On the night before her wedding, Martie and I are entwined and tangled in sex-soaked sheets; her hair, a riotous blonde nest, partially covers my face as she burrows hers into the crook of my neck. Our sweat mingles and trickles off our naked bodies, still radiating heat from fuck-friction.
I am spent, and so is she. But she manages to sigh, “It’s all going to change.”
Across town, in another hotel, the groom, my best friend, is sleeping off a round of bourbons and – if I were he – dreaming of his honeymoon, when he’ll have this wonderful girl all to himself.
* * * * *
Martie was a trust-fund baby happily estranged from her extended family. She went to Dover College, what used to be called a progressive school because it was way ahead of the curve when it came to relations between the sexes. Coed dorms with guys on one floor and girls on another? How about guys and girls on every floor? And you could request a roommate of the opposite sex; in fact, you could request up to three roommates, but the norm was two per room.
That may be all passé now, but back in the day it was round the bend and over the top. Dover was called, among other things, Bend-Over.
Stanley, who went by Stasha, was my friend since first grade. We grew up in a triple-decker neighborhood of blue collar Irish and Polish families. Early on, Stasha stood out for his ability to calculate. By the time we were ready to leave high school, M.I.T. had already courted him, but Dover offered the full scholarship.
I wasn’t a prodigy; I ended up going to a state school.
Stasha met Martie at Dover. Maybe opposites do attract. Their backgrounds were as different as could be. Martie was set for life, so long as she could fend off challenges to her father’s will. She would confide in me that what attracted her to Stasha was his careless take on the world. He lived for the moment, just like she did, even though he had no financial underpinnings, no assurance that he wouldn’t end up homeless.
I could appreciate her assessment. Yes, we came from the same background, but everything seemed to come easy to Stasha: school, girls, life.
Me? I had to work my ass off all the time. I bulled my way through school, and along the way accomplished a couple of awkward courtships. Maybe because I wasn’t as devil-may-care as Stasha, I was the more romantic of us two. For me, girls were magic, not quite of this earth, and never easily attainable. And that’s how Martie seemed to me the first time I met her, magic.
Stasha had invited me up to Dover for a weekend. I assumed he had a roommate, but it never occurred to me it would be a girl. When my old clunker wheezed to a halt in front of his dorm Stasha was already waiting on the steps with Martie.
It was her blonde mane that caught my eyes first, sort of a bananas-and-cream hue, all tendrils of loose spiral curls cascading over her shoulders. Eyes crystal-sparkly blue and apple-red lips. And not a bit of makeup that I could detect. With wide hips and a long sloping waist, she moved with effortless grace, as if she weren’t bound to earth at all.
God, she’s beautiful. My mind couldn’t take it all in; I thought angels must look like this girl.
She was coming right toward me, her smile so bright. Like an echo down a long tunnel I heard Stasha say, “Danny, this is Martie.”
I held out my hand, but she practically jumped into my arms and kissed me on both cheeks. She raised one knee so it rubbed between my thighs. My cock stiffened in a second.
“Danny! I’m so glad you could make it. Stash has been telling me about you guys, and all the trouble you used to get into.”
“Trouble?”
“You gotta tell me about blowing the boat horn into the convent windows and scaring the shit out of all the nuns in the middle of the night. Stash told me, but I want to hear your version too. Jesus! I laughed so hard I peed myself. No … really, I did. I was soaked.”
She was laughing even as she said it.
That began one of the most wonderful weekends of my life. We went to parties on and off campus, mini-concerts, but my favorite place was a coffeehouse where people my age talked about stuff besides sports and trying to get laid. And they weren’t know-it-alls about everything, they just liked to talk. What I especially liked was being able to admit I didn’t know as much as they did about a certain book or writer, or anything. They’d fill me in and we’d all enjoy the exchange.
It was in the wee hours of the morning when we straggled arm-in-arm back to their dorm. Soft music could be heard from a dozen or so open windows, indicating some parties had quieted down but were still going on. I had a pretty good buzz going and was carelessly kissing Martie’s cheek; she kissed me back and flirted with Stasha. It seemed so right, and so much fun. I had fallen in love with Martie, the way a guy can fall in love with a best friend’s girl.
As we got to the steps, I asked, “So, where am I sleeping?”
“With us,” Martie said.
“Huh?”
“In our room,” Stasha said. “Where’d you think you were going to sleep?”
“Yeah, but … you two … you won’t want me around … you know, if …”
Martie giggled. “Oh, Danny. You’re so precious.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll get you someone.”
“Huh!?”
I was a few steps behind them, then Martie jogged ahead of us. She intercepted a dark-haired girl as she was leaving a room by herself. Martie cupped her hand over the girl’s ear as the girl leaned to hear. Then she took the girl by the hand and led her over to us.
“Danny, this is Gina.”
“Hi, Danny.”
“Hi, Gina.”
Gina yawned. “You wanna cuddle tonight?”
“Do I … huh? Cuddle?”
Gina took my hand and led me upstairs right to Martie and Stasha’s room. Once inside she gave me a deep kiss, and yawned. She hurriedly undressed me, then herself. Then we were in bed together, Gina snuggling against me, pressing her magnificent Sofia Loren tits against my naked chest. She closed her eyes and moaned contentedly. I guess she really did want to cuddle.
I tried not to gawk as Martie stripped and climbed into bed with Stasha. They kissed and played, tickling each other, but soon the giggles and whoops and ooops became moans and sighs and urgent mumblings. She cried out as Stasha thrust his cock into her.
Gina came back to life, massaging me, getting me hard, French-kissing me. She climbed on top of me and slid her cunt down the length of my cock, finding her own rhythm as her big pendulous breasts swung over my face, and her pebbly nipples grazed my lips and forehead.
I surrendered to her, a sense of dreamy unreality blending with the very real sensations of a girl riding my cock. Gina’s entire body shuddered when she came. She cuddled beside me again and kissed me.
“That was good,” she said, more as a breath escaping her throat.
I got bold later, even as Stasha and Martie revived and fucked each other with noisy abandon. I lifted Gina up by the ass and plunged into her from behind. She mewed and cried, “You dirty boy, you dirty boy!” When I came I thought I must have filled her cunt to overflowing, so many spasms, it all seemed to rocket out of my cock. I had never come so hard.
Exhausted, we still played until dawn before we surrendered to fatigue. But when I awoke I was alone. I reached out my hand to the vacant depression in the mattress.
Martie stood over me clad in a terrycloth robe. She grinned. “Wow, pretty good grade. Gina doesn’t hand out many of those.”
“Huh?” I groaned, groggy and filmy eyed. Then I realized my ass was uncovered. I bent awkwardly on my side to see what Martie was talking about. There on my ass cheek, in blue Magic Marker, Gina had written “A-plus.”
Stasha sat up and laughed. “C’mon, I need a shower.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, rubbed my eyes and pulled my jeans on, and then a t-shirt. I followed Martie and Stasha out the door and along the hall to the common lavatory. The shower stalls could easily accommodate four persons at a time, and everyone seemed to be showering with everyone else. Both genders unabashedly stripped and cavorted under the spray. Nothing like this ever happened at my school.
Stasha held the door for a couple exiting one stall, then pulled Martie in after him. Martie turned and waved to me to join them.
This was crazy. But I followed them and in a moment Stasha and I were sudsing Martie’s torso from ass to tits. She moaned and leaned against me; my cock responded, spring-boarding right between her ass cheeks. I didn’t think, I just reached around her and soaped her breasts while Stasha kneeled, I presumed to lather her thighs and belly.
He stood and closed his arms around her so that the two of us now held her in a double hug. The friction of my cock against her ass was enough to make me come. I don’t know if either of them noticed.
Later we had breakfast and went for a hike through the expansive wooded areas about the campus. That night there were more parties and introductions. We ran onto Gina at one. She was held at the waist by a young man who looked vaguely Middle Eastern. She flashed us a hand signal and winked.
“Oh-oh,” Martie laughed. “So far he’s only rating a C-minus.”
“She grades men?” I asked.
Martie grinned. “If I were you I’d show off that behind of yours when you get home. I can’t remember her giving any guy more than a B.”
Martie had broken off from us and had joined a gaggle of girls on a couch who were gossiping and chatting about whatever girls chat about when a large enough group of them accrete.
Stasha had his ever-present smile, like he was in on a secret joke.
“Hey, Stasha,” I said. “It’s probably too late to bring it up, but do you have any problem with what’s happening with me and Martie?”
He shrugged and his smile widened. “What’s happening?”
“Jesus, I took a shower with your girlfriend naked, I felt her all up and down and … Stash, I think I came on her ass. For crissakes, doesn’t that bother you?”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Dan.”
“Huh?”
“Not like, you know, back in the neighborhood when someone goes steady. Shit, that’s like being married.”
“But, you two … you are together?”
“Yeah, sure. Man, coming here just opened up the world for me, Dan. I’m thinking about how people live back in the neighborhood, practically shackled together so much they can’t stand the sight of each other. How many of those guys at Vaughn’s Tavern, including my dad and yours, spent a whole night there after work because they couldn’t stand having to sit in the house and look at our mothers?”
“So, what are you saying, that everyone should just fuck everyone else? Nobody’s … I dunno … special to anyone else?”
“Dan, I always figured there was a better way to live. Coming here just confirmed that for me. I think I love Martie, but I love what she is, free to make up her own mind. I can’t make her belong to me. And if she wants to share herself with you, hey, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather share her with.”
“Share?”
I was unclear on this notion of sharing. In order to share you had to have possession of whatever it was you wanted to share. Stasha just said Martie didn’t belong to him, that there was no understanding, implicit or otherwise that she should reserve her body and charms to him exclusively. If anyone was sharing, it was Martie.
That evening we returned to the room and each of us had a mellow buzz. Martie kissed us both and we spontaneously began to unbutton her shirt and untie the sash that held her skirt to her hips. We undressed her and began to kiss her entire body up one side and down the other. By the time we laid her back in her bed her pussy was oozing. Sasha entered her first, face-to-face. It was a hurried, emphatic fuck. He shuddered and rolled off her. She hadn’t come and motioned for me to straddle her. As I entered her cunt I sensed the ooze dribble off my balls as my cock displaced Stasha’s cum. It made me feel wicked and giddy, and then the slick wet friction of my thrusts and Martie’s soft cries hardened me even more and stoked my pace. I held myself above her stiff-armed, my eyes closed.
I opened them at the slurping sound. Stasha had laid his cock along Martie’s lips. She lolled it with her tongue. It was too much for me and I launched my fluids inside her.
I don’t know how many times we fucked Martie that night. At one point she had us stand and masturbate as she held us tightly. Each of us tried not to come first. No matter, our sticky jism ended up coating Martie’s thighs. She said the next time she wanted us to stroke each other, and smiled wickedly.
By Sunday night I had thoroughly transcended whatever notions I had of what was right and normal.
* * * * *
Back at school Monday, trapped in banal reality, I felt seriously depressed. Taking lunch in the cafeteria, I scanned the other tables. Girls sat in their own isolation, reserved, restrained, avoiding eye contact. Others just gabbed in noisy gaggles while the guys talked too loud to be heard over each other. The usual topics: sports, professors, getting laid. I felt like I had been expelled from Eden.
About mid-week I got a call from Stasha. “Hey, you want to go to Canada?”
“Huh? Canada?”
“Yeah, Quebec, this weekend, with me and Martie.”
“Yeah! Canada?”
“Martie loves Quebec City, and the Frontenac. We’re taking her car. It’s all set up. We’ll pick you up.”
“At home?”
“That’s where you still live, don’t you?”
“Yeah, okay. But, I’m kinda broke this week.”
“Martie’s picking up the tab. I told you she’s rich, didn’t I? Anyway, it’ll be early, before dawn.”
“Sure, fine.”
It just struck me as odd. That Martie would come to my neighborhood to get me. She seemed so far removed from where I grew up. I wondered if she had ever seen a place as gray and colorless.
Other than that, I couldn’t wait to see Martie again, which by that time meant I was looking forward to screwing her. For the rest of the week I must have sported a permanent hard-on thinking of Stasha and me ravishing her from one end to the other. The thought of all three of us together in one bed is what really put the steel in my cock, plus the knowledge that Martie liked it that way.
I sat on the front steps of my triple-decker in the pre-dawn gloom and thought how indistinguishable each house was from another, lined up like dominoes along my narrow street, and the whole repeated a block away, and another block away from that. The headlights appeared at the end of my street and without any hesitation continued to my steps. It was a red Mercedes with a ragtop. For a brief moment I thought of Cinderella’s coach.
Martie was driving. She waved her hand to me to get in. The three of us headed up the coast. Dawn didn’t begin breaking until we were well into Maine, where we took a sudden left and began to traverse the state along the banks of the Kennebec. We stopped for breakfast at a diner in a small town, and then continued as the highway became a logging road with huge vehicles hauling the carcasses of trees. When the sun grew strong Martie lowered the top. But after a few miles she pronounced the weather conditions “muggy.”
She pulled her t-shirt over her head and stretched her arms while steering with her knees.
“Whoo, that’s better!” she pronounced as the wind caressed her breasts.
The next log-hauler that came by yanked his air horn, and likely something else, as we passed each other. Martie waved.
“These guys all have CB radios in their trucks,” Stasha pointed out.
Sure enough, all the trucks coming from the opposite direction flashed their lights and sounded their horns long before we passed, and each trucker leaned out his cab window for a better view of Martie.
As we approached the border she stopped and turned over the driving to Stasha. She put her top back on as we approached the customs shack. There was one lonely Canadian customs agent manning the booth. He looked happy for the company. Beyond us Quebec lay nearly treeless, dotted by villages with high-spired churches, pointing to heaven like silver hypodermic needles.
Martie moved into the backseat with me and leaned her head against my shoulder. In a moment she had dozed off.
I nudged her awake as we pulled up in front of The Frontenac.
She bounced out of the car and jogged into the lobby as we stretched and tottered after her. It was almost four in the afternoon. When we got inside she was already flashing that gorgeous smile at the desk clerk.
“Oui, Mademoiselle Carrier, your suite has been prepared as you requested. And, these gentlemen?” he said gesturing to us. He said “gentlemen” with a definite tone of dubiousness.
“They’re my valet and masseur, Jean.” She leaned over the desk. I could imagine her winking. “You know, what they used to call … slaves.”
The deskman regarded us with an instant of amazement, but then his features softened into a smile. “Of course, Mademoiselle, if you could have them sign the register just the same.”
“Of course,” she grinned. “Stanley, Daniel, sign the register for Mistress Martha … That’s my good boys.”
As I signed my name I held the deskman’s gaze, which seemed to morph from condescension to something like envy. I smirked back.
Later, in the elevator, I said, “Mistress Martha?” Stasha and Martie cracked up as the bellhop stood stiff and bemused.
The suite was all dark wood with a huge window that looked out over the lower town. I was drinking in the view when I heard Martie say, “Danny, you’ve got a whole room to yourself.”
“Huh? To myself?”
“Sure, that’s why I got a suite.”
“Myself?” I mumbled.
She took Stasha by the hand. “Let’s take a shower.”
She led him to their room and Stash closed the door behind them. I stood for a moment looking at the closed door like a forlorn puppy waiting for them to open it and call me in.
“You’re kidding,” I said. I mentally kicked myself. What did I expect? The weekend at Dover was one of those serendipitous glories in time that happen once or twice in a lifetime. Stasha might think Martie wasn’t his girlfriend, but she was more of his girlfriend than she was mine. Just because we had sex didn’t mean … what?
My room was huge. I could have thrown a hell of a party in that one room. I showered by myself, and was feeling just a bit lonely. I dressed and went back into the sitting room, plopped myself on the couch and looked out over the lower town as twilight set in. A half hour later, Martie and Stasha emerged. I wondered if they had had sex.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re going out. I know some great places nearby, restaurants, music clubs.”
We let her be our guide. We dined at a lovely little restaurant where Martie ordered for us in French. Later the waitress and others began to chat with us in English.
“All of a sudden we’re bilingual?” I asked.
“I told them we’re American. Before they thought we were from Ontario. They can be miserable to other Canadians.”
“Hmm.”
We visited two clubs and I was starting to cave in. A eurotrash group was playing. Martie smiled at the lead singer, whose gaze never left her throughout the rest of the set. I glanced at Stasha, who had noticed the exchange. His face was not so much of a frown as a mask of resignation. After the song, Martie stood up and walked up to the stage. She and the singer exchanged some words. When she returned to our table she leaned in to Stasha and whispered in his ear. The band left the stage through a door guarded by a big, beefy security guy; Martie was shown through the door after them.
“Come on, let’s go,” Stasha said, and stood.
“Where?”
“The hotel. I’m beat.”
“But … what about Martie?”
He didn’t look at me. “She’ll be along.”
“Shouldn’t we wait …?”
“She knows her way around. C’mon.”
We didn’t say much on the way back to the Frontenac. When we got to the suite Stasha barely said “g’night” and headed straight for his room and closed the door.
I wondered if I should return to the club to make sure Martie was all right. All sorts of rescue fantasies played out in my head. That singer had the kind of face that made you want to slap the shit out of it. He’d last about half a minute in my neighborhood. What did Martie see in him? Did she want to screw him? Was she screwing him? Was it any of my business?
I decided that Martie knew what she was doing; and she was paying for this little sojourn. But I had begun to wonder why I was there.
I stripped and slipped into bed, puffed up my pillows and looked out my window at a rising moon.
* * * * *
“Danny?”
I awoke in a moonlit room with Martie snuggled beside me. She was wearing a long t-shirt that had ridden up above her ass. Her hair sprayed across my chest.
“Martie …?” I tried to shake the wool out of my head.
“You asleep?”
“Not anymore.”
“Sorry. Stasha’s snoring.”
“Oh. Well, I probably snore too.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Never had anyone sleep with me all night.”
“Hmm. I’ll let you know.”
“When did you get in?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stay long. Aldo turned out to be a bit of a bore.”
“Oh, so you didn’t … um …”
“Screw him?”
“None of my business, Martie.”
“Would you be mad at me if I did?”
“Martie, I have no right …”
“Would it bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because … it just would. That guy looked like an asshole.”
She laughed. “It’s okay if I screw a guy as long as he’s not an asshole?”
“Martie, I haven’t even known you that long, so …”
“But you love me.”
“What?”
“You love me, don’t you, Danny?”
“I … Martie … you know, Stasha …”
“He loves me. I know that. Do you?”
“I …”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, okay. I do.”
“I can love you and Stasha, Danny.”
“I … Don’t know … what to make of this.”
“This what, Danny?”
“You and Stasha … me.”
“My dad died a couple of years ago,” she said.
“Oh? Sorry.”
“When he married my mom she was a lot younger than he. They had me when my dad was in his late fifties. I have half-siblings who are a whole generation older than me. I guess they weren’t very happy to see me come along, but that’s another story.”
“Hmm, I’d like to hear about it.”
“Another time,” she said, as she slid her fist up my cock. “But for now, I want to tell you about my mom. She’s beautiful; she was always beautiful. I love her very much. My dad loved her very much. So, one day – I was about ten – I saw my mom in a car kissing another man. I could feel my heart break and I wouldn’t speak to her. My Dad figured out what was wrong and told me it was okay with him. See, he couldn’t make love to my mom anymore. It was his age. But he said he loved her so much that he told her to take a lover. He said he pleaded with her to take a lover because he couldn’t stand the thought of her being forced into some cruel celibacy just because the world said it should be so. He told me no one should be forced to deny their senses, their sensuality, and that all those moral laws and religions were a bunch of ‘bunk.’ That’s what he used to say all the time, ‘bunk.'”
“That’s quite a bit to put on a ten-year-old girl.”
“I was pretty mature for my age.”
“I’ll bet. So, what now, you’re going to screw as many guys as you can before you die?”
“I don’t want to pass up an experience for any reason other than my own decision to take a pass. I might want to have sex with someone … anyone … and I shouldn’t have to submit my desires for review by anyone or anything. No one should be able to tell anyone who to love, or who to fuck – it’s two different things anyway, you know.”
By then she had stroked my cock to steely rigidity.
“Fuck me, Danny. Right now.”
“Fuck you, or love you?”
“I already know you love me.”
I lifted her oversized tee above her head and snared her arms in it, holding her helpless as I plunged my cock into her, swiveling my hips, driving myself as deep under her belly as I could. And all the while she mewed and cried and closed her legs around my back.
And in that moment she was all mine; never mind that Stasha was snoring in the next room, or that she had declared her independence from any man as well as her intention to fuck anyone at anytime without hesitation much less consultation. For that moment and through the night as I used her roughly she was mine alone. And I did love her.
* * * * *
I hovered between slumber and wakefulness, and even through my closed eyelids I could tell the room was illuminated by bright sunshine. I sensed the weight of Martie’s body slipping away from my left side. Then a shadow banished the light from the opaque curtains of my eyelids.
Stasha stood over us. Martie slid her legs over the edge of the bed, stood and embraced him. He continued to look down at me even as I scanned Martie’s nakedness. A tacky trail of dry semen was reflected along her thigh.
“Missed you,” she whispered into his ear. “You were so sound asleep, snoring. I moved in with Danny.”
“Uh-huh. I guess he didn’t keep you awake … snoring.”
She took his hand and tugged him toward the door, a big careless grin on her face. “Take a shower with me.”
It seemed I had not been invited to join them. I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. As I emerged from the shower I thought I heard Martie cry out. Later when they emerged from their room I observed Martie moving stiffly; she even winced once or twice. They announced we were checking out. As I followed I noticed Martie reach behind her tentatively. A slight stain of wetness marked her tan shorts right on the seam between her ass cheeks.
On the ride back to the States she frequently fidgeted in her seat. No one said much on the way home. Somewhere along the ridge of the Green Mountains she declared she was too tired to go on. We stopped at a nondescript motel. The manager asked if we wanted two rooms.
“Just one,” Martie said. The manager eyed her up and down, then scanned Stasha and me, one brow raised, but he said nothing. We all signed the register.
There was a ramshackle diner next to the motel; we decided to grab a bite there.
The silence continued during the meal. Stasha stared at the table as if it held some cosmic secret he needed to unravel. Martie asked our waitress to point the way to the ladies room. I watched her walk away from the table, tugging the seam of her shorts.
When she was out of earshot Stasha said, “Jesus, Dan, I did something really stupid.”
“Huh?”
“With Martie … actually to Martie.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I made her … that is, I fucked her in the ass.”
At the time I was astonished. It would never have occurred to me to fuck anyone in the ass. Then, anal sex was something gay guys resorted to because they had no choice. In the ass? Wasn’t that kind of unsanitary?
“What? What the hell would you do that for?”
“I just wanted to see what it was like … no, that’s not it. I was mad; I wanted to … aw, shit, I don’t know. Get back at her, I guess.”
“Get back at her for what?”
“For going off with that fucking cocksucker, that fucking band twerp.”
“But …”
“And then finding her with you …”
“Wait a minute. You said it was okay; you said you had no right to expect Martie …”
“I know what I told you. Danny, I still don’t care if she screws you. Hell, if she has to screw someone, I’d rather it be my best friend than some fucking creep. What I was mad about was … that she went to you instead of me.”
“You were snoring.”
“Danny … I think I hurt her. I know I hurt her; I mean really hurt her. She’s been bleeding … a little bit.”
“Aw, for crissakes.”
“I don’t know what to do, Dan. I feel like a shit.”
“Maybe you should start by telling her you’re sorry. Jesus, what the hell did you expect?”
Martie returned to the table. We paid the check and strolled back to the motel.
Martie went into the bathroom by herself. A moment later we heard the shower. I kept thinking how Stasha had fucked up a good thing for both of us.
There were two full-sized beds in the room. When Martie emerged from the shower wrapped in a towel she announced she was exhausted.
“I just want to go to sleep,” she said. But she didn’t move toward either bed.
“I’ll sleep here,” the penitent Stasha said. “By myself.”
“No,” Martie said, and dropped her towel. “I want you and Danny to sleep with me. I want you to be nice to me … okay?”
She slid under the covers of one bed. Stasha stood to one side. I thought the guy was going to cry.
I undressed and slid beside Martie. I nodded to Stasha to join us.
He sat on the side of the bed, his head hanging to his knees.
“Tell Martie you’re sorry, Stash,” I said.
“I am. I’m so sorry, Martie; I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“Shhh, then show me.”
Stasha turned away the covers, exposing Martie’s thighs. He pressed butterfly kisses to her knees and legs. Martie parted her thighs and he pressed his face to her sex. I heard his unhurried, wet attentions to her pussy as Martie exhaled a sigh. I caressed her around her shoulders, kissed her face.
“Forgive me?” I said. The words just came out.
I watched her reach down and rake her fingers through Stasha’s dark blonde curls, and somehow the notion that it was me licking Martie’s clit, making her hips rise off the bed and fall back as she moaned and sighed took over my mind. “Forgive me?” I said again.
“Yesss,” she keened as her ass came off the bed and her eyes rolled back. As her orgasm drained away she gently pushed Stasha away from her pussy and raised herself onto her knees. She straddled me and took hold of my cock. I was rigid to the point of aching in her hands when she slid onto me. Stasha knelt behind her and closed her arms around her chest. She began to piston along my length, and Stasha matched her posts as she rode me. Their combined weight, the clenching of her cunt muscles, gave me a delicious sensation of being pinned, helpless while my fluids were being pumped, milked out of me.
When I released, my cum rocketed into her womb, spasm after spasm until I nearly cried out enough.
Stasha groaned as I did. Then I felt the dribble of his cum on my thighs as he must have spent himself over Martie’s ass.
We collapsed together and until we succumbed to slumber Stasha and I caressed, kissed and worshipped Martie’s body. Still, I didn’t sleep peacefully. My mind was in turmoil. I had spoken for Stasha. And when we fucked Martie, there was the disorienting sensation that I had lost my sense of myself, that I couldn’t tell where I ended and Stasha began. Did I devour her pussy? Who fucked whom? It was all muddled, all wonderful, but also, a little frightening.
* * * * *
Our ménage continued through school. Although mostly I saw Martie and Stasha on weekends, occasionally she would make forays by herself into the city and I would meet her for lunch or dinner, and just as likely a casual fuck. When I made myself think about it, it all seemed pretty weird, but mostly the weirdness sprang from the fact that it otherwise seemed so normal for me.
A couple of months before graduation I took Martie to a concert. Stasha was in Alabama interviewing for a job with NASA. He figured he had all the numbers he needed to get to the stars.
After the show we took a walk along the river. We stopped to sit on a bench where the light of a big nearly full moon reflected across the water.
“That’s where Stash wants to go,” I said. “Well, that’s the first stop anyway. Says, get the math right and you can go anywhere in the universe.”
“You think he’s going to get the job?” Martie asked, nuzzling her head against my shoulder.
“Don’t see why not. The guy’s a human computer.”
“What about you?”
“Huh?”
“What are you doing after school?”
I sighed. “Hell, I haven’t figured out what I want to do when I grow up yet … and here I am. That’s why I majored in English; means I’m just as qualified or unqualified for any job you can think of. Maybe I’ll end up driving a truck … hell, I don’t know.”
“Wanna work for me?”
“What?”
“As soon as I graduate I take over my dad’s foundation. You could work for me. The money’s good, and the benefits … like you’ll never get anywhere else.”
“Foundation? What the heck would I do?”
“I don’t know. It kinda runs itself, and I get to decide who to give my dad’s money away to. It’s in his will; my brothers and sister can’t do a thing about it.”
“Give money away?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, there’s plenty. I couldn’t spend it all in a lifetime.”
“Jesus, Martie … I’ve never asked, but now I’m just crazy curious … how much money do you have?”
She shrugged again. “I’ve never thought about it. I suppose I could find a figure, but it’d be meaningless to me. I just have never thought about it.”
“Yeah, well people who don’t have money think about it all the time.”
She shrugged again. “I … well … I never had to.”
“Hmm. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you will. I’m going to ask Stash too.”
“But, he wants to build spaceships.”
“I don’t want to lose you two. I won’t have us go separate ways.”
“It’s not the same as losing us. Martie, we’ll still be friends.”
“Not like this; I know it. If we break up and distances come between us, everything will change.”
We walked to the Ritz Carlton, where Martie had booked a suite for the weekend. It could easily have accommodated two families in my neighborhood.
She ordered room service and a pitcher of Manhattans. It didn’t take long for us to get silly.
Somewhere at sometime she undressed me and herself. Topless, she kept on a pair of leather bikinis.
“Whacha think?” she asked.
“They comfortable?”
“I’m wearing them for effect.”
“Oh … what effect?”
“Danny, please come to work for me.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll be your boss.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’ll be able to order you around and, you know, be mean and abusive.”
“You’re really making the job sound inviting.”
“I am, aren’t I?”
“I think you’re a little tanked … if not crazy.”
She pushed me back on a plush sofa that could have accommodated a platoon and straddled me.
“Work for me, Danny. Say you will.”
“I … um …”
“Don’t disappoint me. Do you want me to slap you?”
“What?”
She bent down and her teeth grazed my shoulder.
“Danny … please?”
“Martie … oh … ouch!”
“Sorry.”
“You’re goofy.”
“Forget it; I don’t want to hire you after all. Instead I’m going to keep you in a special place. You’ll be my captive, and I’ll come by every so often and do nasty sex stuff to you.”
My cock sprang up and tapped her leather-clad behind.
“Ahh, so you like that idea.”
“Martie … you don’t have to keep me anywhere.”
“But … you like the idea, don’t you? Being kept.”
“Jesus, Martie.”
She brushed my lips with hers, then peppered my face with kisses. She caught her breath and said, “I’m going to keep you, Danny.”
She tugged at a tie at her hip and the bikini fell away. In a second she was bouncing on my cock. And I could only look up to see her breasts fall and rebound with each piston stroke. I didn’t last long and launched my fluids into her.
We fucked until the sky turned pink with nascent dawn; we fucked ourselves into exhaustion. As morning broke, we lay tangled in sheets.
And before she gave in to fatigue, Martie sighed, “Danny … please?”
“Okay, Martie, okay.”
* * * * *
The Howard T. Carrier Foundation was headquartered in Martie’s childhood home in the Western Suburbs. One really couldn’t call it a house, or even a mansion. It looked more like a fort, or a castle without the towers, surrounded by breathtakingly colorful gardens. Entering it was like walking into a museum. It was settled among oaks and maples almost a mile off the road.
“Reminds me of a Shirley Jackson setting,” I said, as Stash surveyed the art that hung in a grand room at the entrance.
“Shirley who?”
“Never mind.”
We were shown to our own rooms. I wished I had taken along a ball of twine I could unravel because I didn’t think I’d be able to find my way back.
Stash and I were assigned separate rooms on the same floor as Martie’s.
“I didn’t think we were going to live here too,” Stasha said.
“Having second thoughts … you know, about working for Martie?”
“The people at NASA said if I change my mind to ring them up. Anyway, we’re not really working for Martie. She’s just keeping us close … keeping us … period.”
“Yeah, well it beats hitting the bricks for a job, for me anyway. I think I could put up with it for a while.”
Stasha gave me a sidelong glance. I thought he was going to shake his head, but he just walked ahead to check out his room.
It was late afternoon when we met Oscar Kindermann. I figured this guy was the real brains behind the organization.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “There are some matters we need to discuss before you assume your positions with the Carrier Foundation.”
Stasha and I gave each other the same look: Assume your positions?
“I will be advising and guiding Martha as she takes the helm of the foundation. I worked with her father many years, and I’m proud to say he and I were dear friends. I’ve known Martha since she was born. She is a very intelligent and capable young woman.”
We nodded.
“This foundation is small; one could even say ‘obscure.’ For the moment it is not on anyone’s radar, much less the media’s. However, since Martha is an attractive young woman now placed in control of vast wealth, I expect notice will be taken eventually; that can’t be helped. The question then becomes, what sort of notice will be taken of Martha and the foundation? I am, of course, aware of your … special relationship with Martha. In and of itself, this is no concern of mine, nor should it – in a perfect world – be of any concern to anyone. But, we live in the world we live in. I would ask you now, please be discreet. Do not call attention to yourself, nor especially your relationship with Martha.”
Stasha began, “We haven’t exactly advertized that we all …”
“Yes, I know,” Kindermann cut him short. “Martha, however, is very independent, what used to be called, ‘a free spirit.’ I am, therefore, relying on you both to exert your influence whenever she is of a mind to … well …”
I nodded. “I understand … but …”
“Yes,” Kindermann said. “I understand too.”
He smiled then. It was a wry half-grin.
“Now, as to your posts with the foundation, you, sir,” he said, nodding toward me, “are our director of communications.”
“PR,” I said, and stifled a sigh.
He turned to Stasha. “And you are director of accounting and audit. It was supposed it would suit you as I’m told you have a head for numbers.”
“Jesus Christ,” Stasha said, shaking his head. “They’ve turned me into an accountant.”
“Let me assure you, sir,” Kindermann said, “the real accountants will be doing all the calculating. Gentlemen, let’s be frank, neither of your jobs requires … how does the expression go? Ah, yes, ‘no heavy lifting.’ And you are each being generously compensated. That’s Martha’s wish; in all matters she has absolute say.”
“With your guidance, of course,” I said.
“Sir, Martha’s father left her half his fortune, and designated her as sole director of his foundation. Her half-siblings were required to split the other half three ways, less a generous allowance for her mother. He also bequeathed her an extremely competent and combative legal team. Mr. Carrier’s will is ironclad, but these gentlemen are already seven moves ahead of any lawyer her siblings may hire to challenge it. They are, gentlemen, junk yard dogs. The best her estranged siblings can hope for is to embarrass and harass her. And that is my only concern.”
“I don’t think you can embarrass Martie,” I said.
“You’re probably right. But, perhaps the same cannot be said of you two gentlemen.”
I noticed Stasha’s face darken. He’d taken Kindermann’s point to heart.
* * * * *
No heavy lifting. That’s how Kindermann described our so-called jobs. Mine consisted of mailing or faxing a simple press release every time Martie decided to give away a million or so dollars to some obscure cause.
Stasha just signed his name to documents already approved by CPAs and lawyers. He didn’t know what the hell they meant. The longer we stayed there pulling down two excellent but undeserved salaries the more depressed Stasha became. He didn’t smile or joke, and he drank a lot.
I pointed it out to Martie when I had a moment alone with her.
“I know,” she said. “He thinks about the NASA job he turned down. It’s bothering him more than I thought it would. But, I think it’ll be all right.”
“What if he wants to go?”
“I … well, of course, whatever he wants, if it makes him happy. But he won’t.”
“How can you be sure, Martie?”
“Danny … he didn’t mean it the way he said it, I know he didn’t … couldn’t.”
“The way he said what?”
“He said … he said he wouldn’t leave if you were still here.”
“Huh?”
“I … shhh … It’s okay. I’m sure he didn’t mean … well …”
“What he said?”
She shrugged.
“Listen, Danny … you know, you’re free to do anything you want.”
“Huh?”
“I mean … I wouldn’t want you to think that you couldn’t … that is, if you wanted to, with another girl … uh … you know.”
“Fuck?”
“Well … yeah. That’s always been understood about us … and Stasha, right?”
“Um … yeah, I guess so.”
“Last week when I flew down to New York … I met … well, a guy who has done a lot of great things for …”
“Sleep with him?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “So. You’ve done that before. Why do you feel the need to talk about it now?”
“I just … I think it bothered Stasha.”
“Oh, so you told him. Why?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Yeah … I guess.”
“Danny, I hired someone to help you.”
“Help me do what? I don’t actually do anything now.”
“Yes you do. I just thought you needed a staff, so I hired someone. She …”
“She?”
“Her name’s Erin, and she’s very smart.”
“Shouldn’t I be hiring my own staff, that is, if I ever get the notion that I need one?”
Martie shrugged. “Sorry … yeah, I guess. You can let her go, if you want.”
“I’m not going to let anyone go who just got a job. I guess I’ll find something for her to do. What’s her name again?”
“Erin.”
“Fine.”
* * * * *
Erin had lost her job as an editorial assistant at a newspaper. She had a journalism degree and wanted to be the one to break the next Watergate. Attractive, with dark hair cut at the shoulder, kind of skinny. She’d be pretty if her face didn’t show all those hard ambition lines.
“So, you’re giving public relations a try?” I asked her during our first interview.
“Might as well. The papers I worked for were all printing free PR for somebody, political parties, special interests, pet causes of the publisher. I figured, hell, if I’m going to shill, I might as well get paid for it.”
“Cynical,” I said. “I suppose that serves you well.”
“It’s the way the world works. I could have gotten a regular reporter’s job at the last rag I worked for instead of getting laid off. All I had to do was sleep with the managing editor, or the publisher’s wife.”
“But you have principles?”
“More like taste.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, I know about you and the threesome you share with your friend and Martha Carrier. Some of the tabs have already picked up the scent. She’s paying you to sleep with her, so don’t go looking down your nose at me.”
“I’m not looking down my nose at anyone, Miss Perry …”
“Erin.”
“Okay, Erin. My personal life is none of your business.”
“I know that; I’m just warning you, personal or not. She’s a pretty, young woman … hell, she’s sexy in that wholesome blonde sort of way, and she’s sitting on a gazillion dollars. That in itself is going to attract flies. But the chance to break the news that she’s in a ménage … no one, not the tabs anyway, is going to be able to resist. I’ve been on the other end; I can help.”
“Okay … maybe.”
“You do fuck her, right?”
“I said …”
“You’ll be asked, you know. Do anything kinky? How’d it all start? Do you want to sleep with me?”
“Huh?”
“Just thought I’d toss it out there. You’re not really the type I would think would be involved in a ménage with a beautiful heiress … but, there must be something you have going. Two guys from out of nowhere, sharing a rich blonde lady?”
“Out of nowhere … yeah, that’s for sure.”
* * * * *
Our real job, I thought, was keeping Martie company; but, it wasn’t like the old days. When we were in school it was free and crazy and spur-of-the-moment. Living in the fortress was like – as Stasha put it – living like a pair of birds in a cage.
But it was a pretty comfortable cage, and almost every night I got to play with Martie. Her bed was big enough to land planes on, not king size, but kingdom size. I could sleep at one end and Stash and Martie could sleep at the other and our feet would never touch. Hell, we’d need a phone just to talk to each other. Of course, we were rarely separated by any distance.
Martie was celebrating awarding grants to a battery of AIDS organizations. The disease was just beginning to appear in the general population, but it was still considered a “gay disease.” Other benefactors donated money to research, but they played it safe and avoided giving to groups that explicitly identified themselves as gay or lesbian.
Martie insisted it was important the foundation give money to such groups. It was the sort of decision that was noticed, and once the foundation was noticed, Martie was noticed. It was the domino effect Kindermann had warned us was inevitable.
But this particular night we weren’t worried about that. We were frolicking in Martie’s vast bed.
“Danny,” she said with a coy, over-the-shoulder glance, “nibble my ass while I give Stash a mind-bending blowjob.”
And so we created a tandem: I between Martie’s thighs, blissfully nibbling and kissing her asscheeks, watching the back of her head bob on Stasha’s cock. It didn’t take long for my dick to fortify itself with steel. I wanted to doggie-fuck Martie as she finished off Stasha.
I had begun to raise myself on one knee in preparation for pouncing on her, but then she coughed, and made a wet, gargling sound. Stasha had pulled himself out of her mouth and sat up, bracing his hands under her arms. He yanked her away from me and flipped her over onto her back. In a moment he was on her, thrusting his cock into her pussy as she whimpered.
“No … no-no, Stasha. God … oh God … fuck me like that … yes … harder.”
All at once I was a third wheel, utterly ignored, or worse, forgotten.
I slid off the bed and left the room. Striding down the dimly lit hall I realized I was feeling sorry for myself. More disquieting, I realized I was angry at Stasha for yanking Martie away from me and keeping her for himself.
I hadn’t even begun to sort it all out in my head when Erin turned a corner and stood stock still.
It took a moment for me to realize she was standing ten feet in front of me.
“Jesus Christ! What the fuck? Erin?”
She started to laugh. “Coming from a meeting with the boss?”
Then I remembered I was naked. Worse, I realized I had a rampant boner and it was pointed right at Erin. I made a half-hearted pass at my cock in a lame bid to cover myself with my hand. That made her laugh even louder.
“What the fuck are you doing here? It’s almost three in the morning.”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I came into work.”
“At three in the fucking morning?”
“There’s nothing keeping me at home. I get restless.”
“Then why aren’t you in the office?”
“I was looking for a kitchen, or someplace I could make coffee,” she replied, then pointed to a door. “Is that the room you were headed for? Is that yours?”
I started to take a step toward it, but she hurried over to the door and went through it. I ran in after her.
“What the hell do you think …?”
She wheeled and pointed at my cock. “You’re not going to let that go to waste, are you?”
“Erin … get out of here.”
“What’s the matter?” She started to undress herself.
“I’m not …”
“Don’t tell me you’re not in the mood … I can see that’s a lie. C’mon, or are you spoiled for rich pussy?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“What are you going to do? Hit me?”
“Cut the …”
“Hit me … go ahead.”
“Fuck off.”
“Slap me.”
“Are you shitfaced too?”
“Slap me … c’mon … Don’t you want to?”
“No.”
“What, are you a pussy? Afraid of a girl?”
“You’re fucking soft as shit.”
“Asshole! Hit me … Jesus, hit me!”
And all of a sudden I’m standing outside myself, and I’m curious as hell. What if I do hit her?
It wasn’t a proper slap. My fingers barely tapped her cheek.
Her eyes widened. “Yeah … you prick. Big man … do it again, dare you!”
I slapped her face with my left hand, a good, firm, get-your-attention slap that snapped her head to one side. A voice shouted down a tunnel at me: What the fuck are you doing?
She stood, her fingers tentatively touching the place where I had hit her.
“Bastard,” she whimpered. “Fucking prick. Do anything to me … God, please, do anything to me.”
The sounds of fabric tearing and buttons ricocheting off the walls, and her grunts and groans reverberated through the room. I’d ripped her clothes into rags. Her thigh-high stockings sagged or otherwise spread over her legs like a ragged spider-web after I’d mauled them.
I pushed her back onto the bed and she instantly separated her knees.
“No kisses, no licking, no being nice,” she cried. “Just fuck me. Do it now.”
I forced my cock past her glazed pussy gate and pumped her so hard I lifted her off the bed as she bit back screams. She was a bitch after all; that’s what I told myself. But the truth was I was taking it out on her … doing her as compensation for having been banished from Martie’s room.
The woman growled like a pent-up cat as I ground my pelvis against hers. Then I withdrew myself without warning.
“No!” she cried.
I flipped her over and gave her a hard crack on her right ass cheek. That made her sob. Then I fucked her from behind.
“Anything … anything … do anything,” she half cried, half moaned.
I grabbed a handful of her hair and accelerated my thrusts as she cried all the louder. When she came I feared someone would come crashing into the room to see whom I was murdering. And even as her orgasm subsided she continued to twitch on the bed. My cock slid out of her and bobbed up just as I launched my cum. It hit her asscheeks and thighs with a loud splat.
She quieted a moment, then she continued to sob. I covered her in bedclothes.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded.
“I think I just raped you,” I said.
“Yeah … you did. I’d have scratched your eyes out if you hadn’t.”
“You’re so fucking nuts, lady.”
“Crazy like a fox. Get in bed with me; cradle me in your arms; tell me it’s going to be okay … all that good stuff.”
I didn’t move.
“Please,” she said.
She curled right into my embrace. Like a baby rattlesnake, I thought.
She dozed a while, but then as I began to nod off, she said, “You think I’m kinky?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re thinking I like to be hit; that’s sick.”
“Well, I did the hitting.”
“You liked it?”
“No … not exactly.”
“It made you crazy?”
“I … let’s not talk about it.”
“Jesus, your cock was so fucking hard.”
“Shut up … go to sleep.”
“I love it when you tell me to shut up.”
“Christ,” I sighed.
She stirred as the sky lightened. Then she sat up.
“You’re getting up?” I said.
“Can’t sleep. Have to do something.”
“You have no clothes. None you can wear anyway. I’ll send for some, but it’s too early now.”
“Then tell me a story, or something.”
“What?”
“Yeah, please. Tell me how you and Martha and your friend came together. I’ll be honest; it sounds wonderful. C’mon, tell me.”
“Aw, for crissakes. Okay.”
And I told her everything, starting from that very first day on the campus of Dover.
Erin didn’t make a sound the whole time, but she didn’t fall back to sleep either.
* * * * *
Later I awoke to the sound of water running in the shower and a soft knocking at my door. I slid out of bed and haphazardly enclosed myself in a robe.
Martie stood at the door as I opened it. She tried to step in but I blocked her.
“Danny? I wanted to see if you were all right.”
“I’m fine. I just got up; I stink. Give me a minute.”
Just then the water stopped running. Martie stepped past me just as Erin came out of the bathroom wrapping a towel around her hair. She wore nothing else.
“Oh,” Martie said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had … company.”
Erin looked up and hurriedly tried to cover herself. “Miss Carrier … I … um, excuse me.”
“I’m the one who is intruding, Erin.”
Martie turned to me. “We can talk later.”
She made a graceful, unhurried exit.
“Well,” Erin said. “Have I gotten you into trouble? I’m surprised she didn’t fire me on the spot.”
“You don’t understand anything.”
“Only what you told me last night. You don’t think she’s bothered that we spent the night together? I could read it on her face. She might say everything’s cool and open with you and whosis, but catching me coming out of the shower bare-assed has put a big bug up her ass.”
I got dressed as Erin lay languidly with only the towel wrapped in a loose turban around her head.
“I’ll have some clothes sent to you.”
“Not hers, I hope. She’s a little chunky, isn’t she?”
“And you look like a good meal would knock you out. Stay here and wait for the clothes.”
“Where am I going to go naked? Then again, maybe that would be a new experience: Working in the nude.”
“Shut up.”
“Meanie.”
I found Martie in one of the gardens, her favorite.
“Sorry, about that,” I said.
She shrugged. “I told you; you’re free …”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“You hired that girl with the expectation I would fuck her, but when it happened you didn’t like it. You’re hurt; you’re jealous.”
“I am not.”
“Just like I was hurt when Stasha pulled you away from me and you practically begged him to fuck you senseless.”
She stood silent for a moment, delicately twirling a rose between her fingers.
“Ouch!” She let go of the bloom and considered the tiny bulb of blood that appeared on her finger. She put it in her mouth and sucked it.
“Thorn,” she said.
“Yeah … they will do that to you.”
“What’s happening, Danny?”
“I think we’re growing up, Martie. Things are going to have to be sorted out.”
“I want things to be the way they were.”
“No. It’ll never be that way again.”
“Stasha wants to leave; he wants to go work for NASA in goddamned Alabama and make rockets with a bunch of ex-Nazis for crissakes.”
“Dumb polog.”
Martie laughed until tears came; then she cried.
I held her in my arms. “This isn’t working out, Martie. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing; Stasha doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. We both want to be with you, but we can’t stand being here.”
“You’re not leaving too?”
I shrugged. “I have to figure things out.”
“Danny, please … Don’t go away. But, don’t be hurt if I ask you something.”
“Ask me what?”
“Would you mind if Stasha and I … were alone this week?”
“You mean you want to sleep with him, but not me.”
“I want to … like you said, sort things out.”
I wanted to rant and rave and scream back into her face. Couldn’t she see she’d just kicked me in the heart?
“Yeah, sure. Do what you have to do.”
* * * * *
It was a lonely week. Working around Erin made it lonelier. That woman knew how to needle you.
“What’s up? Have a falling out – was it on account of me? I hope so.”
“Give it a rest.”
“Give me a spanking.”
“No.”
“Let me give you a blow job then. I’ll work the rest of the day with your jizz-dribble on my dress.”
“Where the hell did you learn to talk like that?”
She shrugged. “Did you three ever do anything, you know, really kinky?”
“None of your business.”
“She ever make you and your friend … you know, like blow each other or something?”
I glared at her.
“Ooops, did I say something … inappropriate?”
“Shut the fuck up, Erin. Or do you want me to fire you?”
She pouted. “I’ll be good.”
For the rest of the week and through the weekend I only had fleeting meetings with Martie. I didn’t see Stasha at all, but I thought that was probably just as well. I was still pissed at him.
Monday Erin failed to show up and I was glad for the break. She was really getting on my nerves. By early evening I found out why she didn’t show.
Kindermann arrived and called me into the office he used on the rare occasions he visited the estate.
He sat with elbows on his desk and fingertips touching. A tabloid was strategically placed so I could read the page-one headlines as I came in.
NYMPHO HEIRESS GIVES BIG $$$ AWAY TO LOONIES
The subhead read: Keeps pervy studs for sex games in fortress
“I knew this was likely to happen,” Kindermann said, “but I had no idea how spectacularly.”
“Where the hell did they get this shit?”
“From your mouth, apparently.”
“Huh?”
The byline on the screed meant nothing to me, but as I began to read a glowing ember of rage burned in my mind.
“Erin,” I said.
“I take it you and she had quite a talk.”
“God, what a stupid asshole I am.”
Kindermann shrugged. “I’m going to hire some professionals to help us with damage control. Some grants are being returned already, charities that are sensitive about their image.”
“I need to talk to Martie.”
“She was to have spoken at the art museum this afternoon. They’re still happy to take her money, but they cancelled her appearance.”
“Damn.”
Later that evening I met with Martie and Stasha.
“Smooth fucking move, Danny,” Stasha scolded. “Did you spill everything while she was giving you a hand job, or something?”
“Stasha, stop it.” Martie said. Her eyes were red.
“Martie, I’m so sorry. What an idiot I am.”
“I brought her here; I hired her. Mr. Kindermann said it looks like they gave her a job at the newspaper and her own column.”
“A payoff. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing; she came here looking for dirt.”
“I don’t care,” Martie said. “I don’t care what people think of me. And if somebody wants to give back our money, there are plenty of other good organizations that will take it.”
“It isn’t just about you and the foundation, Martie,” Stasha said. “My name is in there too. My NASA job could be blown.”
“Sorry, Stash,” I offered.
“Little late for that, Danny.”
“I’ll make it right … somehow.”
“Fuck! Leave it alone! Kindermann’s bringing in experts.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
More stories broke in the rag and other tabs picked them up. Even the more respectable papers picked up the story in their gossip pages. A lot of it was pure bullshit to embellish what I’d told Erin. They made everything we had done seem dirty and depraved. An incident from school in which we skinny-dipped in a rural cow pond got turned into an instance of deliberate exhibitionism and implications that Martie had offered herself for sex by the side of the road to a bunch of young kids. The truth is a couple in their forties on bicycles came upon us and asked if they could jump in too. It was as innocent as could be.
Our experts tried to bend the story back but they were getting nowhere. Finally, they decided Martie should hold a press conference. They thought her girl-next-door image would play well to the respectable press anyway.
“Those fucks will tear her to pieces,” I told the guy leading the spin effort, Jack Mankee.
“We know what we’re doing; this isn’t amateur night.”
Fuck him. Expert or not, I knew it wasn’t going to work.
They scheduled the press conference for Wednesday evening, after the early newscasts.
Martie was nervous, just before she was to speak she got sick.
“Sick of her guilt,” I heard someone say. He sounded like a smarmy Brit. “Can’t keep her sins down.”
A smattering of laughter followed the remark.
“Who the hell is that?” I asked Mankee.
“You’re kidding. That’s Daltry; he’s the guy who broke the story.”
“Oh, yeah?” I walked past Mankee.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Too late, I was already at the podium adjusting the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry, but Miss Carrier will not be able to meet with you as planned. I hope I can answer whatever questions you have.”
A bunch of hands shot up and a few shouts. I deliberately called on a mousey little woman.
“Have substantial awards been returned to the foundation as a result of this scandal?” she asked.
“Scandal? What scandal? And yes, some money has been returned. I guess we’ll just have to give it away to someone else.”
The shouts became more persistent. I chose a guy who looked like Clark Kent.
“Have you been contacted by law enforcement or regulatory agencies concerned that there may be improprieties?”
“Sir, this is a private foundation. Miss Carrier, while relying on advice from advisors, has sole discretion as to whom the foundation benefits. We are not regulated like a public charity. We’re not the charity; we’re the philanthropist.”
“Enough of this rubbish.” It was Daltry. “Do you deny that you and Martha Carrier and this Stanley … um … however you pronounce his name … have carried on a sexual manage et trois and engaged in lewd and lascivious public behavior, and how do you justify such perverted carryings-on and whether a nymphomaniac barely out of her teens ought to be in charge of millions upon millions of dollars that she has blithely given away to – very frankly – groups of dubious reputation, such as organizations that actively promote homosexual lifestyles as well as other perversities. Well, do you deny that?”
“Mr. Daltry, let me be frank. My personal life, and my friends’ personal lives are none of your goddamned business.” A gasp went up from the corps of reporters.
I continued, “We make no secrets as to whom we give money to, and if you don’t like whom we give money to, that speaks more to your prejudices than any failing on our part or the organizations we donate to.”
Mankee took my arm and tried to ease me away from the podium. I turned and with a suppressed growl said, “Fuck off.”
“You think it’s proper for a girl who is barely legal to drink should have control of millions; her siblings are appalled.”
“Her father thought it was a good idea. It’s his money she’s giving away; it’s in his will, also a public record, Mr. Daltry, if you would get up off your ass and look it up like any good reporter.”
A smattering of laughter echoed through the room. Daltry’s ears glowed red.
“My information comes from an unimpeachable source …”
“Mr. Daltry, are you aware that your source likes to be slapped around before sex?”
The room erupted. Faces turned away from me. All of a sudden, people were interrogating Daltry.
“I … You’re making a pathetic attempt to shift this inquiry away from Miss Carrier and …”
“Your source? The one who has been recently employed under handsome terms by your newspaper … is that the source to whom you refer?”
“I … I don’t reveal my sources.”
“The source I know can’t reach orgasm unless she’s been brutalized a bit. I refuse to name names too, but I was just wondering, does a personal kink or two make her, or make anyone unreliable? What’s your kink, Mr. Daltry? Do you like to wear ladies’ underwear? Maybe like to watch your wife have sex with other men? I have no knowledge of any such proclivities, just being hypothetical … but do you think it would make you any less of a … journalist?”
He didn’t answer. He was besieged by his fellow truth-seekers. The press conference ended in pandemonium.
I stepped past Mankee. “I thought that went well,” I said.
The controversy soon faded. Daltry went on to other exposes.
Erin some weeks later was quietly let go from the newspaper.
She called me to apologize.
“You knew what you were doing,” I said.
“Yeah … I did. Now I’m fucked, and for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry too.”
“Can I help you out?”
“You’d do that?”
“Yeah … everyone ought to get a chance to redeem himself … or herself.”
“I’m broke, out of a job.”
“I can call in a favor or two. But, you’ll likely end up in East Bumfuck somewhere.”
“Yeah … fucking purgatory. But, I’d appreciate it.”
I wished her luck and made a few calls.
* * * * *
Stasha took the NASA job. No one there gave a shit about what went on at the Carrier Foundation. He even told Martie that the place was a veritable warren, with all sorts of wife-swapping and sexcapades the norm. They weren’t about to call our kettle black.
I planned to move on too, even though Kindermann, impressed at my newfound public relations skills, offered me more money.
One night Martie and I sat in her garden snuggling on a bench and counting stars.
“Stasha wants me to marry him and move to godforsaken Alabama,” she said.
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t want to lose you, Danny.”
“But?”
“But … I guess it’s time to grow up. He wants kids.”
“Uh-huh. So … You’re going to do it?”
“We set the date; it’s going to be in Florida. The hotels …”
“Hotels?”
“Yeah, one for me to stay and have the wedding, one for Stasha’s family and one for my guests.”
“Jesus.”
“You’ll be there too. Won’t you, Danny?”
“Of course.”
“Give me away?”
She had done it again, kicked me right in the heart.
“Martie … please don’t ask me that. I don’t think … I couldn’t.”
I kissed away her tears and was gone by the end of the week.
Before I left Stasha and I had a talk.
“I’m glad you’re moving out of there, Dan. I won’t lie.”
“Yeah, well thanks for that.”
“Make sure Martie has your current address.”
“Sure.”
“I’m asking my cousin, Zbigniew, to be my best man.”
“Oh? Jeeze, I hadn’t thought of Biggy in a long time. He’s a good guy. What’s he doing?”
“Finishing his residency at Mass. General. Gonna be a brain surgeon.”
“Jesus. Biggy a brain surgeon. Well … That’s great, Stash. Say hello to him for me.”
“Will do. Dan?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s … things are just different now. Martie and I want kids … you know.”
“I understand. I love you guys.”
“Yeah … thanks.”
* * * * *
I could have lived on the severance that I took away from the foundation – Martie’s gift for being a sport, I supposed – for at least five years, so I took my time trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I even got a gig as a long-distance trucker. That suited my mood; I spent a lot of time alone.
I received the wedding invitation in June while on the road. Come September I checked into a modest hotel in Clearwater rather than the luxury digs Martie had arranged. I called to let her know I was in the area. An hour later she was knocking at my door.
I took her to a small bar and grille and bought her lunch.
“What are you doing at the Economy Inn?” she asked.
“All I need is a clean bed. Nothing fancy.”
“You should have checked in at …”
“I’m fine where I am, Martie.”
“I’m sorry, Danny.”
“For what?”
“About the way things are turning out.”
“What do you mean? Don’t you want to marry Stash?”
“Yes … I do. He’s even convinced me I want to be a mom.”
“So … I don’t see a problem.”
“Danny … I feel terrible about how we treated you.”
“I have no idea …”
“Stop it. You’re being treated like … like you’re just any other guest. Danny, you should be giving me away.”
“I told you I couldn’t do that. Who’s doing the honors, by the way?”
“My mom’s fiancé.”
“Oh, well, that’s nice of him.”
She nodded. “He’s a nice guy.”
She touched my hand. “Stasha’s cousin … He’s a nice guy too, but he shouldn’t …”
“Shhh … It’s Stash’s call. We don’t owe each other anything.”
“You’ve been friends since you were kids.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“I think about us, Danny, the way it used to be. It felt so right, you on one side of me, and Stasha on the other. It felt right being made love to by each of you at once. Jesus, Danny, I’ll never feel so safe and loved again.”
“Of course you will.”
“Take me to your room.”
“Uh, no, Martie. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Please, Danny.”
“You’re getting married tomorrow.”
“I love you, Danny.”
“Aw, Jesus, don’t say that, Martie.”
“I love you, Danny.”
Sometimes you can’t help it; you hurt yourself.
I led her by the hand to my cheap economy room. The a/c was cranked up full blast, and when I undressed her goose pimples erupted over her breasts and belly.
I didn’t bother to turn down the bedclothes, we just fell into a clutch on the bed and I kissed her from her chin to her toes and back. I spent long languid moments devouring her pussy, making her squirm and squeal, and when I fucked her … I made it last as long as I could.
Finally she shuddered and we allowed ourselves to doze off. It was night; Stasha was likely just getting back from his bachelor party, thrown for him by new friends. I had not been invited; I didn’t care. I was making love to his bride and I envied him. Something told me they would be good together, good parents.
I drove Martie back to her hotel.
* * * * *
The place where they held the reception was enormous. Actually it was three huge rooms joined by high arches. I had been seated out of the way in the most remote corner. My table mates were second-tier guests, neither relations nor friends, just people who had some dealings with the Carrier Foundation. I was glad not to have anything to say to them, until one asked me, “And what do you do?”
“I distribute portable toilets.”
“Oh.”
There were no more inquiries or faint-hearted attempts at small talk.
The receiving line was so long, it coiled into three concentric circles. I tried to get in line but it was constantly cut by VIP guests. I gave up and went back to my table. My erstwhile tablemates were waiting their turn in line so I sat alone nursing a Jack and soda.
“Excuse me … It’s Danny, right?”
I recognized her but my brain was being lazy; I couldn’t place her. She was a cute girl with short brown hair; she didn’t seem to fit the mold of the average guest and reminded me of girls from the old neighborhood, a little unfinished and awkward.
“Yes, and you are?”
“Cindy … I don’t blame you for not remembering. I lived in the same dorm as Martie at Dover. I was a charity case too, like Stasha.”
“Ah, scholarship student? You must be a pretty smart lady.”
She shrugged. “Mind if I sit down?”
“You’re a damned sight better than the stiffs who previously occupied those seats. I expect they’re off kissing asses.”
Cindy chuckled. “You’re just as I remembered you. Well, except for those gray hairs. Wow.”
“Yeah, the men in my family generally go totally gray by the time they hit thirty. Sad, huh?”
“Oh, no, I like it.”
“Distinguished?”
She laughed, sort of a crisp, tinkling laugh.
“I was so jealous of Martie,” Cindy said. “Every girl at Dover was.”
“Oh?”
“Sure. She had two boyfriends and you guys had so much fun together. I mean, you were all sleeping together. And you were all cool with that, and what girl wouldn’t want two guys? And Stasha was so handsome.”
“Yeah, Stash is rakishly handsome, no doubt about it.”
“Oh, but we all thought you were cute too. Gina – remember Gina? – she talked about you all the time.”
“Yeah, gee, I hadn’t thought of Gina in a long time.”
“She’s married, fat, and got two kids, and she’s happy, really happy.”
“Good … that makes me glad.”
I arched one brow and said, “So, you girls thought I was cute, huh? Hmm.”
“Oh, well, it looks like since then …”
“Yes?”
“You’ve gotten really handsome.”
“You’re going to make me blush, Cindy.”
“Sorry, don’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Keep it coming.”
She laughed again. “Martie and Stash look so great together.”
“Yes … yes they do.”
“You know, I just talked to Martie a week ago for the first time in years. I saw the wedding announcement in the paper and I gave her a call. She was so great, she said, ‘You have to come,’ but I didn’t have a thing to wear. I had … well, my job ended when the funding dried up. To be honest, I was really calling her, not because I wanted to come to the wedding, but to see if she could … kinda help me out.”
“Did she?”
“Well, she gave me the money for this dress, and I got to stay in the hotel free for three days; see, I had to move out of my apartment. And … well, today she told me to talk to you.”
“She did?”
“She said that you were the nicest guy any girl could ever hope to know … and you couldn’t turn down anyone who needed a hand.”
“The rich girl said that, huh?” I chuckled. “Okay, what is it you need, Cindy?”
“To get home.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah … with my tail between my legs, I guess. The problem is, my job was funded with government grants; there was no layoff pay. I’m broke and I don’t want to ask my dad to send me money. It’s bad enough I have to come home. But, at least there’ll be a job for me there, in my family business.”
“Oh? What business is that?”
“My dad and mom own five bakeries in Utica.”
“Utica … Utica, New York?”
“Yeah, upstate.”
“Hmm, bakeries, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They make coffee rolls? You know, the kind with lots of cinnamon?”
“Oh, sure. We’ve gotten awards for our coffee rolls.”
“Well, that might be worth taking a detour for. I was going to be driving back to New England; I suppose I could take a slight detour.”
“Drive?”
“Yup. You’re welcome to come along.”
“Um, not to sound ungrateful, but … in exchange for what?”
“Huh?”
“It’ll take one … maybe two nights to drive there. Do you expect …”
“The trip’s on me, Cindy. I’ll be glad to drive you … no strings. I’ll pay for the gas, the eats, the rooms …”
“Rooms?”
“Sure … one for me, and one for you. What did you think?”
“Really?”
“Just one thing I’ll require.”
“Oh … what?”
“Your company. It’s quite a hike from here to Utica. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to.”
She smiled. She was a pretty girl; the kind of prettiness that’s overlooked by most guys, quiet, downplayed.
“You ready to travel?” I asked.
“I’m all packed. Been packed since I moved out of my flat. They’re holding my suitcase in the coat room.”
“Okay, why don’t you go get it and we’ll hit the road.”
“Okay, but shouldn’t we say goodbye?”
“They’re busy. Let’s send them a card when we get to Utica.”
“Okay. Be right back.”
You close a door behind you, and you open another one. That’s what they say anyway.
I say: It’s a long ride to Utica.
© 2012 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.