turning in her head. "Baltimore on Monday and Tuesday, then DC from Wednesday to Friday. Would you like to meet me there for a couple of days?"

"I would love to," I breathed. It had been so long since I felt the tingle of anticipation in my stomach. And if I would let myself admit it, it felt so good!

"Excellent." She sounded relieved. "I'll get the hotel information for you."

"Lovely. I can probably only stay for a couple of days," I checked some of the other days on my calendar. "We're taking Maureen up to school on Thursday, but I can come up for Monday and Tuesday, at least."

"Okay." She sounded just as nervous and excited as I did. "Oh, and Amberle?"

"Yes?"

"When I woke up this morning, I wondered where you had gone."

****************

The next week seemed to drag on. Nichole and I talked a couple of times. There always seemed to be a nervous undercurrent in our conversations. I think we both just needed to know what we wanted, if only for our own sake.

It took Maureen about a day to figure out that something was up.

"You've met someone!" She seemed positively giddy when we went out to dinner one night.

"I wouldn't go that far," I blushed, and hoped she would be okay with my seeing someone new. I had dated a little bit while she was away at school, but for the most part, after McKayla died, I didn't go out very much. I couldn't bring myself to even consider opening my heart up again. "We both want to take this slow."

Maureen asked about Nichole, and we did what girls do: we went shopping. Truly, I didn't need any new clothes, but I did need to spend some time with my daughter. She helped me pick out a couple of new outfits. I refused to try on some of the things she suggested; I was forty-four years old, not twenty-two, and there are few things I hate more than people being dressed inappropriately for their age.

I did ask that she not tell her grandparents; McKayla's mom and stepdad, Suzie and Don, had been trying for a while to set me up, but a part of me felt like I was betraying them if I went out with someone else after being so in love with their daughter. I know it was irrational of me, but if things didn't work out between me and Nichole, I didn't want to have to face them about it unnecessarily.

There was also a little nagging voice in the back of my head that doubted that I was ready for another relationship, even after so long.

Before I left, I promised Maureen that I'd be back in time to get her moved into her apartment at school.

"You deserve to be happy, Mommy," my daughter told me. "And even if things don't work out with this girl, it's nice to see that smile again."

"What smile?"

"The one you used to have when you and Mom were holding hands." I was touched that she seemed to be genuinely pleased that I was interested in someone else. "By the way, the next time you talk to Aunt Melanie, tell her she owes me a hundred bucks."

My connecting flight was in Pittsburgh, which seemed strange to fly north and past where I wanted to go, then come back, but that's what you get when you live in a place with a po-dunk airport that has no direct flights anywhere.

Nichole told me she had business meetings all day Monday and part of Tuesday, so I was flying in late Sunday afternoon. She had rented a car for the three hour drive from New York to Baltimore and sure enough, she was waiting for me on the curb at Thurgood Marshall Airport.

My heart raced when I saw her leaning back against the car. She was wearing a thin blouse and nice pair of jeans. Her sunglasses held her hair back. She smiled at me. I walked over to her and smiled back.

We stood there for a long moment, each wondering if the other was going to make a move.

Finally, she opened her arms and I stepped into a warm embrace. She kissed me on the cheek.

I put my carry-on suitcase in the backseat of the rental sedan, and we drove off. The sun was just setting as we pulled into the Inner Harbor area.

"Have you eaten yet?" Nichole asked conversationally.

"Not since lunch," I replied.

"What do you like? Steak? Seafood? Cheesecake Factory? Sushi?"

"I'll eat just about anything. You pick."

She drove along the interstate to downtown Baltimore, then we followed Pratt Street along the Inner Harbor area, all the while listening to the Garmin spit out directions.

Soon enough, we pulled up to a place called Ra Sushi, which is a chain that has several locations throughout the country. She parked in a spot along the street and we got out.

Ra is what I consider to be a "Vegas"-style sushi restaurant. The crowd is young and hip, the ceilings are high and the music is loud. All of the servers are thin and pretty. You can get some traditional sushi and sashimi, but mostly the food is some type of fusion sushi with lots of spice and "flair" that makes traditional sushi chefs wince.

There wasn't much of a crowd on Sunday night and we were seated quickly. The pulsing dance music made it very easy to have a private conversation in a public place.

"Do you trust me?" Nichole asked playfully.

"I don't know that I like the sound of that," I smiled back.

When the server came back with our drinks, Nichole ordered a plate of sushi and sashimi, a couple of appetizers and a bottle of plum wine.

The two of us made small talk. She was in town trying to drum up business. While her family owned a produce shipping company that supplied the lower west side of Manhattan with food, she was into real estate.

"After Michael died," she explained to me, "I got a very generous life insurance settlement, plus I won a wrongful death lawsuit against the driver who killed him. So I took the money and bought the apartment building where we lived. I live on a full floor of the building. I lease out the first two floors as retail and office space. Everything else is apartments. The building sits on Central Park West and you can hit Columbus Circle with a water balloon slingshot from the roof, so I can charge premium rates for the location."

Of course, she was able to buy the building fifteen years ago after her husband died before the price of real estate in New York was merely high and not ridiculous.

"Do you have problems filling vacancies?" I asked.

"Not really," she replied. "There's always someone who wants to move in. The apartments are easy. But I hate trying to find tenants for the stores. The trick is to find a business that will last. Most places, especially restaurants, fold within a year. It can get expensive turning over a space every six months. Plus, if a location earns a reputation as being bad for business, it's hard to fill it. I'm hoping to convince some folks from here to branch out and open a store in New York."

"Have you ever thought about selling?"

"A couple of times. Trump says he wants to buy the building, but he keeps low-balling me." Our food arrived and we dug in. She paused for a moment. Our eyes met and I knew what she was going to say before her lips formed the words. "It was also where Michael and I lived, and I'm not ready to sell our home yet."

I reached across the table and took her hand. That was the real reason why I hadn't sold the house McKayla and I raised Maureen in; it was way more space than I needed, but it reminded me of the happiest years of my life, and I wasn't ready to part with it. She squeezed my hand appreciatively and we shared a secret smile.

Nichole changed the subject to something more light-hearted and talked for the rest of the meal. She made a valiant attempt to grab the check away from me, but I swatted at her hands until she acquiesced.

The drive back to the hotel was short.

I found out Nichole only stayed at Marriott properties so she could accumulate and use their rewards points. We were staying at the Residence Inn on Light Street. Even though she was only going to be there a few days, she liked the suite setup and they have valet parking. I wheeled my small suitcase behind me and we went up to her room.

We had carefully avoided any discussion of our relationship so far.

The suite she was staying in had a bedroom that was separated from a small living room and kitchenette. We were staying far enough up that the ever-present sound of sirens couldn't be heard through the thick glass, nor would the catcalls of the prostitutes in the alley behind Peter's wake us in the middle of the night.

It was almost nine o'clock when we got back to her room and I found out that she like True Blood as much as I did, so we settled in. Both of us changed into full top and bottom pajamas. We both liked to see Eric's naked rear end and I found out the only person who actively cheered for someone to punch Sookie in the face more than I did was Nichole.

As the show opened, I found myself propped up against the headboard with Nichole snuggled up beside me. My arm seemed to naturally fall around her. Halfway through, her fingers wrapped around mine. Neither of us spoke, except to sigh disappointedly when someone invariably rescued Sookie Stackhouse from some problem of her own making.

The show ended after giving us a couple of nice shots of Alcide's backside and the promise of more bloodshed in the next week's espisode.

My heart started to race as Nichole turned off the TV. Without a word, we brushed our teeth side by side. I climbed into the queen-size bed as she flipped out the lights.

The soft glow of the street lights shone around the curtains.

I lay flat on my back, Nichole slipped under the covers. One hand brushed my breasts as she draped her arm over me. My nipples crinkled up immediately.

We lay like that for several long minutes. I could hear both of our hearts pounding.

Ever so gently, I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips. She drew in a sharp breath as I suckled on her fingertips.

Her hand brushed my chin and drew my lips to hers. Nichole fell into my open arms, our clothed bodies pressing together.

Those lips. Pouty. Full. Soft.

They tasted so sweet. Our tongues intertwined. I rolled her over so she was laying on top of me.

Our legs seemed to instinctively cross and I pushed my hips against her. She pushed back and my sex started to tingle.

I brushed the hair out of her face. She pulled back. Our eyes had adjusted to the semi-darkness. Nichole's hazel eyes seemed to bore right through me.

Desire smoldered in her gaze, although she also seemed hesitant and tentative.

Neither of us spoke.

My hand caressed her cheek. She turned her head just enough to nibble on my palm.

Knowing that I would probably have to make the first move, I pushed her on to her back. She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as I took charge.

We kissed again, her eyes closed. She gasped with surprise—and delight—when my hand squeezed one of her ripe breasts.

I made no move to undress her, but we began to explore one another with our hands and our tongues.

My lips ran down from her cheek to her ear to her neck. My teeth raked her collarbone and she let out a low, throaty moan.

"What can I do to you?" she whispered. "I've never—"

"Shhhhhhhh," I purred into her ear. "Don't speak. Do what comes naturally."

This may have been Nichole's first time with a women, but she was a quick learner and a very good kisser.

Her hands ran over my body. Up and down my back. Across my shoulders. She palmed the cheeks of my ass and pulled my hips to hers. Our breasts mashed together.

Nichole's teeth gently bit into the soft underside of my neck when her fingers found their way under my pajama top, leaving a trail of goosebumps across my back.

I bit my lip and stifled a scream when her hands maneuvered to my front and she cupped my breasts. She rolled my nipples between her fingertips. She was a natural!

It became a contest between us to see who could get the other topless first. Mind you, there were no losers, even though it was my tits out in the cold air before hers.

Neither of us are very large in the chest, but that meant neither of us had a lot of flop or sag. In fact, for two forty-something year-old moms, I'd say we were pretty fucking hawt.

I sat back, my hips straddling hers. Our eyes devoured one another. While not as big or nice as McKayla's, Nichole's breasts were still perky and only sank a little to the sides. When I was younger, I often wondered why guys liked boobs. Then I put my hands on my wife's, and I realised that they are pretty damn awesome.

Leaning over, I kissed my lover a little hungrier this time. I pressed my chest forward and her mouth sucked one of my nipples right in.

Maybe it was because I hadn't been with anyone for over six years—actually it was probably closer to six and a half, since after McKayla started treatments for her second bout with cancer, sex was the furthest thing from our minds—but I almost creamed my panties right there.

My hands went to her breasts and I began to knead them gently.

I straightened my legs so I was laying on top of her. I resisted the urge to shed my flannel pajama bottoms.

Neither of us seemed to be in any kind of rush, which was good. I savoured each pass. Each caress.

Nichole cried out when I went to work on her breasts, my teeth raking her skin. The chiseled points of her nipples hardened in my mouth and she reflexively began to grind her hips against me.

We dry-humped a little harder, and my toes began to tingle.

"Yesssss," she moaned when I bit gently on her earlobe.

I lost myself in the moment as Nichole and I held one another. I didn't think. I didn't worry. All I did was react. I let my id fully take control.

Her touch was so soft. So gentle.

Our bodies fell into an easy rhythm. The only sounds in the room were our shortened breaths.

With each pass, my covered mound pressed against Nichole's just a little harder. A little faster.

She gave up fondling my breasts and instead grasped me by my shoulders, her nails digging into my skin.

All the while, my lips never left her body. If they weren't nibbling on her neck or tugging on her ear or bathing her breasts with soft kisses, they were pressed against hers.

When her legs began to tremble, I knew she was close. Her skin was flush and warm.

"Oh, Amberle," she whispered, and threw he head back into the pillow. Her eyes were closed, her jaw clenched in ecstasy.

I leaned in and gave her one last hard, desperate kiss just as her body went limp. I collapsed into her arms and felt another woman against my bare skin for the first time in half a dozen years.

When I awoke the next morning, I was on my back. Nichole's head lay on my shoulder, her breath soft and regular and warm.

I kissed her forehead and she purred in her sleep.

What surprised me when I first woke up was that I had no regrets. What didn't surprise me was how much I had missed this feeling.

The alarm went off a few minutes later. Nichole stirred in my arms.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," I whispered.

"I don't want to get up," she said softly.

My lips pressed to hers. "I'll be here when you get back."

"I'll hold you to that," Nichole slipped out of the bed and she went in to the shower. When she came out, I lay in the bed, watching her dress. Admiring her confidence and beauty. She gathered her things and headed out to her day of meetings.

On her way to the door, she paused only long enough to lean over and kiss me. One hand slipped under the covers and she squeezed my bare breast. I bit her lip and our tongues pressed together. Her hand went down to my waist and she tugged at my pajama bottoms. "Make sure these are gone when I get back."




Tapestry Ch. 01



Nichole kissed me one more time and then went out to face her day.

When she returned, I was waiting for her.

Naked.

******************

I lay there watching Nichole sleep until she stirred. Her sandy blonde hair had fallen over her face and I brushed it away. She looked so peaceful. We were both naked and the air-conditioned room seemed a little brisk. That didn't bother me, mind you; it gave me an excuse to cuddle up close to her under the nice down comforter.

Somehow, we had both managed to find a way to sneak away for a long Labor Day weekend at a little bread and breakfast in upstate New York. Maureen was back at school and my days were made up of working, volunteering for my favourite charities and trying to figure out where my new relationship was going.

After our first trip away, Nichole and I had found two other occasions to get together. She was traveling a lot for business, trying to find tenants to rent retail space in the building she owned on Central Park West. Being basically retired, I could go pretty much anywhere at any time. We got together in Boston for a couple of days one week when she didn't have her nine year-old son, and she had made arrangements for him to stay with her folks over Labor Day.

We were both tentative at first. Me because I had never really thought of pursuing a relationship after my wife McKayla died almost six years ago. Nichole because she had never been in with another woman before me.

What neither of us could deny was that there was the mutual attraction between us. I don't think I was in love with her, at least not then. I didn't feel the kind of insatiable burning desire that I felt from the first moment I met McKayla, nor did I know, right then, that I would give Nichole my heart and soul without reservation. Still, she made my heart skip a beat when we kissed, and I missed feeling her close to me when we were apart.

Complicating matters was the long-distance nature of our relationship. She lived in New York. I lived at the beach. We were both well-established where we were. Mobility was less of an issue for me, but I had spent the last two decades of my life in my house and I really didn't feel like giving that up. She had lived her entire life in Manhattan and had a school-age child to consider. Of course, that was assuming that we were going to pursue a long-term relationship.

That was the furthest thing from my mind right then. After McKayla died, I never had a rebound. I just went on with my life, which centered around our daughter. Now that she was out of the house, it was nice to think about me for a change. If I would have allowed myself to think on my relationship with Nichole as something more than a weekend together here or there . . . well, that was a discussion for a later time.

As things were, I was just happy to fall asleep and wake up with another person in my arms.

The first couple of times we were together, I think being with a woman was awkward for Nichole, but what she lacked in technique, she made up for with enthusiasm and a fair amount of natural talent. I loved that she didn't seem to be in a rush of any kind when it came to our relationship, either in a physical or emotional sense.

We spent a lot of time just kissing and making out. She never seemed to be racing to get into bed, but nor was she timid. A part of me reveled in the excitement of a new lover. The chase, the seduction, the exploration. Those were things I missed very much.

At the same time, she wasn't smothering or overbearing. Nichole seemed to enjoy my company, but I never got the feeling that she spent her time in New York pining away for me. We communicated a lot by text and email, and called one another a couple of times a week.

For my part, I was just happy to find a kindred soul of sorts. After all, we were both widows. We were both financially secure and neither of us needed to have someone else in our lives. It was a nice place to be.

My hand brushed her cheek and she smiled contentedly. She rolled on to her side and into my arms. Her head fell on to my shoulder.

Her warm breath brushed my skin. I kissed her forehead and drifted off, our bodies intertwined.

******************

"I think Emily is going to come home with me."

I smiled. If Emily was coming, her parents probably were, too.

Maureen was going to be home from school for a long weekend. A long weekend that included what would have been McKayla's and my nineteenth "wedding" anniversary. We were never legally married; two decades ago, that wasn't an option. We presented ourselves as a couple and raised our daughter in a household that was more loving than the kind many kids with heterosexual parents have.

For years, it always pissed me off when straight couples would get a divorce, apparently not realising how lucky they were to have all of the legal entitlements and responsibilities that comes will being married to the person you love more than anything. As I got older, my feelings mellowed. Legal or not, my marriage to McKayla was before God and our friends, and my love for her knew neither bounds nor limits.

She died shortly after our thirteenth anniversary, but every year after that, I did something to celebrate the day, even if it was just with our daughter.

A part of me wanted to spend the day alone, moping and brooding. It was pretty much the one day per year of self-pity I allowed myself. Having Maureen and our dear friends Kevin and Melanie Westcott plus their kids at home would be a pleasant diversion, if only for a few days.

"That's great," I said. "I'll fix up the guest rooms."

"Thanks, Mommy," she said. "I'll see you on Friday. I love you."

"I love you, too, Pumpkin."

They ended up arriving late on Thursday night. Duke is about a five hour drive and they left right after getting out of class. I was in bed, but I heard the garage door open and close (it's a mom thing), voices in the kitchen, and then the house got quiet again at about half past midnight.

When I went out the next morning, I found that all of the cushions had disappeared from the couches. They had somehow found their way into Maureen's room where they had been made into a giant blanket fort. I peeked my head and saw my guests were still sleeping, so I closed the door and went back down the hallway before I allowed myself to have a good laugh.

In many ways, Maureen can be as silly and whimsical as her mother (and I don't mean me), and I knew that she would always have my wife's impish grin and mischievous giggle.

The kids emerged from the bedroom at about ten o'clock, which was earlier than I had expected. I had watched Emily Westcott grow up from when she was about seven years old, which was when her mom and stepfather got married. Kevin was McKayla's best friend and roommate from college. Melanie had a son who was two years younger than Emily, and was a senior in high school. Kevin and Melanie had another son together shortly after getting married and the five of them have been among the dearest friends anyone could ask for.

I gave Emily a big, motherly hug. In some ways, she was a second daughter to McKayla and me. Like Maureen, she was smart, mischievous and beautiful. And like my daughter, she had gotten in to Duke, which was where her mother had gone to school and was right up the road from where they had grown up in Raleigh. The two of them lived together in an off-campus apartment they shared with a pair of twins, David and Isabel Thompson. All four were good kids. Aside from the usual college life, each was on the dean's list and they all seemed to have the world at their feet.

A part of me expected Maureen to bring a boy home one weekend, but so far, that hadn't happened. When she was in high school, Maureen never dated much. Part of it was that she spent a lot of time studying. I think she knew from the time her mom was first diagnosed with cancer, she wanted to be a doctor, and like her mom, when she decides she's going to do something, she never half-asses it. Not only was she going to medical school, but she was going to get into the best one on God's Green Earth. Duke was always her first choice, I think mostly because it was close, but if Harvard, Columbia or Johns Hopkins had come calling, she'd have gone there in a heartbeat. And she knew that she needed to get high test scores and grades to get in to any of those.

That's not to say that she didn't have a life in high school, but school was always her first priority. She graduated at the top of her class, and I believe—although she never admitted it to me—she was truly pissed off that she "only" got a 35 on the ACT.

Just like her mom, our daughter always had a lot of friends, although she only had a handful with whom she was really close. She dated a couple of boys, but none seriously. We talked frankly and openly about a lot of things, including drinking, drugs and sex. I let her and a few of her friends drink at my house on occasion provided that they turned their keys over to me at the beginning of the night, never left and showed me exactly what it was they were in too. To the best of my knowledge, she smoked pot a couple of times, but never did any harder drugs or popped pills.

When she was fifteen, one of her best friends got pregnant. We talked about being sexually active and I offered to put her on the pill. She declined at the time, although one day when she was seventeen, she asked to go on birth control. I took her to the doctor that afternoon and got her started, no questions asked. I also made sure there were always condoms at the house for both her and her friends.

I didn't want to be the permissive parent who let their kid do whatever the hell she wanted, but I was realistic enough to understand that my daughter was going to find a way to do thing things I may not approve of whether I liked it or not. So I made up my mind that I was going to put her in the position to make the best choices possible, and that she fully comprehended the consequences of fucking things up.

All in all, Maureen was a pretty good kid. She was too smart for her own good, but she didn't talk back much, generally did what I asked her to, stayed out of trouble and at 19 years old, was well on her way to becoming the world's leading oncologist.

I cooked up a good, old-fashioned southern breakfast of eggs, bacon, hotcakes, biscuits and sausage gravy. The pair spent the rest of the day hanging out on the deck and in the hot tub.

Kevin and Melanie showed up right before dinner. Their sons Toby and Anthony had stayed at home. Apparently, they had football games they didn't want to miss and Toby was old enough to babysit his brother for a weekend.

We put salmon and steaks on the grill and had a nice big meal with the five of us. We stayed up late talking as old friends do. My friends made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Kevin and I chased the girls around the house with the Nerf dart guns that were seemingly hidden in every nook, cranny and cabinet as Melanie soaked in the jacuzzi. The girls got into the digital picture frames and spent hours scrolling back through a lifetime's worth of photos, giggling at their fashions from middle school and recalling funny vacation stories from all of our years together.

About halfway through the night, Nichole called via Facetime and for a little while, there were six of us talking and chatting away. I excused myself for a few minutes to have some alone time with my lover.

"I wish I was there with you," she lamented.

"Me, too," I said, and truly I meant it.

"Maybe you can come up to New York in a couple of weeks," Nichole suggested. "I want you to meet my family."

I drew in a sharp breath. "Are you sure?"

She only smiled. "Yes. . . I think so."

"You can't 'think' about it, Nichole." I didn't mean to lecture her, but this was something very serious. "Once you're 'out', you're 'out' for good."

"I know." She smiled. "And yes, I want you to meet my family. Now go back to your friends. We'll talk later."

"Good night, honey." I blew her a kiss through the iPad camera.

She winked and closed the window.

The others gave me a good ribbing. Melanie even dug into her purse and made a big show out of giving a hundred dollar bill to Maureen. "You were so right about your mother and Nichole, Reenie. Now we're even."

I just rolled my eyes.

There were kisses all around and I hit the sack right before one o'clock.

When I went to bed, I didn't feel quite so lonely. As much as I missed my wife's touch, when her friends were around, it was like she was there with us. I fell asleep cuddled up against a wall of pillows and under the heavy comforter.

******************

The next day started out as a quiet one for me. I was the first one up. Melanie joined me out on the deck with a cup of coffee as Kevin cooked up some breakfast. We didn't see the girls until about noon.

I suggested going somewhere for dinner, but Kevin told me that plans were already made and all I had to do was show up. I just shrugged, and a part of me was happy to not have to think about entertaining my guests. I was also eternally thankful for having such supportive friends who I knew were thinking not only about the mother and friend they had lost, but me as well.

My brother Ander and sister Brin both called. Both had made generous donations to the local Hospice House in McKayla's name. Even Maureen's father Travis made a point to send me a nice message via Facebook.

After the girls emerged from Maureen's bedroom, Melanie packed the four of us went out to the local spa for a girls's afternoon of pampering. It was just before dinner when we got home and Melanie rushed to get me dressed. Kevin had disappeared and would be meeting us where ever it was we were going.

I was not surprised that we ended up at the little Italian restaurant which had been "our spot". It was where we went on our first date, and where we celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and graduations and everything else. The couple who own the place are some of the nicest people on the planet and always went out of their way to accommodate anything we ever asked for.

What did surprise me was that they had closed the open air section of the restaurant for our little group. It was a garden area in the center of the building, giving it the feel of a little Italian villa. Usually they had eight or ten tables set up along with a bar, but tonight there was just one big elliptical table, and as we were escorted to our table, I could tell other guests were ticked off that the prime seating was all taken.

Kevin was already there; I later found out this was something he and Maureen had cooked up. McKayla's parents Don and Suzie were also seated and waiting for us. I gave them each a warm embrace. Over the last two decades they have been nothing but completely supportive of McKayla and me. My own parents had both died before I graduated from high school and Don and Suzie filled that role in my adult life. I even called them "Mom" and "Dad".

Like my other friends, they had spent the last six years trying to fix me up on dates with friends and acquaintances, going so far as to scold me in a familial way for not moving on after a couple of years to find happiness with another person.

In the center of one of the long sides of the table was a single red rose in a small vase centered on a single plate. I knew this was to be McKayla's seat. I sat to the left of the empty chair and Maureen sat on the right. The others filled in four of the other five seats.

"Who else is coming?" I asked Maureen.

She only winked.

"That would be me." The voice behind me made my heart skip a beat.

I turned and saw Nichole. She walked over and gave me a familiar, if formal hug. She kissed me on the cheek but then quickly pulled away. I was at a loss for words.

Fortunately, Melanie quickly took over. "Everyone, this is Nichole Galloway. She's a good friend of mine . . . and Amberle's."

My friend introduced her to everyone, who received her enthusiastically. Privately, I feared introducing anyone new to my daughter and McKayla's parents, but that had apparently been taken out of my hands. I didn't know quite how I felt about that right then.

Nichole took a place across from me, between Kevin and Don.

The servers simply started bringing food. We had been coming here so often, the owners knew exactly what we liked and soon the table was filled with calamari and mozzarella and bruschetta and carpaccio and steamed mussels and anything else you could think of.

After the introductions, neither Maureen nor McKayla's parents turned the conversation to Nichole, which was a relief to me.

I knew from experience that if Alan and Marissa wanted to make a big production out of a meal, they were going to. The first wave of food was quickly followed by a second, and then a third. The portions were all small, but it seemed like they were cooking the entire menu for our table.

Don and Suzie asked Maureen and Emily about school. Melanie dispensed investment advice. I tried not to make eyes at the woman sitting across from me.

At a lull in the conversation, Nichole spoke up. "So, tell me about McKayla."

It could have been taken as awkward, but no one took it that way. We were out to celebrate our anniversary, and we would have eventually gotten around to talking about her at some point, even if Nichole wasn't with us.

"She was the smartest, prettiest, funniest girl in the world," Kevin started, and I could see him smile at the memory. "We were roommates in college . . ."

Throughout the rest of the meal, everyone shared their stories of McKayla with Nichole. We broke out our iPads and smartphones and even some old-fashioned pictures (remember those?). Nichole seemed to soak it all in.

For the rest of us, it was a new, wonderful experience. The first couple of years after she died, we always talked about McKayla with sadness and loss in our voices. As time went on, the feeling changed to fond, nostalgic remembrances. But there was always this undercurrent of, "what might have been" hanging over us.

This time, we were sharing our beloved daughter, wife, mother and friend with someone who never knew her. Where there had always been grief underlying our feelings before, on that night, laughter rang throughout the patio. We recounted stories and relived memories in what truly became a celebration of the life of the person symbolised by the empty plate to my right. And in a way, it was like she was there, laughing along with the rest of us.

Don and Suzie even told us a couple of new stories that they had forgotten over the years, like the first time he took her sailing and they capsized their small boat, when she pitched a no-hitter for the boys' Little League team and the first time she had asked why one squirrel was climbing all over another squirrel in the backyard.

When it was time for the main course, the servers brought out several dishes and served them family-style, so everyone could get a little bit of something.

Except for one plate, which Alan brought out personally. The owner of the restaurant gently set the rose to the side and placed the dish at the empty place. The crab-stuff lobster was steaming hot, served in a heavy cream sauce over a bed of risotto and asparagus.

It was McKayla's favourite meal, which they had intended to be a short-term special. She loved it so much that if they knew we were coming, Alan and Marissa would order the ingredients just to make it for her. It hadn't been on the menu for many years.

Alan said nothing, but leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek and squeezed my hand, as I wiped the tears from my eyes. Like Nichole, he also knew what it meant to lose a spouse, and in the weeks and months and years after McKayla's death, he and his new bride had always been there for me and Maureen in whatever ways they could.




Tapestry Ch. 01



Our joyous conversation went on, even after Maureen started picking at her Mom's food. She even plucked the lobster out of its shell and dropped half of it on my plate with a wink.

As I sat there, with my dearest friends and family, I never wanted that night to end.

When we got up to leave, Melanie and Nichole were walking towards the door. I stopped them before they could get away. "Where are you staying?"

"We got Nichole a room at Embassy Suites," Melanie said nervously.

"Go get her stuff and bring her to my house," I said.

"I, um . . .don't want to intrude." Nichole shifted uncomfortably.

"You're already here," I snorted. "And you're not staying in a hotel."

The pair of them gave me a resigned smile, knowing that I wasn't in the mood to argue. Besides, it was my anniversary, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted.

I rode back to the house with Don, Suzie and Maureen. "Thanks for doing this for me."

"Before you get angry, Mommy . . ."

"I'm not mad, sweetheart," I took her hands. "I appreciate you guys thinking of me, and I'm happy to have you here on our day."

"But . . ." There was no sliding anything by my daughter.

"But I wanted to introduce Nichole to you all when I was ready."

"Amberle, we're all on Facebook," Suzie said in a matronly, but unpatronising, way, "You two have been all over each other for two months now. We knew. Even if you didn't."

"I just don't know if I'm ready," I whispered.

"You are, Mommy," Maureen said gently. "You are. Even if Nichole isn't the one, you deserve more than living by yourself in a house that's too big for you without kids or pets."

"It just feels strange." I fidgeted with my wedding band. "On our anniversary."

"The only thing that's strange is that you've spent six anniversaries alone," McKayla's mother said. "We all just want you to be happy, Amberle."

"I know." Maybe this was for the best. After all, left to my own devices, I probably would have lived out my days as an independent, but brooding, widow. I had no plans on remaining celibate for the rest of my life, but I kept putting off any thoughts of dating or moving on with convenient excuses. "Thank you."

The four of us arrived back at my house ahead of the others. I went straight to the kitchen and popped open a bottle of Reisling. Don and Suzie brought their things in and took them to the back bedroom. I made a note to monitor the couch situation in case Maureen and Emily decided to make another blanket fort. Kevin and Melanie would be staying in the fourth bedroom, which probably meant Nichole and I would be sleeping together.

Or at least next to one another.

A few minutes later, our guests arrived. The conversation picked right back up from where we had left off at the restaurant. As the night wore on, McKayla remained the center of our discussion. Maureen broke out our wedding video and albums.

Nichole was a good sport through it all, and she seemed genuinely interested in my past life. The deluge of memories was both overwhelming and comforting at the same time.

After a couple of hours, Don excused himself and the girls retreated into Maureen's bedroom.

Like me, Kevin and Suzie were engulfed in their own pasts with our departed spouse, friend and daughter.

We stayed up until well after midnight when the others finally went to bed, leaving Nichole and I sitting on the couch, surrounded by photos, mementos and empty bottles of wine.

"She was a very beautiful woman." Nichole held our wedding portrait in her hands. "I'd have gone gay for her, too."

"Yeah, well you have to settle for me," I smiled.

"And you are just as beautiful." She took my hands in hers. I scoffed. "No, really, Amberle. You are just as pretty as she is. You just don't realise it."

Through my buzz, I couldn't tell if she was joking or just trying to make me feel better about myself.

"What's with the pointed ears?" Nichole asked.

"My parents named me after a character in some books they liked." I smiled to myself, the thoughts of all the times McKayla called me her "Elven Princess" reminded me of her loving touch. "Amberle Elessedil was an elf. McKayla was into all sorts of fantasy nerd stuff: Shannara and Lord of the Rings and all that. The elf ears were my sister's idea."

"Brin, right?"

"Yes. She and my brother Ander are also named after characters in the same series." Like a lot of people, when I drink, the filter between my brain and my mouth usually disappears. I changed the subject suddenly. "So why are you with me?"

Nichole emptied her glass of wine and took a deep breath.

"Want to know the truth?"

I nodded.

"I'm not really sure," she sighed.

That made me feel better. Not.

"There's a part of me that's tired of putting up with shit from men," she poured the remainder of a bottle of zinfandel into her glass. "It seems like all the single guys our age are either divorced with three kids or are in the middle of their mid-life crisis and want to date their daughter's friends. Or they need someone to take care of all their baggage and debts."

I snorted sympathetically.

"And then you came along," she said with a wistful smile. "You're smart and pretty and I'm fairly certain you don't need my money."

That much was true. Not to sound too arrogant, but McKayla made sure that Maureen and I would never want for money for the rest of our lives.

"Listen, Amberle, I'm sorry if my surprise visit upset you," Nichole said softly. "I didn't know if it would be a good idea . . ."

I took her hands in mine, and looked her in the eyes. "Don't be sorry, Nichole. I'm happy to see you and I wanted you to meet my family . . . and in a way it was right for you to be here with us tonight."

"Even on your anniversary?"

"Yes, even on my anniversary." I took a drink from her wineglass. "McKayla always said she wanted me to move on after she died. I know she would like you."

"So what do we do now?"

I reached out and pulled her to me. I kissed her gently. Her hands cupped my face and I lost myself to her soft touch.

"When we sober up, we're going to have a long conversation about that," I whispered. "We need to talk about a lot of things . . . but for right now, we're going to bed."

Nichole didn't say a word. I took her by the hand and led her back to the bedroom. We changed, I took a handful of ibuprofen and we slipped under the sheets. I pressed my body back against her and she wrapped her arms around me as we dozed off.

******************

The sun woke me the next morning. I reached for the covers, not realising that I had left the blinds open, but they weren't there.

Someone's head rested on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Nichole, but it was Maureen.

I blinked the sleep from my eyes and it took me a moment to recognise that I wasn't in my room. Nor was I in my house.

We were sitting on the beach, the first rays of the sun coming up over the ocean. We were both wearing our pajamas, and I had a short robe on, too.

My daughter was waking along with me. I'm sure she was just as confused as me.

"Did you dream about Mom?" Maureen blurted out.

I nodded.

"Did she say anything to you?"

I nodded again.

"What did she say?" Her voice trembled.

Over the last six years, both of us have dreamt intermittently of McKayla, but never on the same night. Usually it's when we're under a lot of stress; I think it's our brain's way of coping.

"She said to tell you that she loves you more than anything." I cradled our daughter in my arms. In my dreams, images of my wife are fleeting. I can feel the love we shared radiating from her. But she almost never speaks. And try as I might, I can never touch her. It's like she is always just out of my reach. I try to pull her close to me, and just as we are about to embrace or kiss, I wake up, often drenched in sweat and shaking.

"Mom hugged me last night," Maureen whispered. "She didn't say anything. She just held me. I think she was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't hear the words or read her lips. And then I woke up here with you."

I smiled and kissed the top of her head. We both had the same dream. But I had heard what she said.

"Is this the last time she's going to visit us?" There was fear in our daughter's voice. "Was that good-bye?"

"Of course not," I said, although I would be lying if the same thought hadn't crossed my mind. "Look at me, Pumpkin . . . Your mother will always . . . always . . . be watching over us. She is with us everywhere we go. She laughs with us, she cries with us, her heart breaks with us and you will never be without her. And when we die, she will be the first person to welcome us to Heaven."

Maureen started to cry softly. I choked back tears of my own.

"Your Mom was in our lives for fourteen years." I stroked Maureen's curly hair. "Fourteen wonderful years beginning before you were born. And she gave us a lifetime's worth of love in the time that God let us have her. She loved you . . . no, she loves you . . . completely and unconditionally. You are her pride and joy, Maureen, and don't you ever, ever forget that."

The two of us sat there on the beach, in the spot where McKayla used to hold me as we would watch our daughter play in the sand or swim in the ocean. When the sun was well over the horizon, and signs of life were heard from the house, we gathered ourselves up and went inside to attend to our guests. I held my daughter's hand as we walked back to the house.

It turns out that was not the last time Maureen and I dreamt of McKayla. It was, however, the last sleepwalking episode either of us had, and it was the only time we ever had the same dream.

I love you, Amberle, and I always will, McKayla had also told me in the dream. I don't know if my mind was playing tricks on me, but it seemed very real. She smiled at me. She smiled with that loving, haunting smile that made my heart melt. The smile that made you think she knew something you didn't. The smile that turned my world on its side and made a straight girl go gay. You have a life to live, my dear Elven Princess. Don't spend it alone. Tell Nichole that Michael and I will be waiting for you.



Tapestry Ch. 02



The relationships we have are threads in a tapestry, each woven together to show the life we have lived and connections we have with one another. This is the second of an open-ended series that will feature characters from some of my past stories, and introduce some new friends for us to get to know.

Before you read any further, this is not a direct sequel to the first Tapestry chapter. Neither Amberle, McKayla, Maureen, Kevin nor Melanie make an appearance in this story, although characters from another of my stories are here. I've got a couple of other projects in the works and (believe it or not) there is a grand design—fluid as it may be—to weave all the Tapestry storylines together.

As with many of my tales, if you're looking for quickie sex, these are probably not the kind of stories you want to read. I love to hear from readers, so please leave me a comment or send me an email.

***************************

Breana pushed to the front of the crowd to get a better look at the vendor's wares.

The exhibition hall was abuzz with activity. It was, after all, the first day of Star Wars Celebration VI, and people were clamoring to see what was available. Her parents had raised her on Star Wars, even taking her to local sci-fi conventions in addition to Dragon*Con, Gencon and the like. This was her first Celebration, though, and her first major convention she had been to without her parents.

She was there ostensibly with some old friends from college. Like Breana, they were into costuming and play-acting, not only with Star Wars, but mainly with SCA and other similar groups. After graduation, they had scattered across the country pursuing graduate school and/or work. Still, they tried to get together when they could, even if only for a long weekend.

In reality, she was at the convention by herself. Her friends were there to stalk celebrities, get autographs that would soon end up on eBay, party like they were still in college, and attend some of the writing panels in hopes of maybe getting the novel they had been thinking about writing into a couple of short chapters so they could submit it as a treatment for possible publication. They were more casual Star Wars fans; they knew enough to tell the difference between a clone trooper and a stormtrooper, but they wouldn't be able to explain who Darth Revan and Darth Caedus were.

Still, all four girls dressed up in costume to one extent or another, and they truly loved one another like sisters.

At the same time, Breana liked hanging out with true Star Wars nerds. She read all the books, watched the TV shows and played the video games. For someone who was twenty-four years old and accepted Jar Jar Binks as fact (as opposed to a character to be wished away along with a Han Solo who only shot Greedo after the Rodian pulled the trigger first), she was every much immersed in the cult of that galaxy far, far away.

Her bags were full of "exclusive" merchandise, figurines and t-shirts-and ABC kids' blankets and such, for which she had waited in line for nearly two hours and paid a handsome sum, but Star Wars was her expensive hobby; she didn't drink much, play golf or have any other real vices. She collected action figures, mostly of the 12-inch scale and t-shirts, and it was at a t-shirt vendor where she ran into Boba Fett.

Rather, he was one of the dozens of Boba Fetts running around Celebration, but when she looked him up and down, Breana could tell that he had put a lot of time, energy and money into his costume. It was as screen-accurate as they came and she actually felt bad about stepping on his foot.

"I'm sorry," she said apologetically.

"Don't worry about it, pretty twi'lek," he replied in a kind voice that had a hint of southern drawl to it. Even through the helmet, his voice was clear, not muted, which meant he probably had a microphone on and a speaker on his belt or under his chest plate. The exhibition hall was crowded and over the next four days, bumping into people and being pushed and prodded became something to be simply accepted.

Under her blue-painted skin, Breana blushed.

"Can I help you, Fett?" the booth attendant asked in the semi-impatient tone of a souvenir stand operator.

"Yeah, hold on." The bounty hunter paused long enough to remove his helmet.

Breana's pulse started to race and her nipples crinkled up immediately. Underneath the armour was a handsome Asian man. He looked to be around thirty with thin, wire glasses and a charming smile. He slung his prop rifle over his shoulder and set his helmet on the counter.

He pointed at a couple of shirts. "Let me have the grey one with the tauntaun, 'Vote Yes on Order 66', the 'What the Hell is an Aluminum Falcon?', and let's see . . . how about the red Ackbar 'It's a Trap!'. All in extra-large. Two for forty bucks, right?"

"Yup; eighty-five, twenty," the salesman replied, retrieving the t-shirts. He went to put them in one of the vendor's logoed specialty bags.

"I don't need a bag," Boba Fett took off his gloves and retrieved a debit card from one of the pouches on his belt.

Breana recovered enough to speak. "Can I have your bag?"

"Sure," Fett replied with a wry smile. "If I can have a picture with you."

The young girl blushed again. She readily agreed as her new friend fold his t-shirts into small bundles and tucked them away in the pockets of his costume pants.

She ordered the shirts she wanted and then the two of them made their way to the back of the crowd.

"Excuse me, can you take a picture for us?" Boba Fett asked a random stranger who happened to be standing nearby.

"Sure thing," the other man replied eagerly. This, too, was a frequent occurrence at Celebration. Breana pushed her camera into the man's hands, too. "Okay, one . . . two . . . three!"

The flash went off, then he took another, just for good measure. He did the same with Breana's camera, and then took a couple of pictures for himself.

They thanked one another, and then he turned to go on his way, leaving Breana and Boba Fett by themselves.

"Um, thanks for the bag" she stammered. Breana saw a flash of desire in his eyes, as he looked her over.

"You're very welcome," he replied in his charming voice. "Listen . . . can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?"

"Sure," she said, but inside she was thinking, But only if I can fuck your brains out afterwards.

He put his helmet back on and the two made their way across the exhibition hall, their progress slowed by the throngs of people looking to get pictures of them, either together or separately. Neither minded; after all, you don't dress up at a nerd convention if you're bothered by the attention.

Both posed and preened for the cameras—Boba Fett holding his blaster rifle menacingly, Breana making a Force motion with her hand or igniting the LEDs on her custom-built (and screen accurate) Aayla Secura lightsaber with the sound adapters—until they got to the impromptu food court, when the people around them melted back into the crowd. It's one of the unwritten rules of sci-fi conventions that you don't bother people while they're eating.

"Coffee?" Boba Fett asked.

"I'll just have a Coke," she said. "Or Pepsi, as the case may be."

They made their way to one of the food stalls. He got them both drinks and a couple of soft pretzels while she found a table that happened to be empty. He set his helmet and gloves down on the table.

"I really like your costume; where did you get the lekku?" Fett asked, referring to the headdress he wore. Breana was dressed as Aayla Secura, a Jedi Knight from the prequel movies. Aayla was a twi'lek, a humanoid race with various coloured skin and distinctive "head tails" that hung down their backs. In the Star Wars universe, lekku are semi-prehensile tendrils that house part of the twi'lek's brain, but also have communication and sensory functions.

"I bought them off a woman in California through one of the costuming organizations," Breana replied. Hers were fabric and filled with lightweight foam. They were attached to a headband that velcro'd under her chin and her skin was painted a matching blue. She also wore a tight leather top that showed off a lot of blue skin and matching leather pants. She could remove the blade from her lightsaber and hang the hilt from her belt, or just carry it everywhere as she was doing. Over the last year or so, she had invested a fair amount of effort in assembling her costume, but it was no where near as much as Boba Fett had in his.

"Which one? Rebel Legion?"

Breana nodded.

"They're good folks; I'm in the 501st and Mandalorian Mercs," he referred to a couple of the other premier costuming fan clubs.

She started to smile back, but as he took a bite of his pretzel, she saw the wedding ring on his left hand. Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach.

It took him a second to notice, but as soon as he did, he set his pretzel and drink down. He flashed her an apologetic look. Neither spoke for a long moment.

Breana wanted to gather her things up and curse herself for being so stupid, but something about the odd glint in his eye gave her pause.

"I know this looks bad," he looked into her eyes, as if to gauge her reaction. "My wife and I . . . we have, um, . . . an arrangement."

"That's what they all say," Breana spat. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time she had unwittingly met a married man. At least she hadn't slept with Boba Fett yet.

"Would you like to ask her about it?"

Breana's jaw dropped and she was at a loss for words.

Fett reached for his helmet, flipped a switch and spoke into the microphone. "Sweetheart, you there?"

"Whatcha need, baby?" a soft, feminine voice sounded through the speaker.

"Can you come over to the food court?"

"Be right there."

He set his helmet back on the table and smiled at Breana. Something about him washed away her urge to get up from that table and walk away.

What seemed like an eternity passed.

Neither spoke. Boba Fett just munched on his pretzel and drank down some of his Pepsi.

She heard a crowd behind her and she turned. Cameras flashed out of the corner of her eyes. Her companion broke into a wide smile.

Across the floor came what Breana could only describe as a Mandalorian goddess.

Like her husband, she was dressed up like Boba Fett. If the bounty hunter were a voluptuous female and habitually showed lots of skin. Her hips swayed when she walked, and her ample breasts bounced enticingly.

Her armoured top was cropped short, showing off plenty of cleavage and a bare midriff above her wide, curved hips. Her thighs and upper arms were bare; her perfect skin was a healthy tan. The woman wore knee high boots that were perfectly in the style of Boba Fett, only they had four-inch fuck-me heels that accentuated her shapely legs. The signature Fett forearm guards ended in matching lace gloves and her helmet was an exact replica of Boba Fett's, with only a hole cut out of the back; a glorious mane of jet-black hair was pulled back into a pony tail that hung down to her waist over her jetpack.

Breana's heart skipped a beat, and if she hadn't been sitting down, she would have become weak in the knees. Even before this woman took off her helmet, Breana knew she was going to be drop-dead gorgeous.

The photo-seekers stopped at the food court, but those around them continued to gawk as the tall, lithe beauty sat down at the table next Breana, as if to box the young woman in between the two Fetts. She lifted her helmet off and sure enough, she was the most beautiful Latina woman Breana had ever seen. She had big brown eyes that radiated passion and mischief.

"I see you've met someone. I didn't think you were in to Jedi," she said playfully to her husband. Breana's heart skipped a beat when the woman patted her on the leg. "You're gorgeous, honey."

It took a second for her to form a reply.

"So are you," Breana whispered. Like her husband, Breana guess that she was in her late-twenties/early-thirties. The other woman giggled, which set some of Breana's nerves at ease.

"What's your name, young Jedi?" she started, but quickly added, "And don't tell me Aayla Secura!"

The three laughed nervously.

"Breana," she breathed.

"It's nice to meet you, Breana," Mrs. Boba Fett replied formally. "I'm Mireya, and you've already met my husband, Scott."

She didn't know where to start. Apparently Mireya and Scott did, though.

The tall woman leaned in close, so her voice couldn't be heard by anyone nearby. "I'm guessing Scott has told you about our . . . arrangement."

"Not really," Breana shrugged.

Mireya laughed, as if to put the young woman at ease. "Well, let me tell you that Scott Baxter is the luckiest S.O.B. in the world. Not only do I let him spend a fortune on his Star Wars hobby, but he can go out and meet beautiful young women like you. The only catch is that he has to share with me."

Breana had no response to that.

"We live a . . . different . . . ah . . . lifestyle," the dark-haired vixen said gently. "If you would like to spend the weekend with us, we'd love to have you."

Scott reached into one of his pouches and produced a trading card with a picture of his Boba Fett costume on it. He scribbled a phone number on the back and slipped it into Breana's hand.

Mireya leaned in and breathed into Breana's ear, sending a jolt of electricity down the young woman from head to toe. "Call us if you're interested in dinner tonight."

She pulled back and the couple reached for their helmets. "If not, enjoy the con."

Scott only winked, then the pair was off to pose for more pictures.

Breana sat at the table for another ten minutes, her head spinning, a mixture of apprehension and excitement coursing through her veins.

***************************

She returned to her room and dropped off her souvenir haul. Breana caught up with her friends, who were making plans to go out for dinner. She begged out, claiming to want to attend one of the evening panels at the convention. Making the short walk from her hotel back to the convention hall, Breana ducked into a couple of the panel discussions. She didn't see Scott or Mireya again.

Sometime around mid-afternoon, Breana worked up the nerve to call the number on the back of the Boba Fett trading card. It only rang once. "Hello?"

"Hello, Scott?" she stammered.

"Breana?" There was an odd reverberation in his voice, like he was in a tunnel.

"Yes; can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he replied sheepishly. "I've got Bluetooth in my helmet. There's probably an echo."

"Just a little," she giggled. "But everything is better with Bluetooth, right?"

"It sure is," he agreed. "Can we buy you dinner tonight?"

"Um, sure," she said. What the hell am I thinking?

"We're staying at the Peabody," he said. "If you want, come by the lobby there, or we can meet you somewhere else."

"I can meet you there." She appreciated that he didn't ask where she was staying. "What time?"

"It's, what? . . . three-thirty now? . . . How about six o'clock?"

"Sounds good." Breana's heart began to race. "I'll look for you in the lobby then."

She hung up, then went back to her room so she could wash her blue body paint off. It was all she could do to resist the urge to masturbate.

A little before six, she was cleaned and dressed in a light sundress that would be appropriate to the August Florida heat. Her sandy blonde hair hung down just past her shoulders; with the

Her hotel was just up the street from the convention center; their hotel was right across the street. As soon as she walked through the doors of the lobby, she saw Scott and Mireya sitting on one of the plush couches. He was in one of his new t-shirts, a pair of cargo shorts and sandals. She wore a low-cut loose blouse with a knee-length skirt, and had traded her high heels for a pair of comfortable Toms.

It looked like they had been waiting for a few minutes. She wasn't late.

Both stood as soon as they saw Breana.

When she walked over, Mireya gave the young woman a familiar hug. Scott leaned in and kissed her cheek, his moist lips making her spine shiver, in the good way.

"Do you trust us?" he asked with a pernicious grin. There was something disarming about his general demeanor. Against her better judgment, Breana readily agreed.

The trio made their way out of the lobby to the curb. The valet motioned for one of the waiting taxis and they got in. To her surprise, Scott told the driver to go to a local walk-in clinic.

Along the way, they talked and got to know one another.

The Baxters were college sweethearts who lived in the Orlando area, where she was head of the IT department at a local college and he was a plastic surgeon.

"I spend more time talking people out of having something done than I spend in an operating room," he said lamentfully. "Most people just need a little touch up here or there, but a lot of people want drastic changes. For instance, I had a girl come into my office who was about your age, and she wanted a nose job, bigger boobs and collagen in her lips."

"What's wrong with wanting to look better?"

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to look better." Scott just shook his head. "But no one should want to look different. For instance, I could give you a pair of double-D cup tits that would be awesome, but they'd look funny on you because you're not built for them."

When they pulled into the clinic parking lot, Scott led them inside, after slipping the cab driver a twenty to wait for them. The clinic had a lab, and Scott explained that they were all going in for blood tests, which he would pay for.

"We don't swing with just anyone," Mireya winked as she rolled up her sleeve.

Being a nurse herself, Breana was used to needles and the process was mostly painless. They left the clinic and headed to a local sushi restaurant back towards the convention center.

They were seated in a private room in the back. The servers didn't give them menus; they simply started bringing them food. It seemed that Scott and Mireya were regulars. Breana thought back to the restaurant her parents owned, and how she knew some of their frequent customers from all the years she worked there.

"I'll bet you have a million questions," Mireya said, not beating around the bush.

"Yeah . . .um, how exactly does your relationship work?" Breana downed her first helping of sake, and went back for a second.

"We met and dated at Georgetown," Scott said, passing the edemame around. "We must have broken up and gotten back together a dozen times."

"Why?"

"Because Scott couldn't keep his dick in his pants."

"And Mireya liked to sleep around."

Breana's eyebrow shot up. "So why are you together?"

"Because we're amazing in bed together," Mireya giggled. She reached across the table and took Breana's hand. "And despite all of the fights and the jealousy, we were in love from the moment we met. And we still are. We stay together because of our arrangement. Instead of cheating on one another, we share our bed with each others' lovers."

"How does that work?" It may have been the sexual tension, or it may have been the sake, but it seemed to Breana that the room was starting to get warm.

"There are three rules: First, there are no secrets, no cheating and no lying. It's all out in the open. Second, everyone shares, and if you decide to join us, that includes you, too." Mireya stopped as the servers brought a plate of sashimi and set it in the center of the table. "The third rule is that he always comes home to me, and I go home to him."

"Um, how many lovers do you have?" Breana wondered. Obviously, she wasn't the first person this couple had propositioned. In all likelihood, she wouldn't be the last, either. She just didn't want to be another notch in their bedpost.




Tapestry Ch. 02



The two exchanged a look.

"You would be number six," Scott said finally. "We're not as wild as you'd think. It's just nice for us to have out there. The idea of taking a lover fuels our fantasies."

"The last one was . . . three years ago?" Mireya thought for a second. "Jillian."

The two smiled at the pleasant memory.

"So why now? Why me?"

Scott flashed his charming, crooked smile, which made Breana blush. "Because you're smokin' hawt."

"Because he knew that after one look, I would eat you alive." Mireya's eyes bored right into her. Breana had never been with a woman before, but if she was ever going to make love to one, Mireya was the kind who would have been at the top of her list. Once again, Breana's nipples crinkled up and the space between her leg became slick.

The three ate in silence for a few minutes as Breana processed everything the couple had told her.

"So have you ever taken a man as a lover?"

"We've been open to it, but haven't found one who was the right fit," Scott said. "Mostly, the guys who are interested just want to sleep with Mireya. They don't want to share."

"Do you both . . . um, swing both ways?"

"Not really," Scott shrugged. "Guys don't turn me on, but I'd to a threeway with Mireya if the right guy came along."

"And you like girls, too?"

"Not all girls," Mireya said, a sultry look in her eyes. "Just cute ones like you."

Breana struggled to resist the urge to jump across the table and stick her tongue down the other woman's throat.

Instead, she took a deep breath and reached for the sushi which had arrived just in the nick of time.

The rest of the meal passed and they called a cab. They took her back to her hotel where they dropped her off at the valet; all three got out after swapping phone numbers. Breana half expected them to take her back to their hotel, and she wouldn't have protested.

"We don't sleep with anyone on a first date," Scott laughed. "We don't want you to think we're easy. Besides, our lab results won't be ready until morning."

He gave her a warm hug. Mireya leaned in to say good night. Breana tiled her head back and closed her eyes, but instead Mireya turned and kissed her cheek.

"Call us in the morning," she whispered in her ear. "I hope you'll be in our bed tomorrow night."

With that, the couple got back in the cab and went back to their hotel.

Breana rushed back up to her room and breathed a sigh of relief that her friends were still out. She fell into the bed and masturbated to a torrid fantasy of her two lovers, until she finally fell asleep.

***************************

She awoke the next morning in a cold sweat. Her friends had come in sometime around two-thirty, right after the bars closed. None of the other three girls were in any condition to be going out until about noon.

Breana blinked the sleep out of her eyes and went into the bathroom to shower and make herself up. She applied the body paint, dressed, put her lekku on and hung her lightsaber from her belt.

Digging her Yoda backpack out of her suitcase, Breana quietly opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

Once she was in the elevator, she dialed Scott's number.

"Hey, there," he answered. The hotel guests were slowly coming to life. She passed several Jedi and stormtroopers in the hallway and lobby.

"Hi," Breana took a deep breath. "Are you guys doing anything for breakfast?"

"We're about to head down to the restaurant downstairs. Would you like to join us?"

"There's an IHOP down the street; I was going to head over there."

"Come on over here," Scott coaxed. "Our treat."

That was the real source of Breana's apprehension. She was on a budget, after all, and hotel restaurants—especially the ones in the Peabody—weren't for people who were worried about money.

"Okay," she sighed. "I'm leaving my hotel now. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes."

When she got to the lobby of the Peabody, she didn't see either Scott or Mireya. Of course, she didn't know if she had woken them up, or if they were already out of bed. Taking a seat in the waiting area, Breana checked her email and perused the convention program to see if there were any panels she was interested in attending.

After a few minutes, she heard a familiar voice behind her. "Good morning!"

Mireya opened her arms and gave Breana a warm hug, the older woman's hands lingering on her waist. Scott followed suit. The hostess led the three to a table, and Breana found her fingers intertwined with Mireya's.

The pair was dressed in costume, Scott in his Boba Fett outfit, Mireya in the black uniform of an Imperial officer. Although it covered her pretty much from head to toe, it was tailored perfectly to her shapely body, and she was almost as hot in this costume as she was dressed in her Mandalorian armour. Unlike her Boba Fett costume, this one was compliant with the 501st's costume reference library guidelines.

"I don't know that we can be seen associating with a Jedi. We're going to have to turn you to the Dark Side," Mireya whispered in Breana's ear mischievously, and the young woman didn't miss the double entendre.

They ate a leisurely breakfast, making small talk and planning out their day.

"We usually try to take in the panels that interest us on Friday," Scott said. "Saturday is probably going to be the busiest day, so we'll spend most of the day being Boba Fett and his slutty wife."

Mireya winked. "What have you got planned for today?"

Breana thought about mentioning the list of panels which interested her, but she stopped. "I was going to have dinner with you."

Scott and Mireya exchanged a knowing smile.

"We'll look forward that," Scott reached over and took Breana's hand.

Mireya couldn't help but add, "I hope there's dessert afterwards."

***************************

The trio split up and headed their separate ways. Breana met up with one of her friends for the Hasbro panel.

"We're going over to the Wolfgang Puck restaurant over at Downtown Disney for dinner; do you want to come with?" Sandy asked as they waited for the presentation to start.

"No, thanks."

Her friend Sandy paused, then leaned over, her voice giddy. "You've met someone!"

Breana blushed.

"Who is he? He's not dressed up like a dork is he?"

"No, he's Boba Fett."

"One of the sorry-ass Halloween Boba Fetts, or one of the awesome, his-costume-cost-as-much-as-a-used-car Boba Fetts?"

Even under the blue body paint, Breana was sure she had turned a bright shade of red. "He's one of the 501st Boba Fetts."

"Very nice," Sandy shot her friend a mock naughty look. "Are you going to sleep with him this trip?"

"I haven't even kissed him yet!"

"You didn't answer my question," the other girl giggled, then gave Breana a warm hug. "How long has it been?"

"Almost a year," Breana sighed. "Since Jason and I broke up. Don't worry that I'm going to fuck him just because he's the first one to come along."

"No, I know your taste in men; you'll fuck him because he's gorgeous!" The two girls laughed.

The lights dimmed, signaling the beginning of the panel. Breana made lots of mental notes about which new toys she was going to put on her wish list. The vintage-packaged Millennium Falcon easily made the top of her list.

After that panel, the girls wandered through the exhibition hall looking for a bite to eat. Sandy kept pointing at the Boba Fetts who were wandering around, "Is that him?" "What about him?" "He's not that fat one, is he?"

They ran into the other two girls and the foursome enjoyed a fun, if pricey, lunch together, splitting a couple of pizzas, a potato and what passed for chicken teriyaki. Breana was the only one who was dressed up, and once Sandy made it known that she was also the only one with a Celebration hook-up (so far), all three had lots of laughs at her expense. Not that she minded, of course; it was good to hang out with her friends from college again.

"Before you sleep with him, we want a chance to run him through the ringer!" Sandy told Breana. "Just like you guys did to Peter."

"Yeah, well, we kept you from marrying him, didn't we?" Dawna snorted. "Saved you a lot of grief, as I remember!"

The girls went their separate ways in the afternoon. As the day wore on, the butterflies in Breana's stomach became more and more restless.

Just after lunch, the lab called with her test results. She was given a clean bill of health, and asked that the full workup be emailed to her.

In the panels, she found her mind wandering between, I wonder how tonight will go to What the hell am I thinking? to everything in between.

Right about the time Breana thought about going back to her room to change, she ran into Mireya. The dark-haired woman was posing for pictures and waved as Breana walked by.

"Are we still on for dinner?" Mireya asked casually.

Breana fidgeted. "No. I can't do dinner."

"Why not?" There was concern in Mireya's voice. Concern and disappointment.

"I'll never make it through dinner," Breana took her hands. "I'm too . . . Can we just go back to your room?"

"Now?"

"Yes, now. If I think about it too much, I'll chicken out." Breana started shaking.

"I'll call Scott," Mireya reached for her phone.

"No, not yet," there was pleading in Breana's voice. "This first time . . . I just want you . . . I just want it to you and me."

She took a couple of deep breaths to get her heart rate down.

"I'm sorry," Breana whispered.

"Don't be sorry, sweetheart." Mireya reached out and wiped away the tears that were forming in Breana's eyes. "Let's go."

Arm in arm, the pair walked briskly out of the Convention Center, oblivious to the stares of those around them. The trip across the street, into the lobby and up the elevator seemed to take forever.

"Our test results came back," Mireya said softly, as if merely speaking would scare off the young girl. Still, this was a conversation they needed to have.

"Mine, too." Breana sighed. "Would you like to see them?"

"Are you clean?"

"Yes."

"So are we," Mireya smiled. "And we trust you. Are you on the pill?"

"No; IUD."

"Okay, good." The elevator opened on one of the upper floors of the Peabody. Breana's heart raced as she followed her soon-to-be lover's swaying hips. They stopped at the end of the hall.

Mireya paused before she put the key card in the door and looked Breana in the eyes. "Last chance to back out."

"Not gonna happen," Breana breathed, enraptured.

Impulsively, she reached out and pulled the taller woman to her. They met in a sloppy, passionate kiss. Breana closed her eyes and lost herself to the feel of Mireya's soft lips. The two women held each other for a long moment, their tongues intertwined.

It wasn't until the elevator down the hall dinged that they pulled away. Mireya opened the door as Breana tugged at her tunic.

They pushed their way into the room and were all over one another.

Breana pushed Mireya against the door as soon as it closed. They tugged and pulled at one another's clothes until both were undressed, leaving a path of costume parts into the separate bedroom.

Both women were surprised at the intensity of Breana's desireful kiss.

Blue body paint soon covered them both.

Taking her time, Breana explored Mireya's body with her hands and her mouth. They fell on the bed, their bodies pressed together. Mireya lay back and let the tentative, younger woman take her time.

A part of Breana felt she was having an out of body experience. It was very surreal. She had never really fantasised about being with a woman, and had certainly never kissed one as she was kissing Mireya.

Yet it felt so . . . so . . . right.

Mireya's skin was so soft. Her breasts supple. Unclasping Mireya's bra, Breana cupped her lover's breasts and pinched her nipples into hardened little points.

"Kiss them," Mireya whispered, and Breana was eager to oblige, alternating her attention between the wondrous globes on Mireya's chest. Her areolas were easily the size of sand dollars, and were a light shade of brown, unlike Breana's pink nipples. They hardened at the slightest touch and Breana suckled on her first sapphic lover hungrily.

The only time Mireya made any move was to finish undressing them both, and then the two naked women lay together, not speaking. The only sounds in the room were soft cries of pleasure and squeals of delight.

"I don't know what to do next," Breana said softly, as if she were afraid that admission would scare her new lover.

"It's okay, sweetie," Mireya smiled gently. "You don't have to do anything."

"But I—"

"Shhhhh." A kiss silenced the younger woman. "We're not going to do anything right now except hold each other. I promised Scott I wouldn't have you until all three of us were together . . . no, wait . . ."

Mireya rolled Breana on to her back. Her lips found Breana's and they kissed eagerly. Breana ran her hands over the other woman's body, never lingering on one spot, hungry to explore her fully.

"You need to be sure that this is something you really want, Breana."

"Call me Bree," she whispered.

"Okay, Bree . . . You need to really want this. I don't mean forever, or even past this weekend, but Scott and I really like you . . . and we want to have you, and we want you to have us." Mireya brushed Breana's curly hair out of her face. "We don't have a safe word or anything like that and we won't ever do anything to hurt you. But sometimes . . . sometimes we're going to fuck your brains out . . .and, um . . . we can get a little rough . . .but please understand that it's only because we want you so badly."

"I want that," Breana said as Mireya pulled back. The two women stared into one another's eyes for a long moment. "There's a part of me that thinks I've gone crazy . . . I've never done anything like this before . . . I know that's sounds cliché, but it's true."

"Then why are you here, Bree?"

Breana had no response. She had to think long and hard, and even then she couldn't find an answer that she could put into words.

Mireya must have sensed that Breana was close to the point of emotional overload, because she pulled away and sat up. Extending her hand, she pulled the young woman to her feet and led her to the bathroom.

The Baxters had booked one of the high-end rooms at the Peabody. There was a separate stand-up shower and whirlpool tub. Mireya started the shower and the two women slipped under the warm water.

The water running down the drain turned blue as they washed what was left of the body paint off of one another. Breana's hands lingered on Mireya's body. Goosebumps ran down her spine as Mireya explored her.

"Your breasts are amazing," Bree said, cupping them in her hands.

Mireya stuck her chest out, her nipples showing prominently. "And they're all mine."

"Even with a plastic surgeon husband?"

"Even with!" Mireya giggled. "Last year, I had them lifted, but they're the same size as I was in college; just the sag is gone. Not bad for thirty-eight, huh?"

"You're thirty-eight?" Breana's jaw dropped.

"I'll be thirty-nine in December."

"You don't look it," Bree made a mental not to check the other woman's drivers' license later. "You look like you're maybe thirty-two. How old is Scott?"

"He'll be forty next April; you must be his mid-life crisis," Mireya snickered.

"What?"

"It's an old joke we have; my mother told me that when a man turns forty, he gets one of three things: a sports car, an expensive hobby or a girlfriend." Mireya turned Bree around and began to wash her back. "Well, Scott has a BMW, a garage workshop where he makes Star Wars costumes and now it looks like he's getting a girlfriend. I guess that's the trifecta."

Breana blushed at the word "girlfriend." She couldn't believe that this couple was almost fifteen years older than she was. Both were fit and attractive; maybe it is true that Asians and Latinos age better than everyone else.

And didn't being someone's "girlfriend" imply more than a one-night stand? What was she getting herself in to?

Those thoughts were pushed out of her mind, as Mireya spun her around and pushed her against the wall of the shower. Breana felt her lover's breasts press against her back. The tile felt cool against her skin, even as the hot water washed over her.

Lips on the back of her neck, sent a shiver through her body. Bree smiled contentedly. Mireya kissed around to just behind her ear.

"I just hope you'll be my girlfriend, too."

"Kiss my neck again, and I'll be your anything." She felt like she was floating six feet above the ground.

"You like that?"

"I fucking love that. I'd rather be kissed right there than have my pussy eaten." Breana closed her eyes as Mireya's teeth raked the nape of her neck.

"You only say that because I haven't eaten you out yet." There was the promise of great things in Mireya's voice.

Breana managed to turn around and pulled the other woman to her. It was strange; in the embrace of a woman whom she had only known for a day, Breana felt safe and loved in a way she had never been before. Being naked with Mireya almost seemed natural.

Neither spoke as they washed each other's hair and caressed one another's bodies.

Their play was neither overtly sexual, but nor was it chaste.

When they were done, they stepped out of the steamy shower and dried off. Two plush bathrobes hung from the back of the door and the girls wrapped themselves up.

Mireya called housekeeping and asked that someone be sent up to change the sheets on the bed, which showed streaks of blue body paint. Then she called Scott and told him that they were staying in for dinner.

He arrived a little while later to see Breana sprawled out on the freshly-made bed, screaming in ecstasy, his wife's face buried in between their new lover's thighs.

***************************

Breana opened her eyes and smiled dreamily. Mireya's dark hair came into focus first, then her big brown eyes. Scott looked over her shoulder. Their eyes blazed with lust.

And something more.

She could barely move, but she managed to throw her arms around Mireya's neck and pull her in for a deep, slow kiss.

Scott removed the remainder of his Boba Fett armour and carefully set it in its carrying case.

The two women kissed and held one another, Breana's body still twitching with pleasure.

They watched Scott undress, Breana admiring his fit body. Like his wife, Scott was in great shape. He had a few speckles of grey in his short black hair. Once his armour was put safely away, Scott unzipped his flight suit, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs underneath. He had strong, muscular arms and the legs of a distance runner.

She saw Mireya watching her husband, and knew that even though they may take a lover, they were still head over heels in love with each other.

"He's hot," Breana whispered.

"You have no idea!" Mireya winked in reply.

Scott approached the bed and Mireya pulled her husband to her. They kissed hungrily.

"You taste delicious," Scott turned to Breana. He devoured her with his eyes. "May I kiss you?"

Breana could only nod.

He reached out and cupped her face in his hands. He leaned in and she tilted her head back. Her eyes closed, she felt his lips brush hers briefly. Scott pulled back for just a moment, then made another pass.

She vaguely felt Mireya's body press against her. A second set of lips raked her skin, first on her neck, then just behind her ear.

Breana fell back on the bed, and the other two descended on top of her. They were a pile of hands and mouths and breasts and legs, all intertwined in a single mass of desire.

The women tugged at Scott's underwear and soon all three were naked.

"I thought you were going to wait for me." There was disappointment in his voice.




Tapestry Ch. 02



"That was my fault," Mireya admitted meekly. "I couldn't help myself."

Scott accepts his wife's apology with a kiss. "Breana, may I make love to you."

"Yes . . . yes, please," Breana said, her voice almost a plaintive wail.

"Please what?"

"Please make love to me."

She could feel is hard sex against her leg. Her pulse raced, both from the orgasm Mireya had given her earlier, and the anticipation of taking a new lover.

Through hazy eyes, Breana saw her handsome lover above her. One of his hands cupped her breast. The other held his cock as he slowly rubbed the head against her slit.

Breana spread her legs in anticipation.

His weight pressed forward and she felt him enter her. Slowly. Deliberately.

She turned and saw Mireya laying beside her, those big brown eyes boring into her. Their fingers wrapped around one another's.

At first, Scott only gave her the head of his cock, an inch or two. Then he'd pull back until he was almost out of her.

Then he pushed forward a little more. Then back again.

Then out.

And in.

It was driving her crazy.

He varied his pace and depth.

The hand on her breast pinched her rock-hard nipple.

"Please!" she moaned.

"Please what?"

"Please make love to me!"

But he wouldn't. He kept teasing her. His strokes were slow, the end of his cock dragging against her insides.

"I'm going to enjoy your sweet, tight pussy," his voice was firm. "I love fucking a pussy after it's just had a cum . . . just like yours is right now, Breana."

"Yes," she whispered through clenched teeth. She tried to meet his short thrusts with her hips. Tried to take more of his cock to her.

But he pulled away each time.

"We're going to fuck all night, Breana," he promised.

"Okay," was all she could bring herself to say. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head when Mireya's mouth clamped around her free nipple and she cried out.

Still Scott denied her the pleasure of filling her with cock.

Breana's body burned with desire. And lust.

And love.

"Please fuck me!" she begged.

"That's my little slut," Mireya said with a sly smile. "My sex-crazed slut."

"Yes!" Breana shouted, and tried to throw her arms around her lover. Tried to pull him close to her. Stronger hands pinned her arms above her head. She struggled, but to no avail.

Her sex pulsed and her body convulsed as the orgasm overtook her. Breana felt her pussy flood with warmth, clenching around Scott's hard cock.

All she could hear was the blood pounding through her veins. She bit her lip before letting out and ear-splitting scream of pure pleasure.

Just at that moment, Scott suddenly thrust forward, impaling her on his entire length. Breana cried out again, and he withdrew.

And thrust forward with another hard, deep stroke.

"Yes, fuck me!"

"Do what?" he taunted.

"Fuck me . . . fuck my pussy," Breana was almost incoherent.

He leaned in and his teeth raked the side of her neck, just as Mireya's did on the other side.

As before, Scott varied the length of his stroke and the pace of his thrusts, always keeping her off-balance, but every time filling her up.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he whispered, biting her just behind her ear. "When I first saw you, I had to have you."

Breana couldn't form the words to reply. Her body was overloaded with the sensations of both her lovers groping and kissing and fucking her.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier," his voice was hoarse with desire. "I wanted to fuck a little blue twi'lek . . . a twi'lek with an awesome ass and nice, perky tits . . . can I fuck her later?"

She could only moan excitedly in reply as Scott picked up his pace.

Clawing at the pillows, Breana sought something to hold on to. Jolts of excitement started in her hot, moist sex and radiated out to her fingers and toes.

Scott started to pound away, his earlier subtle teasing gone. His cock drove into her slick pussy at a rapid pace.

All the while, Mireya kissed and groped Breana's tender body, pausing only to kiss her husband every now and then.

"Keep fucking me!" Breana writhed on the bed, bucking her hips to meet Scott's thrusts.

He seemed only too happy to oblige.

The room started to spin. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders.

Arching her back, Breana pressed her chest forward, then fell back into the bed as the nerves in her body seemed to explode all over the cock that was filling her up.

***************************

She was probably out for only a minute or so. She lay limp in the center of the king-sized bed. Scott's weight was pressed down on her, but he didn't feel heavy.

Her ears rang. The room seemed wobbly, even though she knew she wasn't moving.

All three bodies on the bed were covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

Scott leaned in and kissed her gently. He was still inside her, his cock moving slowly inside her pussy that was slick with exertion.

Beside her, Mireya purred, "Mmmmm . . . a screamer, a fainter and a squirter. That would make her the perfect woman."

Breana managed to smile wearily. She pulled Scott to her with one hand, the other reaching for Mireya. "I want Mireya to eat your cum out of my pussy."

"Oh, she will," there was laughter in his eyes. "After I cum inside you."

"You haven't—?"

"Oh, no, sweetheart," the look he gave her made Breana's spine tingle. "I've just started fucking you . . ."

His voice trailed off, as he pulled back and thrust hard into her.

Breana squealed with delight.

A little while later, she fainted again.

***************************

Sunlight shone into the room from behind the curtains. Breana stirred, realising that she was spooned up against her lover.

Scott was behind her, his flaccid cock pressed against her ass. Mireya lay in her arms, her thick mane of hair tickling her nose.

The room still reeked of sex. Pillows were strewn about the bed. The comforter was nowhere to be found.

Muscles she didn't know she had ached, but in the good way.

I've lost my fucking mind, she thought to herself. Maybe this was the "experimental" phase she never had in college. She didn't know what had possessed her to take up with not one, but two, lovers who had been perfect strangers not even 48 hours before.

At the same time, she felt satisfied in a way—not only sexually, but emotionally as well—that she had never felt before.

This couple was gentle and rough at the same time.

They were easy-going and casual. Successful in their job and seemingly content with their lives. It helped that they obviously loved Star Wars.

And they were fan-fucking-tastic in bed.

Mireya shifted and pressed her body back against Breana.

She had never experienced any kind of lesbian impulses or attractions to other women before. Of course, Mireya was so beautiful, she could make any woman go gay with just a flash of her wicked smile.

That she was willing to share her husband made Breana's head spin. If she had a husband as handsome, smart and good in bed as Scott was, she would never let him out of her sight, much less give him her blessing to pursue and have sex with other women.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if she was being used. Or if she was the one doing the using.

This little voice was pushed to the back as Breana lay in her lovers's arms.

I'm just going to go with this, she rationalised to herself. I'm going home tomorrow, and then it will be back to my regular, boring life.

She let go of the breast she was holding and pushed Mireya's hair aside. Her lips pressed against the other woman's neck. The other woman inhaled sharply.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Breana whispered.

"Good morning, lover."

"So what does a girl have to do to get a little bit of wake up action around here?" she smiled.

Mireya responded by wiggling her ass against her before rolling over on to her back. Her breasts fell slightly to the side. Breana squirmed free of Scott's grasp and took Mireya in her arms.

The two women made love right next to their lover, finally waking him with their orgasmic throes.

***************************

The room service breakfast was followed by a three-way shower.

Breana once again found herself between her two lovers. She lay her head against Mireya's shoulder as Scott washed her back.

His hands lingered on her body.

"Your ass is amazing," Scott pressed his semi-hard cock between her cheeks.

Breana arched her back and pressed against him. Scott leaned over and kissed the back of her neck. In that spot that made her insane.

"Can I tell you a secret, Scott?" Her voice was sultry.

"What is it, baby?"

She reached back and pulled him to her as Mireya nuzzled up to the other side of her neck. Breana bit his earlobe and whispered, "I love to get fucked in my ass."

Scott's cock hardened immediately, and he let out an audible moan. Mireya giggled in amusement.

"Mireya, I think I'm in love!" Scott purred.

"Don't tease him with that, sweetheart," his wife laughed. ""That's the one thing I won't let him do to me."

"You don't like it?"

"No, Bree; we tried it a couple of times, but it's not my thing."

"Did he hurt you? 'Cuz if it hurts, you're not doing it right."

"If you say so," Mireya chuckled and brought Breana's lips to hers. "If he gets to fuck your ass, can I fuck your pussy?"

"You can fuck my pussy any time," she replied, her eyes smoldering with desire. "Even if he's not around."

Under the warm running water, Scott pressed his erect cock against the opening of her asshole. Breana swatted him away playfully. "Not now, big boy!"

He sighed heavily with mock disappointment.

Breana turned and kissed him. "I can't give it all up on our first time together . . . how else will I keep you interested in me?

"I don't think that's going to be a problem, sweetheart," he said, playful anticipation in his voice.

The three of them finished washing and got out of the shower. Saturday was going to be the busiest day at the convention and all of them wanted to look their best. Breana borrowed a t-shirt from Scott and put on the skin-tight leather pants of her Aayla Secura costume, drawing admiring stares from her lovers. The rest of her things went into her Yoda backpack.

"My friends want to meet you," she said.

"Really?" Mireya answered, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was talking to Scott.

"Well, they want to meet my convention boyfriend." As soon as she said the words, Breana realised that she was in a quandary. While she wasn't ashamed about hooking up with a guy at a Star Wars convention, not only was he married, but she had hooked up with his wife as well. And she wasn't quite ready to let that secret be known. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun. "I'll call you later about that. Can I take you some place nice for dinner tonight?"

"No," Scott said in a firm tone. "We'd love to have dinner with you tonight, but it will be our treat . . . Don't give me that look . . . Unless you're an heiress or Google software engineer, we make a lot more money than you do and it's no big deal for us to take you out for dinner."

"Besides, if we're buying, you have to put out," Mireya giggled. Of course, they all knew that their last night at the convention together was going to end in a lot of sex.

Inwardly, she frowned, but Breana knew they were right.

"There's just one problem," Scott and Mireya exchanged a worried look. "The 501st is having their big bash tonight. It's a ticketed event and we don't have an extra. We can do a couple of things: either we can try to get ticket for you or we could skip it."

"I don't want you to skip it," Breana said. "And I should probably have dinner with my girlfriends tonight, anyway. They're probably wondering where I am. Is the 501st party going to go late?"

"We won't be staying the whole time." Mireya's voice left no discussion, and the look she gave Breana left no doubt as to their true priorities for the evening.

Breana checked her watch and realised that if she wanted to get into the convention at the opening time, she had to hurry back to her room to dress and get made up.

All three lovers exchanged kisses and a playful groping, and Scott slipped a keycard to the room into her hand. Then Breana headed up International Drive to her hotel.

She opened the door and was immediately greeted by cheers from her friends. All she could do was smile sheepishly.

"Someone got fucked last night," Sandy taunted.

"I don't think I've ever seen a bigger I-just-got-laid smile on anyone before," Donna gave her a big hug.

"You were rode hard and put up wet . . . literally!" Lydia grinned.

The other three girls were in various stages of dressing. Their senior year in college, they had all showed up at a Halloween party dressed in matching Slave Leia costumes, which had since become a legendary event in the history of their Alpha Chi Omega chapter and was rapidly approaching mythic status since they nearly caused a riot at the Phi Kappa Phi house next door.

Although none of the four were in college shape, they were all still pretty hot in their metal bikinis, and they were sure to turn plenty of heads in the exhibition hall.

As they dressed, the other three gave Breana lot of good-natured ribbing, which was mixed with generous portions of both concern and vicarious excitement. Sandy was married, Donna was engaged and Lydia had a long-term live-in girlfriend, meaning Breana was the only one of them who was still single. The girls's weekend away was a chance for them to catch up on one another's lives and to pretend that they were all twenty-one again.

On the way to the Orange County Convention Center, they stopped by the continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, turning lots of heads and posing for many pictures.

Arm in arm, the girls giggled and preened and smiled for everyone who looked their way, and their day stayed pretty much on that track.

Around lunch time, they took a quick break and sat down in the food court to eat. The four girls were still the object of many admiring stares, but the cameras stopped flashing for a bit.

Breana went to get a Diet Pepsi and called Mireya.

"Hey, sweetheart." She sounded like she had her helmet on and was talking into her Bluetooth.

"Are you with Scott?" Breana asked.

"I've got my arms around him right now."

"Can you leave him for a few minutes? I want you to meet my friends."

"I thought you wanted Scott to meet your friends."

"No," Breana giggled mischievously. "I want you to meet them. But please come alone; I don't think I they can handle me being involved in a threeway just yet."

"Sure thing, sweetie," there was an undercurrent of womanly understanding in Mireya's voice. "Where are you?"

"Over at the food court, by the pretzels. I'm not dressed up as Aayla, but you can't miss us." Breana hung up her phone and went back to where her friends were sitting.

They were done eating and the other three were getting ready to go back to the main floor when Mireya walked over, a crowd of people craning their necks to get a good look at the tall beauty in the skimpy Boba Fett armour.

The other girls noticed her immediately, but their jaws dropped when they realised that she was headed for their table. The followers drifted away when it was apparent that she wanted a break from the fawning.

Breana stood and did a slow pirouette to show off, knowing that behind the Mandalorian helmet, her lover was smiling from ear to ear.

Mireya set her prop EE-3 carbine on the table and removed her helmet. She shook her hair out, which caused her bosom to jiggle and bounce.

Wanting to shock her friends just a little more, Breana reached out and pulled Mireya in for a quick kiss, and was vaguely aware of the camera flashes which violated the no-pictures-in-the-food-area rule of nerd conventions. She didn't care though; the looks on her friends's faces was worth it.

"Everyone this is Mireya, Mrs. Boba Fett," Breana said, knowing it would take a minute before any of the others would be able to pick their jaws up off the floor to speak. "This is Lydia, Sandy and Donna."

"Hi" Mireya said, clearly enjoying the shock just as much as Breana. She set her helmet down on the table and sat with the other girls.

Sandy was the first to recover. "It's nice to meet you . . . Breana didn't tell us you she had hooked up with a woman."

"Is that a problem?" Mireya gave Breana worried glance.

"Only if you break her heart," Sandy warned, which made Breana smile. Even though they weren't as close now as they had been in college, she appreciated that her friends were looking out for her.

It was obvious to Breana that Mireya had looked her friends over, but the other woman's eyes seemed to linger on her.

They talked for a little while, but soon realised that they needed to vacate their table for other people looking to have lunch.

Breana and Mireya shared one more very public kiss, then the Boba Fett helmet went back on.

The four girls had a passerby take a series of pictures of them together, something he was all too happy to oblige.

Then Mireya turned and strutted away, knowing that everyone's eyes were up on her.

None of the girls said anything right there, but Breana knew she was in for it later, and in truth, she was kind of looking forward to it.

She smiled to herself, wanting the evening to come as soon as possible.

***************************

After a long day of pictures and having strange men rub up against them all day, the four girls went back to their room to change and get ready for dinner.

They dressed in their regular clothes and caught a cab over to Fulton's Crab House next to Pleasure Island.

"So when did you become a dyke?" Sandy asked once the wine was flowing freely.

"Yeah, why would you go gay for her, and not for me," Lydia stuck her chest out and feigned a pout. "Am I not hot enough for you?"

"Shit, I'd go gay for that girl," Donna snorted. "And you bitches know I'm strictly-dickly."

Breana gave her three friends an abbreviated version of how they met, not wanting to tell them about Scott. Not yet.

Her friends didn't have a problem with Breana being with a woman, it had just surprised them; Lydia had been "out" ever since they had known one another, but in all the time the girls had been friends, Breana was the least likely to go on a wild streak or do something so unpredictable.

Dinner ran late and the girls made their way over to Pleasure Island and Downtown Disney. Breana wanted to get back to her lovers, but didn't want to be too obvious about ditching her friends, who were headed over to the House of Blues.

"Go," Sandy told her. Of the three other girls, Breana had stayed closest to her after graduation. "Someone ought to be getting lucky on this trip!"

"I'll meet you for breakfast," Breana promised.

"If you make it!" her friend laughed.

She caught a cab back to her hotel. Her head was clouded by the wine and by the thoughts of the coming night. What she was going to do once the weekend was over was the last thing on her mind, although it nagged at her at the most inopportune times.

Breana raced up to her room, where she retrieved her Slave Leia costume and some things for the next day in her Yoda backpack. She was in the lobby of the Peabody when she texted Mireya.

I'm waiting for you. Tell Scott you need a half hour head start.

Fifteen minutes later, Mireya burst through the door to find Princess Leia bound to the bed.

Thirty minutes after that, Scott found his wife once again going down on their new lover, and this time, he didn't have to wait to have them both.

***************************

"So tell me one of your sexual fantasies," Scott stroked Breana's hair as she rested her head on his shoulder. Mireya was spooned up behind her. All three needed at least a short break.




Tapestry Ch. 02



"In general, or one of my fantasies with you two?"

"Either one."

"I want to be in the middle of a three-way," she closed her eyes and smiled to herself. "I want to be done from both ends, with a cock in my pussy and someone else in my mouth."

"It's hot as hell," Mireya blew in her ear and Breana shivered.

"What do you like?" Bree asked.

"I like to be in a sixty-nine," the other woman closed her eyes, picturing the scene in her mind. "Scott starts out watching, and stroking his cock as me and you eat each other out."

Breana drew in a sharp breath as Mireya described something they would probably end up doing. Maybe in a couple of minutes.

"You're on top, smothering me with your pussy and licking me at the same time. He comes up behind you and starts fucking you from behind. Every now and then, he pulls that big dick out of you and shoves it down my throat, so I can taste the way the two of you mix together," Mireya seemed to be creaming between her legs as she spoke. "Your turn."

Scott smiled at his lovers. "I want to lie on my back as you both take turns riding me. One of you is bouncing up and down on my cock and the other is sitting on my face. You switch places again and again, while making out with each other."

This was standard pillow talk, but the element of having a third person made it seem somewhat forbidden to Breana. Forbidden and exciting.

"Anything else?" Mireya prompted him.

"Yeah, I want to make love to Breana's lovely ass!"

The three of them laughed and pulled the others close.

"You will," Breana reached down and stroked his flaccid cock, which seemed to harden immediately. "But not tonight . . . I love having anal sex, but I'm not cleaned up back there, so that will have to be something we do another time."

The couple shared a knowing look when Breana said, "another time."

"You're a naughty little girl, aren't you?" Mireya teased.

"A naughty, dirty, little girl," Breana corrected her. She drew her lover's head up so they were looking into the other's eyes. "After Scott fucks me in the ass, you're going to suck his cock and eat his cum out of my ass, just like you eat it out of my pussy."

Mireya started to protest, but the look Breana gave her made it clear that even though she was fifteen years younger, she wasn't an innocent little girl. In fact, she could be downright nasty, something the couple would just have to accept. And it looked like they were more than willing to do so.

She then turned to Scott. "And one time while you're fucking your wife, I'm going to stick a vibe up your butt and you're going to love it. I might even fuck you with a strap-on while you're inside her."

The three of them absorbed her words and their pulses began to race.

"I don't know what the future has for us," Breana whispered. "But I want to pursue a relationship with you both, as strange as that may be."

The other two nodded. Neither spoke, understanding that their lover needed to say the words both to them and herself.

"The first time I was with you, I didn't know how you did it," she continued. "How you could be with two people at the same time and not have even the slightest bit of jealousy? But when I'm with you . . . whether it's with one or both of you . . . I just feel . . . I feel like it's . . . it's the way it's supposed to be."

Mireya's fingers wrapped around hers. "Sometimes, we get jealous of the other. Or our lover has been the jealous one. And that's when the relationship ends. We've talked about this before, and in the past, we always knew it was going to be a temporary threesome, usually from the first time. But we're okay with having a fling . . ."

She paused, unable to find the right words.

"The first time we were with you," Scott picked up when his wife paused. "Mireya was already thinking of ways to make extra space in the closet for your things and I was trying to figure out where all the stuff in the garage was going to go so you could park your car in the third spot."

"That's funny because after we went out for dinner that first night, I was wondering how much my own suit of slutty Boba Fett armour was going to cost me."

"Oh, sweetheart," Mireya grinned. "It won't cost you a penny."

"That's too bad; I was going to pay for it with pussy," Breana said seductively. Both of her lovers pounced and Scott's cock sprang to life.

The three laughed as they each groped the others.

"Scott and I were in the same class when we met; organic chem or something like that." Mireya paused to caress Breana's cheek. "We were both checking out everyone else, and when our eyes met, we knew we were going to fall in love. We both felt that way when we were talking to you at lunch yesterday, Bree. We hoped you felt the same way about us."

There was a lump in Breana's throat because it was true.

"We don't just want you for the sex," Scott's finger traced a line up Breana's side and around her breasts. "But there will be plenty of that, too. Things may not work out between us; but we'd at least like you to give us the chance to find out."  

***************************

The next morning, Breana awoke to the sound of voices. She lay in the bed, her naked body only half-covered by the top sheet. She smiled contentedly when she realised that it was Scott's cum that was leaking out of her pussy and Mireya's taste in her mouth.

"You're smitten, aren't you?" she heard Mireya ask.

"I'm smitten?" Scott asked incredulously. They were keeping their voices low, most likely to avoid waking her. Breana had her back to them, but she could tell they were holding one another. "You were all over her from the moment you met."

"Yeah, but I've never seen you like this before," Mireya said softly. "I know your looks, Scott. It's not just lust when you look at her."

"Do you think she'd have us both?"

"I hope so," there was a dreamy tone in Mireya's voice. "And I am definitely not smitten, sweetheart; I'm in love. . . . And so are you."

Breana smiled to herself as she listened to her lovers's exchange.

Because she was in love, too.

***************************

The three of them lay in bed lazily. It was Sunday morning and the last day of the convention. Some of the vendors had packed up the night before. There were a couple of panels still going on, but Breana didn't really want to go to any of them. She had promised her friends that she would meet them for a late brunch, but until then, she planned on spending as much time as she could with her lovers.

"Do you have to go back tonight?" Scott's fingertips ran gently across Breana's chest, leaving a trail of goosebumps.

"You could stay for a few days with us," Mireya suggested, her nails tracing a line across her collarbone and down her arm.

"Just a few days?"

"Or forever," Mireya blurted out, and then she blushed as soon as the words left her mouth. "Your choice."

"That's very tempting." Breana lay in the middle, the other two cuddled up against her. She didn't let on that she had heard their earlier conversation. Although she was flattered, she didn't quite know how she felt about any kind of long-term relationship with either—or both—of them.

"But . . ." Scott drawled slowly.

Breana blushed and gave them an uncomfortable smile. After a false start or two, she looked each of them in the eyes.

"But this has happened very fast. A part of me thinks I've gone off the deep end. You guys have to admit: your relationship isn't exactly the norm. And I don't want to just be your plaything or a third wheel."

"You won't," Scott tried to reassure her.

"You said I was Number Six, right? What happens when Number Seven comes along?"

"There will only be a Number Seven if you pick them," Mireya said firmly, and to her amazement, Breana believed her.

"What if I told you I wanted a family? A husband, kids; you know: the usual?"

Scott and Mireya exchanged an odd look, and for the first time, Breana saw a sad expression flash across their eyes.

"We wanted a family, too," Mireya said softly. Scott reached across and took her hand. Breana instinctively pulled her close. After a deep breath, she continued. "When I was twenty-five, we had just gotten married and Scott was in med school. I had some strange pains, like PMS cramps or something. I went to the doctor and they found cysts on my ovaries and uterine cancer. They got the cancer, but only after taking my uterus and ovaries."

Breana held her breath as Mireya paused to wipe tears from her eyes.

"We're almost forty, and that's the one empty part of our life." Mireya propped herself and pressed her forehead against Breana's. "If you want a husband and kids and the usual, you can have him. But you will also be getting a wife, and that will be the unusual."

Reaching out, Breana cupped her lover's face in her hands and pulled her in. The two women shared a deep kiss, made only more passionate by the salty tears that ran down both of their cheeks.

They reached for Scott and the three of them held on to one another for a long time.

Deep down, Breana had made up her mind. But she wasn't ready to admit it to them yet. Or to herself.

"I need to think about it," she said apologetically. "I'm sorry . . . but . . . I just don't know that I'm ready."

"We'll wait for you," Scott lay back, and drew the two women in close.

Breana savoured the feel of her beloveds, and then suddenly burst out laughing. The others looked at her quizzically.

"What am I going to tell my parents?" she giggled. "They're going to kill me."

"Do they have a problem with you being with a woman?" Mireya asked.

"Oh, no; they have too many gay friends for that to be a problem," Bree smiled. "They'll wonder why I can't find a single guy my age to give them grandchildren."

Breana kissed both of them. Then they made love one more time before parting. Tears were in all their eyes.

She stopped in the exhibition hall one more time and walked around, picked up a couple more souvenirs and to take a few pictures. Then she returned to her room.

Her friends teased her some more, as they packed. They went out for brunch, sharing stories and promising to get together more often. After that, it was time to return home.

As her plane pulled away from the gate, she sent a text message to both Scott and Mireya.

I already miss you.

***************************

She waited patiently in the examination room. There was shuffling just outside the door.

"Marie Gibson?" he read the name from the top line of the file, not looking up from the packet of paper. The door closed behind him. "How can I help you today?"

"I am looking for a pair of nice breasts," she said sweetly.

The sound of her voice brought his eyes up immediately.

They stared at each other for a long moment, as if they were both afraid if they spoke, the spell would be broken and they would wake up from the dream to find themselves back in their old lives.

Scott dropped the file on to the counter and reached out for her.

Breana jumped into his arms.

Their lips met. He let out a joyous laugh and spun her around. Her embrace seemed as if it would crush his chest. Neither wanted to let go.

"There's nothing wrong with your breasts," he whispered in her ear.

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with my breasts," Breana laughed. "I said I was looking for some nice ones. A pair of 36Ds would do nicely. Do you know anyone who might have a couple?"

"I think I might," Scott winked. They kissed eagerly. "Marie?"

"It's my middle name," she couldn't help but blush. "I wanted to surprise you."

"You certainly did that." He leaned in, but she dropped to her knees and tugged at his belt.

His slacks fell to the floor and she inhaled his flaccid cock into her mouth. It began to harden immediately. She stroked and sucked until he was at full mast.

Breana smiled mischievously then stood.

Turning slowly, she bent over the examination table, stuck out her rear end and spread her legs. Reaching into her purse, she tossed something to her lover.

"I'm all lubed up," she looked over her shoulder and winked.

He flipped up her skirt and found that she wasn't wearing any panties. He rubbed the tip of his cock against the slit of her pussy.

"Not there," she hissed.

She heard the bottle pop open as Scott filled his palm with lubricant.

The head of his cock slowly pressed against the opening of her ass. She inhaled sharply as he pressed it forward.

They both moaned with pleasure as the head of his cock disappeared into her back hole.

Breana forced herself to relax, the nerves in her point tingling at the point where pleasure and pain meet.

Scott's strong hands grasped her hips as he guided his cock inside her, not stopping until he was buried as far in as he could go.

It was all Breana could do not to cry out in ecstasy, but it would be considered bad form to scream while at Scott's workplace.

She arched her back and began unbuttoning her blouse. Scott reached around and grasped her breasts. He rolled her nipples in between his index fingers and thumbs.

"I've missed you," he whispered in her ear.

"I've missed you, too," she stuck her tongue in his ear. "It's been the longest month in my life."

"Are we going to get our shot with you?" Scott dared to ask.

"Yes," she replied. "If you'll have me."

"I will . . . We will," he corrected himself. "We're going to have a lot of you."

"Promise?"

"I promise." They kissed eagerly and tenderly. Scott continued to fondle her perky little breasts.

Breana began to move her hips in small circles, grinding her ass against his cock.

"My ass has missed you, too," she grinned perniciously. "Some nights all I could think about was you filling it with that magic cock of yours."

"No one else ever will," Scott said despite himself.

"That's right, sweetheart," Breana purred. "No one else will ever have my ass. Not even Mireya. It's all yours."

She felt his cock twitch inside her and knew that she had almost made him cum on the spot.

"Marry me, Bree," he groaned in her ear. "Run away with me."

"What would your wife say, Dr. Baxter?" Breana snickered.

"She's going to try and steal you away from me and keep your for herself," he babbled. "I'm just trying to make you mine first."

"Are you sure you want me?" she asked, only half-joking. "I'm unemployed and everything I own is in a U-Haul over in the Target parking lot."

Scott stopped as the words sank in.

"You quit your job for us? And moved?" he was clearly confused. "This isn't just a visit?"

"Yes, yes and no," she replied. "I'm staying."

"What . . . er, did you . . . What about Mireya?" he stammered.

"She knows," Breana caressed his cheek reassuringly. "We've already worked this out, so don't worry about it."

"She didn't say anything to me."

"That's because we wanted to surprise you," she gave him a conspiratory grin. "That and you need to get used to your new reality, mister: two women are now in charge of your life. We may let you think you've got a say in how things happen, but we're running the show."

"What's my incentive to agree to that?"

"I could say that you get to fuck me in the ass anytime you want," she replied seductively. "And I could say that you are going to be the luckiest sonofabitch in the world with two hot women in your bed every night. But the real reason you'll agree to it is because you don't have any choice. All you have to do is love us both."

"I will . . . I swear to God I will." They kissed again.

"Good, now less talking and more ass-fucking," Breana laughed.

His hands pushed her hips forward and she felt him pull back so he was just in at the crown of his circumcised cock. Then he pulled her to him and thrust forward in one hard stroke.

Breana gasped with a mixture of surprise and delight.

One hand went between her legs and she began to stroke her clit.

Scott picked up his pace, knowing he wasn't going to last very long.

Bracing herself against the exam table, Breana absorbed every blow as he really began fucking her rear end in earnest.

Waves of pleasure washed over her.

She had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming out his name and beg him to fuck her harder.

He pulled back one final time and then rammed her as hard as he could. Her ass and pussy seemed to simultaneously explode with orgasmic bliss.

Breana's knees buckled and she collapsed on to the table, his weight pressing down against her.

She vaguely felt her ass filling with warmth as his seed flooded into her.

Neither moved for a long time, even as his limp cock slipped out of her ass. He numbly pulled his pants up and was buckling them when the door opened.

Scott froze, afraid that he had been busted at work for screwing a patient in the office. Breana turned over her shoulder and smiled lustily at Mireya, who wore a look of desire, jealousy and amusement.

"You just couldn't wait to fuck her, could you, Scott?" she asked, her voice filled with mock disgust.

She crossed the small room in two steps and took Breana in her arms. The women shared a long, desperate kiss.

"Get dressed," Mireya told Breana in a tone filled with command. Her nipples poked out from beneath her fitted blouse. "It's my turn to fuck you and I want to do it somewhere that you can scream, squirt and faint without having to worry about someone walking in on us."

She kissed her husband and helped Breana gather up her things.

"You need to cancel the rest of your appointments and get home to your wives," Mireya told Scott in the same voice.

Breana smiled, knowing in her heart that she had chosen wisely, and especially liking the way Mireya used the word, "wives."

***************************

Later that night, Breana found herself in the middle of a threeway fuck sandwich. She sat astride the strap-on vibrating cock Mireya wore while Scott fucked her ass for the third time that day. The three of them fell asleep as they would many nights for years to come: a sweaty mass of hands and mouths and breasts and legs and love.

A month later, Scott and Mireya's legal divorce was final. It was actually Scott's idea, or at least the girls let him think that. They still lived together, but as equal partners in their relationship, not as a married couple and their mutual lover. All three changed their names; she became Breana Marie Gibson Baxter-Rojas.

Breana got a job working at an outpatient surgery center, even though their household didn't need a third income. In her spare time, she started working on two suits of Boba Fett armour; one that would meet the 501st Legion's costume reference library requirements, and one that wouldn't.

A month after that, the three of them went to see Breana's parents, whose heads (figuratively) exploded at the news. For a short time, Marissa was inconsolable. Alan screamed and yelled irrationally. Neither understood why their daughter would choose to be in such an unorthodox relationship with a couple who were technically old enough to be her parents.

Eventually they came around, thanks to the counsel of close friends who were in unorthodox relationships themselves. Despite the gap in philosophical differences, the bottom line was that they both loved their daughter, and that trumped any other issues. That's not to say that Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners weren't awkward for a while . . .

Breana's friends were shocked at the news. They had mentally accepted that she had gone gay, but it took a while for them to accept that she had both a male and a female lover and it was years before anyone truly believed that jealousy was never an issue.

The next summer, Breana, Scott and Mireya attended Comic-Con in San Diego, where Boba Fett and his two Slutty Fett companions turned lots of heads and made him the envy of the show.




Tapestry Ch. 02



Another year passed and the trio attended Dragon*Con over Labor Day, making waves as Boba Fett, Slutty Fett and Pregnant Fett.

The twins were born in October.

Of course they named them Luke and Leia.



Tapestry Ch. 03



The relationships we have are threads in a tapestry, each woven together to show the life we have lived and connections we have with one another. This is the third of an open-ended series that will feature characters from some of my past stories, and introduce some new friends for us to get to know. Believe it or not, there is a grand plan—fluid as it may be—to bring the Tapestry stories together.

In a bit of shameless cross-promotion, this particular story features appearances by children of some of my other main characters, so you may want to check out my Spring Break series (and the other stories featuring that group), Some Things Are Meant to Be, History Lessons and the McKayala's Miracle stories. Just so you know, I have taken some liberties in terms of evening out some timelines to sync some of the character's ages.

As with many of my tales, if you're looking for quickie sex, these are probably not the kind of stories you want to read. I love to hear from readers, so please leave me a comment or send me an email.

*****************

"Suck my dick, bitch!"

Vanessa gagged as the big man violently thrust his cock into her mouth. At the same time, the hand on the back of her head pressed down.

The five men watching all laughed.

Her humiliation was nothing new, but Vanessa really needed the money. Or at least she thought she did.

"You do that so well!" Craig said with a derisive, taunting tone. "You're such a good little whore!"

She managed to lift her head enough to take a breath. His hand roughly grabbed her by the hair. Vanessa cried out in pain.

"Goddammit!" she spat. "Get your fucking hands off me!"

"Shut the fuck up, you dumb slut!"

This wasn't the first time he and his friends had treated her this way. But he always paid in cash. Lots of it.

"I believe the lady said to get your hands off of her." A new voice cut through the night. The baritone projected authority.

They were out on the back deck of a house along one of the many blocks of houses that rented to students at the university on an unseasonably warm February evening. All of the houses along this street and several others to all directions were well-worn rentals that had been inhabited by a couple of generations of students at Duke.

"Mind your own fucking business, asshole," Craig shouted as he pushed Vanessa's head back down into his crotch.

She heard someone walking up the short flight of steps. Vanessa pushed against Craig and fell back on to the deck, coughing and spitting. She turned to see who her knight in shining armour was.

There were three men—boys actually—on the landing. The speaker was a bear: tall with broad shoulders and strong arms. There was a dark look in his eyes. Another was tall and lanky and the third appeared to be a normal nineteen year-old kid in an oversized hoodie and a pair of jeans. All three were average-looking and generally unremarkable. They carried laptop bag and wore backpacks that appeared to be full of some kind of gear.

"Are you okay, miss?" the tall one asked, ignoring Craig and his friends, who were moving to confront the newcomers. "Are these idiots hurting you?"

"I'm fine," Vanessa said, her pride wounded, not only because she actually did need to be rescued, but also because of the reason why she was giving Craig a blowjob to begin with.

"Would you like us to leave? Or can we take you some place safe?"

"Look, asshole, I told you to mind your own fucking business." Craig stood and pulled his pants up. "Go on your little way and leave me and my whore alone, or I will beat the shit out of you."

"Try it." There was a coldness in his voice that was unmistakable, and it made Vanessa shudder.

No one spoke for a long moment. The tension in the air was palpable.

"Baseball bat," the skinny one said quietly.

"That's right motherfuckers," Craig sneered. "Now leave before I get my buddy to regulate."

"Try it."

"What the fuck?" she heard Craig gasp.

"Those would be air tasers. They're only good for about 15 feet, but they'll take you down in about four-tenths of a second." There was no taunting or gloating in the big man's voice. Only the cold statement of fact, and the unmistakable threat of violence.

Vanessa felt a hand on her shoulder. The skinny boy pulled her to her feet with the free hand that was not holding the pistol-shaped stun gun. She tried to gather her clothes around her as best she could. She went to get her purse and keys.

"Don't think I'm going to pay you!" Craig shouted, trying to save some face in front of his friends.

"Fuck you," Vanessa snarled. "And your small dick!"

The skinny one led her down the steps, and they were followed by the other two. She noticed that their eyes never left the group on the deck until they were well down the alley. Which was when their weapons went back into their concealed holsters.

"Thank you," she said to the three as they came out at the next street.

"Are you okay?" the big one asked.

"Yeah, I guess," Vanessa replied. "They're usually not that rough."

"That doesn't make it right."

"No, it doesn't," she sighed. "I'm Vanessa, by the way."

"It's nice to meet you. I'm Greg. The goofy looking one is Jimmy and the quiet one is Bryan."

"Listen, can I buy you guys a drink or something?" She wasn't swimming in money, but she felt she had to do something to thank her rescuers. Even if it meant she'd probably be going back to Craig's when her car insurance came due. And then there would be hell to pay.

"No, thanks," Greg replied. "We're running late as it is. Unless you'd like to come with us."

"Where are you going?"

"Some friends of ours are having a LAN party. It's the next block over."

"A what party?"

"A LAN party," Greg repeated. "Local. Area. Network. A bunch of folks get together and play games on computers that are hooked up together."

"Like Xbox Live?"

"Not quite, but there probably will be an Xbox there. You're welcome to come along." There was something oddly charming about Greg and his friends. They didn't seem pretentious or judgmental. And they had saved her from what would probably have turned into a not-so-nice gangbang.

"Maybe for a little bit. It's not like I have anything else to do tonight," Vanessa smiled uncomfortably, the gears in her head already turning as she tried to figure out how she was going to make up a couple hundred dollars to pay her rent.

They made small talk along the short walk to their friend's house. Normally, they would have parked closer, but when there's a Duke home basketball game, empty spaces around the university dry up fast. It's funny that students who can't be bothered to walk two blocks to class are more than willing to walk a mile to a bar or for a big-time basketball game. Only by pure chance were Greg and his friends cutting through the alley to come upon Vanessa and her "clients".

When they arrived, the house was packed with nerds, their computer stuff and food. As a pretty girl, she drew lots of stares, but Vanessa noticed there were a handful of other women there; some looked like they had only grudgingly tagged along with their boyfriends, but a couple had jumped right in and were mixing it up with the guys.

In the living room, several portable tables had been set up to accommodate desktop and laptop computers of all shapes and sizes and glowing/flashing LED light combinations. It was a mess of network cables, power cords, switches and various connectors. In another room, there were four big screen TVs; one was showing the Duke/Carolina pre-game show while the other three hosted furious Modern Warfare 3 action.

All told, there were probably forty people in the house. Some sat around talking, some rotated through the consoles and some never got up from their spot at the computer tables except to use the restroom.

"It's about fucking time you got here," someone called out as soon as they walked through the door.

"Shut up, Simmons," Bryan said with a grin. Then he switched to his Soup Nazi voice. "No heals for you."

Vanessa got the whirlwind tour and was introduced to just about everyone in the room. Of course, she didn't remember anyone's name.

As the guys unpacked their backpacks and set up their laptops, a pair of girls came over to Vanessa. One was short, with curly sandy blonde hair and the other was tall, with voluptuous curves and exotic, Asian features.

"If you're here against your will, blink twice," the taller one whispered in a cute southern drawl. The three of them laughed. "I'm Isabel, this is Maureen. Can we get you something to drink?"

"What have you got?"

"I know they've got coke, tea and beer."

"Good beer or cheap beer?"

"Probably some of both," Isabel said. "I'd say there's liquor in a cabinet, too. Let's go see."

No one questioned the trio as they rummaged through the kitchen. Apparently, it was good to be a girl in a house full of computer geeks. In addition to drinks, the hosts had provided a full spread of food that ranged from junk food to barbeque to a seven layer bean dip one of the guys had fixed that was surprisingly tasty. The guests all seem to have brought something as well, if only a bag a chips or 2-liter of soda.

There was a keg of really cheap beer, but also bottles in the fridge that were not marked as belonging to anyone in particular. Vanessa and Maureen helped themselves; Isabel was apparently driving. The girls fixed themselves plates and then headed back into the main room.

The pair was there with Isabel's twin brother David, who happened to be Maureen's boyfriend. He waved from his computer station. Like his sister, he was thin with a charming smile and handsome, angular looks. Vanessa didn't talk much, but found the girls to be friendly and it appeared they were happy to be able to talk about something other than computer games.

Greg, Jimmy and Bryan had set up their computers at one corner of the tables. Vanessa pulled up a chair between Greg and Jimmy after a few minutes. "So what are we playing?"

"It's called Star Wars: The Old Republic," Jimmy said.

"Star Wars is the one with Yoda, right?"

The guys's eyes seemed to light up when they found a girl who knew the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. "Yeah, although this game takes place about four thousand years before the movies."

"Thirty-six hundred years," Greg scolded playfully. "Get it right, dork."

"What kind of game is it?" Vanessa asked as the guys started logging in.

"It's called an MMO: massively multiplayer online game," Jimmy said.

"Like World of Warquest?"

"Something like that."

As they got into the game, Vanessa barraged the guys with questions. "Is that who you are? Why are you blue? What are those things on your head? And why are you playing a chick? Do all of the girl characters in this game have ginormous chests, or just yours?"

Although she was asking questions mostly to humour the guys, she got a crash lesson in Star Wars lore, classes, aggro, crowd-control, healing, DPS and gear.

"Would you like to play?" Jimmy asked suddenly. He seemed like he was normally a pretty shy person, but for some reason, he was trying to engage their new friend. Vanessa found herself liking him immediately. And not just because he had threatened to taze someone who was sexually assaulting her. It was then that she noticed he was kind of cute, too.

"I would be delighted," she smiled and made sure to rub her not-so-small breasts against his arm.

"Oh, shit, no!" another of the guys lamented. "We need someone to tank!"

"Get Jumbo to tank."

"We need someone to tank that won't get us all killed."

"Leave him alone," Greg chided playfully. "Jimmy's talking to a girl, which is more than you've done today."

Jimmy started up a "toon" for her and guided her through the character creation process. She got in a couple of quests in the starter areas before the collective bitching of the group convinced her to give Jimmy his account back so he could "tank" (whatever that meant).

It turned out to be an unexpectedly fun night, the time made easier by the presence of the few other women and the easy-going nature of the people there.

The only dark spot of the night was when Greg asked her if she knew Craig's last name. She told him, although she didn't know why it mattered. A little while later, she saw Bryan running a background check on him on some security website. The guys were talking sofly amongst themselves, thinking she wasn't paying attention.

"Is this going to be trouble?" Greg asked.

"No, I'll take care of it. She doesn't leave here by herself," Vanessa heard Jimmy say softly. And then they went back to their game.

Vanessa wandered around the party while the guys were in the middle of a raid, and after finding Maureen and Isabel on the Xbox, the three of them showed that girls can kick ass at MW3 just as well as the guys. She found herself talking shit to a 12 year old who claimed to live in Seattle and pwning a group of middle-aged online warriors from Texas.

Although they seemed engrossed in their game, the guys made many attempts to see that Vanessa was having a good time. By 2 AM, some people had started to pack up and leave, although it looked like some of the stalwarts were going to pull an all-nighter.

"Would you like to stay for a while longer, or can we walk you to your car?" Bryan asked.

"How long are you staying?"

"If we can fill out this raid, we might be here until the sun comes up."

"I probably should get going. Maybe next time you'll let me tank."

Bryan just smiled. He reached into his backpack and retrieved his air taser and a collapsible riot baton, which he hung on his belt, beneath his sweatshirt.

"Are you going to be okay by yourself, Bee?" Greg asked.

"Yeah, it's only a couple of blocks."

"Thank you for a wonderful evening," Vanessa made a big show of giving Greg and Jimmy affectionate hugs in front of their friends.

Her car was about a block away from Craig's house and only a short distance from the LAN party. Bryan kept to the well-lit streets. When they turned the corner, Vanessa nearly broke down.

A brick had been thrown through her windshield and all of her tires had been cut.

"Motherfucker!" she spat, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Bryan's head was on a swivel, looking for anyone who may have been waiting for them. One hand went to the taser on his belt, his other reached for his iPhone.

"Gee, get Jimmy. Yellow alert. I'm at the corner of Jackson and Kent. Some asshole smashed Vanessa's windshield . . . Yeah, I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Bring the car around. I'll call Triple-A."

After hanging up the phone, he immediately started taking pictures.

Vanessa wanted to punch someone. Craig, specifically. Four tires and a windshield were going to be expensive, and unless someone saw them do it, the whole cost would be coming out of her pocket since she only carried liability insurance on her beat up Honda Civic.

"Can you have it towed to my house?" she asked Bryan.

"Where do you live?"

"Over off Rosewood by Durham Tech."

"I'm not having your car towed into that neighbourhood," Bryan said.

"I can't ask you to do any more."

"You didn't ask. And I'm not having your car towed into that neighbourhood in the condition it's in at two in the morning." Bryan's voice was firm and brokered neither discussion nor argument. "Does Craig know where you live?"

Vanessa nodded.

"You're not going home tonight either."

A few minutes later, Greg and Jimmy arrived, their computer gear hastily packed up in the backseat of a very nice Acura sedan. Triple-A showed up a few minutes later, and they loaded her car on the flatbed.

Vanessa, who had always prided herself as being independent, appreciated how the guys took charge. The three of them moved and acted as a team, often seeming to know what the others were going to do next without speaking.

"Did you notice if anything was taken from your car?" Greg asked as they moved their computer bags from the backseat to the trunk.

"I don't have anything worth stealing," Vanessa muttered softly. "Where are we going?"

"Our house. At least for tonight," Bryan said. "We'll sort the rest of this out in the morning."

It turned out that the guys lived just a little ways from Duke, where they were all students. Still shaken and really pissed off, Vanessa wasn't paying much attention until they pulled up to a McMansion in the upscale Croasdaile neighbourhood. Her jaw fell open.

"You guys live here?"

"Yeah," Bryan grinned sheepishly. "It was a foreclosure and my dad got a good deal on it. We lived in the dorms our freshman year and wanted to move off campus, but not into one of the dumps near the school. We just moved in last August."

"I'm definitely doing something wrong in life," Vanessa sighed under her breath.

There was a detached four-car garage, but the tow truck driver left her car in the driveway. The guys led her into the house, which was 7000 square feet of suburban excess: five bedrooms, five and a half baths, hardwood floors, granite countertops, full basement and stainless steel appliances that the previous owners had convinced themselves they needed only to promptly go bankrupt when the housing market tanked.

It was pretty much as she expected for a bachelor pad, only with nicer fixtures. The decorations were spartan with couches and tables set up more for utility and comfort than appearance or décor. The house was clean and well-kept, and Vanessa couldn't help but envy her new friends, both for what they had and for their ability to be so generous to a complete stranger.

Since his parents owned the house, Bryan occupied the master suite which the other two stayed in bedrooms on the upper floor. There was a third bedroom up there, and a guest suite on the main level on the far side of the house, which was where the boys's parents stayed when they visited, and where she was going to sleep.

"We have an alarm system, outside video surveillance and enough weapons in the house to arm a small South American junta," Jimmy told her as he exchanged his taser for a handgun. "Plus, I don't think we were followed."

"Are you always armed?" Vanessa asked. She hadn't grown up around guns, and frankly, they made her nervous. They guys were too young to have concealed weapons permits in North Carolina, but that didn't mean they weren't without other weapons or that they couldn't carry them around their house.

"Jimmy is," Greg laughed. "His dad made him paranoid."

"Peace through superior firepower," the other boy replied. "It worked tonight, didn't it?"

"We'll see about getting your car fixed in the morning," Bryan said. "There are towels in the bathroom and an extra blanket in the closet. If you need anything, just holler."

She didn't have a change of clothes, but the guys produced an oversized t-shirt and a pair of workout shorts for her to sleep in. Vanessa figured that if the guys had wanted to beat or rape her, they probably would have done so already. Besides, she didn't get that vibe from them.

The queen-sized bed was adorned with bamboo sheets and was soft and comfortable. She fell asleep quickly, and wondered what it would be like to sleep in such a palatial house every night.

*****************

It was almost ten o'clock when she awoke. At least that's what her phone said. The sun was trying to peek through the drawn curtains. She didn't want to get out from under the down comforter.

From outside the window, she heard power tools and cursing, so she put on her clothes and took a peek. The back of her car was up on jackstands and Bryan was using an air wrench to attach the third of four new tires that he had apparently gone out and bought for her that morning.




Tapestry Ch. 03



New tires!, her head began to spin.

She ran out of the bedroom, though the living room then the foyer and out the front door, tears forming in her eyes.

Bryan saw her just before she jumped into his arms. He spun her around and returned the embrace.

"That was unexpected," he set her down, laughing.

"This was unexpected," Vanessa waved at her car. She asked a question, even knowing that the answer would be. "How much do I owe you?"

"You owe me nothing," Bryan replied.

"Don't bullshit me," she said, and just then a bit of worry crept into her mind. She was already behind on her rent, and her credit cards were maxed out. Tires and a windshield were going to eat in to her food budget. "I know these weren't cheap."

"Safelite is coming this afternoon to replace your windshield," the other said. "You also need brakes and a ninety-thousand mile service, and I doubt you can afford any of those three."

Vanessa frowned to herself. As the night before, there was no taunt or judgment in his voice, only the simple statement of fact.

"Let's go inside, we need to talk." Bryan motioned for her to follow and they left the car one tire short.

Greg was nowhere to be found; Bryan said he had just gone to bed a few hours before. Jimmy was in the living room, seeming to watch two televisions, an iPad and a laptop computer, all while eating a big bowl of cereal.

"Are you hungry?"

Vanessa nodded. The house was stocked with an assortment of single-guy food, but she managed to rummage up some cold pizza and Diet Pepsi and she found a free spot on the couch next to all of Jimmy's stuff.

"What do you know about Craig and his family?" Jimmy asked.

"Not much," Vanessa shrugged. Bryan took the chair opposite them. "They have a lot of money."

"That's because his dad used to be one of the most corrupt sheriffs in all of North Carolina," Jimmy handed her the iPad, which showed him being arrested for fixing an election. She skimmed the article; apparently, he took a plea deal to a lesser charge and was barred from law enforcement, but that didn't stop his friends who owed him favours from finding other ways to enrich him. They also had a series of public records on Craig who had several domestic complaints filed against him that somehow always managed to get dismissed.

"I really know how to pick 'em." Vanessa had been doing a lot of sighing lately.

"We think you should stay with us for a while," Bryan said.

"You barely know me," Vanessa whispered. "And I can't afford to pay rent to live here."

"My parents own this house," her new friend replied. "None of us pay rent. You'll be responsible for a quarter of the gas, electricity, satellite and internet, plus your own food."

"That's it?"

"Yup," Bryan nodded. "My folks cover the rest of the monthly stuff around the house."

Vanessa's head was swimming. If she could get out of her lease, she might actually be able to make it with a real part-time job and not have to fuck guys for money. "Is Greg awake? I need to tell you guys some things first."

Although he only grudgingly got out of bed, the guys sat down and listened as Vanessa gave them the sanitized version of her life story. For some reason, she found herself trusting these three, whom she had met just the night before.

Where the boys came from basically stable households, her life was in constant flux. Her parents divorced when she was six, and she bounced between her folks, often depending on who was employed at the time. Her parents weren't bad people; they were unskilled and had few opportunities to better themselves. Money was always tight in her life, and in middle school, she discovered that letting boys touch her blooming breasts would get her a few dollars or a meal.

By the time she was through high school, she was selling sexual favours for cash and/or grades. Vanessa was a smart girl, but she had low self-esteem, bad luck, and didn't always make the best choices. She was arrested a couple of times for soliciting and marijuana possession. When she was fifteen, she had an abortion before Planned Parenthood had enabled her to get an IUD. Deep down she hated what she had become, but she was good at it, and really, it was the only life she knew. Plus, it paid the bills.

Despite all of the setbacks in her life, Vanessa was determined to do more with her life than squeak by and try to get on disability like her parents, or whore herself out forever. She was in the radiology technician program at Durham Tech, and many of her "clients" were Dukies, who seemed to have more money than sense.

She lived in a run-down studio apartment on the not-so-nice side of town, but it was what she could afford, and after bouts of homelessness growing up, she was thankful to have a roof over her head.

If she had grown up with the same circumstances as Bryan or Jimmy, she may have gotten in to Duke and she may have seen her ample breasts and wide, round hips as more than parts of herself to be sold.

The guys listened to her quietly. Her resolve was firm and her tears of self-pity had dried up long ago.

"You are welcome to stay here with us," Bryan repeated. "For any length of time you wish. Based on what I know about him, I think Craig is unstable and dangerous. I think if you go back to your apartment, you'll be in danger."

"Haven't you been listening to me?" Vanessa asked. "I'm not the kind of girl your mother would want living with you."

"You'd be surprised about some of the things my mother thinks." Bryan's expression was unreadable. "We are offering you the kind of opportunity you have never had before. Whether you take it is up to you."

"What do you guys want?" she said, her eyes narrowing.

"What do you mean?"

"No one is this nice. All guys want something. Do I have to fuck each of you once a week? What's the catch?"

"There is no catch," Jimmy said. "There are no conditions. There are rules for living here, but they are mostly of the 'don't mess with other people's stuff' and 'clean up after yourself' type."

"And if you want to continue your . . . um, 'business' . . . you'd have to do it somewhere other than here," Bryan added.

"I'm just a poor, white-trash whore," she said softly. "Why would you want me around?"

"If that's what you believe, that's all you'll ever be," Greg said firmly, but gently.

"Why pretend to be something you're not?" Vanessa said, more defensively than she meant.

"Why let the person you have been determine who you will be?" Greg shot back evenly. "You want more from life than fucking and sucking six guys at a time, don't you? Don't you?"

"Yes, goddammit!"

"Then be better than that!"

"I don't know how," she whispered. And with that, she buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

Bryan's arms wrapped around her and he pulled her into his shoulder. He slowly rocked back and forth, stroking her hair. Jimmy got up to get the Kleenex and a glass of water.

After a few minutes, her breathing calmed. She wiped her eyes.

"So are you staying?" Bryan asked quietly.

"Yes," Vanessa replied. "If you'll have me."

"Then let's go get your stuff and see about getting you out of your lease."

"I'm going back to bed," Greg mumbled.

"Wait!" she called as he began to stumble off. She ran up to him and gave the big man a hug. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For believing that I'm better than I am."

He didn't reply, but he returned her hug and then retreated into his room.

*****************

"This place is a dump," Jimmy said, the filter on his mouth obviously not working very well. Or maybe he didn't have one. Vanessa had no response. Of course, he was right. But still, it was her home.

It didn't take long to pack up her few possessions. Most of her childhood was contained in a box that had come with a pair of shoes: pictures, mementos and the like. She had some clothes, costume jewelry and her school books.

Jimmy and Bryan had brought some clear plastic bins that they filled quickly, and then they loaded up Jimmy's small SUV. She left most of the beat-up, found-by-the-dumpster furniture and the things that she didn't need. Over the years, her family had been evicted from a number of houses and apartments, and so she never really got attached to things.

"Does your hot water heater really not work?" Jimmy asked.

"It does about one day in five," Vanessa smiled weakly. "I'm used to taking cold showers."

"There's her out," Bryan said.

"What do you mean?"

"As part of your rental agreement, you pay rent and your landlord is responsible for regular maintenance and upkeep," Jimmy told her. "If he does not, he is in violation of the lease, and you can get out of it with no penalty."

"Really?" Her eyes got wide.

"Yes; do you have written records of you asking him to fix the hot water heater?"

"I sent him a bunch of emails and texts a couple of months ago, but I gave up after a while," she shrugged.

"Good," Jimmy smiled, and Vanessa couldn't help but smile along with him. "We'll need copies of those, and then you'll be free and clear."

"Can't he ruin my credit?"

"Not if he's hasn't fulfilled his responsibilities," Jimmy replied, as they gathered up the last of her stuff. "My brother's a lawyer; we'll get you out of this."

Vanessa seemed positively giddy as they drove back to their house. Safelite was there and they were putting the finishing touches on her new windshield. The guys dragged her stuff into the house and set it in the room where she had stayed the night before. It was now her room.

That evening, she soaked in the giant bathtub, ignoring her phone that was buzzing with guys looking for a hot piece of ass.

*****************

The four of them became fast friends. The guys were basically homebodies. Part of it was because they seemed to study a lot, but they were also computer nerds who seemed more comfortable sometimes in a virtual world than in the real one. They were quick to help her with her studies when she needed it (which was often), and they didn't seem like it bothered them, nor did they treat her as if she were stupid for not getting concepts (ie-Boolean algebra and Newtonian physics) that they had simply accepted as fact from seventh grade on.

Vanessa had changed her phone number after living with the guys for about three days when the booty calls had become too much for her to bear. She wanted to put that part of her life behind her as quickly as she could. There were a handful of people she gave her new number to, but for the most part, she decided to make a clean break from her past and thought it best that she stayed away from people who would only think of her as the whore with the big tits.

Craig only called her once, but he didn't leave a message, which she thought was odd. Jimmy insisted that she park her car in the garage at all times and tried to give her tips on watching out to see if she was being followed.

The guys also insisted that she go to the range and practice firing their handguns. She knew how to fire, clean and maintain a pistol, but she didn't own one of her own.

To her surprise, she learned that all three of the guys not only each had a safe full of handguns, but shotguns and sport rifles as well. The house was also well-stocked with Nerf guns with clips and darts hidden in the strangest places, all in preparation for the spontaneous shooting matches that erupted with startling regularity, especially on the occasions that they had friends over.

"Jimmy's the paranoid one," Bryan said one day, and she couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "Greg and I just like to shoot things."

They took her out to the firing range a couple of times, and she was a deadeye dick with the .38 special as well as the 10mm Glock. The kick of the Remington shotgun and .30-06 only got the best of her the first time she fired them.

The guys had all grown up together in Asheville.

"It broke my mother's heart when I decided to go to Duke," Bryan told her one night as they were sitting around over dinner. He was easily the best cook of the four of them. "She's a Tar Heel, through and through."

"Which mom is that?" Greg taunted. "The redhead?"

"The one Jimmy has a crush on," Bryan smiled.

"No, I like his blonde mom," Jimmy said. "She's got the biggest boobs."

"How many mothers do you have?" Vanessa asked, clearly confused.

"Three," Bryan smirked. "It's a long story. And it's my other mother who went to Chapel Hill."

They talked some more and played Xbox before turning in for the night. At 22, Vanessa was a couple of years older than the guys. Yet she only had around half the credits needed to get her associates degree, while they were close to getting their undergraduate degrees.

Her three new roommates were generally a positive influence. They didn't binge drink, do drugs or hang out with people who were up to no good. Their success made her want to study and do more with her life than she had done so far.

Vanessa went back to her room and got out her anatomy and physiology textbook. Greg and Bryan were in the pre-med program and it would be easy for them, so she gathered up her notebook and text book and went looking for one of the guys. Bryan's door was shut and it looked like his light was out, so she decided to leave him alone.

She went upstairs to see if Greg was still awake; he was the nightowl of the group. She knocked on his door, but didn't get a response. After a moment, she heard him speaking and realised that he was calling out targets to whomever was playing with and that he probably had his headphones on.

Checking he watch, she saw that it was late, so she decided to give up go to bed. On her way towards the steps, she noticed that Jimmy's door was just barely cracked, and that a light was on in his room. Against her better judgment, she went over to the door and peeked in.

Jimmy was sitting at his desk and watching porn on the computer. He had his headphones on and his cock in his hand. Vanessa's nipples crinkled up immediately.

None of the boys were chiseled beefcakes, but they were all reasonably good looking. Jimmy was the skinniest, and Vanessa reckoned that in a few years, he'd fill out nicely. For several minutes, she stayed at the door, watching her friend masturbate, and resisting the temptation to put her hand down her flannel pants and do the same.

She watched the screen as much as she watched him. It seemed Jimmy liked girls with big boobs, judging from his selections. She made a mental note to tease him a little extra.

In the darkness, she saw his body stiffen, and she knew he was cumming. As quietly as she could, she slipped away from the door and back down the steps.

Once in her own bed, she masturbated herself to orgasm, wondering what it would be like to have all three of her roommates at once.

*****************

The next weekend, Bryan and Greg announced that they were going home to Asheville to visit with their families for the weekend. They had invited her to go along, but she declined; she had just started working as a server at the Outback and she didn't want to lose any lucrative weekend shifts. Even though she wasn't paying rent anymore, she had to pay for gas, utilities, and her car insurance. Plus, it was always nice to have some spending money.

Jimmy had some big project he needed to do before Spring Break, so he would be staying, ostensibly to also make sure that Craig didn't cause any trouble for Vanessa.

On Friday night, she was one of the last servers off, which was fine by her; the money was good and she didn't have to lift her skirt to earn any of it.

When she got home, she expected to find Jimmy in his room either gaming or surfing for porn. Instead, he was in the cavernous living room watching TV. She came in and dropped her apron in the chair and went into the kitchen.

"Can I get you anything?" she called.

"You didn't bring any cheesefries home did you?"

"Not this time; sorry. I will tomorrow night."

"How about a Beck's?"

Vanessa got her friend a beer and handed it to him. He was watching an episode of Battlestar Somethingorother on the Blu-Ray player.

She didn't speak for a while and just watched along with him. Every now and then, she caught him peeking over at her out of the corner of his eye. She unbuttoned the top two buttons on her work-issued shirt and wiggled her top seductively.

"So, Jimmy," she started, when there was a lull in the action. She didn't feel bad about interrupting the show since she figured he had probably seen it several times (which he had). "Why don't you have a girlfriend?"

He just shrugged. As far as she knew, all three were single.

"What about the other guys? Do they have girlfriends?"

"Bryan is infatuated with Emily Koizumi and Greg isn't in to girls," Jimmy said with the kind of matter-of-factness he might also use to tell you that it there was a forty percent chance of rain the next day.

"What about you? Are you into girls?" she asked.

"It depends on the girl," he replied and then paused his show. "Are you into girls?"

"Not really." It was her turn to shrug. "I like dicks too much."

She did notice that his sweatpants were starting to bulge, and she decided that she'd led him on long enough. At least for now. "Good night, Jimmy."

"Good night, Vanessa."

As she got up from the couch, she could feel his eyes on her backside, so she put a little bit of extra sway in her hips.

The next day, Jimmy tried to pretend that nothing had happened the night before, but Vanessa noticed that he always seemed to be watching her. Not in the creepy, leering way that Craig and his friends would, but with obvious, puppy dog love.

Vanessa studied a little, and then went to work. When she came home, the lights in the living room and kitchen were on, but Jimmy was nowhere to be seen. His RAV4 was parked in the garage and his keys were hanging in their spot by the door.

She locked the door behind her and activated the house alarm. Vanessa went back to her room and changed from her button-down work shirt and jeans to a V-neck t-shirt that showed just a touch of cleavage and a pair of yoga pants.

"Jimmy!" she called. It was just before midnight and she expected him to either be playing computer games or surfing for porn again.

Sure enough, he was doing the latter. His door was closed, but she could hear that his speakers were on. A woman was doing a good job of enthusiastically faking a screaming orgasm.

Licking her lips, she knocked softly on the door. All she heard was the woman in the video. Ever so quietly, she turned the handle until the door opened just a crack.

Jimmy as apparently so engrossed in his computer screen that he didn't hear her. She pushed the door open, the light from the hallway spilling into the room.

"Oh, shit!" Jimmy scrambled to stop the video, put his cock away and pull up his pants. He found no success.

"Don't stop," Vanessa whispered.

"What?"

"Keep stroking your cock," she said, her voice husky. She went over to the bed and lay across the unmade covers. "Is that what you like, Jimmy? Girls with big tits? Girls with big tits who like to eat pussy?"

"Yes." His voice was barely audible.

"Are my tits big enough for you?" She caressed her breasts with large, exaggerated motions. His eyes seemed to be glued to her cleavage.

He nodded.

Vanessa moaned when she squeezed both of her breast at the same time. In the background, she could hear the porn video playing, but her gaze fell on Jimmy as she stroked is cock faster and faster.

Neither spoke. Vanessa made no move to undress herself, but she rubbed the mound of her pussy in addition to her breasts.

Her nipples were poking through the thin fabric of her top and she pinched them indulgently.




Tapestry Ch. 03



Jimmy's eyes were hooded over with pleasure and his hands moved even faster. She could tell he was close.

His cock was good sized; not too long, not too short, not too thick. The head was swollen and with a gasp, Vanessa could tell Jimmy was starting to cum.

Covering the top with his other hand, her friend stroked himself through his orgasm, which lasted for several long pulses. Vanessa thought he might fall out of his chair.

She got up from the bed and leaned over so her breasts were level with his eyes. She pulled several Kleenex from the box next to Jimmy's computer monitor and handed them to him.

He smelled of sex.

"That was so hot," Vanessa whispered in his ear. "Maybe next time, you'll let me do it for you."

The she kissed him on the cheek and retreated through the door, closing it behind her.

Vanessa raced back down to her room, where she stripped herself naked and masturbated herself to her own orgasm.

*****************

The next day, Bryan and Greg came back from Asheville. Vanessa and Jimmy pretended nothing had happened, although she did catch him staring at her once. She winked and smiled perniciously.

They ordered pizza and the four of them sat around the living room studying. At least until they discovered the Lord of the Rings marathon on one of the satellite channels. Then the boys dove straight into a nerd conversation about whether the movies lived up to the books and blah blah blah.

Vanessa smiled to herself as the guys went on and on, happy to be part of a group that wasn't doing drugs or where everyone was trying to screw everyone else over. Even though she was new to this group, she felt as if she had always been a part of it. There was just a little nagging voice in the back of her head that wondered when the good times would end.

She went to bed just as the Fellowship of the Ring arrived in Lothlórien.

The next morning, she awoke and got ready for her early class. Bryan was eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. She got a bottle of water out of the fridge and slipped into her backpack.

"Something happened between you and Jimmy over the weekend," he said with a wry smile. Her face turned a deep shade of red.

"Did he tell you?" Vanessa stammered, once she could find her voice.

"Nope," Bryan replied. "He didn't say a word."

"How did you figure it out?"

"I've known Jimmy since we were seven," he smiled. "I can tell."

Vanessa set her purse and bookbag on the table and sat down opposite her friend. She took a deep breath, searching for the right thing to say.

"Would it be weird?" she asked softly. "I mean, me dating one of you guys."

"Well, you're not going to get very far with Greg," Bryan laughed. "And as long as there's no drama between you and anyone else in the house, I don't care who you're seeing."

"What about you? If Jimmy and I went out, would that make things funny between you and me?"

"Only if you were dating me, too," Bryan deadpanned, and she honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "Look, I think you're a smart and pretty girl, and if you'd go out with me, I'd certainly think about asking. But if you and Jimmy like each other, that's your business."

"Does he date much?" Vanessa asked tentatively.

Bryan snorted. "No. He went to prom with one of my sisters when she got dumped two weeks before the dance."

"One of your sisters? How many do you have?"

"Seven. Long story. No time before class. There was a girl two floors down in our dorm he went out with a couple of times, but she had a third degree black belt in crazy, and we put a stop to that shit right away. Other than that, he's really too quiet to meet a lot of girls."

"I don't think he's shy."

"That's because he likes you, too." Bryan smirked. "In case you hadn't noticed, the three of us aren't exactly the most social guys in the world. Jimmy's also one of the five smartest people you'll ever meet. It's not that he's snobby or aloof or anything, but when he's around other folks, rather than talk down to them, he just won't say anything at all. His conversations are about two levels above most other people and that includes me and Greg."

"So why does he talk to me?"

"He thinks you're smarter than you let on, and he likes it when you ask him questions." Once again, there was no judgment in Bryan's voice. Just the plain, unadulterated truth. "Oh, and you've got big boobs."

They both laughed nervously. Vanessa glanced over at the clock on the microwave and saw that she was running late. She gathered up her things, feeling a little bit better at having talked with one of the other guys.

"If you're worried about jealousy, don't be," Bryan gathered up his own things and reached for his keys. "I'm not going to tell anyone what they can and can not do. As long as both of you pay your share of the bills and clean up after yourselves, I don't give a damn whether you sleep in separate beds or together. I will tell you, however, that if Jimmy starts acting like an ass, I'll be the first to let him know, but if there's any drama that makes things untenable, Greg and I will mostly likely side with Jimmy; us nerd guys stick together."

Vanessa could see that coming and she took no offense. "I'll see you at dinner."

*****************

She returned to the house after class to find Greg and Bryan gone. Jimmy was in his room doing homework on his computer. She paused at the door and knocked.

He looked up and smiled unconsciously.

"Hi," she said softly. "Are you hungry?"

"A little," he replied. "I was going to fix some—"

"Let's go," Vanessa interrupted him. She turned and began walking down the hallway. Behind her, she heard him fumbling for his keys, shoes and wallet, and smiled to herself.

They got in Jimmy's SUV and drove to a local pizzeria. She noticed that his eyes seemed glued to her chest, which she stuck out just a little further than usual.

After placing their order, an awkward silence fell over the pair.

"About the other night," Vanessa started.

"I'm really sorry about that," Jimmy blurted out. His face turned a bright shade of crimson.

"Don't be sorry," she reassured him. "I thought it was hot."

"You did?"

Vanessa giggled and reached across the table to take Jimmy's hand.

"Yes, it was very hot." Her voice turned sultry. "It was so hot, I want you to do it again tonight."

She thought Jimmy's head would either explode, or that his cock was going to burst out of his pants right there. It was all she could do to suppress a giggle.

He was very predictable, and although a part of her knew that she could use him for whatever she wanted, the thought of sucking him dry never crossed her conscious mind.

"Why don't you come over here and sit next to me?" she winked, and her new boyfriend seemed to cross the booth in an instant. Vanessa wrapped her arm around Jimmy's and she pressed against him. His body shuddered and she wasn't sure he didn't cum in his shorts when she stuck her tongue in his ear. "Only tonight, instead of watching porn to get yourself off, you're going to watch me touch myself."

Their pizza arrived a few minutes later, but neither ate much. It seemed both wanted to get back to the house for whatever else the night had in store.

When they arrived home and pulled into the garage, Vanessa took Jimmy's hand.

"Thank you for tonight," she said softly.

"We haven't done anything yet." He was clearly confused.

"Yes, we have," her smile was heartbroken, but genuine. "You took me out for my first real date."

With that, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Then she got out of the car and went through the door into the kitchen, the footsteps of her soon-to-be lover not far behind.

Bryan was sitting at the kitchen table. He smiled at his friends who were holding hands. Vanessa winked at him.

Greg was nowhere to be seen.

She turned and gave Jimmy a hug, pressing her breasts against him. Bryan's eyes got wide for a second, but he could only laugh.

"Give me five minutes to get ready," she whispered in Jimmy's ear. Then she turned and disappeared into her bedroom, leaving her boyfriend and his raging erection standing in the living room in front of his best friend.

Not a second too late, Jimmy knocked on the door.

Vanessa had undressed and lay on her back underneath the topsheet on her bed. The lights were out except for a handful of votives which she had placed around the room.

Jimmy's eyes seemed like they were going to burst out of his head when he saw her.

The points of her nipples poked through the sheet. Her breasts fell slightly to the side.

"Undress for me," she whispered.

As he stripped down, she took in his form. He was no chiseled beefcake, nor was he a scrawny wretch either. It looked like he would fill out in a few years, but he was handsome, if a little awkward.

In that moment, Jimmy was the most handsome man in the world. He didn't see her as a whore to be used. She wasn't an object to be possessed. She wasn't something to be taken.

He made her feel beautiful.

And that made her want to give herself to him.

His cock was neither the largest she ever had, nor the smallest.

"Sit in the chair so you can see me." Vanessa's voice was sultry.

Of course, she could play the game if she wanted. She had been doing it since she was thirteen. The cynical and world-weary part of her knew exactly how to use men to get what she wanted.

Underneath the covers, she began to rub her breasts.

Jimmy's breathing became rapid.

His cock twitched, but he did not touch himself. He sat in the plush chair that was set facing the bed.

Vanessa spread her legs beneath the sheets and moved her hand down, making sure that Jimmy knew what she was up to.

"Tell me one of your fantasies," she began to stroke herself. "It doesn't have to be about me. Just tell me something that excites you."

It took Jimmy several moments to find his voice. When he spoke, he was almost too soft to be heard. "I want to . . . um, make love in a . . . ah . . ."

She giggled to herself, amused to see her boyfriend so flustered. It would not surprise her if everything he knew about sex was the result of surfing for porn or watching Cinemax late on Friday nights.

"Maybe you'd like me to go down on you," she suggested. "Do you want me on my knees in front of you in that chair?"

"Yes!" his eyes hooded over with pleasure.

"I'll take that cock in my hands and stroke it until you're hard," Vanessa continued. All the while, she rubbed her breasts and the mound between her legs for Jimmy to see.

"When you're nice and big for me, I'll take the head of your cock in my mouth," she purred. "I bet I can make you cum in less than thirty seconds, Jimmy . . . And the first time I go down on you, I'll do that, and I'll swallow all of your cum. You'd like that wouldn't you?"

He swallowed hard and his already-tumescent sex got a little bigger.

"Touch yourself," Vanessa commanded. "Touch yourself, like I'm doing to me. I can't wait to have you inside me, Jimmy. Do you know why I want you to go off in my mouth so quick?"

All he could do was shake his head.

"It's so when I do it again, you'll last a good, long time." She stuck a finger inside her pussy and found it to be soaked with excitement. Talking dirty was nothing new for her, but it was so much more arousing to do it when she wanted to, not just because she was being paid. "The second blow job I give you will have you begging me to let you cum."

Jimmy's hand was moving up and down the shaft of his cock. Slowly. As if he knew that one wrong move would make him shoot off.

Which was what Vanessa wanted.

"I'll take your cock in my mouth and tease it with my tongue."

It looked like there was a part of him that wanted to leap out of the chair, throw himself on the bed, rip away the sheet covering her and fuck her brains out. But he didn't. Jimmy sat there masturbating while Vanessa led him along.

"Do you know what I'll be doing while I'm sucking you off, Jimmy? No? I'll have one hand on my pussy so that I'm all wet for you the first time we make love."

He moaned in anticipation of their first encounter.

"Right when you're about to cum, I'll stop sucking you. I'll lift up a little bit and take that nice big cock between my tits and rub them together for you." Her nipples were crinkled up and her words were going to get her off, too. "I'll let you push your cock up and down, and when it pops out from between my tits, I'll suck on it for just a second!"

Jimmy's hand was moving a little faster, and she could tell he wasn't going to last much longer.

"Would you like that?"

"Oh, god, yes!" he panted. The head of his cock was swollen as he fisted it.

"What do you want me to do, sweetheart?"

He stared hard her in the eyes, the puppy-dog look was gone. It was replaced by feral lust.

"Can I see your breasts, please?" he begged.

"You mean these?" Vanessa tugged the sheet down, so that just her lush cleavage was visible. Under the covers, she cupped her breasts and toyed with her nipples.

Propping herself up into a sitting position, she let the sheet fall down, so that one of her breasts was exposed, and it was all she could do to keep from telling Jimmy to mount her right there. But she didn't.

Instead, she massaged her chest for him, moving her hands in slow circles, bringing her breasts together in the most enticing way possible.

"Cum for me." No sooner had the words left her mouth, than his cockhead began to flare, globs of semen shooting into the air and landing on his hand and legs.

Jimmy fell back in the chair, his hand covered in his seed. It took him a minute to recover.

When he did, he realised that Vanessa was motioning for him to join her on the bed. He stumbled the couple of steps from the chair and soon found his hand in her mouth as she sucked his cum off his fingers and palm.

His cock was hard again almost instantly.

She sucked on his fingertips and raked her teeth across the pads of his hands.

"I want you to kiss me," she said softly.

Jimmy pushed her back on the bed and he pressed his naked body against hers, separated only by the thin sheet.

His lips were soft and tender. His mouth seemed eager to explore her, even though she had taken his cum only moments before, and didn't seem reluctant at all to taste himself.

Vanessa's arms wrapped around him and she felt his weight press down.

For the first time in forever, she seemed safe and loved.

His hands didn't roam her body. He didn't grope her. He didn't try and force himself on her.

Instead, they kissed and caressed one another.

She took Jimmy's hard cock in her hand and stroked him a second orgasm, this time letting him cum all over her chest.

Neither spoke another word and they fell asleep in one another's arms.

*****************

She was in tears when she called the guys.

They showed up as quickly as they could, having dropped everything to come get her at Durham Tech.

Craig appeared out of nowhere after one of her classes, and publicly berated her and called her a whore to anyone who would listen. Fortunately, few would. The campus police arrived very quickly, and bystanders were quick to take her side.

He was arrested for drunk and disorderly, but would surely get out of any legal trouble due to his family's connections.

Bryan drove as Jimmy held her sobbing in the back seat. Greg drove her car. The drive back to the house should have been quick; but instead they took close to an hour. Jimmy said they wanted to make sure they weren't being followed.

Greg arrived even later and parked in the garage. The guys told her that she wouldn't be driving her Civic for a while.

"I just want that fucker to leave me alone!" she wailed. Bryan held her hands in a way that seemed as if he had spent a lifetime comforting women in various stages of distress. With seven sisters and three mothers, that was certainly possible.

"You could take correspondence classes," Jimmy suggested.

Vanessa choked back sobs. "No! I am not going to spend the rest of my life being afraid of that asshole or being the whore I used to be!"

The guys exchanged a worried glance, but none dared to discourage her resolve.

That night, she curled up in bed, wearing her comfortable flannel pajamas. A brand new safe which would only open to her fingerprint rested on the nightstand. Inside was a .45 semi-automatic pistol with seven rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber and a second magazine in case she really needed it.

More importantly, Jimmy lay in the bed, his arms wrapping her in a protective embrace.

*****************

Their relationship progressed at a leisurely pace. Despite seeming to have an obsession with internet porn, Jimmy did not appear to be in any real hurry to rush their physical relationship.

They slept in her room, ostensibly so that he could be close by to "protect" her. However, it also seemed that both just wanted to be close to the other.

Jimmy returned to his room to study and do his own schoolwork. Vanessa usually did hers in the living room in front of the television or at the kitchen table.

After their first night together, they never slept naked again, although their kissing led to groping and fondling.

The first time Jimmy touched her breasts, Vanessa thought he was going to cream all over her on the spot. They shared their fantasies, both those of a sexual nature and what they wanted out of life.

He was in the mechanical engineering program and had typical nerd ambitions. His father was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina and his mother was a tenured college professor in the Education Department at UNC Asheville. He was an only child who didn't want kids, mostly because he was a big kid at heart. He had lots of expensive toys, and whatever he didn't own, he could probably build if given enough time and duct tape.

Vanessa wasn't sure what she wanted out of life. Only that if she decided to have children, she could provide a better life for them than her parents could give her.

For the next week after Craig had showed up on her, one of the guys would accompany her to school, but she grew tired of the hovering and truthfully, she didn't want to be any more of an inconvenience that she already had been.

Plus, she knew that one day, she might have to confront him on her own, and she wanted the confidence to know that she could.

Of course, her ultimate goal was to leave that part of her life behind. She wasn't ashamed of what she did; for her, it was a survival mechanism and a way to put a roof over her head and food on the table. But she didn't want it to define her or stop her from pursuing her other dreams.

One evening, she came home from school to find Jimmy waiting for her excitedly.

"Would you mind going out on a date with Bryan and David?" he asked nervously.

"Just Bryan and David?" she asked, just to jerk his chain a little. "Will you be there, too?"

"Yes . . . oh," he blushed slightly. Vanessa thought it was kind of cute. "They're going on a double date, and wanted to know if we want to go with them."

"Who else will be there?"

"Emily and Maureen."

"Is that Maureen from the LAN party?"

"Um, yeah. I think so."

"I'd love to. When?"

"Saturday," he replied. "They want to go see The Hobbit again and then get dinner."

"How many times have you guys seen it?"

"I've been four times. I think Bryan has been five." Jimmy was too dense to get that she was just needling him. "It will be the 2-D, low frame rate version. It's at the cheap theater and the 3-D made Maureen sick last time."

"I'll look forward to it," she smiled and wrapped her arms around him before giving him a tender kiss. "Maybe before we go, I'll get you to titty fuck me so I'll have cum all over my chest during the movie."




Tapestry Ch. 03



That night, as Jimmy sat in the chair masturbating, Vanessa touched herself without the topsheet between them.

*****************

Of the six people on the triple date, Vanessa felt the most out of place. At the same time, she had never felt closer to anyone than when she held Jimmy's hand.

Jimmy and Bryan had grown up together. Maureen and Emily had been best friends since elementary school, and their families had always been close. David Thompson was Maureen's boyfriend and had known the others since they started at Duke together. Each of them individually was smarter than most groups of five random strangers.

Still, Vanessa never felt like the others looked down on her. They included her in an accommodating, but unpatronising way. Maybe it was because as nerds and gifted students, they all had felt like outsiders at one point or another in their lives. At the same time, when they launched into a heated discussion on Star Wars, Firefly or the X-Men, she didn't have any idea what they were talking about, so she just kept her mouth shut and nodded along.

The movie was entertaining, if a little long. She curled up in her seat, holding on to her boyfriend's hand.

Afterwards, they left the theater, the boys comparing the movie to the book and the girls talking about how hawt Thorin Oakenshield and Kili were (for dwarves).

They went out to a local burger place that was close to the theater and kept talking. They were friendly and non-judgmental. Emily and Maureen were neither aloof nor standoffish, and they had Vanessa laughing along with them.

David, a thin, Asian kid had dug himself into a hole with his girlfriend.

"I can't believe I let you inside my body," Maureen told him with mock disgust.

"All I'm saying is that the cultural impact of Star Trek is farther reaching than Star Wars," he stuck to his initial thesis, which had been soundly rejected by pretty much everyone else at the table.

"David, unless you backtrack right now, when we get back to our apartment, you're going to be moving into the room with your sister and I'll be moving into Maureen's room," Emily giggled, although the look on Maureen's face was definitely not jovial. "You do not joke with her about Star Wars."

"But—"

"Stop talking, sweetie," Vanessa patted his arm. Later, she found out that Maureen's love of Star Wars was something ingrained into her by her late mother, and she took it very seriously. "Just shut up and say that you were wrong."

He started to speak, but when neither Bryan nor Jimmy would leap to his defense, he backed down, which elicited another round of laughter from the girls.

Emily and Bryan had just started seeing one another, and Vanessa got the sense that things were progressing rather seriously, so she made it a point to get to know the others, since there would probably be more double and triple dates in the future.

Their evening was turning out to be a lot of fun, when Vanessa's eyes went dark.

It wasn't Craig, but some of his friends, who came in to the restaurant. They weren't the guys who probably would have gangbanged her the night she met Jimmy, Bryan and Greg, but she had taken money from them in the past.

They didn't see her at first, and instead headed to the bar.

She hoped they wouldn't notice her, or if they did, they would ignore her. After all, most of her clients were discreet and didn't pay her any attention whenever they weren't trying to get her to suck their dicks.

With their meal done, the six of them paid their bill and headed for the door. They had almost made it, when her heart sank.

"Hey, it's our whore!" one of the men from the bar slurred, obviously drunk. "Where are you going, skank?"

Jimmy grabbed her elbow to keep her from turning and saying something she shouldn't.

"Hey, boy! How much are you paying her? You know she'll blow you for twenty bucks!"

All of the other conversations in the restaurant stopped. Vanessa felt as if everyone's eyes were on her. She wanted to burst into tears.

Jimmy turned slowly.

"Did you just announce to everyone that you have to pay for sex?" His voice had a tone unlike any she had heard from him. Gone was the shy demeanor. He spoke with authority. And disdain. And anger.

Vanessa's pulse began to race.

It took the other man a second to realise that he had just been embarrassed in front of the crowded restaurant, and he stalked over to Jimmy to save some face.

"So how much are you paying your slut?" he sneered.

"She's not my slut," his soft voice was laced with unmistakable threat. "And you owe her an apology."

"Yeah, well fuck you!"

Jimmy sidestepped the incoming punch easily. In a fraction of a second, he had struck the other man twice in the head and put him in a joint lock that looked very painful.

The room was silent.

"I believe you owe my girlfriend an apology," Jimmy said clearly. When there was no immediate reply forthcoming, he twisted the man's elbow just a little tighter. His friends, shocked at the speed and ferocity of Jimmy's assault, backed off.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted out, not wanting Jimmy to disclocate his shoulder.

Vanessa only nodded. Jimmy released the joint lock and the six of them continued to the door. Emily led the way; Maureen took Vanessa's arm and pushed her quickly out into the street. The three boys came last, and Vanessa noticed that Bryan's hand was on the taser tucked into his belt at the small of his back under his sweatshirt.

None of them spoke as they headed to their car. Jimmy was driving his RAV4. Maureen and Emily quickly climbed into the third row seat, Bryan and David got in the second row and Vanessa took the passenger's seat.

Once they were off, Vanessa broke down and began sobbing. Jimmy said nothing, but reached over and took her hands. She held on to him as if her life depended on it.

She vaguely heard Bryan talking on the phone to someone and mentioning something about emailing a video.

Jimmy drove them back to their house; Bryan would take the others home if they didn't want to stay.

Greg was waiting as soon as they pulled into the driveway. He gently carried Vanessa back to her room, as the others talked in hushed voices.

Jimmy shut the door once they were alone.

"I'm so sorry," Vanessa buried her head in his shoulder.

"Don't be," he said gently. "Don't ever be sorry."

"I just . . . I wanted . . ." she gasped for breath. "I hate that I used to be a girl who would fuck anybody for money."

"That's right, sweetheart," Jimmy may have been a nerd, but he knew when to say the right things. "You used to be. You're not any more. You're with me now."

After a few minutes, her heart rate was down. She lay her head in Jimmy's lap and held his hands desperately.

She brushed the tears from her eyes, the last of her self-pity spent.

Leaving Jimmy on the bed, she went into the bathroom and washed her face. When she emerged, Vanessa stood in front of her boyfriend. His eyes were level with her breasts, but he only looked up at her.

Taking his hands, she placed them around her waist and he pulled her close. She leaned in and kissed him hungrily.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she replied. "I am more than okay. I just wanted you to know . . . I'm not sorry about anything that I've done in the past. And I'm not mad that those guys recognised me . . . It's just . . . that, um . . . no one has ever stuck up for me like you did tonight."

She had to pause to brush new tears out of her eyes.

"I have allowed other people to treat me like shit for so long, that I've forgotten that I'm supposed to fight for myself," Vanessa whispered, and she pulled Jimmy to her bosom. "And when you took that guy down . . . It was just so . . . so awesome to see you beat someone up for me . . . for me! . . . that I just . . ."

Vanessa leaned over to kiss him again.

"It was so fucking hot, too." Her smile promised great things as she pushed Jimmy on to his back. Straddling his hips, Vanessa took his hands and pressed them against her breasts. Beneath, her, she felt his cock harden between her legs. "Jimmy . . . I appreciate that you've taken things slow for me, and not rushed us into bed, even though . . . I know you've probably wanted to fuck my brains out since that first night."

Jimmy hadn't said a word, but she could tell from the look in his eyes, that she was right.

"I want you to make love to me," she said.

All he could do was nod.

Vanessa pulled back for just a moment and she hoped it wouldn't ruin the mood. Of course, Jimmy was a 19 year-old virgin, so he would probably be ready to go in a heartbeat anyway.

"I've got an IUD in." Up until the first encounter she had with Jimmy, Vanessa had never been in control of her sexuality. Everything she had done clearly was her choice, but she was always at someone else's beck and call. Jimmy was the first person to let her lead. "And last month, I went to the clinic on campus and had a full STD work-up. I . . . um, just wanted to let you know that we could . . . you know . . . not have to worry."

Jimmy's hands left her breasts and he pulled her down to him slowly. Their kiss was tender, but she pulled away again.

"Sweetheart," she said tentatively. "I just . . . it's just that I have a lot of baggage and issues. And I want you to know that it has nothing to do with you. . . . No, wait; let me finish . . . I've never been with a guy like you, Jimmy. It seems like everyone who has touched me just wanted to use me, and you're not like that. I'll do anything for you . . . anything you want. It's just . . ."

Her voice trailed off as she searched for the words. For the first time in her life, she made herself emotionally vulnerable to a man.

"Please don't call me a 'cunt' or a 'bitch'." The tears came back. "And please don't treat me like a whore."

Jimmy pulled her to him and held her for a moment.

"I'll never call you names," he promised, and Vanessa believed him. "I'll never treat you like shit and I'll never leave you."

"I know you won't," she whispered.

For a long time, the pair simply held one another. His hands ran up and down her back comfortingly. Her hands cupped his face and she kissed him gently.

Vanessa climbed off the bed and she set some vanilla-scented candles around the room, their sweet scent filling the air.

In the soft glow of the flickering lights, she pulled Jimmy of the bed just long enough to turn down the covers before pushing him on to his back.

They undressed one another slowly. Jimmy's hands roamed her body, exploring every inch of her skin.

He was a little clumsy, especially with her bra, but he was a fast learner.

She lay on top of him, their naked bodies pressed together. His cock hardened in her grasp.

"Touch me," she bit his ear lobe. "See how wet I am for you."

Vanessa stroked his cock up to full mast. When he was ready, she straddled him, her hand guiding his sex into hers.

They both moaned with pleasure as she sank down on his length. Jimmy's hands grasped her hips as she slowly began to grind against him.

His eyes were glazed over and he didn't last very long.

She could feel him filling her pussy with his warmth. He bucked up into her before collapsing back into the plush mattress.

"I'm sorry," he said, plaintively.

"No, sweetheart," she silenced him with a kiss. "It was wonderful."

And truly, it was wonderful. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was making love. Not having sex. Not fucking. Making love.

"But you didn't—"

"We've got lots of time," she smiled at him comfortingly. "If not tonight, then forever."

Vanessa straightened out her legs and lay on top of her lover, his cock never leaving her pussy. His hands reached around to cup her bare ass.

She only moved to pull the covers over her.

Her breasts were mashed flat against his chest. He kissed her neck and ear.

Soon enough, his cock hardened again. Her rolled Vanessa over on her back and began to grind against her.

The second time he lasted a lot longer.

And that time, her screams of ecstasy made up for a lifetime of low self-esteem and whoring.

*****************

Vanessa wrapped the plush robe around her and padded out to the kitchen. It was still early and she expected the guys to be sleeping in. She had left Jimmy in her bed, grinding his teeth.

To her surprise, Emily and Maureen were sitting on the couch watching TV and futzing with their smartphones, along with a third girl, Isabel from the LAN party. Their eyes lit up when they saw Vanessa, who blushed when she realised the girls were going to give her a hard time about all the very vocal sex she had the night before.

"Where are the boys?" Vanessa asked to deflect the attention away from herself.

"Bryan is in his room, Greg is upstairs and I think the rest of them are still in the basement," Emily replied, and to Vanessa's observations, it looked like she had gotten her fair share of sex the night before, too.

"Who are 'the rest'?" Vanessa asked.

Maureen rattled off a list of names including her boyfriend and some other guys Vanessa had apparently met at the LAN party. Isabel came over first thing in the morning with donuts and Starbucks. After the excitement the night before, the guys decided to stay in and have some of their other friends over for a mini-LAN party. They were playing Star Wars and after seeing The Hobbit, they had reactivated their Lord of the Rings Online accounts.

Who knew there was an MMO for every taste? Apparently, they also played Star Trek: Online and had managed to talk the girls into playing some of their games, except for Maureen and Emily, who refused to play STO on principle.

"What have you got planned for today?" Emily asked as Vanessa got herself a Diet Pepsi from the fridge.

"I have to be at work tonight at 5; I traded shifts to go to the movie last night. Other than that, probably just homework."

"Can your homework wait? We want you to go out with us."

"Where?"

"It's a surprise," Emily replied cryptically. "Go tell your boyfriend that we're kidnapping you."

Jimmy was still asleep, so Vanessa sent him a text message to read when he got up. Then she dressed, pulled her hair back with a scrunchie and piled into Emily's car with the other three girls.

All the while, Jimmy's cum was leaking out of her pussy.

*****************

"Wow," Jimmy whispered once he could find his voice.

Vanessa strode into the living room, aware of the eyes on her. The guys and some of their friends were sitting around watching Serenity on the big screen. She was embarrassed by the attention, but not in the same way as the night before.  

She twirled around, her skirt and hair lifting slightly.

The girls had taken her to a nearby day spa, and had her worked over. She got a massage, a manicure, a pedicure, a hairstyle and new colour.

They had taken almost a foot off to be given to Locks of Love, but her hair still fell past her shoulders. They stylist had given it a hint of red to highlight her natural brunette tone, and cut it in a way that was fashionable without being too trendy. The girls at the salon also showed her some tips on using make-up to even out her complexion and highlight her eyes.

But more than anything, the girls had given Vanessa some much-needed confidence.

When she tried to pay her share of the bill, Maureen told her that it was already taken care of, and politely—but assertively—refused to take anything Vanessa tried to give her.

"You deserve this," Maureen said simply in a genuine way that was devoid of pity or snobbery. And that was that.

The three girls turned out to be a delight, although it would be fair to say that Vanessa was apprehensive about spending the day with them. They did not ask about her past, and they seemed to take a heartfelt interest in getting to know her.

She made sure to give each of the other three a friendly hug when their day was over, then she retreated into her room to get ready for work.

After cleaning up, she sent Jimmy a text.

He burst through the door to find her laying on the bed. Naked.

Vanessa's legs were spread, showing off her freshly-shaved pussy. She cupped her breasts in her hands.

"I have to leave for work in a little bit," she said seductively. "You have five minutes to do whatever you want to me."

Four minutes later, she was face down on the bed, her ass sticking up in the air, as Jimmy pumped another load of cum into her pussy.

She left him there panting, with the promise of cheesefries to give him some energy for later in the night.

*****************

The next week was a whirlwind of sex. And love.

Jimmy was insatiable. So was Vanessa.

It was as if a sexual awakening had taken place for the both of them. She had always enjoyed sex, and truly, she was good at it. But for Vanessa, there were always strings attached.

Money or favours.

When she was with Jimmy, there was nothing but their unbridled lust and blossoming love. He wanted and desired her, not just her body or her talents in the bedroom.

They had to slow down when she got a urinary tract infection from their frequent encounters, but that didn't stop her from showing off her mad cocksucking skillz.

As a couple, they were in a good place. Until one night, she got a text from Jimmy warning her not to come home from school.

The police are here looking for you.

She spent the night on Emily and Maureen's couch, a nervous wreck.

When the dust settled, it appeared the cops were following up on an anonymous tip about her using the house for prostitution. The guys had stood their ground and refused to let the police enter since they didn't have a warrant. The next morning Jimmy made a call to his father and the matter went away, but the damage was done.

"That bastard knows where I live now!" Vanessa sobbed once she had returned to the house. Everyone knew who she meant. No one could explain how he found out, but apparently, he knew.

Jimmy assured her that the police wouldn't be back, but there was a part of her that was not re-assured by his words. After all, Craig's family was well-connected, and could probably get away with murder if they really wanted to. Of course, Jimmy's family was equally well-connected, and the mere threat of a federal investigation was often enough to deter petty corruption.

The others in the house went to DEFCON 3, and started to double check all of their security measures and even activated the alarms when they were home. Loaded handguns were kept in biometric safes throughout the house that any of the four could open if they had to, and only the four of them could open the safes.

"We set up some security cameras outside the house," Bryan told her one day. "We have every door and window covered. All of the cameras are motion-activated and we record everything on a 12 hour loop. The video feed is stored here, but also backed up at another site so no one can simply destroy the recordings."

"How do you know how to set all this stuff up?" she asked.

"My dad is in to video surveillance," he replied.

"For security like this?"

"Not really," Bryan winked, slightly embarrassed. "He likes to record himself having sex with my mothers. And sometimes his girlfriend."

Vanessa's jaw dropped.

The other boy only laughed at her obvious disbelief and discomfort. She then got the short version of his odd family life, and wondered how he turned out as well-adjusted as he did.

"Their relationship isn't normal, but when you're around them long enough, it just seems natural," Bryan shrugged. "I just took for granted that everyone had four parents and seven siblings. I think it's weird that Jimmy and Greg only have one mom and dad."




Tapestry Ch. 03



"So how do you control all of this?" she asked, returning her attention to the home security system.

"There are touchscreen controls in the living room, the basement, the kitchen and each of the bedrooms," Bryan showed her the panel that flipped down from underneath one of the cabinets. The other screens were similarly hidden from plain view. "You can see all twelve cameras at once, or pick them individually. Every approach to the house is covered. There are four cameras which you can move with the controls here. Up, down, left, right. Zoom in, zoom out."

"Are there any cameras inside?"

"Not yet. We didn't want you to think that we're spying on you or anything," Bryan replied with a mischievous smile. "Jimmy wanted me to put a camera in your shower, but I told him to go to hell."

"Jimmy wanted? Or you wanted?" Vanessa pinched Bryan a couple of times for good measure, and rolled her eyes. "Perv."

"He likes big boobs more than I do," Bryan laughed. "More than a handful is a waste. And you are much more than a handful."

She assaulted him with a shower of friendly tickles.

"So that's why you're into petite Asian girls?"

"I guess," he shrugged again. Vanessa didn't pry, but she suspected that her roommate's interest in Asian girls probably had something to do with his sisters. After all, most men have some sort of latent Oedipal attraction to their mothers, and at least a passing curiosity towards their sisters.

As a result, men tend to be attracted to women who are like the women they grow up around. She really couldn't blame him; two of Bryan's sisters were gorgeous twin girls adopted from Vietnam, and she could tell from the way that he talked about them, Bryan adored the twins, more than his mothers or other five sisters.

Vanessa gave Bryan a big hug.

"Thank you for doing this for me," she said softly. "Thank you for everything."

He only smiled, and then returned to his room, satisfied that he had restored some peace of mind to his new friend.

*****************

Vanessa closed her eyes and moaned joyously.

She lay on her back, her legs spread wide. Jimmy's hands were cupped under her ass, as he lifted her pussy up to his mouth.

His tongue flicked her clit back and forth, eager to please her.

A small vibrator was nestled into her rear hole, buzzing softly. A larger vibrator was inside her pussy, overloading her senses.

Her hands cupped her breasts as her boyfriend lovingly performed oral sex on her. He seemed eager to explore her, and took his time.

"That feels so good," she gasped as he hit one of her sensitive spots.

He didn't reply, instead sucking on her labia.

Jimmy seemed eager to go down on her. Most guys Vanessa knew hated it. But then again, not a lot of men pay a prostitute just to eat her pussy.

There was one occasion, when Craig had paid Vanessa and another girl to show him some girl-on-girl action, and that was the first and only time she had ever been with another woman. It was okay, but all things being equal, Vanessa preferred men.

"I love it when you eat me," she whimpered, feeling her toes begin to tingle.

The first time he went down on her, it was a little awkward, but he was a fast learner, and she told him exactly what to do.

Now, she had no complaints, and she enjoyed it when he introduced something new to their sex life, whether it was the vibrators, a blindfold or some ice cubes.

Her body shuddered when he started moving the vibrator in and out of her pussy as he continued to use his tongue to toy with her clit.

"Oh, fuck!" Vanessa cried out. "Don't stop! Don't you dare fucking stop!"

Sure enough, he didn't let up until she howled with pleasure, the sensation of the two vibrators and Jimmy's talented tongue sending her over the edge.

Her hands grasped his hair as she bucked her pussy against his face.

She rode out the orgasm until she could barely move. The room was spinning and she could barely feel him remove the vibrators from her pussy and ass.

"I love feeling you inside me," she looked up into Jimmy's eyes as he mounted her. Her pussy clamped around his cock as he slowly began to piston in and out of her.

He gave her a couple of short, gentle thrusts, which gave way to harder and harder thrusts.

She spread her legs as wide as she could so all of his length would fit inside her. His hands clutched her backside as he pounded away.

Vanessa's fingernails dug into Jimmy's shoulders as another orgasm ripped through her body.

When he exploded inside her, she pulled his head back, so she could see the look of pure pleasure on his face. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were closed.

In that moment, he was the most handsome man in the world.

And he was all hers.

Their bodies melted into the bed and they held each other until they mustered up the strength to do it again. And again.

And again.

*****************

Her hands ran up and down his back. He was still inside her.

Both found that they liked to talk after—and in between—sex.

They discussed their future sex plans. They discussed what they liked and didn't like. They shared their deepest and darkest secrets and desires.

One subject which was off-limits was her prior sex life. That was something she wasn't ready to bring up with him. He would sometimes ask if she was happy with his cock size, or if he was as good as her past lovers, but she always changed the subject on him.

"You're perfect," she would tell him. "And you are way better than anyone I've ever had."

And that was that.

The semester was almost over and they were discussing their plans for the next year.

"I'm on track to graduate next December," he told her. "I had a lot of credits coming out of high school, and I think I'm going to start the mechanical engineering program."

"Where?" she dared to ask.

"I don't know," he said. "I've applied here a Duke, but I was also thinking of applying at MIT or Cal Tech."

Neither spoke the words, but both knew where this discussion was going. He was certainly smart enough to get into any program where he applied.

"How close are you to graduation?" he asked.

"Not as close as you," she said softly. "And I'm just going to be an X-ray tech. Not some rocket scientist."

"Don't start that," he admonished gently. Compared to Jimmy and his friends, she thought she had a lower maximum potential in life than the rest of them. "I need you to get a job and start working soon. My parents aren't loaded like Bryan's. You're going to put me through graduate school."

"Why are we talking about this?" Vanessa frowned at his attempt at a joke, mostly because it made her uncomfortable.

Jimmy looked her in the eyes. His hands cupped her face and he kissed her gently. "Because I love you."

The words hung in the air over them for a long moment. But then she realised that he was talking about the future. Their future.

Vanessa began to cry softly.

The first look on Jimmy's face was one of bewilderment, as if he had said something wrong. But they were tears of joy.

No one, not even her parents, had ever told her those words. And Vanessa knew he wasn't saying them just because he was inside her. Or because he had a fixation on her breasts.

He meant them. And that was good enough for her.

"I love you, too."

*****************

Despite their rabbit-like sexual behavior, both managed to finish up the semester with good grades. Jimmy because he could sleepwalk through his undergraduate degree and Vanessa because of her dogged determination not to fail out of school which was costing her a ton of money in student loans.

Everyone in the house was taking some summer classes. Emily was spending a lot of time over at the house with Bryan. Greg was in the "talking" phase of a relationship with a guy he had met through a campus-sponsored gaming group. Jimmy was taking extra classes to graduate early.

Things were going well until Craig re-appeared in her life. It seemed more accidental than intentional.

Vanessa was working a Saturday night shift at the Outback when he came in. She was assigned to a set of tables in the back and he got a seat at the bar. She didn't think he saw her at first, but there was no way she could avoid going to the bar to get drinks for her table.

She didn't look his way, and he seemed to ignore her.

Until she was on the way back to the kitchen and found herself face to face with him.

There was an evil glint in his eye. She tried to step around him, but he blocked her way.

"You owe me a fuck," he growled. "Whore."

"I don't owe you shit," she said softly. "Asshole."

He started to say something, but another server walked by and Vanessa turned and followed. Craig made no move, but she could feel his eyes on her. He didn't say anything to her again, but now he knew both where she lived and where she worked.

That made her blood boil with anger and tremble in fear at the same time.

*****************

"My parents want to meet you," Jimmy told her once final exams were over. She hadn't mentioned the encounter with Craig to any of her roommates, and hoped it was just a coincidence. He never showed up at the Outback again, but she was always watching over her shoulder.

"When?"

"Um, on Friday," he said sheepishly.

"That's in two days!"

"I, uh, didn't want you to worry through final exams."

And that was the start of their first fight.

Of course the make-up sex was extra-good.

Since she was occupying the room guests normally stayed in, Jimmy's parents got a hotel room. Vanessa offered to cook for them, but they insisted on taking her out for an end of the semester dinner.

Jimmy was the spitting image of his father. Both were thin and lanky. She could instantly tell where he got many of his mannerisms.

Timothy Burkhardt was serious and a bit intimidating. It took a while to figure out his dry sense of humour. Jimmy's mother, on the other hand, was a riot on two legs. Boisterous and jovial, Tanya Burkhardt was the complete opposite of her husband and son.

And Vanessa took an immediate liking to her, especially after the other woman stuck up for her.

"Stop acting like an ass, Tim," she said, loud enough for people three tables over to hear. "She's not a witness to be cross-examined. This is your son's girlfriend. At least pretend to like her so we have a shot at being grandparents."

Jimmy looked like he wanted to hide under the table, and Tim forced a smile, but he did lighten up a little.

Vanessa invited his parents back to the house after the meal, but they declined. They would be coming over the next afternoon to visit with Bryan and Greg, and then were heading back to Asheville.

They were walking back to the car, when Monica took Vanessa on her arm. "Is my boy taking good care of you?"

"Yes, he is," Vanessa blushed.

"Good, if he acts up, you call me and I'll set him straight," Monica laughed. "He's head over heels in love with you, and I can tell you feel the same way."

Vanessa was at a loss for words.

"Now go home and practice making me some grandbabies!" she winked.

Not much later, Vanessa was riding Jimmy's cock in the front seat of his car, never having made it out of the garage.

*****************

"We've got trouble," Bryan said, staring at the monitor. Jimmy and Greg were instantly on their feet. Vanessa clenched her jaw and felt her blood pressure rising. "Battlestations."

Craig had crashed his truck into the brick mailbox at the end of the driveway. He was approaching the house, an aluminum baseball bat in his hands.

The guys sprang into motion. Vanessa found a .40 Glock pushed in her hands. Bryan went to his room and retrieved a shotgun. Jimmy and Greg also produced large caliber handguns.

"Go down to the basement," Jimmy said softly, his eyes dark with anger. "Call 911."

"Are you going to be okay?" Bryan asked.

"Yes." Vanessa had never seen him like this. The closest had been when he beat up that guy in the burger joint. But she knew he wasn't going to kill that guy. His eyes were devoid of emotion. "Just like we discussed. Go out the back door if you need to run."

Bryan tugged at Vanessa's arm. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

Jimmy gave her a reassuring kiss. "I love you. Go."

Bryan led the way. Vanessa numbly followed, and Greg brought up the rear. They watched from the monitor in the basement as Craig pounded on the door. Bryan was on the phone with the 911 emergency operator, but from the half of the conversation Vanessa could hear, it didn't look like the police were going to get there soon enough.

Craig began to beat the wooden door frame with his bat, smashing the glass panels on the sides. He kicked at the deadbolt several times until it gave way.

Vanessa choked back sobs and resisted the urge to run up the stairs and confront Craig herself.

She heard shouting. Jimmy's voice.

A gunshot.

Then two.

There was a short pause.

Then six more shots in quick succession.

There was a loud thud.

Then silence.

The joists above her creaked as someone walked across the floor. The door to the basement opened.

Jimmy's voice sounded like that of an angel. An avenging angel. "Clear."

"Are you okay?" Greg asked.

"Yes," Jimmy replied wearily. "He's down."

"That's right," Bryan was saying into his phone. "Shots fired. The intruder is down . . . I don't know . . . Yes, we are armed . . ."

"Do not come up here," Jimmy warned. "Go outside and wait for the police in the driveway."

He closed the door. Vanessa choked back sobs as Bryan and Greg led her outside. Both were calling their parents to let them know what happened.

They unloaded their weapons and set them on the driveway.

The police arrived a few minutes later with their guns drawn. They emerged from the house a few minutes later, Jimmy's handgun in an evidence bag.

Their home was taped off as a crime scene and the spectacle of a wrecked car, police and an ambulance had drawn the attention of the neighbours.

No one was arrested, especially after the police saw the video feed of Craig forcibly entering the house with a baseball bat.

Bryan, Greg and Vanessa all gave statements to the police. Jimmy spoke only to ask for his father to be contacted.

Craig's body was removed from the house and transported to the morgue. Later toxicology showed his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit to be considered driving drunk. The activity around the house continued well into the next day. Jimmy's, Bryan's and Greg's parents all showed up before the sun rose.

Jimmy was released into his father's custody and his legal defense was begun. Very quickly, the sheriff and state prosecutor decided that charges would not be filed.

There was overwhelming evidence that Jimmy could invoke the "Castle doctrine" of self-defense, especially considering Craig's pattern of stalking and the fact that he had a baseball bat in his hands when he died.

"I fired two warning shots," Jimmy told the investigators, pointing to two bullet holes in the door frame well above anyone's head. The other six .45 ACP rounds were buried in the center of Craig's chest. "He kept coming, so I killed him."

Craig's father raised a little bit of a ruckus, but that was hushed very quickly, when more federal corruption charges were filed against him.

Once the shock of the incident faded, Vanessa took a long time to come to terms that her boyfriend had killed someone for her. She did not feel sorry for Craig, only that Jimmy had to be dragged in to her fight.

A part of her wished she had killed Craig herself.

*****************

The door was repaired and the carpet cleaned. There was some local furor in the news, but that quickly passed.

The foursome finished out the fall semester. Bryan and Greg still had a semester to go. Vanessa would graduate in two more terms if she went full time. Jimmy graduated and started in the mechanical engineering and materials science program at Duke.

They never discussed what happened that night.

Over the next couple of years, things happened quickly. Jimmy and Vanessa fell further and madly in love, their relationship strengthened by their shared trauma. They moved out of the house and into their own apartment; neither wanted to stay in the house where Craig had been killed.

Three years later, Jimmy graduated with his PhD and went to work for Neurodyne, a robotics company. The three guys remained friends, even as their lives split them up and sent them to different corners of the world.

Vanessa got a job at a hospital while Jimmy finished up his doctorate.

They were married on a warm Autumn day, with the enthusiastic blessing of Jimmy's parents. Her own family turned out for the wedding, probably to get a free meal, but also to let Vanessa know how proud they were of her.

She was embarrassed by them at first; compared to Jimmy's family and the friends who had stuck by her over the past few years, they seemed backwards and redneck, but they were still her family, and they loved her, even if they had funny ways of showing it.

On the first night of their honeymoon, James and Vanessa Burkhardt made love on the deck of a magnificent beach house at the Outer Banks. The moon hung over them, bathing them in its soft glow.

Vanessa leaned over and Jimmy took her nipples in his mouth. She purred softly. His hands roamed her body. The nearest neighbours were fifty yards away and the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore set a steady rhythm for the two lovers.

She never tired of how he played with her sensitive breasts.

His cock was tumescent inside her, and she knew he wasn't going to last very long. He never did when she was on top.

That was okay with her; a little while later, he would take her from behind and pull her hair just the way she liked it.

And if he played his cards right, his night would end with his cock buried in her ass while she toyed with her clit.

Vanessa started to grind her hips against her husband, his face buried in her cleavage.

She pulled him back for just a moment and looked into his eyes, which were glazed over with pleasure.

"Sweetheart," she caressed his cheek. "You know now that we're married . . . I can't be compelled to testify against you, right?"

Jimmy nodded, apparently distracted by the way she was squeezing his cock with her tight little pussy.

"I've been wondering about something for a few years . . ."

Vanessa lifted her hips and then sank back down on him.

"That night," she gently bit his ear in the way that made his skin crawl. "The night you shot Craig . . . were those 'warning shots' the first two you fired . . . or the last two?"