I was sitting in the living room, looking out the window and sort of in a daze. It wasn´t too late to get started on something, but I didn´t seem to have any push. It was warm, so I hadn´t dressed after my shower. I was sitting there in my warm daze when Anne came and made shadows on me. Then, she sat down close to me. I snuggled. I love her bare skin and I needed someone close.
“Mary, what has gotten into you? You´re not yourself lately.”
“Oh, nothing. I feel fine. Just lazy. Been working hard.”
“You look healthy enough, that´s not the point. I want to know why you´ve been wandering around here looking into the next century.” She put her arm around me.
“Oh, I´m okay, Anne. Nothing bothering me, if that´s what you mean.”
“Mary Travis, don´t try and bullshit me. For the last few weeks, since maybe Easter, you´ve hardly said a word voluntarily. In bed, it´s like you´re almost not there. We´re all worried about you. You´re behaving like a love-sick teenager. What is going on?”
I almost missed what she said, I was so far away. But when it hit me, it hit hard.
“I´m doing what?”
“You´re moping around like a 15-year-old with her first crush.”
That made the most sense of anything I had heard or told myself in weeks. And, I knew what to do about it. I kissed Anne hard on the lips and got up.
“Anne, thank you. You´re right. I´ve got to rush.”
I ran upstairs, pulled on a shirt and a skirt and ran back down. Anne looked at me as I came down, worried.
“Love,” I said, “You made me realize what my problem has been all this time. I´ll tell you about it later. Don´t wait up.”
When I got there, I rang the bell, then started banging on the door. When it finally opened, I almost hit Ken Chance in the face. He stepped back in surprise and I walked into his house.
“Chance, you´ve been chasing me all spring. Now, I´ve finally caught you.”
I ripped my shirt open and dropped my skirt. I hadn´t even put shoes on. I took him by the shirt front and pulled it off. I heard it tear, but I didn´t care. He was wearing shorts and I got them down to his ankles before I plastered myself on his front.
“Chance. I´ve been running away from you for weeks. I finally figured out why.”
I kissed his lips, hugged him hard because I might not get another chance. But he kissed me back, hugged me back, felt me all over with his big, warm hands.
“I´m crazy in love with you, Ken Chance. I´ve been fighting it since I first laid eyes on you.”
He picked me up and I put my arms around his neck.
“I know,” he said, “it´s been a long wait.”
He carried me into a bedroom, dropped me on the bed and fell on top of me. He was inside me before he hit and I was ready and hot and laughing like a crazy woman by the time he was all the way in me.
.oOo.
We made love for hours. Literally. He made me come and come again until I was hoarse with laughing. I heard him groan with pleasure time and time again. But he stayed hard and I would not let him leave me as long as I felt that pole inside me. I sat on top of him and we came. I lay beside him and we came. I got him on top of me and we did it again. It went on and on.
“Chance, just lie still a minute. I need to rest.”
I must have fallen asleep, but when I woke he was still inside me. No longer erect; he´d slept, too. But he soon grew hard again.
“Mary, I love you, too, in case you don´t know.”
“You talk too much. I´m going to come again ... Don´t stop.”
Afterwards I got up and peed. When I came back he was still hard and we went right on.
Later, “Don´t you ever come?”
“I´ve had at least a dozen orgasms.”
“But you stay hard.”
“I haven´t ... haven´t ejaculated, that´s all. I want to keep on screwing you forever.”
“No. Give it to me. I want your come inside me. Give it to me and then eat me and let me taste us on your lips, in your mouth. Then, let´s do it again. All of it.”
.oOo.
It was six o´clock in the evening when I made some steaks and potatoes on the barbecue outside the library window. The sun was still warm, but sinking fast. We took the food inside and ate like starvelings. He opened a bottle of wine that was out of this world and I drank it like it was water. I couldn´t get drunk that night; I was already intoxicated.
We took wine and beer and water with us when we hurried back to bed. There were still some things we hadn´t tried and we spent all night making certain we hadn´t forgotten anything and repeating everything we could think of, just in case.
In the morning, we slept until noon and ate a huge breakfast in the sun.
“Chance, I´ve been avoiding you and I haven´t said two words to you in the whole time we´ve known each other. You don´t know anything about me. I´m going to tell you.”
I told him everything. About me, about Mom, Aunt Bessie and my life at the ranch, the Still Waters gang, the girls, my horses. Everything I could think of. He listened. I found out later he remembered everything I said. While I talked, we sat in the sun, made love, soaked in the pool to cool off, lay on the big lounge, made love again, went inside.
I made dinner again. Afterward, I said, “Your turn.”
He grew up in southern Wyoming. He told me how he had gone through school, grown up on his father´s ranch, learned to train and breed the horses his father bought and sold. “There´s more money in horses than there is in beef,” he said, “and they´re a lot more interesting. I decided to come east and find a place to breed and raise horses where there are more people, and see if I could get people interested in working with horses, instead of just having horses work for them. I found this land and bought it. I knew there was a stable next door, and I planned to buy it and build it up.”
“You didn´t, though.”
“I went over to look at things, and I saw you, and I saw what you´re doing with your girls, with the horses there. I met Sarah and I liked her. She runs a good operation, considering she hasn´t got the money it takes to really do it right. I started riding there, hanging out and watching you. I was there when you had the first meeting of the class, and I´ve met all your Still Waters lovers. You were so busy, you never saw me. I decided I could wait to buy the stables until I´d figured out what to do about you.”
“Why me?”
“You have the best sense of horses I´ve ever seen and you´re a natural teacher. I fell in love with you watching you love your animals, and seeing you work so hard on those damn little girls. I´m not going to do anything about the stables until I can get you along with them.”
“I don´t own the stables or a part of them. I just keep my horses there.”
“I know. Doesn´t matter.”
“You talk like you´ve got plenty of money.”
“Enough. My grandfather was a big deal in the Far East, a Hong Kong trader. My dad grew up in the old Hong Kong society before he decided to come to America and raise horses. I´ve never understood why he left a world full of privilege, but it must have been because he fell in love with my mother. She was a ranch-raised girl and I guess that´s why he became a rancher. Anyway, we´ve taken what Grandfather left and increased it pretty well, so I don´t really have to do more than use my income wisely.” He ran his big hands up and down my thighs.
“You still going to take the exam for Certified Financial Planner next fall?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Just need to ask questions in the right places. I was glad to hear it. I´ve seen the Sidney place in Fairplay, too. If you came off that spread, you´ve learned the right things. It´s one of the best-run cattle operations in the area.”
“Why´d you go to Fairplay? You been sneaking around after me all this time?”
“Mary, I´ve been chasing you a lot longer than since that first time I talked to you at Easter. While this house was building, I didn´t have a hell of a lot to do here, so I´d go home for a while, then I´d think of something else I might be able to find out about you and I´d go and work on that. I don´t think I know anything that´s not on the public record. If I dug too deep, I´m sorry.”
“Oh ... Well, I´m glad it´s worked out, so far.”
“So far?”
“Chance, I don´t think any relationship is forever. People change. Things change. Let´s take things one day at a time.”
“Okay with me.”
“So, now you want to buy the stables?”
“Probably.”
“What about Sarah?”
“I´d like to see her stay and run it. She´s good at it, she knows her customers, all that. I hope I can get her to do that.”
“She´s got a lot of love wrapped up in that place, Chance. I have a feeling, unless you make her a deal she can´t refuse, she´ll take her money and run.”
“Maybe you´ll tell me what it is she can´t refuse.”
“I´ll think about it. I don´t know you very well yet, Chance. I love you, but I don´t know you. I don´t give my friends away to anyone.”
“I know.”
.oOo.
“Is that a tattoo?”
“What? Oh, the horse on my shoulder blade. No, it washes off with the right kind of soap.”
“What is it, then?”
“It´s something we´re doing at Still Waters. I should have washed it off before I came. Sort of a secret.”
“It´s okay. Tell me when you´re ready.”
“Ready? I just came. Oh, you mean tell you about ... Let me turn around. No, wait. Go wash it off, then come back ... Now, come inside again and hold me tight ... Can you tell me about this thing you do, not ejaculating?”
“Grandfather grew up with a Chinese family. In ancient China, when you married a woman, you got all her sisters and girl cousins, too. Had to make them all happy.”
“You mean the husband was supposed to screw them all?”
“Yeah. The way to get in shape to make love to your wife was to screw ten other women the same night. They developed techniques for that. Anyway, Grandfather learned how and taught dad. He taught me. It´s really a matter of control, but it takes a while to learn.”
“I think it´s a great idea ... A little faster ... Now let me on top ... Here I go ... Oh, God, how I love this ... What day is today?”
“Thursday.”
“Jesus. I´ve been missing for how long? Three days? You got a phone?”
I called, got Saul. “It´s Mary, Saul. Yes, I´m all right. Better than all right. Tell Anne something for me? ... Tell her I´m not moping any more ... Yeah. She told me I was acting like a teenager in love – I am ... No, you fool, I´m in love and I´m making up for all the hard times I gave Ken Chance ... Yes, he is. I love him and I love it ... Idiot, of course we have. I´m sitting on his cock right now ... Saul, I´ll be home for the meeting tomorrow. Tell everyone I´m happy and not to worry ... Thanks. I love you, too.”
“That Saul Katz?”
“Yeah. How much do you know about us?”
“I´ve got the Still Waters catalogs and I´ve got all the pictures of you. The rest of the stuff is wonderful, too. From what I can guess, the business is doing well. Quite a thing to get that running and go to college, too.”
“We work together. It makes all the difference. And Chance, I love all of them, too. Just a little differently.”
“I know.”
“Damn you, stop saying that. You don´t know. I love Saul and Will and Alex and Tom and the girls, too. They mean more to me than practically anything. They´ve held me together the last year or so since I got my Mom back.”
“Well, of course, there is a lot of that I don´t know. But as I said, I´ve at least met all of them. Like them. I only meant I know you live together and sleep together. It´s fairly obvious, even though you´re all discreet.”
“Thing is, Anne loves Saul and Will, Sigrid loves Tom – they´re even married – and Heather loves Alex. Until my Mom got well, I couldn´t love anyone. And, then when she got well, I couldn´t see love until it fell in on me the other day. You heard me on the phone, Anne said I looked love-sick, and I realized I was. I ran the whole way over here.”
“You had dirty feet.”
“Didn´t seem to bother you ... Get on top of me now ... Deeper, please ... Ahhh, yes.”
In a little while, he had me laughing again.
.oOo.
It was late in the morning when we got going.
“Any idea where my clothes are?”
“Hasn´t been anyone else here I know of; they´re probably where you left them.”
They were. I put them on.
“Time you met the other people I love. You coming?”
“Yeah. Any rules I need to know?”
“Just love them like I do, if you can.”
“If they love you the way they seem to, it won´t be hard.”
“It won´t be. They´re good people.”
“I know.”
I kissed him, then I hit him in the stomach. “Bastard.”