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Trust Fall Ch. 01

By: tessquince



Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Chapter One

I SLAP THE SNOOZE BUTTON OFF and roll over to grab another nine minutes of sleep.

I keep my eyes closed thinking it might delay the work day a few more minutes. It doesn't. It just puts me behind. I feel the other side of the bed. 

Empty? Where's Danny? 

I sit up startled. 

Oh, yeah. 

He's with my man-child ex- Josh. Great. That's right. I have something else to worry about for the next month. Josh texted last night that they were in St. Louis. My little five-year-old Danny in a strange city with Josh. Okay, I guess I'm awake now. There will be no sleeping with that worry rolling around in my head.

Since Danny moved out of his crib into his big-boy bed, he wakes up every morning at 5:30, uses the potty then climbs into bed with me. Sometimes he falls back asleep and other times he plays quietly with a toy. He only makes noise if the alarm goes off two times. If it does, he gets to jump on the bed and yells, "Mommy! Mommy! Quit slapping Mr. Snoozy. He wants you to go to work!"

That won't be happening for a month. Josh got the bright idea to drive from Cincinnati to San Francisco to visit his parents for a couple of weeks then drive back. He said it will let him and Danny bond and see the country. When he first brought up the idea I shot it down, but Josh whined and whined until he wore me out. He is Danny's dad. A boy needs his father. Even that father. And they are his grandparents. Even if they are California hippy-dippy, Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson-Bernham are nice people. Heck, Josh is nice. He's just silly and irresponsible. And my mom and dad aren't the most doting grandparents. Maybe when Danny can golf they'll be. That's what my parents do. They golf. What else? I have no idea.

I point my toes to the end of the bed and stretch. I reach my thumb up to my forehead and try to rub the furrow out. The furrow started out as a crease on my thirtieth birthday and over the last three years has blossomed into two full blown permanent ruts that gives me a constantly questioning look. I push my thumb from the middle of my brow across to the right three times then do the left trying to smooth it out. I know it won't help, but it can't hurt. 

I run my hand down my stomach. There's a knot there. Well, not so much a knot as a hardness in my gut. The hardness isn't from my three time a week ab workout. It's inside. It's like I have a rock in my belly. The doctor says it's stress. No kidding, doc. He says to take a vacation, do yoga, relax. Well, I've taken vacations and I've done yoga. No help. Oh, and I can't relax.

I eyeball the clock. It practically screams 6:04 AM. With the day ahead and worrying about Danny in the Show-Me-State, I'm not going to get back to sleep. I swing my legs to the floor and run my hands down them. Yikes. I need a shave. Why? The only male the stubble ever bothers is Danny.

I grab my running shorts and a tank top off the chair and slide into them. I keep a treadmill in the spare bedroom so I can run while Danny eats his breakfast. He has a little desk next to my treadmill that he uses as a table where he eats his cereal. He comes in and watches one of his shows while I run. With him gone, I could run through the great outdoors. I peek out the window and it looks like a nice day. Screw it. I need a lazy morning. I don't have to get Danny ready. I might as well give myself a break this morning. 

On my running chart I put an "X" on today's date. I allow myself three 'X's a month. This is my first for May. The rest of the days it's three treadmill miles at eight miles per hour.

I stick my head in the fridge and begin to pull out the carton of liquid egg whites for my omelet but remind myself this is a lazy morning. I close the door and decide I'll buy a muffin at Starbucks instead.

In the bathroom, I strip out of the workout clothes I'd just put on. I force myself to stand in front of the mirror. When I kicked out Josh, I'd told myself I'd get my breasts augmented. I'd probably earn more money. Men would rather deal with a commercial loan officer with a c-cup than a b-cup, right? But the thought of going under the knife scared me. I pictured something going wrong and me dying and Danny growing up with his dad. Anyway, I like to run and don't want giant jugs flopping around on me. I run my finger over the ridge of my abs in the mirror. What I don't offer upstairs, I have in abs. I like them. There's still a little softness in my underbelly from Danny, but the abs are better than most. I look lower. It's a black mass of hair I've left untended so long, it's now an overgrown mess. I used to care. Josh supposedly liked the au naturel look. He even wanted me to not shave my legs and pits, but that's okay for his job. Me? I gotta impress. But even then I'd trim it up down there. I don't know when I just let it go to seed. 

I start the shower and get in. With no Danny to worry about sticking forks in outlets or walking out the door, I just let the hot water run until it goes cold.

My office is downtown, but my first meeting was with Frank DiTella, a client with a business near my house on the east side. I'd head out there before heading to the office. DiTella Manufacturing is an old school tool-and-die family business. One of the last left in America. They'd borrowed $440,000 on not-so-great terms to purchase a new conveyor system that moved things from one machine at their plant to another. That's as technical as I cared or needed to get. The new conveyor system was not working and Frank was looking to sue the guys who sold it to him, unwind the entire deal and start over. He was going to ask me to exert some leverage to get the conveyor guys to eat it. Good luck with that, Frank.

Frank says, "Oh, Shit" when he saw me walk into his office.

Frank is as Italian as they come in Cincinnati. About my age, a little older. Dark close cropped hair that I guess would curl up if he'd let it grow. He was a little short for me at 5'7" but was built like a fireplug 

"Good morning to you to, Frank."

"Not 'oh, shit' you, 'oh, shit' me. I should have called you. The company that built the thing sent a guy down from Milwaukee last night to get it working."

"You think they will get it working."

"Yeah. Well, I think so. Don't ask me why. The guy seems...competent. Anyway, he's only been here about thirty minutes. He's back looking at it now."

"You want me to go back there? Go all bank-bitch on him?"

He laughs. "Can't hurt."

I follow Frank's shoulders out to the factory floor. I feel out of place walking past Frank's guys in jeans and plaid shirts already covered in dust while I strut past in my white blouse and pencil skirt with three inch heels echoing off the concrete. Each of them eyes me up and down. Not a lot of women work here. It's still a man's world on this shop floor.

Frank and I come up on three men at the back of the plant. Two are dressed like they work on the floor. The other is in a royal blue Oxford with a red patterned tie and suit pants. I see a matching suit jacket hanging off the corner of a shelf. He's in his early forties. In good shape, not perfect, but nice to look at for his age. He has brownish hair, but it's streaked with strokes of silver. He's completely silver at the temples.

Frank stops short and I stand back a few feet watching the three men over Frank's shoulder.

"Diego," the suited man says. "You watching this?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm watching," a Latin-looking man says.

"You put the crow bar right here. Right where the flywheel comes in. Right on this ridge. You see it?"

Diego exaggerates looking in.

"Then, Diego, you give the other end of the bar a big mother-fucking pull."

The suited man pulls the free end of the crowbar with both his hands. His sleeves are rolled up and under the skin of his forearms the muscles ripple like taunt cables down his arm. 

The suited man is speaking through his teeth, straining. 

"Now Bill, you swing that sledge and hit the center of the wheel. Hit it hard."

Bill hesitates.

"Don't worry about hitting me. Just do it, Bill. Trust me."

Bill swings the sledge missing the suited man's hands by about six inches and hits the center wheel dead target. There's a loud pop. I don't understand what's going on.

"Now try it," the suited man says. 

Bill pulls down a lever that moves the wheel and he loops a belt over it. Bill pushes the lever up then punches a button. The machine fires up and there's motion. Again, I have no idea what's going on, but Diego shakes the suited man's hand, and Bill and Frank smile at each other and gives a thumbs up. 

The suited man flexes his hands after putting down the crow bar and looks my way. Our eyes meet and he smiles. I can't help but looking him over. He catches me doing it and smiles wider, but I also catch him putting his chest out and, almost imperceptibly, pulling in what little gut he has.

Bill shuts down the machine.

Frank walks over and shakes the suited man's hand. 

"You think that'll do it?"

"I know it will."

"How do you know it?"

"Because I designed this thing and I designed it wrong. My fault. But this is the solution and it'll work."

The suited man's eyes keep roaming over to me.

"Sorry, Ben. This is my banker with First Southern—Tess Quince, Ben Sheppard."

We nod at each other.

"It was you who financed this thing for Frank, right?"

"Yes," is all I can muster.

"Did he ask you out here to twist my arm if I couldn't get this working?"

"Something like that."

"Not something like that," Frank says. "That."

I flush for some reason and Ben Sheppard laughs. 

"No need," he says. "I don't think Diego and Bill will have any more problem. But I'm doing an installation down in Crittenden, Kentucky for the next couple weeks. What's that—an hour away? If there's a problem, you call me."

Mr. Sheppard pulls out some business cards and hands them to Frank, Diego and Bill. Instinctively, I put my hand out for a card, but he doesn't hand me one. A bit embarrassed, I pull my hand back. Diego and Bill hold their cards in front of them with both hands like they rarely touched business cards.

With business done, the men look to want to get back to work. Frank stammers around trying to figure out what to do with me then remembers his manners.

"Let me walk you out, Tess."

Frank turns on his heels and I start to follow.

"Excuse me," says Mr. Sheppard. Frank and I turn back to him.

"Tess, I've no plans tonight and I'd love to buy you dinner. Maybe you can show me some of the city, too?"

I'm caught off guard.

"Dinner?"

"Yes. Dinner and maybe a driving tour of the city."

He's taken a pen out of his suit coat and is holding another of his cards. I've still said nothing. All he does is look me dead in the eye and smiles.

I look to Frank who is looking anywhere but at me. Diego and Bill who are each smiling their faces off.

"Yes. Sure. Tonight?"

"Seven, okay?"

I nod and again look to Frank who is looking at the ceiling now.

"What's your address?"

I give him my address. Just like that I give it to him. He writes it one of his cards.

"Seven it is," he says. "Here's my card. I've written my personal cell on it. I'll see you tonight."

Trust Fall Ch. 02



Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Chapter Two

WHAT THE HELL HAVE I just done? I've agreed to go on a date with a man who I don't know. Who no one I know knows? A man from out of town. And I gave him my home address? He knows where I live. Why didn't I tell him we'd meet someplace. At least I'd have my own car that way. That would have been the safe move. Jeez, what had I done? Tonight at seven some strange man, attractive but still a stranger, from out of town who I don't know anything about is going to show up on my doorstep and I'm going to just get in a car with him and...and what? Dinner? Why dinner? Why didn't I say 'just drinks'? A whole dinner committed to making conversation with someone I don't know.

I pull out his card and look it over. It is nothing fancy. White linen stock with the logo of the engineering firm who made Frank's new conveyor system. His name—Ben Sheppard—followed by some letters I don't understand. Certifications, I guess. It has his job title. He is a 'Senior Designer'. It has his work phone and email. I flip the card over. I do have his personal cell phone number. It is written in his own hand in blue ink with a crisp fine point pen.

I have to get over to Northern Kentucky for a Chamber of Commerce networking luncheon. After that, I'll call Mr. Sheppard and politely cancel our date. I'll make sure to be working out at the gym at seven just in case he decides to show up at my house anyway.

The Chamber lunch is like every monthly Chamber lunch. Everyone is on the make. Everyone is looking to find someone useful to their business. If you're not useful, you're useless. It's always good to keep that fact in mind. Everyone is looking for someone to sell something to. That usually fails. It's mainly a social hour for men and women who aren't social but need at least one monthly social outlet. We trade rumors. Who filed bankruptcy? Who is building that new massive warehouse out by the airport? Who is late in payment? Whose divorce is going to run their business into the ground? Who got smacked with a sexual harassment complaint? Everyone bitches about the government. Why are they doing the road work now? Why is that exit closed? Are they really passing a new sales tax? Regulations are killing my business.

I was one of seven other commercial loan officers there to develop relationships. That's our fancy way of saying we're there to find people to lend money to. We each have our own niche modeled after our banks' latest advertising campaign. There's Jim, a portly, gregarious man in his early sixties from the good ol' boys bank that's been around since 1928. There's Ruth, a stocky woman in her fifties who wears the same black suit every month. Does she wear it every day? She sells loans for the newer blue collar bank. The others fall into a category of banks that I call 'earnest'. They are earnest banks and earnest bankers. They are eager to please. They smile a lot and are great at small talk and have their terms committed to memory and have the wonderful skill of never saying anything that sounds like a commitment or a promise.

Me? I work for the bank that tries to come off as if it's a large, east coast lending institution thus making us look like exactly what we are: an always-struggling, mid-sized, mid-western regional bank. We all wear what we all think our borrowers think bankers in Manhattan wear to their office. What that means is I spend about four grand a year more on clothes than these other guys. Does it work? Not really.

Roger Klein, a tax lawyer, spots me standing alone from across the room and makes a beeline for me. He's forty, handsome, six foot two with a trim waist. He thinks highly of himself. Outside of looks, I have no idea why. He's applied for a loan with us. He makes an even hundred grand a year but with two ex-wives with alimony, an upside down mortgage and a credit score of 510 he's not got a lot of credibility with me. He's asked me out a few times. I've turned him down just as many. He can't seem to get the hint. At a chamber cocktail event three years ago, he got drunk and cornered me in an alcove. He grabbed my ass and pawed my breasts and forced his tongue down my throat. A passing man saw me struggling and pulled him off. I thanked the Samaritan and got the hell home. I don't think Roger remembers doing it. I'm not sure what makes me more mad: the fact he did it, that he never apologized or that maybe he doesn't remember doing it.

The sad fact is, Roger Klein forcing himself on me was the closest thing to sex since Josh and I split up. Has it really been five years?

Roger smiles broadly at me and I notice his teeth seem unnaturally white. Oh, god, did he get caps? He must have. I give him a half-hearted smile and a nod then force myself into a circle of six people talking about the new hospital going up. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Roger slow his pace across the room. He looks at me annoyed then sees someone else to accost.

I make my rounds, always putting myself on the opposite side of the room as Roger. I hand out my card and cite some interesting rate figures and answer the constant question of "When are you guys going to start lending more?" I manage to keep myself from saying "When you guys get your financials in order."

A curious thing is happening. I'm sizing up all the men and in my mind, almost against my will, I compare them to Ben Sheppard. I don't know Ben Sheppard, of course. But there was a directness in his voice that these men don't have. These guys have plenty of bluster. They speak with either unfounded arrogance or are just loud-mouthed. Ben had, what? I guess it was a voice of confidence. There were those forearms. Strong arms poking out of the rolled up French cuffs straining against the crowbar, forcing the machine he designed into place and commanding Bill and Diego what to do.

I find myself blushing at the thought when I realize the men in this room fall short.

Whatever, I tell myself. After this, I'll call and politely cancel our date.

Back in my car, I pull out Ben Sheppard's card again and pull out my phone. The private cell number is written precisely. The ten numbers look as if they've been printed out. They maintain the same bottom line and are of equal height and spaced evenly. I put the card to my nose. I don't know why I expected it to smell of something—Old Spice or Musk—one of those man scents that's not really pleasant but not bad either. Nothing. It's just ordinary scentless paper. 

My car's clock says it's a quarter to two.

I remember my two o'clock underwriters meeting and put the card and phone into my bag and start heading downtown. Maybe I'll have Danielle, my assistant, cancel on Ben Sheppard.

I'm running late and by the time I park my car it's 2:05 and I skip my office and go right to the fourteenth floor to meet with the underwriters. They want to complain some more about my fellow commercial lenders and me sending them unsuitable loan applications. They do this about every three months—as if folks are telling us they are bad credit risks when we meet them. Isn't that what underwriting is for? To find out if they are good or bad risks? But I play nice and let them have their say. If a quarterly two hour meeting makes them feel better, that's fine. If I smile and look like I really understand and care, they may make an exception for me with a borderline client. My annual bonus is dependent on how many loans I sell, after all.

My mind keeps drifting to Ben Sheppard. Not so much those forearms wrestling the crowbar now but the silver around his temples. When I saw him I assumed he was in his early forties but now that I think about it, I'm not so sure. Maybe he's older. I remember I have a nail polish about that shade of silver. An image flashes through my head of my fingers, wearing that polish, sliding through Ben Sheppard's little fields of silver. As the clock clicks toward four, I scold myself. I should have called him earlier to cancel. I'm getting into last minute territory now—especially if he's driving up from Crittenden.

Okay, I tell myself. Once this meeting is over I'll go back to my office and call him. No pawning it off on Danielle. I accepted the date, so I'll be a big girl and break it myself.

The elevator opens to my floor and I walk out of it staring at my phone. I'm not using it. I just want to have something to look at. I don't want to have to look at anyone else. I find most of my co-workers boring. As I near my office, I look up at Danielle.

She's smiling like she's just learned a secret. Our ages being so close makes it hard for our relationship to not morph into friendship instead of the boss-assistant that we are.

She's a pretty girl. I've noticed men find her sexy. Too many guys stop by her desk to chat when they should both be working. She's shorter than me—curvier, blonde and busty. She's only two years younger but seems much more. She doesn't have a serious bone in her body. She's all smiles and giggles. She's been married a year. She invited me to her wedding, but I used Danny as an excuse to get out of it. I sent a gift though. The year leading up to the wedding was a hassle. She couldn't seem to talk of anything but wedding plans and sex. It seemed if she wasn't taking a call about seating arrangements or flowers she'd drop little, disgusting bombs about how wet her Robbie makes her or how he 'rocked her world' the night before. The third time I heard her say he screwed her brains out, I put a stop to that kind of talk. I overhear it sometimes when she's talking to the other admins, but at least I don't have to listen to it directly now.

It bothered me mostly because it was unprofessional, but if I'm honest, I was jealous. I'm never wet. Never have been. When I was with Josh, my doctor gave me some supplements and told me to use lubrication. As for climaxing, that's not in my skill set. It's just never happened.

"Danny's gone one day and you get right to living it up, huh?" Danielle says. She's still got that smile on her face.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he sounded very nice. Sexy, even."

"Who?" I knew who. He called here?

"A Mr. Ben Sheppard called to say he had a work emergency and has to cancel your date tonight. He did want to know if you were free tomorrow. I told him you'd call him back. Then about three minutes later those showed up."

I look into my office. A dozen yellow roses in a glass vase sit on one of my filing cabinets. They are stunning. I walk over and smell them. Wonderful. He wouldn't send flowers, would he? Over a cancelled first date? He barely knows me. I barely know him.

"The delivery guy was cute," Danielle says. "He said they were from Ben Sheppard. Anyway, what's the card say?"

The card. Oh, yes, the card.

I find it in the stems, pull it out and open it.

It read: "With apologizes for cancelling our date. - Ben Sheppard" It's written in his hand—an elegant and precise hand—in the same blue ink from the same crisp, fine point pen he used on his business card.

"So who is Ben Sheppard?" Danielle asks.

"I have no idea," I say.

I have no idea but all the doubts I've been carrying around about going to dinner with him went right out my head. I want to know more about this Ben Sheppard with the strong forearms and silver hair at the temples who sends apologetic yellow roses with handwritten notes.

I look at Danielle.

"Please call him and tell him tomorrow night at seven p.m. would be just fine."

"You have no idea?"

"Danielle, just make the call and close the door on your way out, please."

On the drive home, I feel my blood sugar plunge and hunger hits me full in the belly. What I want is a bacon cheeseburger with American cheese. And fries. With a Cherry coke. I am never in the mood for those things, but, my God, they sound good now. My body seems to be craving calories. I even drove up to a place. Their lit-up menu has pictures of huge burgers surrounded by French fries, onion rings and—could I eat those?—something called jalapeño poppers. It looks disgusting but good. I think of my date the next night. I pass on the burger and carbs and I pick up a Sonoma chicken salad from Whole Foods. I eat it in front of the TV along with a half a bottle of Riesling.



Trust Fall Ch. 03



Trust Fall
Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Three

BEN SHEPPARD KNOCKS ON MY front door instead of ringing the bell. It's loud and firm and startles me. I'm already nervous and the surprise of his knock makes me a little more flustered.

I'd been thinking of this moment all day. The moment when he rings my bell or, as it turns out, he knocks on my door. I primp myself in the mirror. The night will be cool so I've put on a nice pair of black jeans and a turtleneck with a long gold chain that hangs across my breasts. I didn't want to go overboard. I didn't want to do too much. I chide the furrow in my brow. It seems deeper in this light. I try to rub it out. I close my eyes and press both thumbs across the ridge of my brow then open them. Nothing. Still the furrow. The rock is still in my belly, but it's surrounded by butterflies.

I spent the day at an off-site my bank required I attend at a hotel banquet center with about two hundred other bank employees. It is was an eight hour day of being lectured on diversity and its importance for a productive workplace and corporate success. I learned that I'm not supposed to judge people based on their sex, age, race, religion, sexual-orientation or any combination of the aforementioned. It's all good stuff that most of us learned as kids and if you didn't learn it as a kid, I can't see how eight hours in a hotel banquet center is going to teach you to not be an ass.

The entire day my thoughts kept drifting away from diversity and drifting to Ben Sheppard. I used my phone to do a little internet research. There's not much there. I found a nice general profile on his company's website. I looked up the letters that are behind his name on the business card. They're engineering designations, but I have trouble understanding even their definition. I take it to mean he's certifiably smart.

When our Chief Diversity Officer dismissed us for lunch, I grabbed a muffin left over from the morning spread and a diet cola from a vending machine and tried to find a quiet place alone to eat and think. I found it on the third floor stairwell.

I felt guilty for all those thoughts of Ben Sheppard. I really should have been thinking of Danny. I'm also getting a little pissed that Josh hasn't called to check in. I want to give them space, to let father and son bond. I have a hope that Josh will stay in Danny's life and not lose interest and drift off to other things. A boy needs his father and Josh is so likely to drift away from anything that involves work.

Screw it. 

I dialed Josh's number.

"Hello Mommy!" Danny shouted into the phone. "Daddy let me answer the phone. Yesterday we saw a big arch. I wanted to go to the top. I did, but Daddy said we didn't have enough money and we really had to get to see Grandma and Grandpa in SanCisco... SanFrankco... in California and we're gonna see mountains soon but now it's not mountains it's all flat and there's farms and farms and a, oh, Mommy, a big truck honked its horn at me."

I laughed in the stairwell. My Danny is a-okay and he sounds happy and my irritation with Josh subsided.

"Okay, you need to talk to Daddy now."

I heard the phone handed off.

"Hey," Josh says.

"You know I don't allow him sugar or caffeine, Josh."

"Then I guess the pancakes and Coke for breakfast were a treat for him."

"Well, he's bouncing around your car and not mine."

"He'll be fine. We're having fun. He's just excited."

I didn't agree but let it pass. 

"I really need you to call or text. I worry."

"I'm a big boy, Tess."

"And he's my little boy, Josh."

"All right, we'll text and call more. Hey, I do have a favor. Money is going faster than I expected. Mind if I use that credit card you gave me for a few things? Gas. Maybe a hotel?"

"You're running short already?"

"You know I'm good for it?"

I don't know that Josh is good for it. Josh hasn't been good for a whole lot, but I don't want to put a damper on Danny's vacation. Anyway, once they're on the coast Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson-Bernham will foot all the bills.

"Yeah, no problem."

I think two things to myself: how did I end up paying for my ex-'s vacation and I'd better keep an eye on that account.

That will have to happen after I have dinner with Ben Sheppard.

I look in the mirror again and I hope I'm dressed appropriately. He knocks again.

Okay, okay, I say to myself and open the door.

The first thing I think is he looks better than I remember. The second thing I think is that we dressed to the same level. He's in jeans with a dress shirt and a suede jacket. No tie and I see the points of cowboy boots sticking out from under the cuffs of his jeans. I can do without the suede jacket and boots, but they fit him somehow.

He's holding a small bunch of purple irises. He smiles.

"I saw this on the side of the road earlier today and thought you might like it."

"Thank you. Come in. Let me put these in some water."

I walk to the kitchen. I grab a small vase out of the cupboard, fill it with water and put in the flowers. He hasn't followed me into the kitchen. He's still standing at the doorway. I realize that he's the first man after Josh, well, the first man besides the cable guy, who has been inside my house. He's the first man in my house since Josh that I've thought of in a romantic way. Am I thinking of him in a romantic way? Yes, I am, I tell myself.

I admire the flowers then ask loudly, "Anything you need before we go?"

"No, thank you. Only you. We have reservations in a half hour."

"Where are we going?"

"A place downtown called Nada. You know it?"

"I know of it. I've not been there. I don't get out much."

"We'll both experience it for the first time together then. That's nice. There is one problem, however?"

Uh-oh.

"A problem?"

"Yes. I've drove my truck down here from home. Are you comfortable riding in a truck? If you'd be more comfortable driving your car, I'd understand."

I've never ridden in a truck before. Why would a truck make me uncomfortable? I'm afraid to ask.

"No, a truck will be fine if you're fine," I tell him coming out of the kitchen.

I pick up a light wrap from the table in my foyer, put it around my shoulders and he smiles at me again.

"Shall we?" he asks. 

His voice is deep and the light glimmers off his silver-haired temples. I feel small next to him and he smiles again and blinks his eyes. They blink in slow motion. I like it all and I smile a big, silly, goofy smile in answer.

The truck is big. On the passenger side there's a chrome step that descends from the body below the door. Ben Sheppard opens the door and holds my hand as I step up and into the cab. His fingers on my hand have a light touch and they feel huge. I watch his shoulders as he walks in front of the truck and gets himself in.

"Sorry about the climb up, but more often than not I end up hauling things around for work...a man needs a truck."

I don't say anything and I feel silly for not saying anything. I click through my mind trying to come up with something smart or witty or just something not unintelligent sounding, but I can't. I'm mute. I sit there saying nothing.

He seems unfazed by my silence. He puts the key in the ignition and starts it up. The thing is a beast. How did I not hear it coming up my street? There's a low vibration that runs through the floorboard and the seats and into my bottom. I notice a piece of paper, a fragment of a drinking straw wrapper, dance across the floorboard toward my right shoe.

The truck has one of the those stick shift transmissions. It's long and rises from the floorboard and bends toward him. He grabs the ball at the end in his palm and wraps those fingers around it. He lifts it, moves it to the right and down again. The movements seem sexy to me. How does his putting a truck in reverse seem sexy? He backs out of my driveway and moves the stick shift up, then left then up again. The noise of the truck gets louder and deeper. After a few moments, he changes gears. He stops to turn out of my subdivision. When he moves his thumb off the top of the gear shift I steal a peek. I can see the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and R. He turns right, puts the truck into first gear. I feel a slight movement as we go into second. At third, it sounds like the engine is going to explode before he quickly stops at fourth before resting in fifth.

Once in fifth, the truck seems to calm down and the noise doesn't seem so loud.

"This looks like a nice part of town," he says.

"Yes. We like it."

"We?"

"My son and I."

"How old?"

"Five"

"Nice. Yes, a nice neighborhood is good for a child to grow up and feel safe in."

I don't say anything in response. I usually hate silences. I hate the dead air. But not tonight. Not now. I'm starting to enjoy just riding along. If Ben Sheppard feels any discomfort with the silence, he doesn't show it.

We simply ride along in his massive pick up truck driving west into the setting sun toward downtown.



Trust Fall Ch. 04



Trust Fall
Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince



Chapter Four

WHEN HE PULLS UP TO the valet station the kids manning it all give an eye roll. I see Ben Sheppard smile at that. I open the door and one of them helps me down. Ben hands another valet his keys and I see him tip a twenty and say in a low voice 'for the truck being such a hassle'. The valet gives Ben a big smile and says "Thank you, sir". Why do I like the fact that Ben tipped the guy a twenty and why do I like it even more that the kid smiled back at him and called him "sir"?

He turns to me.

"Hungry?" he asks.

The hostess who, in her heels, is just as tall as Ben Sheppard ignores me but gives Ben a thousand watt smile. She's about twenty-two, blonde and wearing a strapless cocktail dress held up by two huge orbs. Her skin is a flawless white without a blemish or a wrinkle anywhere.

"How many?" the bitch asks.

"It's just the two of us," Ben says. 

Josh's voice would always change timbre when he had to deal with a pretty girl. It became softer and reedy. It was him trying to be endearing but it only showed his nervousness. It was the voice he spoke on our first couple dates. Ben's voice, however, didn't change. If anything, his voice took on a hard edge.

"Right this way," says the bitch as she picks up two oversized, faux leather bound menus then, as if it's a normal thing, she ever so lightly puts her hand on his shoulder to show him the direction. I see what looks to be our empty and ready table about half way across the restaurant.

He interrupts her.

"Would you mind? It's only that the restaurant is loud and sometimes I have trouble hearing and I want to hear everything Tess here says tonight. By the way, she looks great, doesn't she?" 

The bitch gives me an expressionless up and down, nods and looks back to Ben Sheppard. "Yes, she's lovely."

"I see a table for three over there..." I look the direction he's pointing. It's an awkward little table under the stairway that leads up to the bar area. "It looks much quieter. Would it upset anything much if we took that one?"

The bitch seems momentarily thrown off then recovers.

She leads us over and we sit down and she hands us our menus and walks away with a 'I'm done with you two' sashay.

Ben Sheppard looks at me with a mischievous smile. I've not seen it before. It's cute.

"I was wondering if you'd mind if we did something...different?"

Alarm bells go off in my head—WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

"Different?"

"You see. I have my regular places back home. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. Here? Not a bit. I'm lost. I'm always disappointed in what I order when I don't know the restaurant.

"Okay," I say hesitantly. "What's different?"

"Mind if we just order four or five entrees and sample off each? That way chances are we'll order something good."

He's still got that mischievous grin and his request seems so silly it's endearing. I smile back.

"No," I laugh. "Of course not."

"We'll have extra, but we'll take it home. Maybe your son would like it for lunch tomorrow"

"Oh, he won't be home. He's with his father on a trip to California."

"Then you're welcome to take it home then. Or we'll split it."

"Fine. Fine," I say. "What do you have in mind?'

He's already scanning the menu.

"How about some appetizers...their ceviche and some Nada sliders. Then their apple almond grape salad. That sounds good, no? For entrees, how about this cazuela tasting thing and Baja fish tacos and the pork belly?"

He looks up smiling and I giggle at him. I'm at ease.

"I know it's silly, but I want something good tonight."

I laugh some more and there's a pause. He sits back in his chair and takes a sip of his water. The waiter comes for our drink order and I ask for a Sangria. Ben repeats the same order to the waiter he just gave to me.

"Will others be joining you?" he asks.

"No," Ben says offering no further explanation. This makes me laugh again.

The silence resumes. My confidence is back.

"Ben," I say.

"Yes, Tess?"

"Why did you ask me out?"

"Because you're a beautiful woman and life is too short to dine with ugly women." 

This makes me smile. I try to repress it but fail. I'm grinning my head off. He goes on.

"But also because there is something about you besides your beauty. There was something that said you were interesting. Maybe it was the intelligence I saw in your eyes or the confident way you held your body. I'm not exactly sure, but thank you for agreeing to let me take you out to dinner, and thank you again for not holding my late cancellation last night against me.

"Why did you ask me out in front of those other men? It was awkward."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel awkward."

"I could have turned you down in front of them. It would have embarrassed you."

"Oh, I don't embarrass that easily. Not anymore."

He's looking me in the eyes. His eyes have changed from a brown dominant hazel to more greenish.

"So tell me about yourself," I say.

"I lead a fairly normal life. I live in Milwaukee. I love my job. I grew up in Green Bay then moved down to Milwaukee after college. I was married for twenty-five years. I have two children practically grown. They're doing well."

I quit listening after hearing the words 'twenty-five years'. I blurt out, "Wow, twenty-five years. How old are you?"

Now I'm the one embarrassed. "Sorry," I say. "That was rude."

He smiles that smile again.

"I'm forty-seven."

I do some quick math in my head. Forty-seven minus thirty-three. That's fourteen years. If our birthdays fell on the calendar right, it might only be thirteen years different. That's not so much, I think.

"Our age difference won't be a problem," he says and for some reason I put it out of my head. I recover.

"You were married, then. Divorced?"

"No, widowed. A form of brain cancer took Helen."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. We had a good life together. I only wished I enjoyed it more. One day, I walk in the door on a wonderful summer night and she tells me she went to the doctor and there's a problem. By Christmas she was dead. I spent a year mourning her then woke up the following Christmas Day to Joy to the World on the radio and decided to get back to living."

There's a glimmer in his eyes that's truly beautiful. I'm lost in them. I see my hand reach up and do something I'd never done before. I cup his right cheek and with the tips of my index and middle finger play with the silver hairs at his temple. He doesn't pull back but smiles. After a few moments, he takes my hand in his and kisses my palm. It's a gentle whisper of a kiss.

"Thank you," he says.

The waiter interrupts us. He puts down the mole sauce and tacos.

"And kids?" I ask.

"Yes. Two. They're all grown up," he says. "Tina just graduated from Wisconsin and Tommy is...What is Tommy? He's looking for a direction in life. He dropped out of school after his sophomore year and is back home with me. He's a good kid. He really helped me after Helen died."

He pops a chip in his mouth and says, "Now start talking about yourself."

"As you know, I'm a commercial loan officer.

"How'd you get into that?"

"I went to a small school up in northern Ohio. I went there because my best friend from high school was going there. They have a nice arts program and a good engineering program too. I wasn't creative enough for the arts or smart enough for engineering so I went into their little business program."

"Is that where you met Danny's father?"

"No. Well, yes. Senior year. He was visiting from another school. He'd driven a van up to our campus to pick up a bunch of my friends. We were going to protest some cuts to the higher education budget in Columbus. Actually, they were going to protest the budget cuts. I was hoping to make it to a decent mall for a new pair of shoes."

He laughs. I feel good making him laugh.

The waiter comes with our entrees and piles plates all over our little table. It's hysterical and Ben looks kid-like grabbing tastes from each plate. I can't stop smiling even when he tells me about his work and I don't understand it and—truth be told—the ins-and-outs of conveyor belt design and manufacturing is fairly boring. He seems to love it and I enjoy his love for it.

I don't even notice the waiter dropping off the bill and him paying. Before I know what's going on we're walking toward the front door of the restaurant. I see the bitch hostess chatting with two other Twinkie type girls. Our eyes meet and I give thought to sticking my tongue out at her. Instead, I hook my left arm around his right elbow. Ben bends his arm slightly and covers up my hand with his left hand.



Trust Fall Ch. 05



Trust Fall
Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Five

OUTSIDE THE AIR IS WARM and the city seems full of energy.

"I've heard about your Fountain Square. Would you show it to me?"

"Of course, it's this way."

I lead him one block south. We skip up the steps to the square and it's more crowded than a normal weekday night. There's a band on the stage playing salsa. The musicians are decked out in those traditional colorful costumes of countries that all blend together to me—Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile. Wherever. There must be fourteen band members each swaying in unison and sweating as they seem to blast the night air.

No one is dancing. Typical Cincinnati. Most folks are milling about or sitting at the temporary plastic tables.

The band finishes their song and I hear a man address the crowd in Spanish. There's a heavy drum beat that echoes off the building. A bass starts to thump a quick rhythm and what seems like twenty brass horns scream into the night.

I feel Ben look down at me. I look up.

"Shall we?"

He's already walking to the empty space in front of the band.

"No, thanks," I say. "No one else is."

"I'm not wanting to dance with anyone else. I want to dance with you."

I don't say yes. He's no longer asking. He's pulling me in front of the band. Once past the amplifiers the music is louder. It's almost painful.

Ben Sheppard takes me in his arms and we dance. It's a not-too awkward dance. It's a bit clumsy, and I give him credit for not doing the white-boy bottom lip bite. He's looking me in the eye the entire time and I feel...I feel, what? I'm not sure, but it is a good time and I keep looking into his hazel eyes and soon we're surrounded by people. Others are now dancing. There looks to be young couple and a few white haired senior citizens. A suburban mom is dancing with two little girls. I becomes a mass of people. I break eye contact with Ben and look to the plastic tables. They are mostly empty now. 

Good job, Ben Sheppard.

We dance for two more songs when Ben raises his hands as in surrender and motions that he needs a drink. I nod okay and when the song stops he takes my hand and we start to make for a row of vendors on the other side of the square.

"Señor!, Señor!" I hear a man call out and Ben stops. I turn with him to the stage and the lead singer gives Ben a thumbs up and mouths what I take to be 'gracias'. Ben gives a polite smile and wave and leads me over to a tent selling beer. We down our twelve ounces in a couple gulps.

The Genus of Water is a Cincinnati landmark that sits on Fountain Square. It's a fountain paying homage to the value of water to this river city. We stroll over to it holding hands. A little girl of about five is walking around it playing a balancing act with herself. Ben smiles at her and she waves at him.

"Cute girl," he says.

"Very cute."

He steps in close and looks down at me. I look up at him. He lifts my chin with the tips of his index and middle finger and when my lips are at the perfect angle, he kisses me. It's a soft, butterfly gentle kiss. His lips barely touch mine. I sense them more than feel them. He draws away and smiles then takes my hand.

"It's been a nice night."

Awwww. It sounds like the end of the night. I don't want it to end, but I don't want to argue. We both do have work in the morning.

"Yes. Very nice night." 

I squeeze his arm.

"Would you let me take you out again? Maybe this weekend?"

"Yes and yes," I say. 

He smiles at that. I like making him smile.

We walk back to Nada and the valet brings Ben's beast of a truck around in short order and he drives me home. I feel safe in the truck. I'm starting to like that it's so big and loud and noisy. When he drives it into my neighborhood, I imagine people flipping on their lights at the commotion we're causing. When he cuts the engine in my driveway, the silence is huge. He helps me down from the truck cab and kisses me goodnight at the door.

"How long of a drive is it to Crittenden?" I ask.

"About an hour."

"Need some coffee for the road?"

"I don't need coffee, but I'd like to spend more time with you."

"Well, come in anyway and have some coffee or I'll worry about you getting sleepy behind the wheel."

"Okay."

I lead him into the living room and ask him to have a seat. I notice how long his legs look stretched out in my living room.

"I need to make a stop then I'll get to work on that coffee, all right."

I head into the bathroom. I turn on the fan and use the toilet. Afterward, I look in the mirror. I'm sweaty. I use a guest towel to dab my face off. I notice my furrow. How does he not focus on that? It's all I can focus on. I try to press it out. Nope. Not moving. 

I'm starting to worry. Should I have invited him in? This isn't going anywhere. I'm sending mixed signals, I know. Honestly, I just don't want the night to end...and he does have a long drive ahead.

I flick off the light but leave on the fan as I open the bathroom door. I turn toward the living room, but Ben Sheppard is standing at the other end of the hall. There's ten feet between us. I didn't turn the hall light on. It's dark. But even so, I can see that his hazel eyes have turned emerald green.

"Which one is your bedroom?"

I raise my hand slightly toward my bedroom door. 

"Are you on the pill?"

"Yaz."

He smiles.

I walk toward him, but before I take two steps his lips are on me. He's pushing me back toward the bedroom. Toward the bed!

Oh, no. Not tonight. Definitely yes. Definitely soon. But not tonight. I'm not ready. But oh, god his mouth feels so good on mine. Ben's hands seem to be lifting me off the floor. No. No, but yes. I'm pulling him to the bed as much as he's pushing me. I land on the bed and bounce slightly. His mouth is back on mine. His tongue is light and quick in my mouth. My skin is tingling. I feel gooseflesh on every bit of my skin. I can't seem to catch my breath.

No, I need to stop this. Someway, somehow. I don't say a thing.

He moves his mouth off of mine and kisses my neck. His right hand snakes up to the right side of my face and pushes it to the left. The left side of my face is buried in the duvet. He's devouring my neck and sending charges throughout my body.

I feel his frame move down the bed and he's nuzzling my breasts through my turtleneck. I feel the bottom of it being slowly raised. I feel it cool air on my exposed belly and his tongue drifting and skipping across my abdomen. He places little kisses down the line of muscle on my left side then up the line of muscle on my right side.

Oh, god, yes. I think. No. Yes.

I know my dryness is going to be an issue. There's a tube of lubricant in my nightstand. I think it's in my nightstand. God, it's five years old. Is it any good? I tense picturing this night crashing to a stop. I try to prop myself up to reach for the drawer handle. Ben holds me down.

He pulls off my shoes and lifts me up and takes down my jeans in two fluid motions. I look to the nightstand again.

"Ben, I need to get something."

He looks up and shakes his head no. I feel his hand on my panties. There's a rip. He's torn them off and is burying his face in my hair. Oh, all that untrimmed hair, I think. He lifts his head just slightly.

"You smell wonderful," he says. He buries his face in my hair again. I can feel his mouth just above my pussy. He stops and lifts his head up. "And you look just as good," he says.

He places his hands on my inner thighs and parts my legs. His hands feel strong and hot on my flesh. He moves his hands underneath me to my ass and lifts me up slightly. I'm exposed and open to him. I feel his tongue—broad and strong—lick me from top to bottom as if my pussy was a sexy, hot popsicle. He does it over and over. Josh never did this. I give up reaching for the drawer. Maybe I won't need the lube. Maybe his saliva will be enough lubrication. Maybe.

He keeps with the licking. It's rhythmic. He lifts his head.

"You taste so good."

For some reason this makes me smile like a fool. He puts his head down, but instead of the broad, wide licks he was giving me, I feel the tip of that muscular tongue enter me. He grips my ass tighter in both hands and moves me on and off his tongue. I feel myself part wider for him each time.

He slows this motion down. I feel his hands leave my ass. They are under my turtle neck and he pulls my bra down. He squeezes each of my nipples and rolls them between his thumb and forefinger. My ten fingers are buried in his hair gripping his mouth to my pussy. 

I'm giving myself over to his tongue and driving the doubts out of my mind. This is so nice, I think. So nice. I should say that out loud. I should tell him how good he's making me feel. I should tell him no man has ever done this so generously for me before. But I can't make myself. Part of my mind is still thinking about the lube. I should still get it out, just in case, because I need him inside me now. Even if I didn't, there's no turning him back. He's going to take me and it might hurt. 

My god, he's back to those broad licks. He's making yummy noises like he's eating the best chocolate cake ever. He's really enjoying himself. The noises send a little vibration right to my clit and I feel a pressure building up inside me.

I tap him on the head.

"Ben, I need to get some..."

His left hand moves from my breast to my lips. He lays his index finger across them as if to shush me. His hand lowers. His hand is around my neck and he's squeezing the tips of his fingers around the arteries on each side of my throat.

What's this? No. What's going on? I'm panicking.

I can still breath. He's not closing off the air but things are going black.

I grab at his forearm. It's so hard. I manage to say "no" and I pull at his arm trying to get it away from my throat.

He loosens his grip slightly but keeps his hand around my neck. He lifts his head up. He looks me in the eye.

"Trust me," he says. 

He says it softly in his rich voice. It's a low growl. I feel the breath of those words breeze across my pussy. My pussy clenches and twitches and there's a sensation I don't recognize.

I decide to trust him. I stop pulling his forearm away and begin to pull it toward my neck. I feel the tips of his broad, strong fingers tighten again. He lowers his head and I feel the tip of his tongue, thick and hard, land on my clit. I realize what the sensation is—it's my pussy flooding with wetness. The world darkens.

My world brightens. What is this? Ben's tongue is still pressing my clit with unbelievable force. It's moving slightly, almost vibrating. I'm bucking against him as he holds down my body with his left arm and right hand. I'm out of my mind. I'm out of body. Oh, god, I'm coming. Is this coming? I feel wave after wave rip through my body crashing right down to my pussy then rolling back up. They keep rolling over me, each building on the other.

When? How do these stop? I don't know.

Ben's left hand drifts away from my throat and to the bed. He uses it and his right to lift his body up. His chin is shiny with his saliva and my juices. I'm not able to think about this. All I feel is that it's sexy and I want to lick it off him. 

He pushes himself further up with his left arm and uses his right hand to unbuckle his belt. I hear the metal parts clink against each other then feel the leather against my leg. He pushes his pants down and I feel his cock lining up at the opening of my pussy.

Oh, god, is this going to hurt? Where's the lube?

And he's inside me. It doesn't hurt. Ben's face is buried in the pillow above my head. He's breathing hard and rough and he's plunging into me. First orgasm has passed and for the first time during sex I'm not thinking about dryness or my lack of orgasms or, as so often with Josh, what is on tomorrow's to-do list. For the first time in my sexual life, I focus on a man's cock sliding in and out of me, feeling the tip almost leave then plunge back in, parting my pussy, until I feel and even hear Ben Sheppard's balls smack against my ass. Hearing that smack and knowing what it is...without warning the dam breaks again and I'm coming. It's different this time. Fuller, riper. Better? Yes, maybe. I'm riding it, enjoying it. Who knows when this will happen again?

I feel Ben's body go rigid. He lifts his shoulders up and stretches his head back so that he looks like he's doing a cobra pose. I look at the strong line of his chin as it runs down his muscled neck then broadens into his shoulders and chest. There's a delicate gold chain around it threaded through two rings. The jewelry is matted against his thick chest hair flecked with the same silver that's on his temples. I bury my face into it then look back to him again.

He looks glorious as I continue to come. 

He lets himself go and he fills me. I don't care about coming anymore. I don't care about anything. All I want at that moment more than anything else is every drop of him deep inside of me.



Trust Fall Ch. 06



Trust Fall
Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Six



HE'S GONE. BEN SHEPPARD IS gone. Danny's side of the bed is empty. The house has a vacant quiet to it. I'm sad and a little angry until I see a note on my nightstand next to a glass of orange juice.

It's a single piece of paper tented with a fold. Written on the side facing me is my name. 'Tess' is written in that precise script of his with a fine point blue pen. The way he crossed the T of my name and the angle of the two Ss is elegant and simply pretty. I want to keep looking at it, but curiosity gets a hold of me and I unfold it.

It reads: "I have to leave early for Crittenden. You are too beautiful to wake just to say something as simple as 'goodbye'. I would love to see you again and get to know you better. 

P.S. Breakfast is warming in the oven."

I run my fingers over the words and smile. I lay back and stretch. The stone in my stomach seems to have moved lower into my abdomen. I push on it. It still feels hard. I put my thumbs up to the furrow in my brow. I can still feel it there. Maybe it's not as intense, but I run my thumbs across my brow like I do every morning.

I pull on my robe and leave it open as I walk to the kitchen. I like feeling the air flow across my skin. I also makes me feel sexy. I can't do this with Danny here. It's fun.

Ben has cut some fruit for me and left it on the kitchen counter. I peek in the oven. There's three waffles, sausage and some crisp bacon and a carafe of coffee. I skip the plate Ben put on a placemat on my kitchen island. I grab the fork beside it and devour the meat and waffles right off the pan. After those are done, I turn my hunger on the fruit and empty the carafe of coffee.

It's my entire day's calories in one fifteen minute binge, but I don't feel guilty and I'm still hungry.

I put the pan and bowl into the sink when I realize he made breakfast and did the dishes. I even have to step back to make sure they're not hidden. Nope. This fact, on top of everything else, makes me laugh and I throw my arms up like a cheerleader.

"Whoo hooo," I hear myself yell to the empty house.

I catch my reflection in the long mirror that hangs in my hallway. The robe is open fully. My legs look okay. My pubic hair is shaggy still, but Ben didn't seem to mind. I skip over the soft part of my lower tummy. No need to look at that. My breasts are small, but I've always liked my wide pale nipples. My bed head hair gives me an insane, just-fucked look. I like it. I'm smiling at myself. I give another "Whoo hoo". God Bless you, Ben Sheppard. I've been fucked and fed and I feel good. 

I resist the urge to call him. I resist the urge to get in my car and drive to Crittenden to watch him work. To watch him build those conveyor machines he designs. To watch him lead men. Heck, I'd like to just watch him eat his lunch. I'd be his lunch. I giggle at the thought.

I walk up close to the mirror and look at my face. The furrow in my brow has lessened. There's still those two parallel creases. I frown at them, but they aren't as deep as yesterday. I worked with this guy named Blake a few years ago. Anytime I'd be having a bad day he would say, "Maybe you need to get laid." I hated him more every time he said that, but was Blake right? Did I just need to get laid? No. I was with Josh back then. I didn't need to just get laid. No. I needed to be made love to by a real man—a man who knew how to make love to a woman.

I chase Blake out of my mind and run my hands over my neck. I turn my head side to side and tilt it upward. It's faint, just some red splotches, but there is a thumb mark on the left side of my throat just below the jaw line and on the right a row of finger marks running down my neck. Not too noticeable, I tell myself. I rub them. I hold my hand over them. My fingers don't quite reach as far as Ben's did, but I give myself a squeeze and I feel my pussy loosen slightly and I become a little moist. Why does that do that to me? Why am I just finding out that it does that to me? What does that say about me? I pause. I feel good, I tell myself. Let it be. Don't spoil how you feel by thinking about it too much.

I put the second of my three allowed monthly Xs on my running journal and draw a bath. I am slightly sore. My pussy is a little tender, but it's mostly my abs and lower back that ache. All that coming, I guess. It's a good sore—like running a 18-minute 5k. It's a soreness my body needed.

I sit in the tub until the water gets cool then dry myself off, dress and head into work.

Danielle isn't at her desk when I get in. I walk into my office and there's a dozen pink roses and a small gift wrapped package on my side table.

I smile at the roses, smell them and pull out the card. There's simply a smiley face drawn in Ben's hand with his fine point blue pen then below his initial B with a period after it. It makes me chuckle. I carefully open the package. It's wrapped in a crimson paper and I feel bad when I tear it a little. I unfold the flaps and open the paper and see an elegant pair of panties. I shut my door quickly then go back to them. I lift them up and a card falls away. While it flutters to the ground, I notice Ben's script on it. I bend down to pick it up.

"To make up for the pair I tore last night," it says.

I blush and unfold the panties. They're the same style and size as the ones he ripped off me, but I finger the fabric and look over the stitching. They're much nicer than my pair. Wait, I think. The ones from last night? I didn't notice them on the floor or in the bed this morning. Where were they? Did he take them with him? I'm a little creeped out but more excited at the thought of my dirty panties in his pocket right now.

There's a knock on my door and I put the new panties in my purse—deep in my purse.

"Yes, Danielle."

Danielle pokes her head in like I might be changing, gives me a goofy smile, eases into my office and closes the door.

"So dish," she says.

"Dish?"

"Your date. You never date. Danny leaves town with Josh and all of a sudden there's a man in your life. He sends yellow flowers yesterday, pink ones today. The only thing I know about him is he has wonderful tastes in flowers and he's got a sexy phone voice."

"You have me ready for my two o'clock meeting?"

"With your friend Susan?"

"With my client Susan."

"Yes. There's not much to put together."

She waits a moment but can't contain herself.

"So, tell me"

"There's nothing to tell. I met him yesterday at Frank DiTella's place and he asked me to dinner."

"What does he do?"

"He's a designer, an engineer, I guess. He designed DiTella's new piece of equipment."

I don't like talking about Ben to her. I want to keep him all to myself. Sharing him, even by talking about him, seems to devalue what Ben Sheppard and I shared last night.

"Hmmmm, an engineer. A smart guy. What's he like?"

I could see I wasn't going to get out of this. She's not going to stop.

"What's he like?" she repeats.

"He's tall. Six three or so. Good looking in a clean cut way. A bit older than me."

"How old?"

"Forty-seven."

"Ohh. Are you working out some daddy issues with an older man?" She laughs at her joke, but I don't. "Did he kiss you goodnight?"

"Jeez, Danielle, what is this? High school?"

"I'm just wondering. I thought maybe I'd never see you dating."

"I was married, Danielle. And it was just a date. We're not dating. Anyway, he's only here for a month then has to go back to Milwaukee.

"So this isn't L—O—V—E, love?"

"It was a D—A—T—E, date. That is all."

Danielle isn't buying my insouciance, but I've given her enough to be satisfied for now. She gets up and opens the door.

"Well, he may only be here a short while, but you look absolutely great today. If there was more than a kiss, I'd expect to hear about it."

Why am I letting my assistant getting away with talking to me like this?

With me coming to the office late, I try to bulldoze through as much work as I can. I have Danielle get me a salad from the little restaurant downstairs and I eat at my desk. When one-thirty rolls around, she reminds me about my two o'clock meeting.

Danielle was right, my meeting is with a friend. Actually, she's my oldest friend. We go back to freshman year of high school.

Susan runs a second hand store in a neighborhood that's hip and trendy. Skinny, interesting-looking young people with complicated eyewear and porkpie hats live there because it's affordable and there are a couple nice bars and restaurants. In about five years, once they decide to clean up the streets and nice galleries and boutiques replace the pay-by-the-month appliance shops and storefront churches, the current crop of hipsters will have moved on to the suburbs to escape the city schools their children would be forced into. The future hipsters will give up on the neighborhood as too bourgeoisie and move on to another neighborhood that is looking to exchange its intergenerational poor for a bunch of twits. It will be a place with the dual cachet of affordability and making mom and dad nervous for them living there.

It's perfect for Susan. She prefers to work in a place with a lack of judgment and low standards. College was the perfect environment for her. She thrived in college. She was the leader of our little pack mostly because she was the most forceful. Her twenties weren't so great because people started asking her what her plans were. She never had any—not really. But people gave her a pass because she was still young and Bohemian. Now that, along with me, she's thirty-three, judgments are tougher on her. What was cute at twenty-three starts to get sad at thirty-three.

Susan's always been the alpha in our relationship. We applied and were accepted to the same small liberal arts college and we became roommates. The school wasn't for me, but at eighteen I was nervous to be away from home and Susan had all kinds of confidence I could hide behind. So I followed after her and she was happy to be followed.

Once we were enmeshed in campus life, good-time Susan disappeared quickly.

It started with a women's studies class she took freshman year. After a few weeks of that, everything became sexual-identity politics with her. Everything. Food, sex, music, literature, children—there was nothing that couldn't be explained by or had been shaped by the politics between the sexes. 

O, the cruel patriarchy and the soul-crushing misogyny!

She fell in with a group of like-minded women, or womyn as they liked to spell it then, and, as usual, I followed right along after Susan. They were nice girls and our core group pretty much stayed together the entire four years. That was mostly because it was a small school in the middle of nowhere. I, however, being the business management major, was the outcast. The words 'business' or 'profit' were like a cross to a vampire to these womyn.

There was a group of boys who flocked around us and even took some of those womyn's studies classes. At first, I thought it was because they were the most progressive, enlightened and open-minded men on campus. I thought they appreciated powerful, independent women like us and understood the baggage the historic subordinate role of women had placed on our shoulders. I realized the true reason they hung around. It was because—like all the other guys on campus—they were trying to get laid. The girls who played sports wouldn't have them because they had no chests or physical coordination. The sorority girls wouldn't have them because they were usually ugly and smelled of B.O. and patchouli. The Honors College girls wouldn't have them because they had no ambition. That left us womyn.

Susan had serious relationships with four of these guys in college and a few marijuana inspired one-night hook ups with a few more. The serious relationships all had the same story line which I now know as Susan's pattern. It's all love and roses. At least, it was Susan's version of love and roses—ferocious respect and equality. At the three month mark, however, the guy would do something—anything—that would show Susan his true male misogynistic nature. It could be something as slight as him opening a door for her or telling her she looked nice. Susan would rail at him that womyn were perfectly capable of opening their own doors or didn't need masculine validation of their looks. I think she believed it. However, she would never break up with these guys over the alleged slight right away. She'd spend a few months punishing the poor guy for an offense he never even knew he committed. After four years, I was used to spending my nights listening to her having sex with a guy for three months followed by hearing her scream anger at the guy for several more.

She earned a degree in "Social Justice" that confused her father and mother and prepared her for nothing after graduation. She worked as an 'unpaid volunteer' on several political campaigns and ballot initiatives and sold her soul clerking at various 'ethically challenged' national big box retail stores.

By this time she'd moved away from her hippy, smelly white guys and moved on to black men. She was inspired by a book she read that the only way to end racism was to end the races themselves. Thus we all had a responsibility to mate with someone from another race and after a few generations we'd all have just 'fucked ourselves brown'. She had a whole plan worked out and there were three African-American men that she dated. These relationships were more like interviewing subjects for a sociological experiment for this grand experiment than anything romantic or tender or human, even. Except by this time, the three months of bliss was followed by a few years of punishing the poor guy.

Luckily, no brown 'end racism' babies were created and when Susan turned thirty she started wearing uncomfortable looking jeans, jack boots and men's plaid shirts. She shaved the sides of her head into a checkerboard pattern and announced that she was a lesbian. Since then, I'd seen her with a few girls but none that seemed serious. I think she was having a hard time getting the hang of being a lesbian.

Susan always judged me as a sell out for being a business major and working for an 'evil bank' helping them make a 'profit'. I never saw it that way. Her college politics were not mine. I was just hanging out. But that didn't stop her judging. When I split with Josh, she didn't fully take my side. So he didn't work and couldn't provide for his family, she reasoned, he was the real man for not being co-opted by the system.

Well, Susan may be against profits, but she was a-okay with me arranging a loan through my bank for some inventory for her store and my putting my 770 credit score at risk by co-signing a lease for a her little store front too. This was our informal meeting to see how the shop was going. So far, what little of those 'evil profits' Susan made went into her small salary.

"There's something up with you," she says after some chit-chat. She is affecting a more manly stance since deciding she was a lesbian, but to me she was still my best friend from high school and I am still wanting to share with her the news about a boy I met.

"I went out on a date last night," I say.

"Yeah. How was that? Been awhile, hasn't it?

"I haven't dated since Josh."

"Sleep with him?"

I smile.

"You know all heterosexual sex is rape, right. In one form or another."

I remembered this line from college. I wasn't going to fight it.

"Susan, it was just some good news I was sharing. I like him. He's a great guy."

"You haven't been romantically involved in a long-time, Tess. I just don't want you to get wrapped up in the traditional gender roles that society force men and women into and that always hurt women. He may be a great guy, but he's no knight in shining armor and you're not a helpless damsel in distress. I just don't want to see you get hurt or hurt him. Like Josh."

I still don't like her saying Josh's name. Even now, after the divorce. Before I started seeing Josh, he had been one of Susan's one night marijuana fueled encounters. After we'd been dating a few months, Josh told me—like it was no big deal—that he'd fucked my best friend. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it was to me. Mostly because of the nonchalant way he said it—just tossing it out there. And mostly because Susan never told me, but she knew I knew. It always seemed she thought her fucking him first gave her a claim to part of Josh. That pissed me off.

"Susan, you're pissing me off."

"Sorry. Truth hurts. I don't want you walking around like all these couples holding hands having babies thinking they're happy when they're just conforming to archetypes Western society has imposed on us."

Normally, Susan doesn't sound so harsh to me. On most days, I'd chalk up this kind of talk to Susan being Susan. I was used to it—like a person who lives next door to a landfill grows accustomed to the smell of garbage. But not today. Not when I'm feeling so good. 

I don't want to hear about or discuss the politics of sex when a man finally shows me how good sex could be. There were no politics in what he and I did last night. Ben and I were a man and a woman. We weren't predetermined archetypes. Was there the Western notion of modern love? I don't know. Not yet. Love would have made it nicer. Either way, last night there was a man and there was a woman. There was long, hard fucking and explosive orgasms and it was good. 

I'd like to, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell Susan how Ben Sheppard's firm hand on my throat made me so turned on.

"You exhaust me," I say. "You always have. I'll come back when I'm less happy. That's the way you like me best." 

I gather up my paperwork and leave her with the bill for the fair trade organic coffee that smelled of cocoa and manure.



Trust Fall Ch. 07



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince



Copyright © 2014 Tess Quince

All Rights Reserved

Chapter Seven

BEN SHEPPARD CALLS ME A few hours after I stormed out on Susan. Danielle is right, he does have a sexy phone voice.

The first thing I say is "Thank you for breakfast...and the flowers...and the gift."

"You're welcome," he says in that voice. "I'd like to see you again if that's okay, but I'm tied up the next couple of days. They've got these guys working major overtime down here and a half day Saturday. I kind of need to be here to make sure it all gets done right. Are you free Saturday evening?"

"Sure. You want to come by at seven again?"

"Can we make it five?"

"Five?"

"Yeah, I hope I'm not out of line, but I noticed a few things at your house that needed fixing. I thought I'd do that for you before we go out."

"You don't have to do that."

"I don't have to, but it would make me feel better. You've got a wonky kitchen drawer and a toilet that runs. That'll really do harm to your water bill."

"Well, thanks. I'll be sure to pay you back." That last bit falls flat and sounds clunky. I'm no good at sexy talk.

"No, no need."

"Five it is."

I feel silly. I feel like the plain girl asked out by the star quarterback. I hit the 'end call' button and float through until Saturday. I talk to Danny every day and he was so happy on Friday when they got into California. "The mountains were so BIG, Mommy."

I spend Friday night preparing. I eat a salad and do some yoga to a DVD I bought long ago and used exactly twice. I take a nice bath and shave my legs. For the first time, I shave my pubic hair. I start off just thinking I'll tidy it up. I shave a bit here and a bit there. Suddenly things have gotten away from me. Soon I am completely bald. It feels strange and sexy at the same time. It feels as if I'm not wearing underwear. I hope he likes it.

He ignores my doorbell again and knocks on my door. According to my hallway clock it is three minutes after five. I look at myself in the mirror in a linen dress with a small string of pearls. Good, I think. I open the door for him.

The first thing he says is, "Sorry about how I look."

His hair is a mess and he's not shaved. There's a layer of gritty looking stubble on his chin that thins out as it gets closer to his hair. His stubble is flecked with little hairs of silver. There's a smear across his heavy blue work shirt and his jeans are dusty and there's paint splattered across the toes of his work boots. A leather tool belt hangs from his hips.

He looks glorious.

"We ran late at the job site and I thought a shower would be a waste if I get into something messy here. I didn't think you'd mind if I washed up and shaved here. Would you?

"No," I say.

Can I watch?

"I've got a change of clothes in the truck."

I look around him at the truck. It's sitting in my driveway big and aggressive. I'm glad he drove it.

I want to go up on my toes and kiss him hello, but it doesn't seem completely right for some reason. It seems too forward or familiar somehow. He solves the problem by doing that thing he does with his fingertips on my chin. I yield to the gentle upward pressure and lift my face to him. He breathes a kiss across my lips.

He releases my chin and I drop down to my heels.

"So you look ready to work. Where do we start?"

I feel silly saying it. He smiles at me and looks charmed.

"We start with that running toilet then I'll look at that wonky drawer. Also, I noticed you have a downspout that doesn't come out far enough. We let that go and you'll have a damaged foundation."

"Wow, you sure you haven't worked enough today."

"It's no problem."

I walk him to my bedroom's bathroom for the running toilet and he looks so big in the small room. There's no place really for me, but I don't want to abandon him.

"I'll be okay," he says dismissing me politely.

I walk around the house straightening up. There's not much to straighten since I scrubbed the place this morning and afternoon. I bring him a glass of water then sit on my couch flipping through an entertainment magazine somewhat half-heartedly. I don't want to look lazy or ungrateful to him, but I don't know what to do with myself.

I listen to Ben fixing my toilet in the other room then he walks out to the kitchen and I hear the drawer empty and I hear a power tool and I hear the drawer slide in and out better than it did when we moved in. He changes a light bulb that I can't reach and that I've never managed to get myself to drag out the step ladder from the garage and replace. I listen to the door open and he goes outside. I guess he's looking at the down spout. It's nice to hear him work. It feels so comfortable having him here. I think of ways I might be able to repay him tonight.

He walks through the living room and gives me a smile.

"I hope you're hungry tonight," he says and I say that I am.

He's in my bedroom and I hear him doing things with his tools.

"Tess, you have a pen and paper? I need to make a list. I gotta make a run up to a hardware store for a few things."

"There's some in my nightstand," I say.

I panic.

"No, wait," I yell. 

I'm frantic. I run into the bedroom.

The drawer is already open and Ben Sheppard is holding a black eight inch dildo that's been sitting untouched in my nightstand drawer for the past year. He turns his head and gives me that mischievous smile of his.

Damn it, Danielle. 

Yes. I blame Danielle.

About a year ago, she invited me to her bridal shower and, in a weak moment, I accepted. She looked so eager for me to come and the truth was that I was feeling lonely for female companionship. Susan was around back then, but we had been growing distant after I broke with Josh then even more so after I co-signed her lease. So I showed up for the shower at the Montgomery Inn Boathouse restaurant at eight o'clock as instructed. The place is right on the river with nice panoramic views and offers ribs with a sweet bar-be-que sauce. I was wearing a nice outfit and had brought a gift in a pink pastel gift bag. The gift is a nice silver picture frame. I thought it would come in useful for the bride and groom. 

I handed my keys to the valet who zipped off with my car. Danielle didn't invite anyone else from the office, so I knew I wouldn't know anyone except Danielle. I didn't see her waiting for me so I checked in with the hostess. She said that Danielle's party hadn't arrived yet. Eight-fifteen rolled around and I started to get irritated. I walked down the steps and went out the front door to get some air when I see a monstrous SUV limousine pull around the corner. It's thumping overly loud dance music. The valets open the doors and I hear a female voice screech, "Those mother fuckers..."

Danielle stepped out along with eight friends. They'd been drinking.

"Tess," Danielle yelled too loudly. "The best fucking boss in the world."

I smiled at Danielle but cringed inside. An older couple were looking agog at this gaggle of foul-mouthed women and at me.

"I'm sorry," I mouthed to them. They seemed to take my apology for an obscenity because they distanced themselves further down the valet stand.

"Tess, these are my friends."

Eight slightly drunk women looked at me with disinterest and, without saying anything to me, they began making their way up the stairs. I followed and the hostess was pretty quick with seating us. I sat a few seats down from Tess and a round of cocktails was ordered.

It took what seemed like twenty minutes for the waiter to get our order and I notice that most of the women have ordered a salad. I look at the waiter in sympathy. They reserved an eight o'clock table for ten on a Saturday night and they not only showed up late but were only ordering low-priced salads at a renowned rib place. For the waiter's sake, I hoped they would pad the bill with booze, but for my sake, I hoped the women slowed it down on the drinking.

The waiters and porters brought out the salads and my half slab of ribs. I had ordered ribs because that's what you do when you go to the Montgomery Inn Boathouse. Most of the woman were finished quickly even though it seemed like none of them had time to eat since none of them had stopped talking and swearing the entire time. 

At some point, guest bags were produced. I got one that was pastel like the bag I brought my gift for Danielle in, but this one had the outline of a bride's dress on it and "Danielle" on the other side written in glitter that started to fall off on my clothes and into the restaurant's carpet as soon as it was given to me.

I opened the bag up. It was full of pornographic kitsch. There were suckers in the shape of little penises. There were a pair of plastic, furry handcuffs and a toy riding crop and at the bottom in a box with a cellophane peephole was a large black dildo. I was amazed. I thought I got a gag gift. I looked up expecting to be the butt of a joke, but everyone else's bag must have had the same things. I saw three bridesmaids sucking on the phallic lollipops and two had removed their dildos—one pink and the other white flesh colored—from their boxes and were fencing with them. They were parrying and jabbing with eight inch latex cocks.

I looked to the next table and see what appeared to be a birthday party for an elderly man complete with open-mouthed pre-teen grandsons witnessing the phallic swordplay happening at my table.

The manager came over and told Danielle that they would either have to settle down or, at the least, move into the bar area. I was mortified. She was miffed. Her friends egged her into arguing the point.

"We're paying customers having a good time. We're not allowed to have a good time?"

The manager was patient and professional. He managed to get the women to the bar area where they were no more welcome but at least were out of sight of the children.

I hung back. The night looked like it could spin out of control at any moment, but I was concerned for Danielle.

She stumbled near me and I helped her up.

"Tess, Tess, Tess. I have a question."

"Yes, Danielle?"

"What do you think of when giving blow jobs? I think of shoes."

I ignored her question but propped her up against the bar. She seemed to be holding on okay. I didn't want to answer her. In fact, I couldn't. I've never given a blow job so I wouldn't know what I thought about. Probably, I'd be thinking about the cock in my mouth.

She took another long drink. She was determined to get blindingly drunk. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home, but there weren't any of her friends who didn't look plastered. I was the only sober one. I was unsure of what to do.

One of Danielle's friends settled that for me.

"Hey, Danielle's boss," I looked to my left. "You're a real skinny bitch."

She was a tall, hippy, good-looking woman. I don't consider myself too skinny and she didn't look fat. 

"But I like you," she said.

I tried to remember if we had spoken earlier in the evening for her to like me. I didn't think it mattered.

She reached into her gift bag and pulled out a black dildo like my own.

"You know what I'm going to do with this when I get home tonight?" she said. She doesn't wait for me to reply. "I'm going home and fucking my husband's ass with it. Just to show him how it feels."

The hell with this, I thought. I left. I was pissed. I'd had a horrible night. I love Danny, but it's nice to have a rare night out and this was how this night out gets spent? With a bunch of obnoxious, drunk skanks? I storm out the front door and hand the valet my tag. He pulls the car around and I get in. I realize I'm still carrying the gift bag with the penis pops and the black dildo. Whatever. I go.

I get home and change into my PJs. I'm sober, but now that I'm home, I crack open a bottle of white wine and pour myself a large glass and down it in three swallows. I didn't eat many of the ribs I had ordered and the wine felt as if it skipped my stomach and went right to my head.

What a bunch of disgusting whores, I thought.

I poured another large glass full of wine and head back to my bedroom but that gift bag piques my interest. I didn't look at that dildo closely and I'm curious. My head was swimming. I fumbled to the car and brought the bag in. I felt like I needed to hide that I had it—even in my own house. I took the bag and wine into my room and sat on my bed. I unwrapped the dildo and let it fall on my bed. I didn't even feel right touching it but the wine was making me horny. Or as horny as I got back then. I did touch it. It was designed to look lifelike with a circumcised head and veins running down the length of it.

It made me think of Randall Abernathy. Randall was one of Susan's boyfriends during her 'fuck ourselves brown' period. I always liked him. He had this mocha-colored skin that I found fascinating and his white teeth gleamed so bright. That was nice because he was always smiling and laughing. He was earning his Ph.D. in English Lit and if he had a glass or two of wine we could get him to recite Donne or Shakespeare or Chaucer. Randall didn't have much of a body. He spent his time reading, after all, but he had this behind that looked like you could screw it off. I would sneak peeks at it when he was over to visit Susan. Once I caught him late at night at the fridge in his underwear and it looked so nice.

I missed Randall. He was in England now doing some work with The Globe. He sent me a postcard saying he may make tenure already. Susan really missed the boat on that one.

I would have fucked Randall, I thought. I bet he would have been good for me. He would have made me wet. 

I stared down the dildo. I was challenging it. Don't think I won't lube you up and fuck you, I thought. I poured myself another glass of wine and drank fast. I was hoping the wine would give me courage to do it. I curled up my legs and sat Indian style in front of the faux cock. I imagined this monster in me. It frightened me but excited me at the same time. I could do it. I could lube it up and fuck myself, I thought. I looked at the bottle. There was about a quarter of the wine left. I looked to the dildo.

The next thing I know the doorbell rang. I looked at the clock. It was ten A.M. Fuck, I fell asleep. My head roared in pain. Shit, I'm wet. I looked around. The bed's wet and so are my PJs. Did I piss the bed? I scrambled out of bed and racked my knee on the bottle. No. I fell asleep and spilled my wine all over the bed. The doorbell rings again.

I knew who it was without answering the door. It was Josh dropping Danny off two hours early. This was during his 'not ready to be a dad' phase.

Fuck, Josh, you couldn't deal with Danny for another two hours?

That was a year ago. Before I answered the door and let my lovely son into his home, I tossed the big black dildo in my nightstand and it has sat there un-fucked ever since.

"Do you use this often?" Ben Sheppard asks rolling the shaft of that same big black dildo over his fingertips.

I think of going into the whole story of how it ended up in my nightstand, but I only say, "No. Never, actually. It was a gag gift. This is embarrassing."

"Never?"

"No. Honest. Almost. Once."

He laughs a small laugh and looks up at me. His eyes are gleaming that emerald green again.

"Come here," he says.

I slowly walk to him. I love the way he looks. I think he's going to say something wise and profound about human sexuality. Or shame and guilt. I want to hear something that puts me at ease with the situation of my white lover finding an eight inch black cock in my nightstand drawer. He doesn't say anything.

Ben Sheppard grabs my two wrists in his large left hand, turns me, and I find myself bent over his knee. He hikes up my skirt. What the hell, I think. I feel his palm come down hard on my right ass cheek. Ouch! The sound of the smack bounces around the room.

I try to right myself, but he grabs a bunch of my hair at the scalp and pins me across his lap. There's another smack. I try to fight it again, but I feel that wetness flooding me. It's a new sensation still and I enjoy it. I ask, What the hell again, but this time of myself. I'm liking this? He smacks me again and I think I might like it. I let him smack me twice more and I feel like I'm dripping into my panties. Yes, I like this.

He releases my head and I think he might be done, but he's now tugging at my panties with both hands. I look back and he's ripping my panties with his teeth. Once he's got a small tear he pulls them apart again. The sight of it almost makes me come and I face forward. He smacks my bare ass. Yes. Fuck, yes. It shoots through my body. There's another smack. I want to say yes, yes, yes, but something's holding me back.

He stops and I feel a tickle on my thigh. I look back and down and it's the remnants of my panties torn and wet. I look at him. He has the black dildo in his right hand. His eyes are flaring green and a slight smile crosses his lips. He puts the head of the dildo into his mouth. He's moving it and running his tongue over it inside his mouth. He's getting it wet for me.

I face forward afraid and excited.

I feel the tip press against my opening. God, it's so big feeling already. It's in me. Between his spit and my wetness it seems to just glide in. In fact, it feels like my pussy is pulling it into my body. Ben Sheppard motions it back and forth, in and out. With each stroke, he goes slightly deeper. He grabs my hair again and snaps my head back.

"Are you comfortable?" he asks in his low growl of a voice.

I nod my head yes as much as his grip allows.

He takes his hand off the cock. I clench it in my pussy and it holds even as he forcibly spreads my legs further apart.

He takes another firm grip on the cock and speeds up the thrusting. It goes deeper and deeper in me. It's larger than any man I've ever had before and I'm wet enough to take it. I feel like I'm getting split open in such a wonderful way. Involuntarily, my hips start working themselves against the dildo. Slowly at first then I speed up. Yes. I'm fucking the cock as much as Ben is fucking me with it. I think, bigger is better! Ben is better. After the other night, I'm prepared when I start to feel a climax build inside of me. It's a nice shiny light of joy in my pussy and with each thrust of Ben's strong hands the light gets brighter. It's nearly here and I brace for it. I dig my fingers into the legs of Ben's jeans. There's a thrust that seems deeper than the others. It touches me in a place I didn't know existed and the light explodes. I'm coming again. I start to laugh. It feels so good to come. It feels good to know the first night with Ben Sheppard wasn't a fluke. Yes, it's happening again. I'm a woman who can come now. With the realization, I let myself laugh out loud as the last of the orgasms passes through me.

As I catch my ragged breath, Ben slows his thrusting. He pulls the dildo slowly out of my body. I hear a plop sound and feel a void. I need that void filled. I want the dildo back in me so much, but I want Ben Sheppard in me also. Ben pushes me upward with his legs and guides me to a standing position with his hand still holding my hair. I'm woozy. He tosses the dildo on the bed with a thwop.

"That was nice," he says.

I only manage to mumble and shake my head yes. He lifts my chin up again with the tips of his fingers and places one of the those delicate kisses on my lips. 

Oh, those are nice Ben, but I want fucked.

He puts his hands on my hips and backs me up against the wall. He leans in for a deeper kiss filling my mouth with his lithe, hot tongue. I let my hands roam across his shoulders and down his back. He feels bigger, he seems to tower over me. He steps back and unbuckles his pants and I hear them hit the floor. His hands are on my hips and I'm being lifted up. I'm above him looking down then he lowers me slowly on his cock. It's not as big as Randall the dildo, but it's warm and real and it's Ben. His thrusts are slow, but strong and he keeps his mouth on me as best he can. He's holding the back of my head so it won't crack into the wall. I want to fuck him back, but I'm pinned. I want to make him feel as good as he's making me feel, but all I can do it take him and his cock.




Trust Fall Ch. 07



"You're...incredible," I say.

I hear a growl of approval and I feel his right hand leave the back of my head and land on my neck. He pushes my face aside exposing my neck and he kisses it. He devours it and the sensation sends me into another climax. The bright, white light in my pussy builds and explodes. I howl and grab at Ben. As I'm coming down, I can feel him letting loose inside me. The fact that his come will be inside of me all night makes me feel nice.

He stops his thrusting and without leaving my body, he turns. He slowly lowers me to the bed making sure I don't land on the fake cock. He pulls the duvet from the other side of the bed over me and picks up the black dildo.

"We'll put this away for now," he says and slides it back in my drawer. He turns back to me and kisses my forehead as he strokes my hair. I close my eyes and enjoy it.



Trust Fall Ch. 08



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince



Chapter Eight

I WAKE. I WAS IN a deep, relaxed sleep. It was a full sleep. It isn't the restless, worried sleep of a single mom with a little boy and a man-child ex-husband and a mortgage and a career and a portfolio of loans to monitor. It was the sleep you get laying on the beach with a head full of daiquiris. It was the sleep of a stoned college kid. It was the sleep of a child in the back of a car on the way home from grandma's house after a full day of fun and turkey. It was a sleep I haven't had since before Danny was born. I lay there quietly with my eyes closed inviting the sleep back. It doesn't come. I wonder how long I've been asleep. I open my eyes and the clock says only a half hour.

My shower is running. Ben Sheppard must be in it. I get up and go to the bathroom door. I think of asking him if he needs anything, but instead I crack open the door and peek in. He's behind the curtain. It's a translucent curtain. I bought it when Danny started saying he didn't always want his mommy with him in the bath. He wanted privacy. I wanted to make sure Danny didn't slip and fall. On those days when he didn't want me in the room for his bath time, I left the door open and the curtain let me see his little body moving safely behind it. 

Now I see Ben Sheppard standing still letting the water cascade over his body. It's not a perfect body. Tall, yes. But he is forty-seven and doesn't appear to work out. He gets his workout from actually working. There's a bit of a tummy, but the muscles across his shoulders and down his arms are muscular and natural looking. It's a nice ass for a man his age.

I watch him slowly duck his head under the showerhead.

"You're free to watch," he says. Damn, I'm caught. "Or you could join me."

I smile. 

"Sorry. I was just going to ask if you need anything."

"I'm good. So what will it be? You watching or coming in?"

I pull my dress over my head and let it fall to the floor and pull the curtain back and step into the shower behind him. He likes it hot. I put my arms around him and hold his chest while I lean my face against his wet back.

"That's nice," he says.

I don't say anything. I like feeling the slight ripple of his back muscles against my cheek and my fingers are playing with his chest hair.

"There is one problem," he says after a few minutes.

"Ummmm," is all I can manage to say.

"I didn't bring any soap. I'm going to have to use yours. I won't smell like Irish Spring but what you have here." I feel him pick up the bottle. He says, "Honey hibiscus lavender fusion"

I laugh quietly at the thought of it and he feels it in his back.

"You think that's funny?"

I pull my hands from his chest and take the bottle from him and pick up one of my loofahs. I squirt some of the soap on it and begin to wash his back. I'm a little rough with him, but he seems to be enjoying the scrub. I make sure I get him from his shoulders to his lower back then take his right arm and scrub it. I do his left. They both stretch out what seems like the length of my shower.

I turn him around and lather his chest. I like how the soap and his hair look all matted up. I reach up to do his neck and stop over his Adam's apple. I hold it and he swallows and I like how it moves across my palm. I palm some soap and run it over his face and stubble.

I sit on the side of the tub and begin washing his legs. I feel bad that I've not appreciated them before. They're strong and muscled. His flaccid cock is inches from my face, but I avoid looking right at it. I work his thighs then his calves and the backs of his legs. 

Finally, I look at his cock directly. It's soft and obviously smaller than when he's inside me. It hangs slightly to the left. I've never spent time looking at a man's cock. Not even Josh's. I've fumbled with them in bed but that's mostly with the lights off. I've seen them when Josh and old boyfriends were getting dressed. Aesthetically, I don't find them the most attractive things. They flop around and seem ungainly. Almost silly. I didn't need to look closely, did I? I got the general idea. But I do take a close look at Ben's. He's circumcised and the mushroom shaped head seems disproportionately bulbous compared to his shaft. I get some more soap, lather it then surround his cock with my hands. I feel it grow slightly as I do so and sense a rise in its temperature. I lift it up and look at its underside. A long ridge runs from his head to the base. He's not as hairy as I expect. His chest is covered in hair, but not so much here. I softly lather his balls with my right hand. They seem large compared to other men's I've felt. Is that an age thing? I lift them in my palm and they feel heavy for their size. With my left hand, I pull down on his cock watching the soap bubble and clean him. He doesn't harden as I expect. He doesn't guide my mouth to his cock as I half fear and am half curious about. He's not going to do anything except let himself be washed. I put my hands on the cheeks of his behind and soap them up and force myself to run my soapy fingers down the cleft of his ass. It feels taboo and naughty, but if he thinks so, he doesn't show it. I run my fingers just a bit deeper then stand up.

He looks me in the eye and says "thank you." He turns and rinses himself off and I watch.

He looks down my body. 

"You shaved since last time."

My skin is red from the hot water, but I feel myself blush.

"Yes, you like?"

"It's okay. It's your body. However, I like the women I'm with to look like women, not little girls."

I'm a little crest-fallen and he sees that.

"But when in Rome," he says. He picks up one of my razors and tries to hand it to me. "Go ahead, shave my pubic hair. We'll be matched set."

I break out laughing and he interrupts my laughing with the question, "Hungry?"

"Starving," I say.

"We've missed our reservation. I was told of another place, but we may have to wait. That okay?"

"Of course," I say. I'll wait with you anywhere, I think. "I'll let you finish up, okay?"

He nods his head and smiles and I step out and dry myself while he shampoos.

As I'm about to leave I take another look at him.

"Ben, I was wondering if you'd do me one more favor."

"Sure."

"Don't shave—down there or your face."

He pauses for a beat and I think I can hear his smile.

"No problem but any whisker burn is on you."

I close the door behind me and let him finish.

He offers to let me drive my car, but I demure. I like riding in his big, loud, imposing truck. 

The front seat of the truck has a wide bench seat and there's a place right next to him in the middle to sit close, but I decide to sit by the passenger door. This truck was built for big men doing hard work to sit in three abreast so there's room enough for me to curl my legs up underneath me. I'm leaning against the door and have angled myself so that I'm looking at Ben. I like to watch him shift the gears and hear the engine rev up or slow down to his command. I like seeing his hand gripping the end of the gear shifter and the cable like muscles in his forearm rise and fall as he does all this.

He takes me to Terry's Turf Club. It's only a ten minute drive. I've never been there. It's got an over-the-top roadside atmosphere with neon lights glaring into the night inside and out. Hamburgers seem to be the feature. It's late so we're seated quickly which I hear is unheard of for this place.

"You up for a hamburger?"

"I'm starving," I say.

I flip open the menu. It seems like it's only minutes when the waitress appears. 

"You ready?" Ben Sheppard asks me over his menu.

"No," I say.

I'm amazed at the variety of hamburgers. Everything looks good.

"Yeah, screw this," he says. He turns to the waitress. "Just bring us the top three appetizers on the list and the first five hamburgers."

"What?" she asks.

"If there's anything you know that's good, just add it to our order."

"You want me to decide for you?"

He smiles at her.

"Yes. And two domestic beers. Bud, Miller, whatever. Beer okay with you?" he asks me. I nod yes.

The waitress rolls her eyes at him suspiciously. I'm sure she's wondering if this nut case is going to tip her or cause her any trouble. He's no nutcase, I want to tell her. He's just...I don't know. He's just Ben Sheppard. But I can see in her eyes that she's giving him the benefit of the doubt. She's about his age, maybe older. Or has her late shift just worn her out? I see in her eyes she finds him attractive. She walks away to give the kitchen our order.

"Why do you do that?" I ask.

"Do what?"

"That. Order multiple items. Why don't you just pick something like everyone else."

"It saves time and I know I'll likely get something I want."

"Saves time? We're not in a hurry."

"Tess, I told you my wife passed away."

I nod my head. Oh, uh. He's going to reveal something about himself. Something about his wife. This could be big. Do I even want to hear it, I ask myself.

"I loved her. She was the love of my life. I'll never get a single minute with her again. One day, after she had died, I was eating at a restaurant by myself when I couldn't decide what I wanted. It was a bad night for me. I was eating alone. My kids were back at college. All my friends were great, but they were getting on with their lives, so I was on my own. Alone. My wife loved eating out. We'd go to restaurants two or more times a week. We'd repeat sometimes, but she was always finding something new. I thought, if she and I went out twice a week and took ten minutes staring at a menu and we did that fifty weeks a year, that was hours and hours of our time together we could have been looking at each other and instead we spent looking at menus. A lot of the times I didn't even like what I ordered. So that night I decided to not waste any more time looking at menus. I ordered a few dishes. I liked some more than others. I didn't waste a minute of life deciding what I wanted and I got something I enjoyed."

Our waitress sets down two bottles of beers and two glasses as she passes by.

"So now I'm out with you, Tess. I only have a limited time here—a month. I don't want to spend the time I have with you looking at anything but your pretty face."

I blush a little.

"You miss her?"

"Of course. She was the love of my life."

I wonder why I don't even have a touch of jealousy. I know it's silly to be jealous about his wife, but I feel I should be. I used to get jealous at these little interns that Josh always had around his studio. But they were cute and young and perky and too stupid to know that Josh was just a dork with a good musical ear. And they were often high.

"I see her every time I see my daughter. It's strange. Seeing my daughter makes me so happy, but there's always this little stab of grief. Grief? Jeez, Tess. Let's talk about something happier."

The waitress sets down three appetizers in front of us. I smile at her and she seems to have decided we're okay

"Eat up," she says and walks away.

"There is one thing I want to ask?" I say it in a low voice and Ben Sheppard leans close to me. 

"Yes," he says in an equally low voice and a smile.

"When we make love. You're rough. Rougher than any man has ever been with me. By far."

"That okay? I don't mean to hurt you."

"Yes. It's more than okay. I just...I guess I don't know why it's so okay...why it's so good."

He takes a bite of the deviled egg app. He looks me in the eyes while he chews. He swallows.

"How should I know?" he says.

"Well, you do it. Why do you like it?"

"I don't know."

I'm disappointed. I feel he's evading me. The waitress comes over with several burgers and struggles to find a place on our table for them. Ben Sheppard thanks her and when she walks away, he turns back to me. 

"I really don't know," he says. "I guess I could give it some thought, but I'm not about to. The bedroom isn't a place for thinking too much. As long as you're okay with it, I suggest we just go with it."

I'm unsatisfied. I'm well fucked and being well fed so I decide to push.

"Your wife never said why she liked it?"

He stops mid-bite.

"I never made love to Helen the way I've made love to you."

I give him what must appear to be a stupid, open mouth 'whaaaaaa?' look. He takes a bite of the mushroom burger and chews. When he's done, he leans back.

"You're not eating," he says. "Eat while I tell you."

I take a bite of the burger he just put down. It's rich and beefy and the sauce is tangy.

"Helen was my college sweetheart. We never made love until we were married. Her decision, obviously. She was a virgin until our wedding night a month after graduation. Anyway, we broke up for several months junior year. While we were broken up, I started seeing this girl. She was a grad student. At twenty-four, she was older and wiser in the ways of the world than me. We went out for pizza one night and she asked me back to her place. Things were going pretty quick. I was used to Helen always slowing things down. Playing defense. This girl was full speed ahead. All offense, bless her heart. Anyway, things are getting more and more heavy and she takes off my pants, unloops my belt and puts it in my hands. She bends over and says, "Spank me". Now, I'm flustered. Spank her? I think. You have to remember, this is pre-internet. We didn't have access to all the crazy stuff kids see today in the course of one browsing session. The only time we ever heard of kinky stuff was when someone's brother came back from the Navy. We didn't even know it existed. Spank her? She says it again, "Spank me".

"So I slap her with the belt. It was a half-hearted little tap that wouldn't have made a three-year-old cry. But it was sexy to me. I found I did kind of like it. She didn't though. She turned her head to me and said, "Fucking spank me like you're a man". She had a fire in her eyes and she looked angry and frustrated and in need all at the same time. So I spanked her. I gave it to her hard. But it wasn't hard enough. "Harder," she said. Now I'm frustrated that I've not made her happy and I liked that second, harder spank even more than the first. I pull my arm back and bring that belt hard across her ass. The sound of leather on bare skin snapped across the room. She let out a loud "yes" that made me even more excited. When I pulled back, there was a bright red streak across her pale white ass. She said, "Like that. Again and again". I was overwhelmed. I came right then and there standing in my underwear. 

"It started with that, Tess. She forgave me coming so soon and over a few months guided me through the things she liked and I liked them too.

"But in the end we weren't for each other. The love wasn't there. Helen and I started talking and eventually me and this girl split it off. Helen and I graduated and a few weeks later we were standing in a church getting married. I took Helen's virginity that night in a Sheraton by Milwaukee's airport when our flight got delayed. On our honeymoon I tried some of the things I learned with that girl, but they were non-starters for Helen. I tried every few years, but Helen thought them borderline sick.

"Helen wasn't bad in bed. She was just unadventurous. I wasn't unhappy at all. There was always that itch, but it wasn't anything Helen was going to enjoy and it was anything I was going to push. 

"But now that she's gone, now that I've mourned her, now that I've moved on with life, I'm going to have sex and make love like I want to have sex and that is—what'd you call it?—rough. Yeah, I like it rough. You seem to also."

"Yes, I do," I say. "Will you keep being rough with me?"

"Of course," he says. 

"Will you do something else?"

"Sure."

"Will you stay the night again?"

"Of course."

We're the last table to leave. We finish sampling their hamburgers and Ben Sheppard pays the bill and we walk down the road to his truck. As we climb in, someone inside Terry's Turf Club throws the switch that cuts off all the outside neon lights. It tosses us into darkness.

He opens the door for me and I climb in. He gets in on his side and starts that truck and heads for my house.

"About spending the night," he says.

"Yes?"

Oh, no. Is he going to or not?

"Well, this afternoon was good, but I'm not fully recovered yet...to make love to you again."

I pout at him. I think of a joke. 

"Oh, well, if I'm in need there's always that friend I have in my nightstand drawer."

"Are you in need?" he asks with a smile.

I hold up my left hand to him as he looks at me. I have my forefinger and thumb in the 'a little bit' symbol.

"Scoot over here," he says.

I scoot.

He pulls the truck off into the parking lot of an office supply store and leaves it running. He flips a switch that cuts all the interior lights. It's pitch black.

He takes my left hand in his lap and turns my wrist up. He rubs my forearm softly. 

"Close your eyes."

I close my eyes.

He strokes the soft skin of my forearm. I breathe deep and enjoy his touch. His fingers on my skin are hypnotic and I feel myself fall into relaxation. I'm so comfortable with him.

"Now spread your legs slightly."

I spread my legs. 

"Now lean forward just a touch."

I lean forward and I feel the vibration of the truck's engine move from my ass to my pussy. 

"Got it? Feel it?" 

I nod yes.

"Okay, just hold yourself there."

He strokes my forearm three more times then with his right middle finger he taps my left wrist right at the pulse point. It's a strong tap. He does it rhythmically. Tap. Tap. Tap. I don't know what that is—an acupressure point?—but it's going right to my pussy and I feel myself get wet and the truck's slight vibration feels so nice. I feel Ben's leg move. He gives the truck some gas and the vibration increases. 

"Oh, yes," I mumble.

He's still tapping and tapping on my wrist. I push my hips forward to get more of my pussy exposed to that wonderful sensation he's sending through the engine into the seats then to me. Tap. Tap. Tap. He lessens the gas then puts more into it. I hear the motor loud in my ears now and hard in my pussy. And still the tapping doesn't change its rhythm. 

"God, Ben Sheppard, this is nice."

The tap, tap, tap continues. It is strong, slow, methodical. I feel his leg move. Ever so slowly he's pressing down his foot and ever so slowly the engine revs faster and faster and the noise increases and the vibration is incredible and suddenly I'm coming. It's different than the times before, but I'm coming and I take my wrist away from Ben and grasp the dashboard with both hands. He still has the gas pressed down and I'm still coming. I let out a long, unintelligible moan until it passes.

I lean back. Once I catch my breath, I look over at Ben who seems smug and satisfied with himself. 

"Thank you," I say. "Anything I can do for you?"

"Give me your panties," he says.

I lift up my behind and shimmy my panties to my feet and step out of them. They're wet. He takes them and puts them to his nose and inhales. 

"Thank you," he says.

He leans over me and puts them in his glove box.

We go home, wash, brush and kiss goodnight. I lay in the crook of his right arm and I bury my fingers in his chest hair. His right arm settles on my right breast. That's how we fall asleep and that's how we wake up.



Trust Fall Ch. 09



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Nine

I'M THINKING ABOUT TRUST.

When I first joined the bank out of college I was assigned a full day of a human resources team building event. I was on the management track and this was one of the stops to get my card punch before my next promotion.

I was in a conference room with about ten other fast-trackers and the words of the day were 'team work', 'synergy' and, of course, 'trust building'. One of the trust building exercises was a 'trust fall'. You stand on a small platform and fall backward and 'trust' that your colleagues are going to catch you and not let you bruise your tailbone or crack open your head.

I was first up. There were four fellow employees lined up behind me to whom I was supposed to give my trust. I kicked off my pumps and stood on the six inch platform, I listened to the facilitator drone on about the value of trust and I just couldn't do it.

I couldn't just fall back. I couldn't trust that these four people I barely knew were going to catch me. I couldn't turn over my trust to a group of practical strangers. 

One of them was a guy who still played at being a frat boy whose dad was a V.P. at the bank and had gotten him his job. He'd tried to corner me a few times asking me out and making passes. I wasn't sure he wouldn't use this trust fall as a chance for an ass grab. The second was a giggly, silly little woman who was destined to go not too far at the bank. I didn't trust she wouldn't just let me drop out of stupidity. The third was a guy recruited from one of our competitors. He was cut throat as hell and I wouldn't put it past him to let me fall trying to eliminate some of the competition. Lastly, there was Bridget, a woman I've gotten to know. She would have caught me. But I didn't know that then.

When I didn't do the obligatory trust fall, it put a real damper on the 'trust building' exercises that day. The facilitator, some weak neutered voice guy with a premature receding hairline and no chest wearing a sweater in July, took me aside and counseled me on how my lack of trust in my colleagues would hamper my career and professional development.

I listened and nodded my head at the appropriate times, but I wanted to say: My trust issues aren't anything deep seated. They're not something that I'm not aware of. I know I have them and I know the cause. The cause is that old psychological standby—mom and dad. It's hard to be a trusting person with parents like mine. They weren't abusive or anything. They were just not all that interested in being parents. I knew there was a good chance they'd forget to pick me up from school a few times a month. I learned to make sure I always had a back up plan. I knew if dad promised a trip to Disney World that the best it would end of being was a trip to a traveling carnival in a shopping mall parking lot. I knew if mom promised a day of shopping for a prom dress that I'd better call a friend and ask if I could wear her dress from last year. With college, I knew that it was on me. With the help of a put-upon high school guidance counselor, I got all the applications and financial aid forms together and mom and dad did write a check when needed, but it was always after three late notices and a lot of grumbling on their part. It's not that they didn't make much money. They did. They just didn't have the interest.

That kind of parenting is good for making a girl self-sufficient but not good for developing her sense of trust.

Maybe that's why I always let Susan lead me around so much in high school. I knew she would always be there. I trusted that if I needed help and I called, she'd show up somehow, someway—at least until we got into college. In high school, we were each other's rocks. It wasn't until she wigged out in college and did her turns as a third wave feminist then as an aggressive miscegenation proponent and now what looks like a pseudo-lesbian that she became completely unreliable. Mostly, however, she was selfish. What I've slowly come to realize is that Susan wasn't there for me in high school. I was there for her. I was there for her to dominate and for me to submit. It was always about her. It's hard to have trust in a self-absorbed person. You never know when your interests will conflict with theirs. 

I trusted Josh to a degree. He never broke our vows of fidelity that I knew about. I'm not sure if it was because he was a stand up guy or just, with his general goofiness, he couldn't get himself laid. With Josh, I just could never trust that he was going to contribute to our household, be employed or, if he did earn some money, if he was doing it on the books or would get in trouble with the IRS. I learned that lesson early. 

When Josh and I dated, I really thought he had his stuff together. He had a job, an apartment and a nice car and always had cash. The first sign came when we applied for a mortgage after our honeymoon. I found out his credit rating was flirting with 400 from a combination of walking out on student loans, apartment leases, audio equipment rent-to-own deals and car payments. It wasn't until about six months after the ceremony when his boss's business got raided by the IRS that I learned that everything Josh made was off the books and he had saddled us with four years of back taxes and penalties.

The trust I had in Josh didn't break down under the weight of his credit score and back taxes but with his lack of giving a damn about how they affected us and the family we both wanted to start. The cleaning up of that mess was left to me—the supposed business person.

I don't distrust him with Danny on this trip. He's always been good with Danny when he's wanted to be around Danny. I just know that I'll have to set aside some cash to cover any expenses he can't cover.

In my work, I don't trust a soul. People come to me to borrow the bank's money. But everyone lies either by commission or omission. Everyone exaggerates their income and their assets. Everyone downplays their expenses and their liabilities. But it all comes out in the end. At some point, it all goes down on the forms that we have them sign under penalty of perjury. We verify what they put down on those forms. We're not amateurs. I wonder why these people aren't straight with me right up front. Why lie? I'm going to find out. We run credit checks, we inspect books, we run medical histories, we do background checks and drug tests before we hand over the bank's cash. For my client's part, they treat us the same way. A long time client who we've served well and worked hard for will shop our best offer and tell us to go to hell for a twenty-five basis point cheaper loan. There is no trust in my business.

So no, Mr. Human Resources Counselor Guy, I don't do trust falls.

Which makes the trust I'm giving Ben Sheppard so unique. I agreed to go out with him after meeting him briefly. I gave him my address without knowing anything about him. I climbed into his truck and let him take me wherever he wanted. I let him see me naked. I let him put his hand tight on my throat until I blacked out. I let him put his face into my untrimmed pussy. I let him bend me over and spank me good and hard. I let him use a sex toy on me. I've even showered with him. I didn't feel uncomfortable or awkward in any way.

I trust him.

I can't explain it. Why would I do that? Why would I trust him?

He is nice looking but not great looking. Either way, that has nothing to do with trust. He has a manliness about him, for sure. That confidence of his is attractive also. He is easy to talk to. He is open and honest, as far as I can tell. He doesn't seem to be playing any games or give off any creepy vibe. Was that enough? Why would I trust him so openly and, when I let myself think about it too much, so dangerously?

Ben Sheppard left about one in the afternoon on Sunday. He said he'll be working fourteen hour days again through that Friday. I trusted him when he said that. He said he needed to spend much of the rest of Sunday catching up with his laundry and going grocery shopping. I trusted that was exactly was what he was going to do. He kissed me goodbye and told me I looked nice and that he had a great time with me. I trusted that I did look nice and that he did have a great time with me. He said he'd call me later in the week about getting together on Saturday. I trusted that he would.

So I'm sitting at my desk thinking about trust instead of the loan application I'm supposedly double checking before it goes off to underwriting. Danielle does her brief knock and opens the door before I can say 'Come in'. She's holding an overnight envelope.

"It's from your mystery man," she says.

"Put it right there, please," I say pointing my highlighter to my inbox.

"You're not going to open it now?"

"No, I'm looking over this CarpetTown loan now."

"You know what it is?"

"No idea."

"And you're not going to open it?"

"Not now."

"Oh, come on, Tess? Open it."

"Put it right there, please."

"Oh, come on, Tess?"

"Put it right there, please"

"It's not flowers. It's not jewelry. What could it be?"

"I have no idea."

"Aren't you curious?"

"Yes, but I'm more interested in finding any errors on this application."

"Application, smaplication. Let's see what he sent you."

"Danielle, put it right there, please."

She pouts at me. She looks at me as if I'm some strange creature then turns on her heels.

"You're no fun," she says. She slumps out of the room.

"Close my door, please."

I hear her walk back and she closes it without looking in.

I flip through a few more pages of the application. I'm no longer thinking about trust. I'm thinking about what's in that envelope. I look at the clock. It's close enough to two p.m. Time for my afternoon diet cola.

I walk out of my office for the kitchenette. I leave my door open which I know allows Danielle to see the overnight envelope still unopened on top of my inbox. I love driving her crazy sometimes. I feed the machine my dollar and grab my bottle of cola, open it and take a drink. I stretch my legs walking around the kitchenette and I'm enjoying wondering what's in the envelope. What little piece of delight could be in there? It was virtually flat so, as Danielle said, it wasn't jewelry. I guess it could only be a letter. That was most likely. But what would he be writing? Oh, I thought: maybe a letter saying we weren't going to be seeing each other anymore. I dismiss that. I trust Ben Sheppard would do that face-to-face. But why should he? He didn't come all the way from Milwaukee to spend time with me. He is working. I'm a little annoyed at the thought. I'm stomping around the kitchenette. I tell myself to settle down. Don't be so, so, so...high school. Go, open the envelope and find out.

I take another drink, screw the cap back on and walk to my office. I smile at Danielle who still seems to be pouting and I close the door behind me as I walk into my office. I snag the envelope out of my inbox and sit at my desk.

Okay, Mr. Sheppard, what have you got for me?

I pull open the envelope and peak inside. It is a letter with a return overnight. I pull out each. The return overnight is to his hotel in Crittenden.

The letter is on the Crittenden manufacturing company's stationery. Pilfering the client's office supplies are we, Mr. Sheppard? It's written in that crisp handwriting of his in that fine point blue pen. His handwriting is still precise. It's not elegant, more functional than that, but there's a firmness in it that I'm learning to appreciate. There's a dark smudge on the lower right hand corner where it looks like dirt rubbed off his forearm. This makes me think of his forearm.

It's a brief note. He begins it with my first initial followed by a dash.

T -

I'm having trouble focusing on my work because I'm thinking of you. I was wondering if you'd do me a favor? Please take off your panties right now and send them to me in the return envelope. I'll get them tomorrow and keep them with me. A little talisman of you that I can hold close to me, I think, will help me focus on my work.

As if he knew what I'd be thinking, he then wrote:

Go ahead. It'll be okay.

He signed it with a simple B followed by a dash. The words 'right now' were underlined.

I smile. I will be seeing him and having him again this weekend. That will be nice. But my panties? Now? While at work? I open up my calendar. I have a three o'clock with a guy from an appraisal firm we work with. Jack's a good looking, blond guy who wears Dockers and golf shirts with his company logo printed on them. His wedding ring disappeared about a year ago. He always seems like he's about to ask me out but never has. I've thought of what my answer would be. The longer Jack seems to put it off, the less I'm inclined to say yes. I get a little excited at the thought of talking to him sans panties. 

My four o'clock will be the tough one. It's my quarterly performance review. It's my director looking over my productivity and sales figures from the last three months. She'll be comparing me to my counterparts and assessing how I am contributing to the bottom line. It is a meeting for me to prove my worth. My director is a severe woman in her mid-fifties. Divorced, children grown, no laugh lines. I'm near the top in our group so I have no fear, but she still puts me on edge.

I look back to Ben Sheppard's note.

Go ahead. It'll be okay.

I think of meeting panty-less with Jack and my director. I smile again.

Go ahead. It'll be okay.

I get up and quietly throw the lock on my door so Danielle won't burst in. I lean against the wall and hike up my skirt, I peel down my panties making sure I don't snag them on my heels. I toss them on my desk and flatten out and straighten my skirt. I pull a piece of stationary out of my printer's tray. 

I write:

B -

My pleasure.

T - 

I put the note and the panties in the return overnight envelope, seal it and step out of my office panty-less. I feel exposed. I feel a little obscene even. I feel silly. I take the few steps to Danielle's desk.

"Please make sure this gets sent tonight for delivery tomorrow."

"What'd he send you?"

"Tonight, please."

"You're not going to tell me?"

"For delivery tomorrow."

"You drive me so crazy," I hear before I shut my door.



Trust Fall Ch. 10



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Ten



I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT BEN Sheppard since I sealed my panties in that envelope.

I thought of him as I met with Jack the appraiser at the bank. I held my legs close together even under the desk and crossed them carefully. Jack was flirty. He didn't do or say anything inappropriate. He's a sweet guy. It was all very innocent and low key. But I still felt a touch slutty sitting across from him without panties. He is cute. I flirted back, but after he left I thought of Ben Sheppard's hands on me. Holding me. Holding me down.

I was still thinking of Ben Sheppard during my quarterly review. I nodded at all the right places and used my furrowed brow to feign interest in what my director was telling me. I gave some rehearsed, canned feedback and verbalized an 'action plan' to improve on my numbers. What I really wanted to do was grab her and say, "I don't care. I'm thinking about Ben Sheppard."

I've not stopped thinking about him.

I think about those patches of silver hair on his temples. I think about his forearms. I think about his handwriting in that fine point blue ink. I think about his truck even. I think about his mouth on me, on my lips, on my neck, on my breasts and on my pussy.

I think about him inside me.

I think about his hand on my throat. I think about his palm coming down hard on my ass. I think of him holding me down and taking me.

I've been thinking about him since I sealed my panties in that envelope.

I am thinking of him when he doesn't ring my doorbell but knocks hard on my front door.

I try not to run to the door. I pace myself. It's not that I don't want to look eager. It's that I want to look calm and seductive. What I want is for me to open the door and him to step in and take me right there on the foyer tile. I want to feel his body hard against me. I want him to do something new. Something exciting. Like he did with his hand on my throat or with the toy.

I open the door. He smiles. His right hand is rubbing the stubble on his chin. The setting sun shimmers off the short, silver hairs. I sneak a peek past him at his truck.

"It's nice to see you again after a long week," Ben Sheppard says.

"Yes, it is." I lean in for a kiss and he does too. It's one of his brief, butterfly kisses that I can barely feel. I still sense the warmth of his lips. I feel the heat of his lips in my body.

I stand there looking up into his eyes and he looks down into mine. The moment is in danger of becoming awkward.

"Come in," I tell him.

As he walks into the living room I ask if he'd like some wine.

"Yes. What do you have?

I walk to my dust covered wine rack and pull out a bottle and turn to him.

"You know. I have no idea. I don't drink wine too often and I've gotten most of these as gifts."

"Mind if I take a look then?"

"Not at all."

I don't step away from the wine rack as he comes near. We're close. He's wearing dark jeans, a blue button down Oxford and a dark sport coat. The blue of his shirt is reflected in the silver at his temples. I put my hand lightly on his back. He pulls out several bottles.

"I made reservations for a sushi place. Is that all right by you?"

"Yes. I've never had it, but I'm willing to try."

"Then lets go with this Washington State Gewürztraminer. They're usually crisp and light. It'll be good to eat before sushi."

I nod. I don't hear anything he says about the wine, but I like the way he's holding the bottle. I snap out of it.

"I have a corkscrew in the kitchen, I think."

"No need." He pulls out a Swiss army knife, flips open a cork screw and twists it into the cork. He pulls the cork out. For whatever reason, I awkwardly touch his forearm. He looks at my hand then into my eyes. He smiles.

"I also got us tickets to a play. It's an outdoor theatre. Playhouse in the Park?

"That sounds nice," I say.

"It's a revival of Streetcar Named Desire. You seen it before?

"No. It sounds familiar."

"You've not seen it?"

"No," I confess.

I feel as if I should have seen it before.

"How's Danny doing in California?"

"He's good," I say. "He calls just about every day. It's hard with the time difference. He's missed a couple of days because he fell asleep but either Josh or his grandmother calls."

"That's nice—an adventure for him with his father."

"Absolutely," I say. 

I like thinking about Danny, but my mind—or is it my body?—keeps bringing me back to this man in my living room.

"Your kids?"

"Mine are too busy to check in too often with the old man. We talk about once a week but lately with me out of town and them working so much it's been hard."

"Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. I like them out there living their lives and embracing the world."

"How was your week at the bank?"

"Unexciting as usual. Except for your overnight letter."

"Thanks. That helped me get some things done."

He pulls my panties out of the inside breast pocket of his coat with those long fingers of his and he hands them to me as if he's giving me another glass of wine. I take them from him and notice a slight emerald glint to his hazel eyes. I put the panties on the bureau absentmindedly.

"You told me you had a review. That go okay?" he asks.

I take a sip and nod yes. I don't want to chit-chat. I'm dying to say, "Will you please fuck me, Ben Sheppard? Fuck me anyway you want. I trust you to do it right." Instead we sit on the couch and I say, "Yes, there's some areas for improvement, she says, but overall I'm near the top for my department."

"Congratulations," and he puts out his wine glass and we toast my 'exceeds expectations' quarterly performance review.

I'm lost in the stubble on his chin. Each silver hair seems to be standing at attention and reflecting back whatever color in my living room it catches. I'm not helping the conversation. After another silence, he says, "My week wasn't so great. I had to recommend to the company that they let a guy go. They did. He just wasn't going to learn my machine."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Yeah. Makes you feel like crap but better that he learns his limitations now instead of after he screws up something expensive."

I put my hand high on his leg. It's a condolence but also an invitation.

He tells me we'd best be getting to our dinner.

I get up and he rises. We both finish the last of our wine. I go to the closet by the door and grab a silk wrap to put around my bare shoulders. He takes it from me.

"Let me," he says.

"Thank you."

I lift up my hair for him to put it on and as I do I'm hard against my front door. Ben Sheppard is pressing his body against mine. I feel his size and strength and know he could crush me if he wanted.

"The back of your neck looks delicious," he says in that low throaty growl of his. I feel the words across the back of my neck and my body is covered in gooseflesh. "So delicious," he says again and follows it with a series of light kisses from my hairline to my shoulders. I feel his cock hard in my lower back.

"Take me, Ben."

"Later."

"No. Now. Please."

"Later."

"I need you inside me."

"Later."

I feel him pull back and I'm no longer pushed against the door. I'm flushed and needing. He straightens the silk wrap over my shoulder and I look back into his eyes.

"Later," he repeats.

I'm annoyed as he opens his truck door for me. I step up and into the cab and he closes the door, but my anger goes away as he lifts himself up. He did say, 'Later', after all. I scoot over to the middle of the bench seat and curl my legs up. I'm leaning against him when he starts the engine.

"Seat belt," he says.

"I'll be all right."

"Seat belt. Danny needs you around."

I roll my eyes and straighten myself up. I can still sit beside him. I fumble with the center seat belt. I can't seem to match it with the clasp.

"Let me," he says.

He takes the shoulder belt out of my hands and finds the clicker. He fastens it and adjusts it to take up the slack. He adjusts too tight. The belt has me strapped almost motionless to the seat. I'm about to tell him it's too tight when I look into his eyes. They've turned that brilliant emerald.

"Too tight?" he asks. 

I nod yes. He smiles and loosens the belt. He starts the truck and it gives that familiar rumble that I feel in my bottom. I lean onto his shoulder as best I can.

Teak Restaurant is on Mount Adams. Mount Adams is a large hill on the eastern side of Cincinnati's downtown. It has the art museum, a large park, a few thousand residents and an active bar and restaurant scene. It was originally populated in the mid-1800s and its streets are narrow—built more for pedestrians and single-horse carts than today's broad-shouldered pickup trucks.

Ben Sheppard is driving slowly and carefully through the narrow labyrinth. His big truck seems about to hit every car, street light and curb we pass, but he misses each of them. With each close call, I nuzzle in closer to him until the seat belt won't let me nuzzle any closer. His body stays loose and relaxed.

The navigator tells us we've arrived at Teak. There's no parking so he drives past and makes a right turn. The truck vibrates and Ben Sheppard gives it some gas and it powers up a hill. I feel a silly grin on my face as the vibration tickles me nicely. At the end of the street, a man in a safety vest is selling parking spaces in the lot of an unused church lot. Ben rolls down his window, gives the man five dollars and we park.

As my toes touch the pavement, Ben Sheppard offers me his arm. I take it and we begin to walk the four blocks to Teak. I fit nicely next to him and despite our height differences, our strides match. The neighborhood has an old-world feel and Ben has a old-world demeanor. He's strong and protective. He's a man in the best sense of manhood.

A tall Thai man greets us.

"Two?" Ben answers yes. "Patio?" Ben again answers yes.

The man walks us through the empty restaurant and we exit the back door to a crowded deck area sheltered by tall bamboo and lit with tiki torches. The host seats us and hands us our menus. He walks away without saying anything more. I look around. It's mostly other couples. There are a few groups of fours—friends out for the night—laughing and talking. Watching them makes me happy.

I glance at my menu.

"I'm not sure what to order," I say.

"Then order a bunch of things." 

That's right, I think.

"Will you do it?"

"Of course."

A beautiful middle-aged Thai woman with impossibly high cheekbones comes to our table. Her order pad is out. She's not ready for Ben Sheppard.

"Hello," he says to her. "A bottle of your Covey Run Gewürztraminer, two glasses of water, your caterpillar roll, your honey bee roll, a California roll, a Tanzana roll, Futomaki roll and—just to see if Tess here will try it—an eel roll."

"There more of you coming?" the waitress asks. Ben Sheppard smiles slightly and shakes his head no. She smiles back at him and leaves to place our order. I hear her mumble something in Thai as she walks away. I see another waitress stifle a laugh.

I enjoy the outdoor air on Mount Adams, but I don't really want to be there. I want to be under Ben Sheppard.

"You okay?" he asks. "You seem distracted tonight. Not yourself."

"Not myself?"

"You don't seem sure of yourself."

I feel like a teenage girl, but I blurt it out, "I can't stop thinking about you? How you make me feel."

He doesn't seem to judge me.

"There is a chemistry between us. Isn't there?"

"Like I've never felt before."

"No?"

He says it in a surprised way, like he's felt this level of chemistry often. It makes me feel a little jealous and a little less special. He takes my hand and I feel better.

"You said you never used that toy in your dresser drawer. Was that true?"

I nod yes and look around at the other tables.

Anyone listening?

"No one's listening," he says.

He tells me no one is listening and I trust him.

"Why not?"

"I don't know," I say. "It's so garish. So unromantic. Maybe I'm too much the good girl. And it's so big."

"You took it easily though."

"No, you gave it to me easily."

"No other man has found it in your drawer?"

"There hasn't been another man since before I got that."

"Over a year ago?"

"Over a year."

And then some, I think.

"You need to learn about yourself. That's one way of doing it."

"I know. I guess I've never really been in touch with myself that way."

"How about we skip the play?"

"Okay. Why?"

"It was a bad idea. I'd rather spend time talking to you tonight instead of sitting in a theatre watching other people speak lines Arthur Miller wrote sixty years ago. I want to get to know you better and I want you to get to know yourself better."

"If you're sure."

"I'm more than sure."

Our high-cheekboned waitress brings us our order. Ben Sheppard shows me how to use chopsticks. I learn the trick is to not try to move both of them but to hold one still and only move the other. I love watching his fingers work them. By halfway through the meal, I think I have the hang of it, but my hands hurt from exercising little used muscles.

The check comes and we leave a pile of sushi on the table because again, Ben Sheppard has ordered half the menu. He pays the check and we walk out.

"About that learning about yourself. I think the time is now."

My stomach flips with excitement.

"What do you have in mind?"

His only response is a smile. I don't ask again but my heart quickens.

We walk back to his truck and Ben Sheppard threads it through the narrow streets and finally to something wider and toward downtown Cincinnati. He is driving west on 6th then turns right on to Vine. He spots a parking space and parallels his truck into it between a broken down car and a BMW.

"Where are we going?"

"Around the corner."

"What's around the corner?"

"A sex shop."

He sees me tense up and says, "Trust me." 

I think of my bank two blocks away. It is Saturday, yes, but people I may know might be down here—out to dinner or out with friends...or in the sex shop. But Ben Sheppard said "trust me" and I trust him.

"Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to buy you a few different vibrators and dildos. If you see anything you like, let me know. I like the idea that when I'm back in Milwaukee, you'll be enjoying yourself with them."

It is the longest half block walk of my life. The butterflies are batting around in my stomach. I hold Ben Sheppard's arm and hold myself close to him. I am depending on him to guide me because my eyes aren't watching where I'm walking. I'm looking up and down Seventh Street for a face I might know.

We round the corner and Ben opens the door and—like that—I'm in a sex shop. I'm surprised.

"Hello again," a female clerk says to my Ben. I shoot him a glance.

"I was here earlier to make sure it was a place you'd be comfortable in. Hello again," he shoots back to the clerk.

She is a pretty girl, but her beauty is hidden by piercings and tattoos. She is dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt with the store's logo across the front. She has nice breasts and curves. She walks with an attitude that's confident and sexy. The phrase 'sexy little minx' pops into my head. Another clerk walks by dressed the same. The butterflies in my stomach are still fluttering.

The store is merchandised like a soap or a candle store. It is well-lighted, open with no dark, hidden corners. In the front are various sexy outfits, underwear and lingerie. Around those are sprinkled innocent enough novelty items. Ben walks me to the rear of the store where things became more explicit. First, along the left wall hang various whips, riding crops and belts. I prefer Ben's hand, I think. I like skin on skin. But I see a cat-o-nine tails and feel a stirring chase those butterflies away. There is something about the black leather that makes me stand a little taller.

I hadn't notice, but Ben is letting me browse and I am relaxing into it. Past the things for spankings are various restraints—ropes, cuffs and straps. I turn down an aisle. It is full of strange shaped dildos. I look closer. Butt plugs, a small sign says. Why would you need so many types, I wonder. There is an aisle of lubes in colors and flavors and phosphorous. Glow in the dark? I like it dark, thank you. I walk to Ben who is standing in front of several rows of dildos.

"You look comfortable here," I say to him.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

I whisper, "because it's a sex shop."

"Our entire culture is awash in sex. My mother would have thought some of today's daytime TV commercials were pornography. Sex is a good thing. I like you and I'd like you to enjoy sex as much as possible."

He gives me a light kiss on the forehead and ushers me into the dildo section.

There are vibrating dildos and non-vibrating dildos. Pink dildos, red dildos, black dildos, white dildos, wood dildos, glass dildos and plastic dildos. There are tiny dildos, ordinary guy-sized dildos and monstrous dildos that must be novelty items. There are dildos shaped like strange space ships and dildos shaped like large bullets and dildos shaped like regular men complete with faux testicles attached. There are straight dildos and curved dildos, flared dildos and narrowed dildos There are dildos that allowed spaces for you to grip and dildos that didn't. There are dildos with suction cups on the base.

"Suction cups?"

"You can stick it on the floor or against the wall. It frees your hands up."

"Ben?"

"Yes?"

"I'm overwhelmed."

He smiles an assuring smile. 

"Want me to choose."

"Yes, please."

He strolls through the aisle, making a complete pass then turns and walks the aisle again. I look around the store. The clerks are going about their business restocking shelves, re-folding shirts, and cashing out customers. I catch the eye of another woman there with her man. She is about forty-five. She's pretty—sexy, even. She looks to be a mom. She looks like the kids are grown. She looks like she is learning to have fun again. She smiles at me. I smile back.

Should I smile at a woman in a sex shop? What does that say about me?

Ben comes up to me.

"I got you three."

"Three?"

"You never know what you like until you try a few different things. They're all different. There is nothing...novel. All about regular size, a traditional vibrator, one with the suction cup. This one is glass."

"Glass?"

"Pyrex. Don't worry. It won't break."

"Why glass?"

"It will retain heat. Or cold. Warm it with hot water. Put it in the fridge. Whatever you like. Learning what you like is the point."

I feel myself blush. I picture myself in the near future. Ben Sheppard has flown back to Milwaukee. I'm pleasuring myself using this beautiful glass rod. I'm not uncomfortable with the thought. I find myself getting turned on by it. I blush more.

Ben smiles at me as he puts the toys on the counter. Like regular stores, there's impulse items by the cash register. Ben grabs some batteries and a bottle of cleaner. The sexy little minx clerk surprises me by opening up my vibrator. My vibrator? It's not paid for and I'm already possessive of it. I don't want her touching it. Ben Sheppard is buying that for me. You don't touch. She opens the bottom of it and puts in the batteries. She twists the base and there's a low humming.

"It works," says the little minx to herself. She takes Ben's card and he signs for the purchase.

"Let's put these in my truck and go have some drinks."

"Okay."

He takes me to the Netherland Plaza on Fifth Street. We walk into its bar. It's a grand, ornate room with a forty-foot ceiling painted with over-the-top pastoral murals. There's plenty of dark wood and gold leaf and well-dressed staff. I've been here plenty of times during the day for business meetings. It looks gaudy when I'm talking credit scores and balance sheets and income statements. Tonight, sitting with Ben Sheppard with the hotel rooms above us, it feels sexy.




Trust Fall Ch. 10



Ben and I share a banquette. It's leather and feels nice and smooth on my skin. I lean in close to him and he holds my hand under the table. We people-watch and talk.

There's a cocktail menu on each table. A tall woman approaches us. She's dressed in black pants and a black cotton shirt that looks tailored to her with a pair of black shoes. Her dark hair is pulled straight back and put into a bun. She's a waitress and she looks elegant as hell.

Ben Sheppard orders five cocktails for us to sample. When he does this, she doesn't bat an eye.

There seems to be three large parties spread throughout the bar. One looks to be a large family at the bar for a fiftieth wedding anniversary. Another seems to be refugees from a twenty-five year high school reunion being held in one of the banquet rooms. The final group is there for a wedding. The different groups seem to stick to their parts of the bar, but there is some overlap and as Ben and I sit and watch, there's even some fraternization going on between the groups. Interspersed among them is the occasional, solitary drinker. There are also couples that the bar's atmosphere is having varying degrees of success putting into the right mood. Some couples are sitting close like Ben and me. Some couples seem to be past the point where any place, no matter how romantic, will bring them together. Maybe this is their last opportunity for that.

The waitress brings our drinks and Ben and I share several sips. He is drawn to the darker ones with bourbon or rum while I go to the lighter ones with gin and vodka. The waitress checks on us and Ben orders the bottom half of the cocktail menu.

We sample those and the mood of the bar seems to shift. A rowdy group comes in. At first I think it's a bachelor party, but it's not. It's just a boys-night-out of sorts. The eight men are loud and red-faced. They order beers and shots. They swear loudly. There's one sober-looking, apologetic woman corralling them as best her one hundred and ten pounds can.

I want Ben to take me upstairs. I want Ben to take me to one of the hotel's rooms. I want Ben to take me.

Instead, Ben Sheppard turns to me.

"I have a confession to make," he says.

"A confession? I'm curious."

"I'm a little drunk."

"Sampled too much?"

"Yes. Would you mind if we went for a walk? It's getting loud in here anyway."

A walk? I'd like to go upstairs.

"No problem," I say.

Ben Sheppard stands. I take the hand he offers me and try to stand. My head starts to spin. I sit back down quickly.

"You might be a little drunk, but I'm a lot drunk," I say.

He smiles and I take his arm and I manage to walk out of the bar with a little class.

The fresh air outside helps. It's a warm night, but there's a breeze blowing that I make sure doesn't lift up my dress. The air feels good as it moves across my skin. Ben Sheppard lets me lean against him as we walk.

We pass a line of limousines with their engines running. I assume they're waiting for their clients at various hotels, restaurants and bars around town. Their running lights and the gathering of dark-suited chauffeurs talking and smoking together give the cars a sophisticated quality.

"I've only been in a limo once," I say for no apparent reason except there are seven limos lined up on this block of Walnut Street.

"When was that?"

"Senior prom."

"That must have been nice."

"You'd think."

"Not nice?"

"My date told me he was picking me up in it. He also said he'd gotten a hotel room for afterward. I'd planned on losing my virginity that night."

"Things didn't go as planned?"

"No. Instead of him and me riding hand in hand in a sophisticated car to a formal evening it turned into ten kids piled on top of each other squeezed into a lime green limo. He sneaked in some booze and by eleven he was falling down drunk. My innocence was safe for another year."

"And you've not been in a limo since?"

"Nope. A few town cars when traveling on business. How about you?"

"Oh, on my wedding day and a few times since then. I've hired them to impress clients."

Ben Sheppard pulls his arm away from me.

"Stay here," he says. 

He walks back to the gaggle of chauffeurs and speaks to them. One, a short, bald man, gives a vigorous nod and the two of them separate from the group. The short, bald man walks up the street and gets into his car and Ben comes back to me.

"You'll now get your second limo ride."

I laugh an obnoxious, drunk laugh and take Ben Sheppard's arm. The short, bald man is out of the limo and holding the door open for us. Ben lets me climb in but doesn't follow me. He and the short, bald man are talking. Ben pulls out his wallet and hands the man what looks to be a few hundred dollar bills. The man has a middle-eastern accent of some kind. He says, "Thank you. But don't make mess back there. I stay downtown. My fare call me, I put you out. Okay?"

Ben says, "Okay" and climbs in.

The short, bald man shuts the door and it's quiet. The city noise is shut out. It's as if we're entombed. I see that whoever the limo is chauffeuring around left some coats and a couple bags on the reverse-facing seats. I move them aside making sure I won't sit on them. The car simply starts to glide. I know we're moving, but I don't feel the road.

Ben smiles at me. 

"Maybe this will make up for prom night?"

I don't answer him but nod my head and give him a kiss.

I snuggle up close to him again as we look at the city from behind darkened windows.

"He said we'll have about a half-hour."

"Thank you."

My head's still spinning and I think back to every limo ride I've ever seen in the movies.

"Ben?"

"Yes?"

"Would you mind if I did something silly?"

"What kind of silly?"

"Open up the sun roof and stick my head out of it."

Ben laughs and says no, he doesn't mind. He then finds the button and opens it. The fresh air and noise drift in and I manage to stumble to my feet. Once my head is out, everything is noisy. A group of men 'whoop' at me right away and I smile at them. I'm having fun, but in the back of my head, I want Ben Sheppard to take me back to the hotel and get us a room.

The car turns on to Sycamore and I'm unprepared and almost fall down. Ben, still sitting in the car, grabs my hips to steady me. I look down at him and say thank you. I turn forward, brace myself by leaning my ribs against the limo roof and throw my arms up in Titanic "King of the World" fashion. I feel wonderful.

I'm still enjoying the night air when I feel Ben's hands leave my hips. I'm thinking he's coming up to join me. He doesn't. I feel his hands inside my dress, running up my legs. Caressing them.

It's nice. I'm already goose fleshed by the cool summer breeze, but he adds to it. Gooseflesh on gooseflesh. I shiver. He lifts up my skirt. He is kissing my behind. I feel his breath through my panties. It's warm and alluring. I put my hands down and hold on to the limo's roof. I feel myself tighten inside. I marvel that just these soft kisses are making me wet. His thumbs hook over the waistband of my panties. He slowly takes them down and follows with those soft kisses directly on my skin. Once down, I lift each foot slowly and my panties are off. I start to come down from the sunroof. I want Ben Sheppard inside me. Now. But he doesn't let me. He grabs each of my ass cheeks firmly and holds me up. He kisses me some more. We turn right on to Plum and Ben holds me up and once we're around the corner he turns me around. I look down at him. He smiles at me as puts his mouth on my pussy. I throw my arms out to support myself. Between the cocktails and his mouth, my legs feel like they are made of jelly. He's only kissing me. His lips on me—that's all it is—and I'm turned to this bundle of sexual energy. Without thought I part my legs and his kisses are allowed deeper. I'm opening up to him and I feel his pursed lips touch my folds. The city is slipping by me unnoticed.

I try to come down into the limo again, but Ben holds me up, gripping my lower back and part of my ass. His tongue is out now. It's exploring me and moving my folds and I feel myself wet and wanting.

Forget the hotel room. Fuck me here, Ben. Please. Now.

We turn on to Second Street and Ben holds me as my body wants to lean over with the turn. I come out of the sexual trance. I look down at his head and all I see is his hair. He appears lost in pleasuring me—as much as I was lost in being pleasured. We're at a stoplight and I glance around. No one is on the street in this part of town at this time of night. I lean my head back and look at the stars almost blotted out by the city's lights. As I do Ben's tongue finds my clit. It's hard and firm on me and I think I'm about to come. Oh, god, let me come back into the car, Ben. I can't come out here like this. I try to lower myself, but he resists me again. He is so damned strong. He takes his left hand away from my bottom and I feel his thumb slowly running the length of the cleft of my ass. Ben's exploring me. I tense. I've never done anything like that. I've never wanted it. But I remember. I trust him. I trust Ben Sheppard. I've tensed. I force myself to relax. And it feels nice.

Ben Sheppard's tongue and lips are still on my pussy and behind me his thick thumb sits ready to enter me. He's pressed firm against it and I brace myself curious and fearful, but he's doesn't enter. No, he doesn't enter me like that. He does something else. He adds just a touch more pressure to that virgin part of me and I come. It's a cascading orgasm. I look down to make sure I'm not exploding all over Ben Sheppard and the limo. I stifle my voice. I only half-heartedly look around the streets. I see no one. Yes, there's someone. A person is in the distance. Too far to really see me. I want to yell, but I don't.

Ben's mouth is off of me. His thumb is away from my ass. I look down and he's awkwardly lifting himself up. He undoes his belt. He unbuttons his pants. He unzips them. He pulls them down. He puts his hands on my waist. He turns me around roughly. He pulls me down back into the limo. He lowers me to sit on his lap and onto his cock. Slowly. I feel his breath on the back of my neck. I seem to weigh nothing in his hands. He reaches around in front of me and parts my pussy lips with two of his fingers. I feel him inside, opening me wider. He lowers me all the way down on to him.

His hands are off my waist now and I am beyond thinking. His right hand is on my face. He turns it to him and we kiss. I taste myself on his lips and kiss him deeper. I turn and lean back more. Our mouths are on each others and his hands are back at my hips again. He's raising and lowering me as he wants. His large fingers nearly touch tips at my belly button. I feel his thumbs digging into my lower back.

He's pulling me hard on to him. He's barely lifting me. He just wants to be deeper and deeper. 

I come again. It's sudden and short. I yelp when it hits. After it passes, I notice the sound of our bodies meeting—a wet, slapping sound. I notice his breath matches my breath. His breath is deep but quick. Mine is ragged.

He stops pulling me on to him. He's holding me firm. I feel his cock swell inside me. I turn and look into his eyes just as I feel him explode. His eyes are that emerald green. My looking into them doesn't make him look away. It seems to spur him on. He pulls my body down tighter on to his cock, lifts then pulls me down again.

I let his spent cock grow flaccid inside me. I want him inside me as long as possible. Finally, I lift myself up and sit next to him. He's slouched down into the seat. I curl up and put my head on his chest. His pants are still around his ankles on the floor board. He's recovering his breath still. I kiss him.

"Thank you," I say.

He only smiles.

We make another few turns then the short, bald man knocks on the partition.

"Must be time to go," Ben says and he pulls up his pants.

I feel the car pull over and the short, bald man opens the door.

Ben and I get out. We're the picture of a sophisticated couple enjoying a night on the town. Ben thanks the short bald man who nods at him a little too knowingly for my comfort.

We're about seven strides away when I hear the short, bald man say in his accented-English, "Hey, lady, ma'am. Hey, lady, ma'am."

I look back. He's pointing into the limo.

"I think these yours," he says.

It takes me a moment to figure out what he's talking about. I blush. I run to the limo, snatch my panties off the floor board, wad them up in my fist and run back to Ben Sheppard.

I'm pulling him along.

"Sorry, I forgot those," he says.

"Shhhhh, let's just go."



Trust Fall Ch. 11



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Eleven



I'M THINKING ABOUT LOVE.

I love Danny of course. I'm his mother. He's part of me. He gives me joy and brightens my day, but even if he didn't, I'd still give him everything he'd need. I'd still love him. I'm dedicated to him and his growth as a boy and someday as a man. I'd give anything for him. No questions. I want him to live a long, happy life, and I'll do anything I can do to help him get that. That's motherly love.

I'm not even sure what romantic love is. I read somewhere that before a person can say 'I love you' with conviction, they must first be able to say the 'I'. It took me thirty-three years, but I think I'm finally learning who I am. I'm finally seeing myself for who I am and not seeing myself through the lens of the expectations of others. I'm finally able to truly say the 'I' in 'I love you' and mean it.

I am a woman who likes a strong, mature and considerate man. I like a man who treats me equal to a man not the same as a man. I want a protective man out in the world who has a soft heart in the home and a firm hand in the bedroom.

The firm hand is what has been making me wet. Anti-feminist? I don't think so. Feminism is all about allowing women to be who they choose to be and being a woman who likes a firm hard—I'm learning—is who I am choosing to be. I couldn't say this to Susan. She would have a fit. She would want to put me in the mold she learned in her junior year womyn's studies class. It's the mold I put myself in for several years. I thought I was happy. At least, I was told I should be happy. But I wasn't.

God, how would Susan react if someone like Ben Sheppard put her over his knee, spanked her and fucked her with a dildo? Would she even let herself try to enjoy it? Would she scream assault? Or rape? I can see most women not enjoying it. The idea of giving a guy oral gives me the creeps. But a lot of women don't mind going down on a guy. I think some women even enjoy going down on a guy. Back in the womyn's studies department, giving a guy head was frowned on. You were reduced to a sexbot, they said. You were a victim of the patriarchy. They politicized blow jobs. But if a girl freely chooses to blow a guy or be tied down or even watch hard core porn and doesn't mind it, that doesn't make her anti-feminist in my book...not anymore.

I don't want to go down on Ben Sheppard, but I did like it when Ben put his hand on my throat and when he spanked me. I liked it when he fucked me senseless first with that dildo then himself. I liked it when he teased my ass. I liked that he just took charge and did what he wanted with me.

But I also like that he is a good-hearted man and that I feel safe around him. I like that he takes care of me in little ways—buying me dinner or fixing my toilet. If someone mugged us, I know Ben would stand between me and the guy with the gun. I like that. That's who I am.

I now know who 'I' am. It feels so good. I feel so confident now. This is who I am. This is what I like. This is what I want. But what about the 'love' in 'I love you'? What is love?

I told Josh I loved him. I meant it. I'm sure he meant it when he told me he loved me. But he wasn't the man for me, obviously. Since having Danny, I've come to realize love is a giving and a receiving. It's helping the other person grow in whatever way they want. It's also respecting who that person is because they share your values.

Josh never asked for anything and he never gave anything. Neither did I. I guess we were both selfish. We lived in the same house. We lead our own lives. We went out once a week and sometimes had friends over. That's not a marriage. That's being roommates. Truth be told, he wasn't even a good roommate. He was messy, never picked up after himself. I had to do everything—including bailing him out with the creditors and the IRS.

It was probably my fault. Or at least the fault of the culture we were formed in. Josh was right there with us in those sitting-on-the-bean-bag-cushion, cross-legged-on-the-floor bull sessions we used to do in college. He listened to us regurgitate what we'd heard in class, he would have come to the easy conclusion that a protective man with a good heart at home and a firm hand in the bedroom was exactly what we did not want.

So when things went bump in the night, Josh wasn't jumping out of bed to investigate. He was under the covers with me. He felt no shame in saying, "you go". In fact, he wore his cowardice as a badge of honor. "Look how equally I treat you," he seemed to be saying. "I'm willing to let you go investigate the potential rapist sneaking in the window."

In the bedroom, Josh was a bore. So were the three other guys I have been with. All bores. I thought sex was boring because of them. I thought sex was a chore, honestly. With Josh especially, it was "mind if I do this", "Can I touch you here". "I'm going to do this now, okay?", or maybe "Please, could we try this?"

Like I said, boring.

In Josh's defense, I never did tell him what I wanted or needed. Until Ben Sheppard came along, I didn't know what I wanted or needed and wouldn't let myself consider that what I wanted and needed is the firm hand that Ben gives me. In many ways, I feel like Ben Sheppard took my virginity. My hymen is long gone, but really having a feel for what sex is or what it could be, didn't happened until now. I finally get to see the beauty of the love act at thirty-three.

'I love you.' I can say the 'I'. I think I understand the 'love'. That only left the 'you'. Was Ben Sheppard the 'you'?

Could I love Ben Sheppard? That's how I asked myself the question earlier today. "Could I love Ben Sheppard?" How I asked the question answered the question. I didn't ask myself 'Do I love Ben Sheppard?' but could I love him? That 'could' answered it. 

No. I didn't love Ben Sheppard.

Why?

He's all the things I want. He's protective, he's soft hearted at home and has a firm hand in the bedroom. He seems to be everything I want. But I want to grow with someone. I want to help someone mature and have the same done for me. I want to see my values in that person and share them.

Ben is all those things except he's not someone I could grow with. I hate to admit it, but I still have a lot of growing to do as a woman and as a person and very likely as a mother. Ben is grown. He's a man in full. He has no need for—and probably little interest in—the effort it takes to grow. He made that journey with the woman whose ring he wears around his neck—his wife. With her, he became complete. You see it in how he walks and talks and treats others. A relationship with him wouldn't be true love. The love between a man and a woman. It would be too close to that of a mentor and mentee.

Could I love Ben Sheppard? 

No. I couldn't.

I didn't love Ben Sheppard.



Trust Fall Ch. 12



Trust Fall

Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Twelve



"IT'S GOING TO BE MY last weekend in Cincinnati."

"I know," I say.

I snug the phone close to my chin. I wish I could see what he looks like when he says this. Is he sad? Indifferent?

"Milwaukee is going to look even more cold and bleak when I get back...missing you."

"You're sweet."

"I thought I might plan something special."

"Every night we've been together has been special."

"Thanks, but I'll think of something even more special."

"What about a nice quiet dinner at my place? I'll cook."

"You cook?"

"I didn't say 'cook well'."

"That'd be nice. I've been eating out way too much this last month."

"It will be nice to cook for you."

"What can I bring?"

"Just you. Some wine if you want"

"What time?"

"Six on Saturday?"

"I'll be there."

"Okay."

"I have to get out on the shop floor now," he says.

"Okay. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

I meant to have the I-don't-love-you talk with him, but as soon as I heard his voice I knew the phone wasn't right. 

Although I don't want to spoil our Saturday, I'll have to do it then.

The week seems hollow. I am looking forward to my Saturday night with Ben Sheppard but dreading the talk we need to have and I am dreading him going back to Milwaukee. It was that 'last few days of summer before going back to school' feeling when you realize how much time you wasted and how little time remains. I even counted it. If he got there at six and left at noon the next day, that meant there were only eighteen more hours of Ben Sheppard in my life. I caught myself sitting at my desk tearing up at the thought.

"You okay?" Danielle asks.

"Oh, I'm fine," I say wiping away a tear.

"Man problems?"

"In a way."

"I'd be able to help if you'd tell me anything about him."

"Nothing to tell. I knew this was a short-term thing. But knowing doesn't make it any easier."

"Well, maybe it can be more. Love can tolerate a little distance."

"No. It's not love. He's just a nice guy."

"Seems like love."

I wipe away another tear and get my voice back to my boss tone.

"I'm good Danielle. Thanks, but we both need to get back to work."

"Okay. I'm just trying to help."

She is getting whiney and pouty again. I let her get whiney and pouty.

After she closes the door, I begin to not feel so well. That rock in my gut that seemed to turn into a small stone over the past month is making a comeback. It sits hard and heavy in my stomach. I open up my desk drawer and pull out a little hand mirror I keep there. My furrow has deepened.

Damn, I think. 

Do I love Ben Sheppard? I've thought this out but doubts hit me. 

No. I don't. 

I toss myself into my work and when I am not at the office I toss myself onto the treadmill with music blaring loudly until I can't take it anymore then I toss myself into bed for a night of fitful sleep.

I keep driving the question out of my mind? Do I love Ben Sheppard? When it pops in and I don't dismiss it out of hand, I come up with the same answer. 

No. No, I don't.

On Saturday, I wake up at six a.m. and immediately begin cleaning the house. It is already clean—I realize how messy Danny is—but I need something to do. By the time I get done at ten a.m., it would make for a good hospital operating room. I go to the grocery and decide what I'll make for Ben Sheppard. I'll make what any man would want—steaks, baked potatoes and a little salad. I buy myself some lunch and am home by one. I am feeling pooped. I lay down and sleep until three.

When I get up I want to change the sheets. I put them on last weekend. I'm not good about changing them, but I want clean ones tonight. I want Ben Sheppard to fuck me tonight on clean sheets. As I was putting on the new ones, I bump into my nightstand and think of the dildo in there.

Is it clean? I should wash it. I'm hoping Ben Sheppard will use it on me again. I'd like to make sure it's clean. I pull open my draw and stare at it. Big and black. 

Hi, Randall. 

I think back to that nice guy that Susan treated so shabbily. I pull it out and go into my bathroom, I turn on the hot water and run the fake cock underneath it. I squirt some soap into my hands and lathered it using the same motion as if I was stroking a real cock.

I feel my pussy clench and sense myself getting wet. I feel silly. Am I being turned on by this piece of latex? I giggle. Yeah, I am. I continue lathering it then rinse and dry it on a clean towel. I hold it in my hand. Yes, it is getting me hot.

I'm curious. I've never used it myself. I kick off my jeans along with my panties in the bathroom and sit down on the toilet. The lid is cold on my ass which excites me. I am afraid to start. I feel clumsy with this over-sized cock in my fist, but I force myself to rub the tip along my slit and involuntarily my eyes turn back into my head. I hook my left ankle over the side of the tub and gave a push. There is some resistance—my outer lips folding inward. I spread myself open with the middle and forefinger of my left hand. I gasped as I feel the cool air on my sensitive inner skin. Almost immediately, I'm wet. Oh, god, yes. I'm wet. I'm gloriously wet and it is without Ben Sheppard's firm hand on my body.

I slip my fingers inside myself. They go in easily—easier than ever before. I pull them out and try the cock again. This time is easier and I feel it part me. I push it in until the fake head of the cock is in me. I stop and pull it out. I do that several times.

Oh, god this is so nice. Why haven't I been doing this my entire life?

My pussy keeps tightening and the wetness is all over. I no longer need to spread myself. I pull my fingers out and brush some stray strands of hair off my face. I noticed my fingers are coated in my juices. I look at them glisten then suck them. I'd never done that before. I taste nice. Pussy isn't bad at all. There isn't much of a taste, but there is a silky mouth feel. I put my middle finger into myself on top of the cock, pull it out and tasted again. God, that's so nice.

I grab a hold on the side of the stool and push the cock just a touch further into me. That is enough. The bright light in my pussy comes fast and explodes just as quickly. I'm coming. I'm coming on my own. I try not to fall off the stool as wave after wave of nervous tension seemed to leave my body. My left leg is tensed against the side of the tub while my right pushes down hard on the floor. I want to keep coming, but I don't want to fall. Oh, god this is great. A second orgasm comes and goes.

I look down at the cock and I have barely used a fraction of its length. I giggle again, take the dildo into the shower and wash up both of us.



Trust Fall Ch. 13



Book One of The Trust Trilogy

Tess Quince

Chapter Thirteen

BEN KNOCKS HARD ON MY door again. It startles me. Why does he do that? I know it's six without checking the clock. He would be exactly on time. That's who he is.

The table is set. The salad is ready, I just put the potatoes in the oven a half hour ago and was waiting until he got here to cook the steaks. The whole time that I've been prepping dinner, I've been wondering when to have the I-don't-love-you talk with him. I think over dinner would be best. Food makes it seem easier.

I look in my hallway mirror before I open the door. I look good. When I open the door, I decide he looks good too. He's in jeans with a dress shirt and a suede jacket, but his face is slightly tense. The silver hairs of his stubble seem to be more on end. Does he have his own furrow between his eyebrows? Ben Sheppard smiles and hands me a bouquet of red roses.

Red roses! He's not going to make this easy is he?

"For you," he says and kisses me. It's one of his soft, fluttery ones. It's nice, but I don't let myself enjoy it as much as the past ones.

I thank him and take the bouquet and make my way into the kitchen. He follows me. While I'm cutting the stems he says it.

"I thought we should talk, Tess."

Uh-oh. I guess we won't be waiting until dinner.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'll be right out. Go have a seat."

He smiles and turns and I futz with the bouquet. It just won't lay how I want it. To hell with it, I think. I pour myself a half a glass of wine and drink it in one gulp. I pour another and one for him. When I come into the living room he's sitting on the edge of the couch. I hand him his glass which he doesn't sip from but puts down on the coffee table right away.

"I never wanted to give you the wrong impression, Tess. Things between us got going a lot faster than I planned."

I start to interrupt, but he stops me by putting his hand on my leg.

"You're a wonderful woman. It's just that I'm going back to Milwaukee. I have a life there. I like how my life is there. I wouldn't be truthful if I said I'd try to make it down here every so often and that's not really fair to you."

I'm relieved. I thought I'd be letting him down. I think of toying with him—"But I can move to Milwaukee, Ben"—but remember I'm a grown-up.

"Ben, relax. We're on the same page. I've given this thought and we are just at different stages of our lives. I'm terribly fond of you. I love you in a way but not the right way. Maybe it's a different kind of love. But I will tell you that you are the best lover I've ever had. Ever. In fact, I feel like you're the only true lover I've ever had. Thank you for that. You've not only opened up my eyes to a wonderful world of passion but to myself."

Ben Sheppard's body relaxes and he sits back on the couch. He is smiling. His face is relaxed. His own furrow is gone.

"Thank god," he says. "I felt so bad for not bringing this up before. I wasn't sure how tonight was going to go."

"You want to know how tonight is going to go, big boy?"

I kick his shin with my big toe. I am feeling relieved and playful.

"Sure."

"Here's how tonight is going to go: I'm going to feed you a big steak with a salad and potatoes. We're going to drink too much wine, we're going to talk and dance and when the moment is right, you're going to take me to bed."

"That sounds like a good night."

"Yes, it does. How do you like your steak?"

"Rare."

"Of course you do," I say.

I sear his steak on my cast-iron pan. The pan is hot as I could make it and I leave his New York Strips on each side for two minutes. I cook mine longer but not as long as I may have once done. I plate his steak and potatoes and bring it along with his salad in a bowl and serve it to him at my dining room table. He kisses my cheek as I bend down. I get my plate and I sit down and we eat and talk and finish off two bottles of wine. He tells me funny stories about his children and I tell him funny stories about Danny. He tells me about the guys he'd grown to like out at the factory in Crittenden and I don't tell him about the people I don't like at my office.

He tells me to go sit on the couch in the living room while he clears the plates and I let him. When I tell him to not bother with washing up, he tells me with a smile to have another glass of wine and be quiet. I have another glass of wine and am quiet and enjoy the sound of him cleaning my kitchen.

When he is done, he comes into the living room and turns off the stereo. I had been playing some new age stuff.

"You can't dance to that," he says. He puts out his hand and steadies me as I wobble to my feet. "We'll dance to our own rhythm," he says.

And we do for I don't know how long, then I put my hand on the back of his neck and look up into his hazel eyes.

"Take me to bed," I say. I grab a tuft of the silver hair at his temples. "I want you to make love to me. I want you to fuck me. I need your firm hands on me. In bed, I'm yours to do with as you want."

The green of his eyes flare.

"Go to your bedroom. Strip naked and lay down on the bed. I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

He doesn't answer but glares at me. I do as I'm told.

As I head for my bedroom, I hear him open the front door. I'm curious but quickly strip and jump into bed. I'm naked and chilly with my head propped up on my elbow when he walks in. He has a bundle of something under his arm. He puts it in the corner of my bedroom.

"On your back," he says.

I lay on my back.

"Put your arms up above your head, toward the side of the bed."

I put my arms up. He's taking off his own clothes. He's letting me watch him do it. I enjoy watching him do it.

"Spread your legs."

I spread them. He pulls the blanket and top sheet off of me. I'm exposed. Ben Sheppard is standing at the foot of the bed and can look right into me.

He's as naked as I am now. He goes to the corner where he laid down that bundle he brought in. I lean back and wait for whatever it is. I feel a roughness on my ankle and I look down. He is tying my feet.

Do I want this, I ask myself. I drive the question away. I trust Ben Sheppard.

"Say 'tripod'."

"What?"

"Tripod."

"Tripod."

"Again."

"Tripod."

"Again."

"Tripod."

"Say it louder."

"Tripod," I yell.

"That's your safe word. You don't feel safe. You don't like anything, you say 'tripod'. Now, say it again."

"Tripod."

"Good. What I'm tying you with is a single column cuff. It won't hurt. It won't tighten around your wrists at all, but it will hold you down. I'm tying the other end to the leg of the bed frame."

"Okay," I say.

I'm nervous but also excited. I like the feel of the rope against my skin, but I have some doubt.

He moves to my other leg and does the same thing. I keep both legs still. I'm afraid to move. I feel a firm pull on my right leg, but I keep still.

When he seems done, he comes up to my side and bends down and kisses my lips. He takes my right arm and ties it to the bed leg. When he's done, I pull at it. I can barely move my arm. He walks around the foot of my bed and begins tying my left arm

"When I tie this arm down you're not going to be able to move. You'll be unable to stop me from doing anything I want with you."

I notice the ropes against my skin. I feel an end of it snap against my forearm as he ties the final knot. I wince.

He looks down at me and smiles.

I'd been so occupied with the sensation of the rope on my skin that I didn't notice how excited I've become. My insides were clenched and I am wet. I amaze at it. I am wet and he's barely touched me. I feel like I've been cured of a horrible disease in the last month. I might not love Ben Sheppard, but I would do anything for him. He's cured me.

"Test the ropes," Ben says.

I pull at them. There's a slight amount of give. A claustrophobic feeling creeps into my head. Do I say 'tripod'? I don't. Not now.

"No," he says. "Really give them a good test."

"I did."

"Pull on them harder."

I pull harder. As he says, the rope doesn't tighten around my wrists or ankles, but I can't slip out either. He's good at tying women down.

"Harder," he says more firmly.

I begin to wiggle and writhe and pull, and the claustrophobia seems to be yielding to excitement. Or maybe the claustrophobia is the excitement. I can feel my heart thump under my naked breast. I can hear blood rushing through my ears. I look down and my nipples are hard little buttons standing at attention. Ben Sheppard is at the foot of the bed smiling. He's looking right at my pussy. It's so good to be so wet without having been touched.

"Your right arm is too loose," he says.

He comes around the bed and tightens the rope.

This causes my breath to hitch. I fight the ropes again and realize I'm helpless. I test the rope holding down my right arm and it's holding me down tight. Whatever Ben Sheppard wants to do to me, he can do. Will he hurt me? Will he call a group of guys over and gang-bang me? Will he take pictures of me? Will he fuck me them leave me this way?

No. I trust Ben Sheppard.

He turns off the light and climbs on top of me and lays himself down between my legs. I look up into his handsome face helpless, a little scared, a lot curious. His eyes are raging so green that I see them through the darkness. The silver in his hair picks up the light drifting in from the hallway and glimmers. I feel his cock slap my tummy.

He's on my elbows and he works his right hand to the top of my head. He grabs a fist full of my hair. He's not pulling but holds it tight near my scalp. He can turn my head anyway he wants and he does—side-to-side. He stops and leans in close to my right ear.

"Here's the thing," he says. "You don't come until I say you can come. You got that?"

"What?"

I don't get it. I don't understand. I want to come so bad. I have years of coming to catch up on!

"Who's in charge here?"

"You are, Ben."

"That's right. And I said, you are not allowed to come."

"But why?"

"The why doesn't matter. If you come without my permission, I'll leave you like this. I'll leave you tied to your bed. Helpless. Got it?"

"You wouldn't do that."

He digs his fingers deeper into my hair, tightening his control. It hurts a little. I yelp.

"Try me," he whispers in a low guttural tone. "I'm going to fuck you now."

And he does. I feel his cock just past the lips of my pussy—that nice, big, full head of his. I'm yearning for his cock deep inside of me. Instead he pulls out. I feel his head back inside me. He does this again.

"Deeper, Ben."

"No. I just want to fuck you with the tip of my cock now. You've such a wonderful pussy, men should worship it. Men should take their time and enjoy it. That's what I'm going to do."

"Deeper, please."

He tightens his hold on my hair. I feel he's doing it to quiet me. The tension stretches from my scalp deep down into my womb. It makes me want his cock more.

"I'll be deeper when I want," he says and continues to fuck me with just the tip of that wonderful cock.

I feel an orgasm building up inside of me. It's nice to know when I'm going to come, but for the first time I'm afraid to come. Would Ben really leave me? I feel my pussy clutch at Ben's cock and it aches wanting Ben to complete the void he's leaving unfilled. I focus on my breath. The bright light is growing, but I'm containing it. The breathing seems to help me tamper down the pressure building up inside of me, but it doesn't help for long. I'm walking along a razor's edge. One push and I'll fall off into a massive, explosive climax. It's right there. I can reach out and touch it, but if I do what will Ben Sheppard do? Will he leave me naked, fucked and tied up on this bed?

Just as I'm about to peak Ben slides more of himself into me. God, he feels huge. He's still got a hold on my hair and has propped himself up on his left arm. His breath is calm and focused. I look down between us. I catch a glimpse of space between his stomach and my tummy and see his cock on the out-stroke and, when he goes in, I discover there's barely much of him at all inside of me...but he feels so huge.

"My god, Ben."

I hear him chuckle slightly. He builds me up again. I'm so close to coming. I can touch it. I can feel it. My stomach rises up into my throat like I'm just past the peak of a rollercoaster. But Ben seems to be able to tell when I'm about to fall off that razor's edge again because he changes ever so slightly. He's deeper now and has rested his left elbow on the mattress. His cock is entering me from a different angle.

And again it builds. He twists my head to one side and I feel his mouth on my ear.

"I've only got half my cock in this sweet pussy of yours."

It's too much. I'm peaking and he senses it. His grip tightens and he's pulling my hair now. It hurts so much.

"Don't you dare come, Tess. Don't you dare."

I gulp air. I don't come, but he doesn't stop fucking me either. I don't know how much of him is in me. I don't care. I just want to come and be fucked and to come and be fucked. I could have come three or four times already. I spent too much of my life not coming to not come now—now that I can.

"Ben Sheppard, let me come, you son-of-a-bitch."

He laughs at me.

"No."

"Damn you."

I strain against the ropes. I feel the soft fibers digging into my flesh. Every muscle is tense. I'm gritting my teeth. My eyes are squeezed shut. I'm forcing myself to keep my breath regular, but it's getting so hard. All I can hear is the wet sound of his cock pulling and pushing inside of me.

It's then that I feel his pubic bone against me. I now have all of Ben Sheppard inside of me and it's so wonderful feeling his strong, full strokes nearly pull out of me then ram his entire length into my welcoming pussy.

I'm on the edge again. I feel comfortable on the edge now. Maybe I could dance on the edge—a little pirouette and a curtsy to my orgasm. My body has disappeared—all but that piece of me being fucked by Ben Sheppard.

"Tess," he says. 

I don't hear him at first. I'm not here anymore.

"Tess," he says louder.

I can't talk. I grunt in reply.

"You can come now."

It's a sudden drop from a great height. It explodes inside me and outside me. My mind is shattered. I hear myself screaming but don't feel sound coming from my throat. It's ecclesiastical. I'm in Heaven. I'm laid bare. It's the glory of the great come.

And still Ben fucks me.

Oh, Yes! 

I'm coming again. What little movement my body can manage against Ben's bindings is going into fucking Ben Sheppard back. This second orgasm is more base. Earthy. Wild. Feral. It's the come of another creature. It's me pre-evolution. It's carnality manifest. It has got nothing to do with my mind.

Everything is wet. The sheets are drenched. I'm squirting and coming again. I stow away my embarrassment and I ride the climax as it travels up and down my body. This third one is pure fun and joy. I laugh.

Amidst all this, I feel Ben tense. He lets go of my hair and punches the mattress. He arches up—our bodies only touching at his cock and my pussy. He looks strong and handsome and happy. I exercise the only control I have while still bound—I squeeze my pussy tight around him. I feel the head of his cock expand then release into me again and again. I smile at the loud, animal sound he makes.

When it's passed and he looks down at me, I smile.

"Sorry about the mess," I say.

"Shhhh!" he says softly.

It's too early. He's still not back from wherever his orgasm sent him. He pulls out of me and lays a kiss on my neck. He works his body down and kisses my breast then my tummy and I'm shocked when I feel his mouth on my pussy.

I feel his tongue probe and lick my folds. It's cooling and highly erotic. He's licking his come and my come from me. He lifts himself up and lays down on me again. He kisses me deep and I taste my pussy and his cock and feel his come and my come mix together and we move it back and forth as we kiss.

I must have collapsed into sleep. When I wake, I find that Ben has untied the ropes and put them into the corner in four tidy bundles. My wrists and ankles are sore and when I sit up I learn my whole body is sore—wonderfully, wonderfully sore.

Ben is asleep—naked on top of the blankets. He is snoring quietly and his hair is a mess. His flaccid cock looks innocent and unassuming flopped against his leg.

I go to the bathroom. My inner thighs are sticky from the fun, so I step into the tub for a quick shower. I turn the water hot and it is nice to feel it running over my skin and down my body. I smile and think about how happy I am.

I step out of the shower and wipe the steam off the mirror. I comb my hair out and lotion myself. I catch a glimpse of myself. I look closer. I lean into the mirror until I am almost touching it—the way I do when plucking my eyebrows. The furrow? It's gone. Not a trace of it. Not an echo. I feel my tummy. The rock is gone. I tighten and clench my abs. Nothing. I feel light. I feel taller. I feel good. 

Thank you, Ben Sheppard. Thank you.

No. It wasn't Ben Sheppard. It was me. I let Ben guide me into this new world I now stand in, but it was me who decided to walk into it. I would have never guessed it but—the spanking, the being tied down, the firm hand—was what I needed—is what I need.

When I walk out of the bathroom, I find Ben awake with the nightstand light on. He is just finishing changing the sheets.

"Things were a little...damp," he says.

"Thank you for that."

"It's no trouble."

"I meant for making things damp."

He smiles at me. He takes my hand and lays me down into bed then cuddles up behind me. We're spooning. I feel his chin on top of my head and I can see that his breath moves some of my hairs. His left hand is cupping my left breast. His cock is wedged in the cleft of my ass. His left foot is hooked around mine and he tickles the bottom of my feet with his toes.

We sleep.