Ann Douglas

Delayed Gratification
by Ann Douglas

Rick Barnes paused a moment after walking into Tony's Cafe, taking in the still familiar
surroundings. Despite the six long years since he'd last walked though the door behind him, very
little appeared to have changed. The decorations on the wall were still much the same as he
remembered, as were the glass display cases behind the counter and the large chalkboard that
announced the day's specials. His eyes glanced to the rear of the restaurant and he saw that
even his old booth was still there, tempting him to head to it as if it was just another day. But
then he decided that he wasn't going to be here that long and opted for a seat at the counter
instead.

No sooner had he climbed onto the stool at the end of the row than the trim young man
was instantly met by a pretty, seventeen year old blond on the other side of the counter. She
automatically set an empty cup and saucer in front of him and with a gesture of the carafe in her
hand, nonverbally asked if he wanted coffee.

"Yes, thank you," Rick said, pausing just long enough to read the name tag on her
blouse that identified her as Emily.

As she poured, Rick took a second, more critical look around at what had once almost
been a second home. This time he noticed the same sort of unrepaired wear and tear that he'd
seen in other parts of town earlier in the day. A sign of the times, he thought.

"You're not from around here, are you?' Emily asked after she'd finished filling his cup.

"No, I guess not," Rick replied, thinking but not adding, anymore, "but just out of
curiosity, what made you think that I wasn't?"

"Well, you're dressed a lot neater than most of the guys that come in here," she said,
making note of his light blue golf shirt and tan slacks, "and besides, I'd remember a cute guy like
you if you'd been in here before."

As he returned her compliment with a smile, Rick took a moment to do the math and
decided that the last time he'd been in Tony's, Emily was probably just about getting her first
training bra.

"Can I get you anything else?" Emily asked, matching his smile with one even more
inviting.

"No, this will be fine," Rick replied as, after a tentative sip of the hot brew, he noted that
at least the quality of the coffee hadn't changed.

"Well, I'll be right over there if you change your mind," Emily said, a barely noticeable
touch of disappointment in her voice.

Sitting quietly with his coffee, Rick allowed himself the luxury of getting lost in his
memories for a minute or two. Thoughts that were interrupted when he sensed, rather than saw,
someone step around from behind him and place an oversized slice of pumpkin pie, generously
covered with whipped cream, on the counter next to his coffee.

"Excuse me, I didn't order this," Rick said before he even turned his head to see who
had put it there.

"Now don't you go telling me that you still don't love pumpkin pie," said a woman
wearing the same uniform as Emily, "especially one that I made with my own little hands."

The woman that came into view when he turned all the way around was more than twice
Emily's age, with short, reddish-brown hair that came to rest just above the cut of her neck. She
might have been wearing the same white blouse and black skirt as the younger girl, but Emily's
blouse hadn't been straining against the bust beneath it, nor did she wear the top three buttons
open to give a good view of what it was supposed to conceal. If Rick had been standing instead
of sitting, he knew that he would be two inches taller than the woman as well as a good ten to
fifteen pounds lighter. Not to say she was overweight, because even a casual glance told you
that whatever extra pounds she had where all in the right places. Although she also wore a
name tag, Rick had no need to glance at it to know her name.

"Oh my God," he exclaimed in surprise, "Mrs. Davis. I had no idea that you still worked
here."

"Mrs. Davis was one ex-husband ago, sweetie," the woman said with the broadest of
smiles, "and as I recall, you've been calling me Cory Lee since you were old enough to walk. So
don't let me hear any of that Mrs. whatever nonsense."

Rick had barely risen from the stool when Cory Lee, wrapping her arms around him,
hugged him like a long lost son. In a way that was almost true. Not a son of course, but
certainly an honorary nephew at least.

"Damnation," Cory Lee said as she finally let him go. "If I had to make a list this
morning of the last people I ever expected to see in this dump again, I do expect that you'd have
been on the very top of it." She paused to look him over again, comparing the young man with
the boy she had known. "But whatever the reason you're back here, I'm damned glad to see you
again. Why didn't you call ahead and say you were coming?"

"It's good to see you again too, Cory Lee," Rich said leaning back against his seat as he
realized that calling her that did indeed seem more natural. "But like I said, I didn't know that you
still lived in Jackson Springs, and my being here at all was a spur of the moment decision."

"Well, I'm here and you're here and for the moment that's enough," she said, "and don't
you go thinking that I'm going to let you run off until we've had a chance to sit and chat. I want to
know all about what you've been doing since the last time I saw you."

"That wouldn't take long," Rick grinned.

"Be that as it may, you're going to tell me all about it," Cory Lee insisted. "So why don't
you take your coffee and pie back to your old booth and I'll be back there myself in a minute."

As Rick picked up the plate and rested it on top of the cup and saucer, Cory Lee caught
Emily's attention and told her that she'd be in the back for a bit. From the look on the younger
woman's face, Rick got the impression that she was disappointed that she wasn't going to get the
chance to strike up a longer conversation with him herself.

Sitting down in the very last booth, Rick couldn't help but remember the many nights
he'd sat there, homework spread across the table, waiting for his mother's shift to end. Janet
Barnes had started working at Tony's a year before she'd barely graduated from the local high
school, and had continued to do so until she married Doug Barnes, a long distance trucker ten
years her senior, just before her nineteenth birthday. No one really bought that story that she'd
come back from their brief honeymoon pregnant, but as long as Doug had done the right thing by
her, no one counted the days too closely. Rick's older sister, Doris, had been born seven months
into the marriage, with himself following two years later. When he was three, a drunk driver had
left Janet a much too young widow, and with few skills to call on, she had gone back to work at
Tony's.

During those later years, Cory Lee Davis had been his mother's best friend, despite the
age difference between them. Rick wasn't ever exactly sure how much that difference was, but
he guessed that Cory Lee had to be near fifty at least by now. In actuality, she had passed that
milestone four years past.

"Before you say anything," Cory Lee said as she sat down on the other side of the
booth, her own cup of coffee in hand, "I want to say how devastated I was when I got the news
that your mom had passed away. If I'd had a sister, I don't think she would've meant more to me
than Janet did."

"I know how much she meant to you," Rick replied, "and you to her. Doris and I really
appreciated that nice letter that you sent after the funeral."

"I wish I could've been there," Cory Lee said, regret in her tone, "but I was away on my
honeymoon and didn't even find out about it until we got back."

Five years before, when she had first taken ill, Janet Barnes had moved to Blue Ridge
Falls to live with her daughter. Despite the better medical care available there, the disease had
progressed rapidly and within a year she was gone.

"We know you would have if you could," Rick said reassuringly. "and Mom knew it too."

"She was really proud of you," Cory Lee said, trying to push back the sad memory. "We
all were. I can't tell you how many times she said her son was going to be a big shot engineer
someday - and now you are."

"Well I don't know about the big shot part," Rick said as he picked up a fork and started
on the pie, "but I'm doing okay."

"So what brings you back to this burg?" Cory Lee asked as he savored that first piece of
pie.

"I was on my way to New Wayne, over in Grayson County," he explained between bites,
"I'll be working on a project there for the next few months. When I got to exit 9 on the interstate,
it occurred to me that I was only two hours or so north of Jackson Springs. Since there was
really no rush to get to New Wayne, they aren't expecting me until next week, I decided why not
take a little detour and drive through town. See what's changed since I left, if nothing else."

"I'm sure you've already discovered that not much has changed, at least nothing for the
better," Cory Lee said as she sipped her coffee. "But regardless of that, I'm really glad you
decided to make that detour. How long are you planning to be in town?"

"To be honest, I really was just planning to make a quick visit and drive on to Starkville
tonight," Rick answered as he finished off the last of the pie, "but I had a little bit of a mishap
when I came off the bridge over Morgan's Creek and broke a strut on my jeep. I barely got it to a
garage and they said they wouldn't have a replacement until Monday at the earliest."

"You took it to Malone's?" Cory Lee asked.

"Where else?" Rick asked, thinking that there hadn't been another garage in town since
before he'd been born.

"Just wanted to be sure," Cory Lee said as she reached into her skirt pocket and pulled
out her cell phone. "Just excuse me for a few minutes," she added as she scrolled down her
contact list until she found the number she was looking for.

"Hi Jimmy," she said once someone picked up on the other end, "is Billy there?"

There was a short pause as Billy, whoever that was, came on the line. Once he did,
Cory Lee's demeanor changed radically.

"No, it's not about the check being late," she said, after having listened for a few
seconds, "but since you brought it up, this is the third time this year that you've been late with it."
There was another pause as she listened for a few seconds. "But that's not what I'm calling you
about. You have a jeep with a busted strut that was brought in this afternoon?"

She waited a few seconds for an answer, and then the expression on her face told Rick
that she wasn't happy with whatever answer she'd gotten.

"No, that's not going to be good enough," she said in a strong tone. "I don't care if you
have to take your own sorry ass down to Cranston Junction and pick up the struts yourself, but I
want that jeep fixed by tomorrow at the latest."

There was another pause while Cory Lee listed to Billy.

"No, you can't ask who the guy who brought it in is to me," she said. "Just get it done,
okay?"

There were a few more seconds while Cory Lee listened, then she closed the phone with
a smile on her face.

"Ex-husbands," she said with a look of annoyance as she put the phone away, "Can't
live with 'em, can't shoot 'em, at least not unless you're really sure you can get away with it."

Then, seeing a small look of concern on Rick's face, Cory Lee assured him that the jeep
would indeed be fixed by tomorrow. She and Billy had an understanding, she added, not feeling
the need to explain that while they were no longer man and wife, that didn't preclude them
sharing a romp under the sheets now and then. In a town that was getting smaller by the year,
there wasn't a preponderance of options for a woman her age and while their all too brief
marriage had its problems, good sex hadn't been one of them.

"So now that we've taken care of that, all we have to do is find you a place for the night,"
she added.

"Is the Golden Eagle Motel over by the highway still open?" Rick asked. "I thought I
might just stay there."

"The hell you will," Cory Lee said, "not when I've got a perfectly good pull out couch
sitting unused in my apartment. Besides, it's Friday night and the rooms over there will be filled
with high school boys too cheap to take their dates to a real hotel and husbands taking ladies not
their wives to a place where no one asks to see a marriage certificate. Between the two of them
you'll never get any sleep."

"Don't you have plans for tonight?" Rick asked, "It is, like you said, Friday night."

"Nothing that can't be easily canceled," came her reply.

"I wouldn't want to impose..." Rick started to say, thinking he had slept in worse places
while on the road, but she quickly cut him off.

"It's already settled," Cory Lee said, her tone now highly reminiscent of the one his
mother used to use when she didn't want to hear any argument about a subject either.

"Okay," he relented.

"I'm out of here in about an hour," Cory Lee said as she started to get back up. "How
about I fix you a little dinner while you wait?"

Knowing it was pointless to even suggest otherwise, Rick just smiled and agreed.

-=-=-=-

"Make yourself at home," Cory Lee said as she led Rick into her small apartment over
the television repair shop, "and just drop your case anywhere."

On the way over, they had stopped at Malone's Auto Repair so that he could pick up his
suitcase and she could make sure that someone had indeed gone down to the Junction to pick
up the needed part. Billy hadn't really gone himself, not that Cory Lee had expected him to; it
was enough that he had sent one of the kids that worked at the garage.

Cory Lee's first husband had been long gone by the time Rick had begun hanging out at
the diner, so he had been quite interested to meet husband number two, or more precisely ex-
husband number two. He seemed a nice enough guy, although he did give Rick a sort of funny
look when Cory Lee said that he would be spending the night at her place. All she had to do to
allay his suspicions was simply tell him who he was, but for her own reasons she declined to do
so. But that was between him and her, he noted, and kept any thoughts about it to himself.

"I really could use a beer," Cory Lee said as she dropped her own smaller carry bag
onto a side table. "Would you like one?"

"Sure, why not?" Rick answered.

"Then be a dear and get us both one from the fridge while I take a minute to change
clothes," she said. "I feel like I've been wearing this outfit all week."

By the time Rick had gone into the kitchen and taken two bottles from the six pack on
the top shelf, Cory Lee was already stepping back into the living room. Gone was the waitress
uniform, replaced by an equally tight t-shirt and a pair of shorts. As he handed her the bottle of
beer, Rick couldn't help but notice that she was no longer wearing a bra.

"Oh, that hits the spot," Cory Lee said as she upended the bottle and took a long drink
from it.

Bottles in hand, the two of them sat down on the couch and made themselves
comfortable. In Rick's case that included propping his feet up on the ottoman while Cory Lee
settled for just curling her legs up on the cushion beneath her.

She began the conversation by asking Rick a few more questions about both the jobs he
had worked on as well as the one he was headed to, adding again how proud they all were of
him. Then they moved on to the state of the town, and how every year there seemed to be less
and less people in it. The old folk died off and the young seemed to want to be anywhere but
here.

"How come you never had the desire to leave?" Rick asked as he finished off the bottle.

"Well, I really can't just pack a bag and take off, as much as I sometimes would like to,"
she said as she handed him one of the second pair of bottle that had come out of the refrigerator
when she'd gone out to toss her own empty into the recycle bin a few minutes before. "I have a
financial interest in the restaurant, not much, mind you, but enough that I really don't want to just
walk away from it."

"I never knew that," Rick said, genuinely surprised. "How did that come about?"

"It was about, ten, no, twelve years ago, when Tony Marinelli senior not the Tony you
would know, ran into a bit of financial difficulty. Because of certain circumstances that are best
not to go into, he really wasn't in a position to go to the bank for a loan. I, on the other hand, had
just inherited a good deal of money from my parents' life insurance policy and was looking for a
place to put it. I happened to overhear Tony talking about his problems one night and how he
might have to lay some people off or possibly even close the place altogether. So it occurred to
me that keeping this place afloat and all of us employed might be the best use of my money at
the time."

"Did my mom know about that?"

"No, she had enough problems of her own back then and I saw no reason to mention it.
Tony and I had agreed to keep it just between us and the lawyers who drew up the agreement,
and in hindsight I was glad we did. I didn't want Janet to start thinking of me as her boss rather
than her friend."

Rick nodded his head in understanding, then asked her what would she do if the
restaurant went under, which, given her earlier observations about the town, was a very real
possibility. She replied that he needn't worry about her, because she'd more than made back her
original investment and had then reinvested that in more secure holdings. It was only for the
other people who worked there that she kept trying to keep the operation in the black.

"So, anyone special in your life?" Cory Lee asked, changing the subject.

"Not at the moment," Rick answered. "My job keeps me moving around a lot. Oh, I was
engaged for a while right after college, but in the end she decided that she wanted more stability,
location-wise, than I was going to be able to offer, at least in the immediate future."

"Well, at least you found out beforehand," Cory Lee noted. "I seem to have the bad luck
to have it all come apart only after we'd said our I do's."

The second round of drinks was soon gone and for lack of any reason not to, they
decided to finish off the six-pack. This time, however, Cory Lee brought out some snacks to go
with the beers, slowing down their rate of consumption.

They spent the time it took to empty the last bottles reminiscing about the old days,
bringing up names of people they'd known, as well as incidents that one or the other might have
wanted to forget. It was after Rick had brought up one particularly embarrassing one about Cory
Lee that she remembered one about him.

"Do you know what I always remember," Cory Lee said, her inhibitions and speech both
loosened by the amount she'd had to drink, "how many times I caught you staring at my tits back
when you where a teenager. In fact, you've been staring at them pretty much the same way for
the last hour."

Rick turned a bright red with the realization that what she said was indeed true. He had
been staring at her breasts, the nipples of which had gotten quite hard in the air-conditioned
apartment and were pressing against the thin fabric of her shirt. He couldn't help himself, he
admitted, he'd been fascinated by those boobs since he'd been old enough to realize the
difference between boys and girls.

"Oh, don't go and get all embarrassed on me," Cory Lee laughed, "I was just yanking
your chain. If I didn't want them looked at, I wouldn't be putting them on display all the time. In
fact, I should take it as a compliment that they're still nice enough that a young man like you
would want to look at them."

Rick blushed a little more, but not only for what she had just said. His thoughts were
flashing back to a night only a few months past his sixteenth birthday, when he got more of a first
hand look at Cory Lee's beauties than he'd ever imagined he would.

It had been an hour after closing time that he'd gone back to the diner to retrieve a
textbook he'd inadvertently left behind. His mom had offered to drive him but he'd elected to
walk, since she'd worked a double shift. She'd given him her key to the side door and he was
about to leave after picking up his book when a loud noise from the back room caught his
attention. Thinking that something might had fallen off one of the storage shelves he knew to be
there, Rick decided to make sure that, if that had been the case, it wasn't something that needed
to be cleaned up right away.

Despite the fact that he was sure he was alone, Rick was quiet as he walked down the
narrow hallway and equally quiet as he opened the door. He was just about to reach for the light
switch to his left, that he remembered from the times he'd earned a few bucks stocking the
shelves, when a shifting of shadows caused him to stop in mid-reach.

It only took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the low wattage overhead bulb that
had been left on, but once they did he indeed got an eyeful. There, only partially clothed and
bent over the old desk that Tony used as his office space, was Cory Lee. Her dress was
bunched up around her waist, with the top down far enough to expose her generous assets and
the bottom hiked up high enough to provide access to the even more enticing charms below.

Even in the dim light, the recipient of those charms was instantly recognizable to Rick.
During his own freshman year, Bobby Ray Thomas had been a halfback on his high school's
football team and he remembered him well. Not quite good enough to be offered a scholarship,
Bobby also hadn't been quite smart enough to get into college on his own merits. In the end it
really didn't matter, because his dad owned a wholesale food supply outfit that counted Tony's
Café as one of their clients.

Rick wasn't sure how long he had stood there watching, but it had certainly been long
enough for every bit of that image to be burned into his memory. A memory that had been
recalled on many nights when he only had himself for company. Only when he recalled it at
those times, it wasn't Bobby Ray that was enjoying Cory Lee's attentions.
"You know, I probably shouldn't even tell you this," Cory Lee said, causing Rick to snap
back from the pleasant recollection, "but what the hell, we're both adults now," she said, a touch
of the mischievous in her voice. "There was a time," she said, "back when you were a senior,
that you almost got the chance to do a hell of a lot more than just stare at my boobs."

"What?" Rick said, wondering what she was talking about.

When Cory Lee did explain, Rick found himself more stunned than he could ever have
imagined.

"It was a night back when you were seventeen," she began to say, pausing just long
enough to take another sip from her bottle. "I remember that because the thought was originally
about what to do about your eighteenth birthday, which was coming up in a few months."

Taking a drink of his own, Rick thought back to that time, remembering it well.

"Now I really can't remember exactly what made the idea pop into my head," Cory Lee
continued, "but it suddenly occurred to me that it would make one hell of a memorable gift if I
were to pop your cherry."

"Pop my what?" Rick said, spitting out the beer he had just swallowed, sure he had
heard her wrong.

"Well, I'm not saying it was the best idea that I ever had," Cory Lee grinned. "It was just
something that just worked its way into my head and I really couldn't get it out of it. I will,
however, also admit I was a bit drunk at the time it came to me."

"Wow," Rick said, his mind again flashing back to the remembrance of only a few
moments before, an image that again brought a smile to his face.

Then, as he did with most things in his life, he considered the downside of such a thing,
if it ever had happened.

"It's a good thing you never said that to my mom," he said. "She would've totally
freaked."

"Actually," Cory Lee replied, a bit of hesitation in a voice now more clear, "she wasn't
as totally opposed to the idea as you might think."

"She knew?" Rick said in disbelief.

"Well, she was sort of the person I was getting drunk with the night it came to me," Cory
Lee expanded. "Admittedly the subject didn't come up until we were well on our second six
pack. We were talking about guys worth screwing and it just sort of came out."

Under other circumstances, Rick might have been more curious about what guys his
mother might have thought worth screwing, as he remembered sometimes wondering what she
did for sex back then. Cory Lee's admission, however, compelled him to save that curiosity for
another time.

"I can't believe she would've been okay with it," Rick said, trying to imagine what that
admittedly drunken conversation had been like.

"Well, it never really got to the point where she had to be okay with it," Cory Lee pointed
out, "and to be honest, she did have her reasons for thinking it might not be a totally bad idea."

"I can't imagine what those could be," Rick said, still somewhat staggered by the idea.

"Well, the way you totally kept to yourself back then," Cory Lee began to explain. "I
mean, you didn't even have one female friend, much less talked about girls, and your mom had
begun to wonder if you even liked them."

"My mom thought I might be gay?"

"Well, lets just say it crossed her mind."

"Damn."

"Well if it matters any, I never thought so, especially not with the amount of times I
caught you staring at my boobs. I just figured that you were uncomfortable around girls, so, if
nothing else, my idea would be one hell of a confidence builder. Especially since you would be
going away to college come the fall."

"And my mom was going to be okay with this?" Rick repeated, still unable to get that
thought out of his head.

"Well, in the grand scheme of things, my taking you to bed didn't seem the worst of
options," Cory Lee said, "assuming that her conjecture was wrong and you did like girls. I
mean, you could've lost it to one of those school sluts who opened their legs to just about any
guy who tried, or worse you could've gone down to Willow's Point and bedded one of the
professionals down there. Guys have been doing that since before I went to high school; it's
almost a tradition."

Rick didn't comment on either possibility, but knew that both had crossed his mind during
his senior year. In fact, a few of the guys in his class did make one of those trips down to
Willow's Point and had invited him to come along. It was only at the last moment that he'd
chickened out.

"But like I said," Cory Lee concluded, "it never really came to the point where she had to
decide if she was really okay with the idea or not."

"Why not?" Rick heard himself ask.

"Why, because of Joyce Mitchell, of course," Cory Lee said, surprised at the idea that
Rick could've actually forgotten his first girl friend.

"Joyce Mitchell?" Rick repeated.

"Well, I'll admit, pretty as she was, the both of us were really surprised when you starting
going out with a minister's daughter," Cory Lee said, "but if nothing else, it was enough to
convince your mother that you did indeed like girls and it was best to let nature take its course.
After all, it was her father that was a minister, not her, and we were sure, teenagers being what
they were, well..."

"Joyce Mitchell," Rick again repeated, a touch of amusement evident in his voice.

"I was a bit disappointed, I'll admit," Cory Lee confessed, "but in the end it was probably
all for the best."

"Okay, so let me understand this," Rick said, now openly if softly laughing. "You wanted
to take me to bed back when I was seventeen, and my mom wasn't totally adverse to the idea,
but you called the whole thing off when I started going out with Joyce Mitchell."

"Basically, yes," Cory Lee said, still not understanding why he found it funny.

Unable to hold it back any longer, Rick then burst out laughing.

"I don't get it," she asked. "What's so funny?"

"All of this," he said, trying hard to bring his laughter under control. "That I lost my
chance to play Mrs. Robinson with you because you figured that sooner or later, I'd wind up
doing it with Joyce."

"I guess that's basically right," Cory Lee said, wondering what it was that she wasn't
getting.

"That is so funny," Rick said, "it really is."

"What am I missing here?" Cory Lee thought, then, thinking she had the answer, she
said, "I guess I wouldn't be wrong if I assumed that Joyce was indeed the stereotypical minister's
daughter and not about to give it up until her wedding night."

"Oh, she was willing it give it up alright," Rick said, "it's just that I wasn't the one she
was willing to give it up to."

"I don't understand," Cory Lee said.

"You said that Mom was worried that I might like guys instead of girls," Rick said, "Well
lets just say that if I had been Joyce, you wouldn't have had to worry about that at all.

It took a long moment for it to hit Cory Lee; then it was like a curtain being raised.

"Joyce was a lesbian?"

"One hundred percent muff-diver," Rick confirmed. "Not even one of those girls that
like to switch-hit at times."

"Then why in God's name did you go out with her in the first place?" Cory Lee asked.

"Well, it's not like she wore a sign around her neck that said lesbian," Rick said, "and
for the record, she was the one that first asked me out."

"I'm still a little confused," Cory Lee said as she accepted what she had just been told.
"Why did she ask you to go out if she only liked girls?"

"Even back then, this was a small town and, like you pointed out, she was a minister's
daughter," Rick explained. "Joyce figured that the best way to keep a secret was to at least look
like she was just like everyone else."

Cory Lee thought about it and agreed that was true. Her own sexual escapades hadn't
gone unnoticed back in high school or since, but since they fell into a more conventional if not
totally acceptable mode, few bothered her about them.

"In hindsight," Rick continued, "I guess she picked me because I wasn't the kind of guy
who would put a lot of pressure on her to go all the way. She was right in that respect, as
frustrating as it got at times. Except for the occasional kiss and touch, I might as well have been
dating my sister."

Cory Lee was tempted to make a joke about some people having not so innocent
relationships with their sisters but quickly decided against it. Instead she recalled something
Janet had once told her.

"Wait a second," Cory Lee said, "I distinctly remember your mother telling me that you
reserved a room at the Golden Eagle for the night of the senior prom. In fact, I remember her
making sure that you stopped by the drug store that afternoon, so that there wouldn't be any
unwelcome surprises a few months down the line."

"Oh I rented a room all right," Rick said, remembering how just about every room that
night had been rented in advance by prom participants, "but once we left the prom Joyce said
that she was sorry but her time of the month had come unexpectedly early and that she wasn't
feeling well because of it. So I dropped her off after the dance and just took a ride in the country
by myself."

"And no one noticed that you never showed up at the motel?"

"It wasn't like anyone was taking attendance," Rick laughed, "and the room was paid for
in advance, so the owner didn't care that it wasn't used. Everyone just assumed that Joyce and I
had been there and that we'd done it. I just never said anything to the contrary. Nor did Joyce;
in fact she seemed sort of glad everyone thought we had."

"That might've been her intent in the first place," Cory Lee mused.

Rick didn't comment, but that idea had later occurred to him too.

"So when did you find out?" Cory Lee asked.

"Well, Joyce went away to California to visit an aunt for the summer," Rick answered.
"So I didn't see her again until the start of the fall semester at State. It didn't take long to
discover that she wasn't interested in picking up where we left off, and then I later found out she
and one of the other girls in her sorority were sharing a lot more than just a room."

"Well, I never would've imagined," Cory Lee said as she picked up the last of the empty
bottles and carried them over to the kitchen countertop.

"That's why I found your confession so funny," Rick smiled as Cory Lee came back into
the room. "If it wasn't for Joyce, I might've gotten lucky back then. Opportunity was knocking
and I didn't even know it."

"Well, you never know," Cory Lee grinned as she approached the couch, stopping just a
foot or so away. "Sometimes, opportunity knocks twice."

Before Rick could even consider what she'd meant by that, Cory Lee grabbed the bottom
edges of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. The t-shirt fell to the floor unnoticed as
she dropped her hands to her hips and stood topless in front of him.

"So tell me, do you think the view was worth the wait?" Cory Lee said with a broad
smile.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Rick couldn't think of a single thing to
say. All he could focus on was the silver dollar sized areolas now in plain view.

"The question was rhetorical anyway," Cory said in response to his silence, the smile on
her face growing even broader. "But what I do need to know is, do you really want to sleep on
that old couch, or would you be more comfortable in my bedroom? I should warn you, however,
if you pick the latter, you might not get as much sleep. Or would that not be a problem either?"

-=-=-=-

It didn't take long for Rick to decide that no, that wouldn't be a problem at all - not more
than ten seconds at most. And it only took that long because he had to convince himself that
this was really happening.

Once he did, he didn't dwell on the question of whether Cory Lee had planned this when
she'd first invited him to stay at her place, or if, emboldened by the drinks they'd both put away,
she was simply acting on a combination of reawakened urges and reduced inhibitions.

The truth was, he didn't care. The memories of the effect she'd had on him back in his
teenage years had never really faded, or the thought of the number of nights he'd laid in bed
thinking about what it might've been like if he indeed had been in Bobby Thomas' place that
night. Never could he have imagined that it might ever be anything more than a schoolboy's
fantasy.

Rick was far from being the virginal schoolboy he had been back then, that situation
having been resolved during his first year of college. What no one knew, however, was that it
hadn't been a fellow student that had done the deed, or even one of the townies that frequented
the off campus bars. While both would come later, his very first had been a woman more than
twice his age that he had met in a bookstore, one that bore more than a passing resemblance to
the half naked one standing now before him.

Although she didn't say it, Cory Lee really didn't expect an answer to her second
question either, she simply took Rick's continued silence as acquiescence. Climbing onto the
couch, she positioned herself on top of him, with a bended knee on each side of his lap. Her
naked chest brushed against his shirt as the older woman leaned down and kissed him.

A kiss far removed from those they'd shared in years past, the sort that Rick could only
have dreamed about, filled with passion and desire. The press of her lips against his finally
caused Rick to open his mouth to meet hers, their tongues quickly intertwining. At the same
time, his hands came up and closed around the soft orbs that had also often inhabited his
dreams, fingers rubbing against stiff nipples and palms coming to rest against warm flesh.

Despite the layers of clothing still between, the press of her crotch against his manhood
caused it to quickly grow hard, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by Cory Lee. Ever so slowly and
drawing no attention from anything else she was doing, she began to gyrate back and forth
against it.

They continued to kiss a while longer, the actions of their mouths becoming more
intimate as hands explored other parts of their bodies. There was a brief pause as Cory Lee
helped Rick out of his own shirt, but afterwards they went back to what they'd been doing without
missing more than a beat.

Cory Lee shifted positions after a while, to allow Rick to bring his mouth down towards
her breasts, meeting him halfway as she lifted them upward with her hands. Of all the thoughts
that could've flashed through his head at that moment, the one that did was almost as
unexpected as it was strange.

For one fleeting second, Rick thought, if only Joe Kirby could see him now. One of the
few close friends he'd had growing up, Joe and he had spent many hours discussing the physical
attributes of Cory Lee Davis, speculating what it might be like to actually see them with their own
eyes. He never told Doug about the night he'd seen Cory Lee and Bobby; that memory had
been for him alone. Then the thought faded as quickly as it had been formed, but while it had
lasted, it had been vivid enough for him to later recall.

Cory Lee let out a soft moan as Rick worked his mouth down along her neck, licking and
nibbling a path to her mounds. She arched backward, pressing her breasts into his face. An
even louder moan spilled from her lips as Rick's mouth closed around her closest nipple, his
tongue quickly rolling around its hardness to send a shudder of pleasure through her.

It wasn't long before he was kissing his way across her chest to her other breast, with
equal results. Cory Lee ran her hands through his short hair, pulling his head tight against her
chest. It was obvious to her that he had a talented tongue and she considered for a moment
where else it might be put to good use.

But for now, at least, she wanted to make it all about him and, after letting him play with
her chest a bit longer, gently disengaged herself from his embrace and eased her body off his
lap. Her knees moved from the sofa cushion to the carpeted floor while her hands dropped to his
belt and began to undo the buckle.

It took less time to undo the buckle than it did the button and zipper of his pants after
that, but all told it wasn't even a full minute before Rick's slacks were down to just above his
knees. The quite noticeable bulge that had formed a tent in his boxer shorts quickly drew her
attention and it was only another few heartbeats before they too had been dragged down against
his pants.

"You certainly have grown," Cory Lee said as she looked down at the fully erect cock
that stood at attention before her. "The last time I saw this it hadn't even grown a beard yet,"
she laughed, remembering the time she had accidentally walked in on him in the diner's
bathroom when he'd forgotten to lock the door, back when he was about ten.

One hand closed around the underside of his balls while the other gently slid up along
the length of his cock. Both touches caused a pleasing shudder to flash through Rick's body, an
excited tremor filled with anticipation.

Going back as far as her own high school days, Cory Lee had been called many things,
some of them not so nice. One thing she had never been called, however, was a cock-teaser.
The worst thing a girl could do, she always felt, was get a guy worked up and then leaving him
hanging in the breeze. She'd learned early on that she loved to suck cock, and it hadn't taken
long for much of the student population to learn it too - at least the male half.

It didn't take Rick long to discover that either, as Cory Lee leaned forward and kissed the
head of his cock, whirling her tongue around it as she did. Then she took just the tip into her
mouth, savoring the taste of his young manhood. It was a moment she wanted to remember
because, like Rick, she'd had her own dreams as well.

"Oh God, that feels good!" Rick exclaimed as he leaned back against the couch.

Encouraged, not that she needed it, Cory Lee worked her way down his full length, which
she took to be just enough above average to excite her, kissing and licking her way downward.
Her tongue washed across the underside of his balls before changing direction and repeating the
path upward.

Again she made soft moans of delight, echoing those coming from Rick, moans that
echoed the tingling she felt between her legs. Time enough for that later, she told herself as she
reached once more the crown of his shaft. Without hesitation, she opened her mouth wide and
took him in again, this time, however, she continued until his entire cock had vanished inside
her.

"Fuck!" Rick though in disbelief, thinking that none of the women he had known in
college or afterward had ever done that before.

Not resting on her laurels, Cory Lee quickly began to bob her head up and down, running
her tongue against his skin as she swallowed him time and again. The sensations she was
causing to race across his body were almost impossible for him to describe, not that he wanted
to waste time trying to do so. It was enough for him to just lay back and enjoy them.

As often as she could without breaking her stride, Cory Lee glanced up and enjoyed the
look of bliss on Rick's face. The feeling of satisfaction she felt at being the cause of that delight
filled her with even deeper desire. The thrusts of her mouth became more vigorous, the motions
of her hands blurred, all dedicated to bringing him to an orgasm that she wanted him to always
remember.

An orgasm that, if experience was any indication, was not far off. Rick's body had
already begun to quiver as his efforts to hold back the inevitable began to fail. Especially since
those attempts only caused her to increase her efforts. It was a battle of wills, one that Rick was
about to lose - and spectacularly.

A lot of women preferred that a man not climax in their mouth, but Cory Lee had never
been one of them. She delighted in the taste of a man in the throes of passion, seeing it as a
reward for her efforts. A reward that she received but a minute later as Rick exploded with all of
the youthful vitality he was capable of.

At the first sign of his eruption, Cory Lee took Rick as deep inside of her mouth as she
could, causing him to wash her throat with his whiteness. She didn't want to waste a drop, and
so successful was she at her task that when she had finally finished, it was only a drop that
spilled out across her bottom lip. Then, even that was washed away with a whirl of her tongue.

"Good, huh?" she grinned as she looked up at Rick from her position on the floor.

"People have always told me that I'm a pretty smart guy," Rick said in breathless tones
as he finally opened his eyes and looked back at her, "but I don't think I know the words to
describe how really good that was."

"I think the look on your face says enough," Cory Lee smiled as she started to get back
on her feet.

"I can't wait to thank you for that," Rick said as he finally caught his breath.

"No time like the present," Cory Lee smiled as she leaned inward once more and kissed
him softly on the lips.

-=-=-=-

"Oh God, yes!" Cory Lee moaned loudly as Rick's tongue again penetrated deep into
her pussy.

Her earlier question of what else he might have been good at with his tongue had been
answered tenfold as, with his head buried between her legs, the twenty-three year old continued
along her along her path to orgasm.

No sooner had they moved from the couch to her small bedroom than Rick had
immediately sought to bring to her the same pleasures she had just given him. The boy was a
natural, Cory Lee thought between waves of delight, and if he wasn't, then she had one of a hell
of a thank you note to send to whoever had taught him. Every touch of his tongue, every stroke
of his fingers, seemed perfect. Or close enough not to matter.

On his stomach, with his arms wrapped around her thighs, Rick buried his face as deep
between Cory Lee's legs as was possible. He truly was one of those rare men who loved what
he was doing, and it was funny, but the reason for it was due to the girl Joyce had taken up with
in college. Her name had been Sandra Meyers and in what could have been a cruel
coincidence, she had wound up his lab partner in biology lab. Strangely enough, the two had
become friends and had even gotten drunk together one night while Joyce was away.

During their semi-drunken exchange, Sandra had offered Rick what was to later prove
an invaluable piece of advice. Learn how to go down on a girl like another girl does, she'd said,
and then offered quite a number of tips on just how to do that. That advice had served him well
in the days and years since. It had taken countless hours of practice for him to fully become
good at it, but women never seemed to mind.

So it didn't take much longer for Rick to bring Cory Lee to the edge of the precipice, and
with only a few more deep thrusts with his tongue to send her spiraling over it. Her body rocked
in his grasp as cries of joy filled the room, loud enough to be heard by the neighbors beyond the
much too thin walls. It was a sound they had heard before, even if not with such enthusiastic
vigor.

"That ... was incredible," Cory Lee said as, covered with sweat, she laid back against the
mattress and closed her eyes.

Rick simply smiled as he lifted himself from between her legs and climbed up alongside
her. Not wanting to disturb her until she was ready, he simply closed his own eyes for a few
moments and laid his head across her breast.

Amazingly enough, both were sharing similar thoughts, the belief that if their first
encounter had indeed occurred in those now long ago days, it wouldn't have been half as good
as it already had been. For Rick, it was the knowledge that he wouldn't have had the experience
to fully appreciate how much of a woman Cory Lee really was, and for Cory Lee is was the
realization that back then, all Rick really would've been was another teenager with a hard cock,
lost among the memory of the others who had both preceded and followed him.

-=-=-=-

Quietly they laid there, wrapped in each other's arms as they gently stroked the other's
bodies, sharing the occasional kiss. Few words passed between them because none were
needed. Both understood what was coming next, an event that had been building in anticipation
for nearly a decade.

As Cory Lee had run her hand up and down the length of Rick's body, she had been
carefully to avoid his most sensitive of spots. When she finally put aside that prohibition, her
hand found a cock once more rock hard and a soft sigh spilled from Rick as her fingers closed
around it. Her other hand cupped his balls, rubbing the tips of her fingers against them as she
slipped out from his embrace, shifting her body to a point where she could once more take him in
her mouth.

It wasn't that his hardness needed any further encouragement; Cory Lee just couldn't
resist tasting his cock one more time. Starting at the bottom of his shaft, she worked her tongue
all the way up to the top, repeatedly popping his crown in and out of her mouth. Her tongue
swirled around his sensitive flesh, leaving a wet trail of pleasure in its wake. Finally she engulfed
his cock in its entirety, causing Rick's eyes to open wide as he watched his manhood vanish
within her.

"Damn," he moaned softly as he felt her moist mouth wrap around his cock, repeating
her earlier performance in the living room.

Reaching down, he placed his hand against the back of her head, running his fingers
through her hair as if to urge her to take it even deeper. An act that her familiarity with what she
was doing had taught her all too well how to accomplish. Cory Lee worked on his cock for long
minutes, every touch bringing ever increasing delights. Twice Rick was sure he was about to
explode, but again experience proved true and she was able to bring him to the edge and then
back again.

Just as Rick thought she was going to try for a third time, Cory Lee let his hardness slip
from her mouth and moved away from him. He didn't remain unattended for long as she climbed
on top of him into what the sex manuals he had once read called the female superior position.

She took hold of his hard cock once more and positioned it at the entrance to her pussy.
Slowly she rubbed the head against it, partially opening the folds and covering it with her
wetness. Then, just as slowly, she began to lower herself until the top of his cock passed inside
her. Both of them sighed as she dropped her body and began to impale herself on him, the walls
of her sex wrapping tightly around his manhood. By the time her body had come to rest against
his, they were locked together as if one. Then the erotic ballet began in earnest.

With Rick deep inside her, Cory Lee leaned forward, allowing him to cup the cheeks of
her ass with outstretched hands. In no time at all they quickly developed a steady rhythm,
rocking back and forth as he slid in and out of her with increasing rapidity.

After a while, the initiative shifted from Rick to Cory Lee as, planting her hands firmly on
the center of his chest, she lifted herself upward once more and began to really ride him. Up and
down she moved, her breasts bouncing free as she did so. Tiny arcs of pleasure raced across
their bodies, their intensity increasing with each repetition.

Tiny drops of sweat began to cover each of their bodies, drops that soon morphed into
tiny streams that ran down their backs. Each time Cory Lee began to lower her body, Rick
brought his own up to meet her in mid-stroke, causing a wonderful collision. It was a carefully
choreographed symphony, one well on its way to being a crescendo.

"Oh baby, yes," Cory Lee loudly proclaimed as she pressed her body down as hard as
she could against Rick's. "Your cock feels so good deep inside me, just as I always imagined it
would."

Although not verbalizing it, Rick felt much the same way as the dreams of his youth
faded away against the reality of adulthood. He held her body tight, savoring every moment of
what they were sharing, wanting to memorize every aspect.

At one point, Cory Lee paused just long enough to pivot on his cock, turning her body
totally around so that now her back was to him. This allowed Rick to reach up and take hold of
her breasts, squeezing her nipples with his fingers and adding another set of pleasing sensations
to the mix, even as he continued to fill her tunnel of love with his cock. The quiet moans of
earlier had grown in volume, even as their bodies trembled with renewed joy.

Faster and faster Cory Lee rode Rick, until it all became a blur. The tiny streams of
sweat now became rivers as an excited warmth filled their flesh. Rick felt himself again
approaching the precipice, and this time it was he who took action to prevent it all from ending
much too soon.

Grabbing Cory Lee with both hands, he held her in mid-air, just high enough to let him
slide out from within her. Then they changed places, with Cory Lee now resting her back against
the mattress. Rick brought his mouth down once more between her legs, parting the damp folds
with his fingers and thrusting his tongue again deep inside her. The sweetness he found there,
the product of their mutual exertions, filled him with new excitement. Joyfully he savored the
nectar as it covered his tongue and filled his mouth.

Eyes now closed, Cory Lee rested her head against the pillow, letting her body wallow in
the pleasant waves washing across it. As much as she had enjoyed Rick's earlier effort, this was
even better. She could feel his heart racing, a match for her own. It didn't take long for Rick to
be rewarded for his effort as a micro-orgasmic burst ripped through her, causing her to silently
scream and grab him tightly to share her pleasure.

Again they changed positions as Rick climbed higher over her body, lifting her legs and
re-entering her in the classic missionary position. With a forceful lunge, he pressed his cock as
far inside of her as possible, then pulled it back almost as far. He repeated his action over and
over, spurred on by Cory Lee's loud and increasingly recurrent encouragements.

Cory Lee reached out with outstretched legs and wrapped them around his lower back,
reducing the length of his stroke while at the same time increasing its frequency. She held him
tightly, feeling the walls of her sex close around his cock, drawing him even deeper inside of her.
They were so close to the edge that both of them couldn't help but feel it. All it was going to take
was one more good push.

Much to Cory Lee's surprise, Rick paused just long enough to suggest one last thing to
try. Intrigued by the idea, she quickly released her hold on him and in a rapid motion, turned
herself over and came up on all fours, her bottom lifted high as her front crashed down against
the pillow.

Rick moved just as quickly, not wanting to lose their momentum. He grabbed the sides
of her ass and entered her from behind, his cock penetrating her to the deepest point yet.

That proved to be the spark that touched them off like a match in a pool of gasoline as
they both exploded in orgasmic fury. Their bodies quaked uncontrollable as both climaxes
arrived so close as to be nearly simultaneous. It was a moment they had only found before in
dreams, made even more intense by the knowledge that this was finally real.

So intense was their orgasm that all the energy in their bodies seem to drain out, leaving
them with a most delightful fatigue. Again almost in unison, they collapsed upon the bed, their
bodies intertwined as they closed their eyes and surrendered to the exhaustion

-=-=-=-

The morning light filled the room by the time they finally opened their eyes. They just
laid there naked, looking into each other's eyes, neither of them exactly sure what to say. It
wasn't that either of them was ashamed of the night before, it was that both were uncertain how
to handle the day to come. It would've been so much easier if they had just been strangers, who
could express their thanks and go on their separate ways.

"Rick, I ..." Cory Lee started to say.

"Yeah, me too," Rick replied, trying to put a smile to his words.

"So what do we do about this?" Cory Lee asked.

"Say we had a great time and leave it at that," Rick replied after thinking about it a few
moments. "What else can we do?"

"I guess that's all we can do," Cory Lee answered, after much the same interval.

"So that's it then," Rick said, staring up at the ceiling, "We're agreed that once we get
out of this bed, we just put it all behind us and move on."

"Yes, it was just one of those things," Cory Lee agreed as she too now fixed her gaze
upward. "We had a little too much to drink and we let things get out of hand. Much better to just
put it behind us and go forward."

"Once we get out of this bed we just turn back the clock," Rick said.

"Exactly," Cory Lee confirmed.

"Good, I'm glad that's settled," Rick offered.

"Me too," Cory Lee echoed.

Silence filled the air for long minutes after that as both of them closed their eyes and
tried to fall back to sleep. Sleep proved elusive, if not impossible, as the memories of what the
evening before had brought continued to fill their thoughts and they tried to put it all in
perspective.

"Cory Lee," Rick finally said.

"Yes, Rick," she answered.

"Something just occurred to me," he said.

"What's that?" she asked

"We're still in bed," he noted

"So we are," she agreed.

"Seems a shame to waste that, don't you think?" he asked.

Cory Lee didn't answer right away. Instead she lifted herself upward, turning to face him
as she considered his observation.

"Now that you mention it, it probably would be," she finally answered.

Whatever Rick might have thought to say next was lost as she leaned even further over
and kissed him, her hand sliding down between his legs at the same time.

END








   
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