Chapters 34 - 36 *** Lilly

... Epilogue *** All's well that ends well ;)

34

...Now you say you're lonely, you've cried the whole night through, well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river, I've cried a river over you... Cry Me A River    (Julie London)

Rose and Brittany had apparently become best friends. For the first week or so, every day after school Rose would give me an account of what she and Brittany discussed at lunch. The other girls in Brittany's clique apparently joined in, but mostly to listen to Rose's accounts of her sex life, with Brittany providing moral support. Brittany had told the other girls she'd met Jack and that he had his own reasons for staying anonymous, which she had sworn to respect. According to Rose, Brit never even told them so much as Jack's hair color, but she swore up one side and down the other that Jack was a decent guy, pumping Rose up with pride when she told them, "Rose found the real deal".

Once or twice a week, the pair of them had taken to stopping at the complex after school together to spend a little time with me, before Brittany had her mom swing by to pick her up. There wasn't any sex between the three of us, and I believed Rose when she told me that she and Brittany never did anything together, although it wouldn't have surprised me if she told me they had. I certainly couldn't have begrudged her a relationship with Brittany anyway, since I was also currently in a sexual relationship with Marjorie. What the three of us did, more than anything else, was talk about sex. Brittany was glad to get solid information about lovemaking, but she also gave me a few morsels for thought; her take on "what boys want" and how her appetites had actually scared a few of them; the often lonely but always intoxicating sense of her power over boys and her fear that she might take it too far one day and get into a situation she couldn't handle.

Only one other time did the two of them ask me for a sexual favor: for Brittany to be able to watch as Rose and I had anal sex. Now that she knew what it felt like, she said, she wanted to witness the same thing as an observer instead of a participant, so she would better be able to teach others how to do it. Since it didn't involve sex with Brit, and since it could marginally be considered educational for her, I reluctantly agreed, and locked away in my room, Rose and I gave her a demonstration, starting on the cot but eventually making our way to the floor. Brit almost kept her promise to not get involved, but during the last three or four minutes, she couldn't resist and she started diddling Rose with one hand while squeezing my balls with the other. I must confess I didn't mind a bit that she did it.

The complex's meet and greet for February had been scheduled for Valentine's day. As usual, Rose and Brittany were hanging out together, sitting in a corner as they whispered and not-too-subtly pointed at one or another of the tenants, resulting in an occasional burst of raucous laughter. The turnout had been larger than usual, and the pizza ran out sooner than expected. I made a run to Leon's Tower of Pizza to pick up another three larges. I wasn't worried about the complex manager reimbursing me; while he was stingy with a lot of things, he never skimped on the food. He had made a bad impression once when the complex's owner made a surprise visit to a meet and greet that had been poorly planned, and he was determined to never get caught like that again.

By the time I made it back from Leon's, almost 30 minutes had elapsed. I set out the pizzas and straightened up some of the mess. As I turned to the trashcan to deposit some crumpled napkins and empty chip bags, I saw a blonde in stonewashed denims and a rainbow blouse, holding a mixed drink and gazing steadily at me. It took a few seconds for the image to sink in, and when it did, my legs gave way and I collapsed into a folding chair. She walked over and sat next to me, reaching out to brush the hair out of my eyes and gently stroke my forehead as she did so. "Hello, Brent," she said, and all I could do was croak, "Hello, Lilly." We just sat there gazing silently at each other for a minute or more while the meet and greet continued around us. In the back of my awareness, I could hear Rose and Brittany talking upstairs as they shot billiards.

Lilly was visibly older. The dissonance produced by my memory's trying to lay it's own image of her over the real thing right in front of me was weird and getting weirder by the second. The lines radiating from her eyes seemed chisled in place, and her sad smile produced wrinkles around the corners of her mouth that had't been there ten years ago. Dear God in heaven, was this what I looked like to Rose? I looked harder, and my vision gradually resolved itself enough to produce a reasonable facsimile of Lilly. She still wasn't saying anything, and I stirred myself enough to ask, "How have you been?" She made no reply for a long time, just sat there looking at me with a strange wistful expression that I didn't know how to read. When she still said nothing, I ventured a little further, "What brings you back to town? Are you visiting, or passing through, or..."

Lilly looked down at her hands in her lap for a few seconds. "Mom died three years ago," she began, and I started an involuntary expression of grief for her, but she held up a hand to stop me, "it's okay, I appreciate it but I've dealt with it and I'm fine not to go back there. So it's just been dad and me for awhile, and that was okay too. When mom was around, I always had to lay low. She never approved of my approach to life, so I had to keep it hidden while she was here. When she was gone, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Dad and I never got any closer through the years, and for the first year or so after mom was gone, we almost never even talked to each other. Most evenings dad would spend in the bedroom watching TV and drinking scotch, so I was free to bring anybody home I wanted to. I could have done it upstairs with my bedroom door shut, but I didn't want to burden the old man with that, so I always took them down in the basement." She put her glass to her lips and drained what was left of her drink. She took a deep breath and pressed on, "One night, after I'd had a hot session with a cute little waitress from the coffee shop dad always goes to, when she was getting dressed to leave, I caught dad lurking outside the basement door. He said he hadn't meant to spy on us, it was just that he had a crush on the waitress for a long time, before mom died even, he was sorry for watching us shagging and hoped I wouldn't hold it against him, he was just jealous of me because I'd had her and he didn't think he ever would. You'd think I would've been angry with him for watching me... somehow it just made me feel sorry for him, really really sorry. We sat up and talked for a long time after the waitress left, and he admitted to getting really horny when he saw us jigging. He reminded me that he was 73 and that he didn't have any time left to hide things or try to make things seem other than they were, so he just came out and admitted it." Lilly's eyes were unfocused, not seeing the room around her as she looked into her past. "He was, just, I don't know, he was just kind of pathetic and hunched down and smaller than life, and all I could see was a man in pain. I knew mom hadn't let him touch her for... a long time... it must have been years since he'd been with a woman... So much pain... So I... I..." she looked up at me, and I was startled to see an entirely new expression on her face, a kind of wistful sorrow. "I seduced him. Or, it wasn't a seduction, really, it was just me taking him in the bedroom and undressing him and climbing on top of him and riding him until he was done. It wasn't all that sexy or exciting, but somehow it just felt right. Felt like something I had to do. So I kept doing it, for a long time afterward. I never came when I did it, but that was beside the point. I was still sleeping with anybody I wanted to, but I always made sure I had at least a little left over for dad. It never really improved our relationship, we never really got any closer, but I still felt right about it. He smiled a helluva lot more, anyway." She wanted better access to the alcohol, so she turned her chair around to sit at the table behind us where the bottles were, and I followed suit. As she filled her glass about 7/8 full of Kahlua and added a splash of vanilla from the creamer that was sitting next to the coffee pot, she said, "Then dad died last year. Matter of fact, it was Hallowe'en night. I went out to a few parties and it was after 3 when I got in. Dad was sitting up in the living room, just sitting in the dark, waiting for me. He was naked in his recliner, just stroking himself and waiting. I was three sheets to the wind, so I just stripped and mounted him right there in the chair. He was alive when I kissed him good night and climbed off of him... funny, I never even thought about that until just now. I kissed him good night that night... I never kissed him, never, not even when the sex was good, I just never kissed him... and that night, last Hallowe'en night, after we were done, after he... shot his load... while I was still sitting on his lap and he was still inside me, I laid a big wet sloppy French kiss on him, just slobbered all over him... anyway, when I got up in the morning, he was still sitting there naked, only he was... he was gone." A wetness at the corner of her eye glistened briefly, but it didn't turn into a tear. She sighed heavily, "I guess I kissed him goodbye and didn't even know it. Funny. The ambulance guys just snickered when they told me he'd gotten laid before he died, like they thought it was the funniest damn thing in the world. Pricks. I don't think they suspected it was me. Maybe they did, I don't know, I don't care." She took an impressive pull on her drink. "Anyway, dad was pretty much broke. He let his life insurance lapse, my brothers and I had to sell the house to pay his bills. They let me have dad's old Toyota and mom's wedding ring," she held up her right hand to show me she was wearing it, "and I was glad to let them haggle over whatever was left. That was right after Thanksgiving. I headed back here because I didn't know where else to go, and I wanted to see if I could find a few old faces that might still be friendly enough to make it worth my while staying here. I got a job balancing the books at Sav-Rite and I've been staying with Patty and Marcie until..." She trailed off as she looked past me, at Rose and Brittany coming down the stairs to help themselves to some pizza. Both girls gave me greasy smartass grins, and Rose bumped the top of my head lightly with her fist. For an insane, upside-down instant, I almost stopped her, to introduce her to Lilly, before I realized I needed to think a few things through first. I turned to watch them walking off to the overstuffed chairs in the far corner, where they parked themselves and continued to schmooze while they chowed. When I turned back to Lilly, she was wearing a wry grin. "Looks like you've made friends with a few new faces," she chuckled. I gestured lamely, "The brunette is Rose, she lives here with her mom," and Lilly cut me off, "...yep, and the blonde is Brittany, her friend from school. I overheard them talking earlier, reminded me of what it was like to be young. They're so damn cute," she smirked. "They were talking about boys earlier and getting a helluva lotta laughs out of the subject. Weirdest damn thing, it sounds like the brunette is hot and heavy with some guy and the blonde is getting a piece of the same action, and they both know it and they're both totally okay with it, not a trace of jealousy. I didn't get to that point until I was 20. Hell, maybe I was a late bloomer." She took another drink, and another, then listlessly picked up a couple of potato chips and started nibbling on them. "So what about you, Brent? You're the handyman here, good going. Never woulda thunk it myself, I figured you'd always be slaving away as a shelf stocker. How you getting along? You been seeing anyone?"

I had to fight to focus on the question; just seeing her sitting there was still unreal, and I felt like I was drifting out of myself. "I, uh," I started, and I had to clear my throat a couple of times, "I've actually been kind of dating Rose's mom." It was a half-hearted admission, and I felt like I was doing Marj a disservice by not showing more enthusiasm. I was fighting through a tangle of emotions; at the top of the pile was a nervous excitement at seeing Lilly again, followed by a nervous exhaustion at the thought of the train wreck I'd become after she left, then a nervous anticipation at being in the same room with her and Rose at the same time.

"Oh," Lilly said quietly. "Are you in love with her?" The fact that I wasn't able to answer immediately gave her at least a partial answer, an answer that I tried to amend by saying, "I'm very fond of her. I think I love her, after a fashion, but I'm not in love with her. I don't love her like I love R..." I stopped so I could take stock of what I was saying, since I had just started talking without engaging my brain, "...like I love... like I loved... you, Lilly." My throat was dry and stretched; I reached for the rum and made myself my own drink, with a splash of root beer and a dash of lime juice.

"That's all I wanted to hear," she smiled. "You make all the love you want to her, sport. Just remember, I'm right here, and I'll be here for awhile. Wouldn't it be nice to feel like you have a choice? If you feel hung up and you don't know why, I don't mind. I could wait forever, I've got time." And she puckered up and blew me a little kiss as she winked at me.

I was temporarily incapable of speech. Between the frozen months and years I'd spent crying over her, and the red hot iron that was stabbing through my chest at that moment, I had no words. But I knew I couldn't leave it on that note, couldn't let her think there was a chance I'd make my way back to her someday. "Lilly," I finally managed, "I don't think it'll happen between us. I mean, I loved... goddamnit, yes, okay, I love, yes, present tense, I do still love you Lilly. I love you. But things are different now." As she opened her mouth to protest, I held up my hand to stop her. "It's not just R... Marj, it's not just Marj's feelings, although that's... that's a huge part of it. It's you. And me. It's us, Lilly. There's too much of us." She looked at me quizzically, trying to puzzle out what I was saying. I took a deep breath and tried again.

"Lilly... my own dear sweet love, Lilly of the Valley... When you left, you took half of me with you... you left half a human being behind, and I didn't have enough left to survive on my own. I needed to rebuild, but it was too hard without someone there to help me. I had nothing to work with. Nothing. I just kept sinking lower and lower... I only escaped being out on the streets by a twist of fate, but I might as well have been, for as miserable and suicidal as I was." Taking a long sip from my drink let me pause long enough to take stock of my narrative, and of her attention to it. "And then something happened. Something happened and suddenly I had traction. I could move forward again. Piece by piece I rebuilt myself. I became whole again. I took chunks of a world empty of you and I molded them. I became another person. I made a workable life for myself. And now you've returned, and you brought back the half of me you took with you when you left." I could feel a single tear welling up in the corner of my eye, and before I could recall it, the little bastard slipped loose and started sliding down my face. "And I'm drowning in it. I can't breathe right now, Lilly, I'm actually suffocating from the weight of the past you've just dropped on me."

"I'm sorry to hear you say that, Brent," she smiled sadly as she reached out to gently wipe the tear away with her thumb, while the palm of her hand caressed my cheek for a second, "because tonight I'm not only here looking for old friends. You remember I was telling you that I've been staying with Patty and Marcie? Well they just signed a lease here today. They asked me if I want to bunk with them for a little while longer, here, until I can make other arrangements. The manager was a little too creepy about it, he told them it was fine for me to sack out here for 3 or 4 weeks and if I wanted to stay past that, he could just shoehorn me into the lease after the fact. Practically licked his lips when he talked about shoehorning me, the randy little assclown." I was in the process of taking a drink when she said this, and her pronouncement made me do a spit-take through my nose; my face was burning from the uprush of lime and the sudden injection of the knowledge that she was going to be around all the time. She burst out laughing and, after catching her breath, she squeezed my thigh, stood up (a little unsteadily), and winked. "Gimme a minute to hit the bathroom, hon, I have to pee like a goddamn sumbitch." Hearing the old profanities from her brought a pleasant glow, a glow that she easily picked up on, smiling seductively over her shoulder at me as she walked off.

Damn everything in the world to bloody flaming miserable excruciating hellfire. God Damn Everything. I didn't even know who or where I was. Rose. Damn. What was I going to tell Rose? And Marj? For that matter, what would I even tell Brittany? Or, good God, what was I going to tell Lilly? For an insane few seconds, I tried to picture myself pleasing everyone, having sex with Lilly and Rose and Marj and Brittany... for god's sake... might as well have sex with the manager while I'm at it...

No. No. Absolutely... I had to do something about this... With no clear idea of what to do next, I stood up and looked around for Rose, but she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe Brittany... no, she must have been with Rose, wherever that was... as I was turning around in circles trying to get my bearings, looking for anyone or anything to help me out, Lilly returned and wrapped her arm around mine. "How about this," she said, her smile having become vaguely michevious, "why don't you take me back to your place for a little quiet talk? Scouts' honor, Brent, no funny business, all I want to do is just talk a little longer, but someplace quiet, someplace private." What the hell... although I had no idea what was going to happen next, I knew with dead certainty that I was not going to cheat on Rose; with that as an anchor, I figured it wouldn't hurt to follow Lilly's lead, at least until I had adjusted enough to find my own way through.

With her arm still wrapped around mine, I led the way to the back of the clubhouse, toward the pool area. Lilly was a little puzzled at our direction, then she broke out laughing.

"I'm such an idiot," she gasped, "everything changes... I assumed you'd still be in the same apartment you were when I... when we... parted ways. What happened, they give you a nicer place when you started working here?"

"Not exactly," I mumbled, my half-hearted smile trying to mask my profound embarrasment at my current state, and I opened the door to my room and ushered her in. "This is it," I told her, "home sweet home, ha ha." Lilly looked around, then turned completely around in a circle, as if she expected there to be more to the room if she only looked in the right direction to see it.

"This... is..." she put a hand on the dresser, tracing the line of a five-year-old scratch that snaked it's way across the top, and looked down at the cot. "You... you sleep here... and..." A bizarre look was beginning to claim her expression; it was like watching the shadow of clouds rolling over the ground, shaping and reshaping a solid surface. She took a couple of steps over to the cot, turned around, and just before she sat down on it, she said "Squeak." Then she sat, and as if in response to her pronouncement, the cot answered her with a loud squeak. She looked up at me in shock, then stood and walked back to the dresser. As I watched in confusion, she opened the top drawer, reached in, and lifted the false bottom, to pull out the stroke book that had rested there, almost forgotten for many months now. She held up the magazine and extended it toward me as if she were making an accusation of some kind. "Yes," I acknowledged, "that's my porn, but you're the last person on earth who should be shocked by it...", before it finally hit home that she knew, she already KNEW before she reached in and pulled it out, that it was there. The strangeness of the situation was slowly beginning to sink in. Lilly looked around the room again, as if looking for a hidden camera, or maybe a door that would lead to another room; and finding nothing, she let the magazine fall to the floor, then turned and walked out of the room. I kicked the magazine under the cot and followed her out, trailing limply in her wake and trying to grasp what was happening.

Lilly slowly made her way back out to the common area, drifting as if in a trance, her sleepwalker's gait producing a profound sense of unease in me. She continued in this unearthly fashion until she was back at the chairs we had been sitting in earlier. She parked herself, grasped her mug, and freshened her drink. She took a sip, and another, and another. I sat next to her at the table. "What..." I started, then "how... how did you..." Lilly looked at me, her expression completely unreadable, and she said in a whisper, "How old... are Rose and Brittany?"

"How... what?!?" because I didn't know what else to say. "How... old? What do you..."

"How old? C'mon, Brenty, not a hard question, how old? How old is Rose?"

"She... she's 13," I said, the light beginning to dawn on me ever so slowly, "why are you asking me this?"

"I knew the cot was going to squeak before I sat down on it because..." she paused to lick her lips while she tried to figure out what she was going to tell me, "because... I heard Rose and Brittany talking about it," she looked at me with a haunted expression. "I heard them talking about Rose's guy, talking about his room... not his house, or his apartment, but his room... I thought at first they were talking about a boy, about another kid their age, and his room at home... but then they were talking about how much his cot squeaks, and how they wanted to figure out how to get him a proper bed. I heard Rose talking about a dresser with a scratched-up top, where the top drawer has a false bottom with a porn stash... and when I saw your room, and the cot and the dresser, everything just fell into place." She sat there with her chin resting in her hand, a look of bewilderment like I'd never seen on anyone before. "That's who you found to replace me. A 13-year-old girl. I don't know whether to be more disturbed over what that says about you, or what it says about me. Did I so wreck you for any woman that came after me that you had to take it back to source?"

She knew. She knew the truth, there was no sense in denying it. Lilly was far too smart to fall for any line of crap I might try to feed her. I gritted my teeth and swallowed long and hard. Finally, I tried to answer. It was a struggle; for so long now, I had kept this secret... "Lilly, you knew me better than any person on earth, you were the best part of my life. Even the misery at the end, when we didn't touch for so long, I still loved you, so it was still the best part of my life. Did I ever strike you as someone who likes little girls? Or more as someone who, when he loves, does it with his whole heart, no matter who it might be? You've known loneliness, Lilly, but you've never had to endure it if you didn't want to. You've had so many men and women, you could have had your pick. You don't know the cancerous nature of loneliness, the real searing emptiness that's constantly devouring you, nowhere to run from it, no way to hide. Rose and I do, we've been there. We were just trying to survive, to keep our sanity."

Lilly slammed her mug on the table; an arc of Kahlua and creamer landed mostly outside the mug. "I'VE never known loneliness?!?" she said, suddenly twice as loud. "How dare you? You don't know what kind of Hells I've been through!" Then, much quieter, almost a hiss, "Lots of lonely people find companionship and still keep it in their pants," As soon as she said it, she knew she'd gone too far. "Okay, yeah, I know, hypocrite number one, right here. I'm sorry. It's just, Jesus, Brent, she's thirteen. Thirteen. You're forty." She held up four fingers, making a stabbing motion at me with them, "Forty." Lilly reached over for the bottle and refilled her mug almost to the rim, then downed most of it at a gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes drifted to my hair. "I hate to tell you this, luv, but you have a few grey hairs showing." I reached over to take a handful of her blondness. "It's harder to see on you," I countered, "but you have 'em too."

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, her hand resting delicately on my thigh. She pulled back for a second, then leaned in a little closer. I turned my head to present my mouth to hers, but I didn't pursue it, just waited for her. The smell of Kahlua on her breath was as intoxicating as if I'd drunk it myself. Her pause lasted perhaps three or four seconds; in that interval, my heart was stretched out on a cross somewhere in a desert wilderness, waiting to see if she would reclaim it... when the pause climaxed with a blissed-out sloppy joining of our lips, followed by an increase in the pressure and warmth of her hand on my thigh, I felt like my insides were melting. God, I had missed this so much, Lilly's kiss, had been dying for it for so long, forever, it felt so incredibly good to kiss her, to feel her warmth pressing up against me. It was like falling into a pool of light and floating away. Her kiss was so different from Rose's... at the thought of Rose, I instinctively pulled back.

"God, Lilly, I'm sorry," I said, "I've been waiting for this for so long, I do love you, but I can't do this to Rose. I love her too, Lilly. As much as I love you, but in a different way. Believe it or don't, as you will, but I do love her." Lilly sat back, looking stunned and angry for a second, then she dissolved into a look of pure love as the alcohol in her blood reached critical mass.

"My God," she blurred, "once a boyscout, always a boyscout. That's what I was missin', Bren'. For as many guys as I been with, that's all I ever really needed, just one goddamn boyscout. One... knight in shining amor... armor... You, Bren', I needed you, cuz you were the bes' thing that ever happened to me, and I never knew it till it was too late." She was starting to mist up, and I knew that in another second or so, I would see something I had never thought to see: Lilly crying. "You were jus' this big goddamn' puppy dog that followed me ever'where, until I got so fuckin' sick of it that I couldn't stand it no more. You were so goddamn' dependen', Bren', you couldn' never get along without me... jeezus, how was I s'pose' t'know I'd miss THAT so fuckin' bad?" The tears were rolling now, and they couldn't have been hurting her any more than they were me... my vision was blurring, I wiped my face and found that it was wet. In the middle of the watery blur my world had become, I saw Rose on the other side of the room, looking at us sitting together. I couldn't make out her expression, but I thought I saw Brittany standing behind her, with a hand on her shoulder. My arm jerked up, a puppet move, as I gestured lamely, blindly, uselessly at her, not knowing what signal to give, my hand cut off from anything I would have known as reality; I didn't know whether I wanted her to stay or go, didn't know what I wanted. The next thing I knew, the girls were there, next to me; Rose sitting at my side, her hand caressing my back, Brittany next to her, holding Rose's other hand.

"Rose," I breathed, scarcely able to hear my own voice for the pounding in my chest, "this is... is..." Rose gripped my hand and squeezed hard. "Lilly," she finished for me, her breath an almost reverent whisper, "this is Lilly." The only response I could manage was a numb nod. Rose and Lilly sat there experiencing each other, each for the moment completely bathed in the attention of the other. Caught between those two gazes, I was adrift in a pocket universe of feminine regard, a regard that was not FOR me but ABOUT me. My head was drifting apart, and with some sense organ other than my nose, I became aware of an aroma, a scent, a sensation I had never known before or could have even dreamed existed, that burned my lungs like a rarefied ether. Rose's hand had returned to caressing my back, and by the time I realized Lilly was doing the same thing, hers and Rose's hands met and locked, knotted in a bond whose warmth bid fair to scorch me as their joined hands burrowed into the small of my back and slowly drifted south. From somewhere far, far above my consicousness, I realized that Brittany had moved behind me and was massaging my scalp as Rose and Lilly managed an effective shiatsu that left my thighs quivering. When my leg began twitching like a dog's that's being petted in exactly the right spot, the three of them broke down in laughter; Rose and Lilly collapsed against me from either side while Brittany literally had my back. Wait, anything I've ever said about Heaven before, strike that; being sandwiched between women who adore you is pretty much IT.

The meet and greet was beginning to show serious signs of winding down. We had garnered some highly interested and bemused looks from old and new tenants, and for the first time, I didn't care. I was floating, flying, freewheeling on a cloud of pheromones that convinced me I was going to live forever. Patty and Marcie drifted over to let Lilly know they were going to hit a few bars and that they were more than a little interested in having her join them. Lilly's beatific smile as she dumped them (for the evening, anyway) was met with a knowing wink between Patty and Marcie, followed by a couple of hand gestures between them that I had never seen before, but which seemed like graphic depictions of some kind of deviant act. Patty handed Lilly a key to their apartment and leaned in close to rasp in a ludicrous soto voce, "Remember, necktie on the doorknob if you're still occupied."

Somehow Rose, Brittany and I had all surrendered to Lilly on a primal level. We were taking our cues from her, following her in some weird mystic conga line that only the four of us were aware of. She led us to her new digs, Patty and Marcie's basement-level apartment, and the girls and I watched Lilly as she did her impaired best to get the key into the lock. Rose put her hand on Lilly's to steady it, and when they inserted the key, they looked at each other for a second, and with one accord, they began to slide the key in and out of the lock, in and out, in and out, pumping, humping that lock, until they collapsed into each other in a fit of divine amusement and tittering. Lilly smiled up at me, "Oh, I like this one, Brenty..." Brittany snorted and reached over to turn the key in the lock, and we all fairly fell into the apartment, a tangle of legs and arms and hearts and spirits and Goddess only knows what else. We managed to pick ourselves up and move our little soft parade into the living room. There were three cardboard boxes in the corner; Lilly told us that they were filled with her belongings and said that, along with her car, that was the sum total of her earthly possessions. She pulled her boombox out of one of the boxes and plugged it in. As soon as she did, the air was filled with the sound of Ravel's Bolero. Lilly and Rose locked eyes, and in a flash I knew they were each reliving having heard this music with me while watching "10"... albeit more than ten years separated the two instances. We collapsed onto the couch, Rose and Lilly on either side of me and Brittany sitting on the floor, between my legs and looking up at us. Brit told me later that at that exact moment, she felt like she was watching some kind of mirror image of Lilly and Rose reaching out to each other and me, in complete silence, their movements in some unspoken agreement of perfect harmony. They both leaned in to kiss me on the mouth, and for a timeless moment three pairs of lips were joined, each of us kissing the other two. I was so involved in the kiss that it barely registered that Brittany had unzipped and unbuttoned my pants, but when she reached into my underwear and pulled my rapidly stiffening penis out, I broke the kiss. "Brit," I whispered, "what are you doing?" Brittany just leered as she leaned in to take my balls in her mouth, her tongue pushing and prodding. Rose and Lilly slid down until they were facing each other over my crotch, then they put their mouths together for a kiss that included and surrounded my erection. All I could do was sit there with my head back, watching the three of them slobbering on my aching manhood. "Oh god," I heard myself moaning, "oh my god... I love you, I love you, oh god..." and for the moment, Brittany was included in that statement, and I think she knew it. I looked down at three heads bobbing in my lap; the heat and moisture, the feel of three tongues lapping and slurping, was sheer torture, and I knew I was about to release. "Girls... girls..." I panted, then "AAAH AAAH AAAH OOOHHH" as a white stream jetted from my tip. The first shot arced across the room, and as the second and third shots exploded, greedy Lilly took the head in her mouth and caught everything that came out. "Hey," was Rose's faint protest, but before she could say anything else, Lilly grabbed her face in both hands and put her lips on Rose's, and as their open mouths merged in a French kiss, Rose made a strangled noise in the back of her throat, and I realized that Lilly had held my semen in her mouth until she could share it with Rose this way.

When they had finished, Lilly staggered to her feet and stumbled to the kitchen. Turning on the faucet, she stuck her hand under the stream and leaned down to drink noisily from her palm. When she was done, she came back to the living room and, leaning against the doorway, she favored us all with an angelic smile.

"Well, 'at was nice," she said, "but I think I need to call it a night, kids. 'at was prob'ly a lil bit more than I shoulda done. Sorry sweetie," this last said directly to Rose as she walked over and stroked her hair, "but I couldn' help myself." We stood and walked to the door. Rose and Brittany stepped out into the hallway, and before I could follow suit, Lilly pressed her body up against me, trapping me against the wall. She kissed me for a long time, but not an open-mouthed whore's kiss; it was almost timid, shy, but with an intense heat behind it. As she broke the kiss, she put her lips against my ear and whispered, "I love you," then she turned me around and gently pushed me into the hallway and closed the door. Rose and Brittany looked up at me with wonder, and Rose asked if I was okay. I nodded dumbly, too stunned to share with them what Lilly had just told me. It was the first time she had ever spoken those words to me.

35

...Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean, higher than any bird ever flew, longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you... Longer    (Dan Fogelberg)

...I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking...     (Song of Solomon, 5:2)

After we left Lilly, the girls and I made our way back to the clubhouse. The meet and greet had pretty much wound down, so I started on cleanup and putting the chairs away while Rose and Brittany shot billiards. When I was done, I noted that it was getting late, so Rose and I drove Brittany home. On the way there, the girls wanted to know what Lilly and I had said to each other; they were particularly curious to know about her apparently casual acceptance of my sex life. I told them about our conversation in excruciating detail; not by choice, but because the girls kept hounding me, determined to squeeze out every last morsel, interrupting me to clarify points and making me back up to repeat certain items. When we got to Brittany's, the inquisition was not over by even half, and we just sat there in the driveway while they continued to interrogate me, holding my feet to the fire until they were satisified. When they were done, Brittany leaned across Rose to give me a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze on the thigh; as she pulled back, she smirked and muttered something that sounded like "goddamn stud". She gave Rose a hug and a peck and then she was gone, slipping into her warmly-lit home.

Rose was quiet on the ride back. She laid down in the seat to rest her head in my lap, and I was absently stroking her hair and savoring the pressure on my leg. When we got back and I parked in the lot behind the clubhouse, neither of us stirred immediately. The way she laid there, not moving, her arms tucked up to her chest, made me feel a little uneasy. Eventually, I stirred and took her chin in my hand, turning her face up to look at me.

"What's wrong, love?" I asked. "Feels like you're not all there."

For a long time, Rose said nothing, just gazed up at me in silence. Then, "So she's going to be living at the complex now." I nodded. She took a slightly shuddering breath, then, "Jack, did you ever think you'd see her again? Did you ever wonder what would happen if she came back into your life?"

My sweet, tortured angel. My poor, poor baby girl. I had to clear my throat a couple of times, then started trying to pick my way carefully (but truthfully) through an answer.

"After she left me," I said, looking through the windshield at the night sky to help me focus on remembering the misery, "for the first couple of years, I tried to make her come back out of sheer willpower. I'd spend hours on end thinking things like, 'Lilly, please come home, Lilly, please come back to the one who loves you'. But time has a way of wearing us down, of making us adapt to realities. Little by little, I stopped my wishful thinking. So then: did I ever think I'd see her again? No, not really; when I got all the wishing out of my system, I accepted that wasn't going to happen. The second one is a little harder to answer. Did I wonder what would happen if she came back?" We sat in silence for a few seconds while I considered my answer; then, "No, my love, I don't think I ever did wonder that. I never thought about how my life would proceed once she was back, I wasn't capable of thinking that far ahead. My need was so immediate, and my hunger was so great, that I couldn't get past her actual absence." I glanced down at Rose. She was still looking up at me with the same pensive expression. Looking back out the windshield, I tried again, "Even though I'd finally accepted that I wouldn't ever see her again, that didn't stop me from playing the 'what if' game over and over and over, trying every variation I could think of to see what I could have done differently, to keep her from walking out. In the end, I gave up, not because I ran out of variations, but because none of them ever led to her staying. I came to realize it wasn't just me that was the cause of it, it was also Lilly. It had been Lilly's choice to leave, and in the end, it would have to have been her choice to come back. Since I didn't fully understand why she left, I didn't have a prayer of understanding what it would take to make her change her mind." I looked back down at Rose; she didn't look any happier. "But I'm not that person any longer. I don't need her anymore, she's out of my system. Something happened to that broken-down, miserable wreck of a man, something that brought him back to life. Something wonderful. Something beautiful and thrilling. I found someone who wanted me." Rose smiled a sad little smile. "Hey," I said, "is that all I get?" I started tickling her until she was screaming with laughter and hitting my arm to make me stop. "That's better, that's the Rose I needed to see," I told her. We got out of the truck and I walked her to the door. She wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my chest, then looked up for a goodnight kiss that lasted ages, and I felt like we had made it past another hurdle.

The next morning, Friday, Rose came to the clubhouse at 6:30; she must have been out the door the second Marjorie left for work.

"Hi angel," I greeted her, and she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tighter than she had for a long time; so tight that she actually started to squeeze the breath out of me, her little grip like iron, and I felt my face crease in a sad smile as I reflected on the bittersweet nature of love. Eventually she released me. I sat on the couch, and she pushed me into a reclining position and laid down on me so she could rest her head on my chest. Her hair, her wonderful hair, filled my face so that the entire world became a tangle of sweet brown strands. "What's up, love?" I asked. For a long time she didn't answer, just lay there with her hand through my shirt, rubbing my chest and playing with my nipples. Eventually, she stirred and raised her face to mine for a long, tender kiss.

"Jack," she whispered, "I feel weird. Trippy, kinda. I slept last night, but I don't know for how long. Mighta been a couple hours, mighta been only five minutes. I was having this weird dream, where you were knocking on the door of the apartment, and you started to open it, I saw your hand start to come inside, but then it was gone. I went to open the door for you, but my hands were slippery, they were dripping with something weird that kinda smelled like perfume, it took me a long time to get the door open, and when I got it open, you weren't there. My heart sank when I saw you were gone. I looked for you but I didn't find you, I called but you didn't answer. I was walking down the street looking for you, and I saw some policemen driving around, I stopped them to ask about you, but they started beating me up. I tried to tell them about you, I was describing your hair and your eyes and your lips, and they started pulling my clothes off, but I wasn't scared, I was just sad and lonely, really really lonely." She took a deep breath, then another and another, and I realized she was smelling me, taking in my scent as if she needed to memorize it. She closed her eyes and continued, still whispering, "After I woke up, I just laid there for a long time, but I knew I wasn't gonna get back to sleep. So I got up and tried to watch TV, but I couldn't concentrate on anything I was seeing. Sometimes I felt like I was having a panic attack, then I felt almost calm, kinda floaty, and I was just wandering around the apartment all night, from the bathroom to the kitchen to the living room and back again. I even laid down next to mom for a little bit, but that just made it worse." I was stroking her face as she told me this; her forehead was warm, even a little feverish. I slipped my fingers under her shirt from the bottom and stroked her back, and in response she rolled her head back and forth on my chest; it reminded me of a kitten snuggling up for comfort.

"Sweetheart," I started, and suddenly she moaned, a long drawn-out wail of existential despair and angst.

"Oh God, oh G-G-God," she sobbed, "Jack, how can you want me? Sh-she's so, she's so beautiful, and so sexy, and she's as old as you are, she's a grown-up woman, and you were in a grown-up relationship with her, she's not some stupid little goddamn kid, and she wants you now, she wants to have sex with you now. How? How, Jack, how? How can you want me? How can you want a stupid little kid like me? How can you love me? HOW?!?" She gripped my shirt, taking a handful of flesh with it. Hurt like hell, but that had to be nothing compared to what she was feeling. I glanced at the clock; school wouldn't start for almost an hour. Prying her hands loose, I got up from the couch, picked her up in my arms, carried her back to my room, laid her on the cot, and locked the door. I removed all my clothes, and as I stood there naked before her, her eyes were roving over my body, absorbing the sight of my bare flesh. I knelt down to kiss her tears away.

"Rose, listen carefully. You are my beloved. That means I love you. You. I am in love with you. You are the apple of my eye, the heart of my heart." I began to slowly and deliberately unbutton her shirt, and as I helped her out of it and laid it aside, I said, "You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes." I removed her shoes and set them aside. "Your love is delightful, more pleasing than wine." I pulled her pants off, dropped them on the floor. "Your lips are sweet as honey. When I kiss your open mouth, I taste it, I taste milk and honey." I kissed her tenderly, and she responded passionately, opening her mouth to me and tracing my lips with the tip of her tongue. I removed her bra and took a deep smell of the fabric, smiled at her, and as I stroked her breasts, I said, "You are my garden, you are my orchard. You are ripe as choice fruits and finest spices." I bent to take her nipples in my mouth and taste her gorgeous flesh, and she moaned and shivered at the touch. Pulling back, I slid her panties down her legs and removed them. As I traced my finger between her legs and into the folds of her labia, I felt the wetness that was starting to claim her. "You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water." I gently rubbed and stroked between her nether lips, rejoicing in the sweet fluid, and she gasped, arched her back and reached for my manhood. Climbing on top of her, I guided myself to her opening, then slowly but firmly pressed my way in, little by little, backing off, moving forward, until I was buried to the hilt, my chest grazing her breasts as they rose and fell beneath me. Once I was completely sheathed in her, I just lay there, not thrusting or moving, simply laying on top of her. "Do you feel that?" I said as I looked deeply into her eyes. "Do you feel me inside you, joined to you? We are one flesh now, one complete whole." I placed my hands on either side of her head and held her gaze; I kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, and continued, "There may be many queens in the world, my dove, there may be many consorts fit for kings, but you, my perfect one, are unique. You, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore you; my dove, you are, alone in the world, the only one who can lay claim to my heart." I kissed her again, then took her hand and placed it on my chest, holding it there while I said, "This, that you feel beneath your precious fingers, this trembling organ that pumps my blood; this is yours, my love, it is yours to cherish or crush as you will. To you, and you alone in all the universe, does this belong. I can give it to no other, because it is no longer mine to give; it is yours." I carefully rolled us over so that I was laying on my back with Rose perched on top of me, taking care to remain inside her. As I caressed her back and her tender rump, she placed her lips on my throat and used her tongue to send shivers down my spine. A single tear rolled down her cheek to touch her joyful smile as she told me, "Thank you, Jack, thank God for you. I love you... daddy. Forever and ever." Her nightmare had broken, transformed into a waking dream, and it was in that dreamlike state that we eventually roused and got ourselves dressed. There were no words between us as I drove her to school; there was no need. As she turned to get out of the truck, she took my hand and placed it on her chest, over her heart, and her look said more than she could have ever spoken. Driving back to the complex, I reflected that my relationship with her was, in many ways, more mature, more adult and "grown-up", than anything I had ever had with Lilly.

Lilly. Ye gods. What was I going to do about her?

36

...What's new, how is the world treating you? You haven't changed a bit, handsome as ever I must admit... What's New    (Linda Ronstadt)

I had a few chores to do around the complex that morning, but nothing that couldn't wait. The pool was empty, and I had a rare moment of feeling like I wanted to be in the water, like I needed a sense of buoyancy, of being able to just float in complete relaxation for awhile. I changed into my swimsuit and walked down the steps, then slowly made my way out to the deep end, where I lay on my back and closed my eyes to shut out any visual distraction. For a long time, it seemed, I just floated there; serenity seemed to spread out from my lungs with each deeply drawn breath, filling my chest and limbs. My head was blessedly silent, the nagging cloud of doubt and worry vanished by the calm emptiness. I was so relaxed that it didn't even occur to me to wonder what was happening when someone's hand placed itself lightly on my back and pulled me gently through the water. When another hand touched my thigh, I slowly opened my eyes. I was looking up at a bemused Lilly; she had apparently pulled me into the shallow end and was standing over me, watching me with a wry grin. I stood up and gazed at her in mild amazement.

"Jeez, Lilly," I spluttered, "don't you have a swimsuit? You can't be in here naked!"

"No," she laughed, "I don't have a swimsuit yet, but I'll get one, I promise. And anyway, I'm not naked, boyscout, see?" She slipped her thumb under the string of her thong and twisted it to show me. "Besides, there's nobody here to see... nobody I wouldn't want to see, anyway!" she ended with a high-pitched laugh... the one she used to use when she wanted to get me to do something without having to talk me into it. She shook herself at me so that her breasts bounced back and forth, and she husked, "If you're so worried about it, cover 'em up." She reached down and took my hands in hers, pulling them up and placing them on her breasts. "Is that better?" she smirked. I was about to remove my hands and start scolding her, but almost involuntarily, I gave her breasts a little squeeze. "Wow," I murmured, almost more to myself than to her, "the years have really been kind, Lilly. They're so round and soft and... juicy..."

"Glad to see I haven't lost everything," she said as she stepped closer. Her hand dipped under the water and reached down to my crotch, where she took hold of my half-erection. "Looks like you're not completely disinterested." I released her breasts and stepped back, until I was out of reach of her grasping hand.

"No, Lilly," I croaked, "this isn't going to happen. Last night was... was..." I had been going to say it was a mistake, but Rose's (and Brittany's) presence meant it hadn't been completely wrong. I was suddenly unsure of myself, lost and uncertain.

"That's okay, boyscout," she laughed. "To be honest, I think I might have been disappointed if you let me follow through. Not as disappointed you stopping me, maybe, but..." She turned and waded toward the steps, where she retrieved and donned her bra. As she slipped into her shorts and t-shirt, she said, "Maybe it was kinda weaselly of me to test you like that, but you came through with flying colors. Rose's champion." This last was said with a shade of envy and regret; maybe I imagined it, but I thought I heard a challenge in there as well. Lilly sat at a table and patted the seat next to her. "Come sit for awhile. Let me just look at you, anyway. That's not breaking any rules, is it?"

Damn you, Lilly. Well... what the hell. I pulled the secret Bacardi stash from behind the towel cabinet and showed it to her. I managed a little grin as I told her, "No glasses. Or ice. Do you want to..." She made a reaching motion, so I walked over and handed the bottle to her. She uncapped it and took a healty swig, then handed it back and made a gesture with both hands to indicate that I should do the same; so I did.

"So," she began, after what seemed like an eternity of us just sitting there looking at each other, "Rose seems like she knows her way around manflesh... around yours, anyway. Did you break her in, or is she giving you sloppy seconds?" I had to laugh in spite of myself. Lilly's profane way of dealing with the world was raising some very warm memories.

"Rose was a virgin when we met," I told her. "She was ten at the time," Lilly's eyebrows shot up into the stratosphere at that and she lunged forward in her chair, so I hastened to add, "ten when we first met and became friends, but it wasn't until a lot later, until after her twelfth birthday, that it turned into a physical relationship. And we didn't fu... didn't have intercourse... until she was thirteen." Lilly sat back and exhaled noisily.

"Jeezus, Brent, you almost gave me a heart attack! You gotta be more careful about what you tell me."

"Sorry," I smiled sheepishly, "sometimes I forget what it looks like to the world at large. Honestly, my sexual attraction was the last part of the friendship to form. Before that, all the other pieces came as they should have. We were friends first... BFFs if you will... and then it turned into a father-daughter feeling, before the last piece of the puzzle, the physical romance part, developed."

Lilly was quiet for a long time. She took another pull on the bottle, but continued to sit there in silence, just gazing at me. Then, "So, what's the story with Brittany?"

"Mmmmmm..." was all I could manage for a few seconds. I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to decide what and how I should tell. Well... in for a penny, in for a pound, right? I took a deep breath and plunged in; told her about grade school, and junior high, and the way Rose's and Brittany's relationship had developed. When I got to the night of the sleepover, Lilly interrupted me with a hand on my arm. "You really have been dating Rose's mom? I thought that was just a cover story... so you've been banging Marjorie too? Oh my God! Take one from the boyscout column and move it to the Studinator side!" At the look I gave her, she pursed her lips and said, "Sorry, please continue, I have to know how this comes out." I pressed forward, paraphrasing Rose's narrative of the sleepover, then moved on to tell her about the night we went to the dance and the way Brittany learned our secret. When I described the parking lot showdown, Lilly's eyes grew huge, but she didn't say anything, just kept shaking her head. Finally, I came to the meat of it, the 'story with Brittany' that she wanted to know about; the arrangement that she and Rose cooked up, and how they shared me. When I finished, Lilly slid down in her chair, seemingly exhausted. She started giggling, and in a few seconds she was laughing uproariously.

"So you plowed her in the ass," she gasped when she caught her breath, "plowed her in the ASS!" And she started laughing all over again, tears rolling down her cheeks, until she finally collapsed, spent. "Oh my God, boyscout no longer! You are one studly goddamn stud! You assfucker, you!"

Lilly reached for my hand across the table, and I obliged. We sat quietly for a long time after that, just holding hands and watching the reflection of sunlight as it bounced off water in the pool. Tenants came by to swim; a young woman and her little boy, and later a couple of twentysomething guys with buzzcuts. Lilly stirred, caught my attention. She leaned over and, very quietly so as to ensure that nobody else could hear her, said, "So Rose doesn't mind farming you out for a little anal action? Are you up for a piece of this?" She gripped her armrests and wiggled her butt in her chair to punctuate her remark. I gave her a sad smile before telling her, "Not my call, love. You'll have to ask Rose." Lilly's mouth dropped just a little and she shook her head. "For real?" she asked, "You really have to get her permission to..." I held up a hand to stop her and said, "I'M not the one who has to get permission, sweetheart. YOU are." Lilly put her hand to her forehead and slowly pulled it down over her face, rubbing her chin, before saying "I was wrong again. Take that marker out of the stud column and put it back on the boyscout side. Wow." She stood to leave, came around behind my chair, leaned down to me, and put her mouth on mine. This time I didn't resist, and we shared a long, tender kiss, which she finished by moving her lips to my ear and whispering, "I really do, Brent... I love you." She squeezed my shoulder, then she was gone.

By the end of the day, I was feeling a little trepidation about Rose. She had seemed okay when I dropped her off in the morning, but her self-doubt and fear had been so strong... was our early morning session really enough to reassure her?

I discovered soon enough that I had nothing to worry about. When Rose came bouncing in after school, her sparkle and joie de vivre had been restored, and all was right with the world.

"Brittany's not coming?" I asked, then immediately regretted it, because Rose snickered and smirked, "Oh, she cums like a freight train, babe!" Her howl of delight was a shot of sorely-needed comfort. It was so good to have my Rose back where she belonged. As she helped herself to a root beer from the machine, she tossed her head and said, "Brit's got cheerleading practice, she'll be at school for awhile." I nodded, admiring the curve of butt; so full and firm, and I felt a twinge in my chest.

"So listen, Jack, Brittany and I were talking after school, and she told me Lilly and me are kinda like sisters!" I goggled at her for a few seconds, trying to digest this little morsel.

"You mean, because you've both been in a relationship with me? That's not quite..."

"That's part of it," she gushed, "but it's also cuz we've both boffed our dads!" And she shrieked with laughter. "I mean, you've been a dad to me... well, so much more than that, of course, but really babe, you're my daddy, you know that!" She paused to wait for confirmation, so I nodded expectantly. "So we're both fatherfuckers! Ah-hahahahaha!!!" She put down her root beer, ran across the room, and jumped up at me, so high that I had to catch her; and staggering, I tripped and fell backward on the floor, Rose landing on top of me.

"Oh God, oh my God, are you okay? Are you hurt?" she gasped, and all I could do was laugh and nod. "Are you sure? You're not hurt?" It was my turn to smirk, and I fixed her with a lewd sneer and said, "Who's your daddy?"

Epilogue

...I'm taking the time for a number of things, that weren't important yesterday... Fixing A Hole    (The Beatles)

I woke at 4 AM the next morning, Saturday, feeling strangely immobile. I lay on the cot for a long time looking at the ceiling, thinking about the women in my life, considering each one in turn. From there, I drifted toward a reverie on my life in general. Eventually, I managed to get up enough energy to wander out to the kitchen area and make myself a pot of coffee. Standing at the window with a fresh cup in my hand and watching the sun's slow rise, I found myself looking in the direction of Rose's and Marjorie's apartment. Their apartment... with bedrooms and a bathroom, a kitchen and living room. And closets; closets, that were separate little rooms for storing things, not for living in. I turned my gaze in the direction of Lilly's (and Patty's and Marcie's) apartment; same setup. I thought about Brittany's house, and all the rooms she had, and how her storage closets were just that; closets, not living spaces. After slowly making my way back to my room, I sat on the cot for awhile and stared at my dresser, and at the walls that seemed to be closing in. How had I managed to function with these people, without being totally humiliated at the nonexistent quality of my life? I had friends, I had love, I had things worth living for... so why then had I allowed myself to remain in this dank little hole?

I had to do something. I had to get out of here, get back to human habitation. I wasn't ready to start sponging off of Marjorie, or Lilly, but action was required.

I took a shower, dragged a comb across my head, made my way out to the kitchen and drank another cup. Looking up, I noticed it was getting late. I found my coat and made my way out the door. Feeling flat-footed, I wandered over to Rose and Marjorie's building, found my way upstairs, and knocked. After a few seconds, Marjorie opened the door; she was looking tousled and rumpled, her robe hanging open to reveal her shimmery nightgown. I started to stutter an apology, but she just grabbed my arm and laughed.

"Don't be stupid, get in here. Stud." She pulled me into the apartment, shut the door, and greeted me with a warm kiss that lasted so long that by the time she was done, I was as hard as a rock. Taking me by the hand, she led me to the couch, pushed me down on it, then plopped down on the other end and rested her feet on my lap, taking a second to wiggle her toes against my erection. "So what can I do you for, Brent? I think Rose is still asleep..."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you, Marj", I said, then suddenly found I was unsure of where to start or what to say. I took a few deep breaths, trying to collect my thoughts. "I'm not a mole. I'm not a hobbit. But I live in a hole. I live in a... a storage room. A goddamn closet. I don't know why it hasn't embarrassed me until now, but it should have. And now it does. I need to change. I need to start being a man again. I need to... Marj, I think I need to find a job and start earning a living. I need to be able to support myself. I need to be able to support a... support a family..."

Marjorie's smile was one of quiet amazement. I wondered at the change in her expression; was my 'recovery' such a source of wonder and mystery? She licked her lips and shifted her position, coming over to sit next to me, her leg pressed up against mine, one hand squeezing my thigh and the other on my forearm. "Brent, this is incredible! My employer is just winding down from a full-tilt hiring process. They've hired four new groups of people for data entry, and they're just getting ready to finish up the hiring process for the fifth and final group. Next Tuesday is the last day they're taking applications. You just have time to get yours in! Oh my God, it's so amazing that you just told me this today! It's like... like, I don't know, like divine intervention or something! I thought about telling you before this, but I didn't know if it would sound pushy or rude, I didn't want you to think I was trying to control you or run your life! Oh God, Brent, this is perfect! I know someone who knows the hiring manager, I know she can get you in! Oh...", and she climbed on my lap to throw her arms around me and pull me into a bear hug. I felt dazed, hugging her back and wondering anew at the strange turns in my life.

Rose appeared at the door, her babydoll nightie hiked up over one hip, her hair wild and frizzy around her face; stretching and yawning, she said, "What's up, guys?" Marjorie jumped off the couch and pulled Rose into her arms.

"Get dressed, baby girl, the three of us are going out to breakfast! We've got something to celebrate!"

After breakfast at Walt's, we headed back to their apartment, where Marj sat next to me at the computer as I completed the online employment application form. The section where I was supposed to list previous employers was a bit of a slide; I was sure the manager of the complex had me officially enrolled as an employee, so I had no qualms about listing that, but it felt a little strange all the same. Marj laughed off the rest of it, assuring me that her friend's connection to the hiring manager was tight, and she was rock solid certain I'd get in. When the online application was complete, as I clicked the Submit button to send it on it's way, I felt a little light-headed, and I realized that the simple act of submitting, of actually taking control of my life again, had given me an erection. Rose noticed it right away; her first reaction was a smirk. As she grabbed her swimsuit and a towel, she told Marj she was going for a quickie swim, placing a weird emphasis on the word 'quickie'. The second the door slammed behind her, Marjorie grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bedroom, where she attacked me with the fury of a starving woman, ripping our clothes off with an inhuman hunger. She wanted to be on the bottom, and she wrapped her legs around me and pulled me into her with a feral growl, "Plow me, Brent, rut me, fuck me hard, make me HURT!" I obliged by slamming it in and pounding her with a savage joy, her wails sounding like singing, a wordless cry of satisfaction.

Just as she had said, Marjorie's connection came through. Monday afternoon, I got a call on the clubhouse phone; would I be available to come in for an interview the next day? I spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze of delight. Rose's smile when I told her was radiant, and our lovemaking session was as soft and tender as my turn with Marjorie had been hard and vicious.

Tuesday morning saw me waiting nervously in the lobby, wearing the outfit Rose had picked out for me the night before. I had hoped to see Marj's smiling face before the interview, thinking she might be able to pop out to the lobby for a few minutes, but no such luck. 'Well, this is your time,' I told myself, 'you need to man up and do it on your own.' I noticed that the girl at the front desk was giving me a few looks, and she initiated a conversation about the weather. Her obvious interest was a warm fuzzy; I had been ready for the interview before, but now I was stoked, raring to go.

She was interrupted by a chirp from her phone; she picked it up and listened for a moment, then hung up and turned to me. "Your interviewer is ready for you now," she said with a smile just a little too wide and warm to be the standard business smile. She got up from the desk and came around to walk me through to the interview, her smile still just as warm, and I'd have sworn she fluttered her eyelashes at me just the least little bit; then she put her hand in the small of my back to guide me forward, her breast just grazing the side of my upper arm. We made a journey of some 50 feet or so in this pleasant fashion, and she guided me into a small office with an oversized desk, my interviewer rising to greet me. "Brent," said the receptionist as she gestured toward the interviewer, "this is Iris."

The End