The Adventures of
Me and Martha Jane

I sat dumbfounded while viewing my first foreign-language film -- so amazed, that at first I didn't feel Martha nudge me with her elbow in the dark theater until she did so insistently. I turned to her. She smiled and wiggled her fingers near my face. Understanding, I held her hand in mine. She smiled again, playfully, and hugged our clasped hands against her thigh over her skirt. She rubbed my arm cozily, and turned back to the movie.

I had never seen such a film. The movie was "Bicycle Thief," which had been released years earlier. The lilting rhythm of the original, unedited Italian dialogue rolling off the actors' lips, the newness of their attitudes and the earthy acting style -- all of it had me, as had happened so many times since I arrived in New York, sitting with my eyes bulging and my mouth open.

When we left the cinema I was dazed. Everything I knew about acting and theater production and movie-making had been expanded beyond my expectations. I sat wordlessly at our late dinner in a Village beatnik coffee shop.

Martha asked, "Is anything wrong? You look lost."

I explained with difficulty, "My brain is working overtime."

And it was. So many impressions were striking me at once that I was soon exhausted trying to sort them out and keep track of everything. We took a long walk all the way uptown to her apartment, during which I had to inspect every store window and peer around corners to see what was there. It seemed every inch of Third Avenue presented something new and exotic. Martha was pleased that I was so enchanted.

"It's a little intimidating," I mused aloud as we strolled with Martha hugging my arm.

"It doesn't really frighten you, does it?"

"It's a lot like being in the middle of something that has no beginning and no end. And that movie -- now I have to learn about the theater all over again. From scratch. All of this..it just keeps going, doesn't it? It never stops."

"Oh, it stops. At around 4 A.M., for an hour or so."

In her apartment as we prepared for bed, Martha told me about the schedule for tomorrow. I had Fiore at ten, and Ronnie would meet me at noon where she worked at 33rd and Madison. She would take me to the eyeglass dealer and help me choose a set of frames. Then I was free, until Martha returned at around five. Martha would wake at six and be ready to go to a meeting at Columbia by seven.

"I dread these things," she said, slipping out of her skirt. "So political, so artificial. Everything is numbers, bureaucrats, committees. For such educated people, there seems to be no one person who can do or decide anything alone."

I watched her. She removed her bra, her panties. She stood naked, her flesh glowing in the lamplight. She reached into a drawer for her pajamas -- blue ones this time -- and started unfolding them.

My balls ached. I was accustomed to her making the first move or giving the first signals. Holding back, I felt myself tremble. I looked down at my shaking hands. How long, I asked, would I continue to be so unsure of a woman who so obviously desired me? Or was it just the vitamins and Fiore's workout? Or was this really me, my new sexuality more demanding that it was back in Memphis? Almost always, sex with Martha was prefaced by moments of relaxed conversation and sweet touching. That, I told myself, was the emotional warmup. What I felt now was spurred not by emotion; it was almost entirely physical.

Standing in my underwear, I looked at her nakedness as she talked about the meeting and unbuttoned her neatly packed pajama top. She was luscious. Her breasts jiggled lightly as her hands worked at the buttons. She stood with one leg on the floor and one knee on the bed, as she rambled on. She had the pajama shirt unbuttoned and would soon have it on, covering her pink-tipped breasts.

I stopped thinking. I walked to the bedside lamp and turned it off. She stopped talking and looked up at me. I stared daringly into her wondering face as I approached her. I dipped my head, licked a breast, found her nipple with my tongue, and sucked.

I heard her murmur "Hmm. Hon." Her fingers held the breast to my mouth and I suckled gently. I raised my head and placed my lips into the warm hollow of her throat. She sighed pleasurably as I kissed and licked my way up her long neck. I looked at her. She was smiling at me, her eyes narrowed and warm and sultry.

"Your mouth feels good on me," she said.

I held her by her shoulders and gently laid her on the bed. She lay with her legs spread, smiling at me languidly from the dark as I removed my underwear. She saw that I was already stiff. I walked to the end of the bed, my dick wobbling, and knelt on the mattress. She grinned and pulled her knees up and opened her thighs and waited. I moved forward, and placed my head directly into her crotch, gently spreading her cunt with my hands, and gave her a long, slow, wet lick along her slit, from bottom to top.

"Yes," she breathed softly, "Oh, hon, yes."

Perhaps it was the lecherous hunger in my mouth and movements that heated her so quickly. Holding her furrow open with the spread fingers of both my hands, I saw her nub was swollen and ready. I held her open, her clit totally unbared and defenseless. She looked down at me as I dipped my tongue. I licked, circling slowly. She uttered "Ah!", and gritted her teeth and watched my eyes watching hers. Then her eyes closed, her neck tensed, her raised knees fell aside and opened her smoothly tendoned thighs under my shoulders. I circled my tongue again, not directly on her clit, but around the firm rim of her cuntlips. After a moment I gently sucked her clit.

She caught her breath. "Ah. Nice."

I settled my mouth into her mound. Yearningly I started sucking her clit the way she might suck my longer cock, using my lips as a warm cone sliding up and down her stiffening length. Her thighs stiffened, the tendons throbbed. She gave a soft, surprised "Oh!" Her head fell back and she gasped irregularly, her hips arching. Unrelenting, I sucked and stroked with my wet inner lips in a steady rhythm, feeling the smooth swell of her furrowed mound against my face, feeling her thighs flutter and her hips flex. Soon I heard her moan achingly toward the ceiling, "It's so good. Oh, it's so GOOD!". It did not take long for her to signal that she was near cumming. Her entire body quivered for a few seconds, then her thighs widened even more and she began a slow, sensuous writhing of her hips.

I stopped, with her close and gasping and writhing. I rose over her, my erection swaying, my tip glistening in the dark. I knelt over her with my knees astride her head. I grasped the headboard as I raised my hips and dangled my cock over her mouth.

She looked up, surprised. Her eyes narrowed wickedly. "Yeah," she whispered. She reached behind her head and bunched the pillow so that her head leaned forward comfortably. She smiled into my eyes as she gathered spit in her mouth and then extended her tongue to slowly and completely wet me with long, lingering licks.

I grinned down at her. I heard myself whisper lecherously, "Yeah. Mmm. Suck it. Suck."

With a single movement of her head forward, her mouth enclosed me, wetly, hotly, immersing me entirely with warm spit and clinging flesh. I grunted and sighed at the poignant, itching pleasure as she drew her mouth back and along my entire length with a long slurp. Then she mouthed my tip gently with the soft inside of her lips. My cock jerked against her mouth.

"Hmm," she breathed. She smiled mischievously at me, whispering, "I love this."

"Suck," I whispered.

Her eyes widened lustfully at my words, and she enclosed me again, nodding with slow, regular, spitty, lingering sucks. Her mouth moved only an inch or two, her lips riding loosely and slickly up and down my cock, the pressure of her tongue on the underside creating most of the tantalizing sucking effect.

I sighed hotly, grinning down at her, thinking that what Martha did when she sucked was not really sucking; it was mouth-fucking, pure and simple. Martha, I thought, knew how to make her mouth feel almost exactly like a warm, affectionate, perpetually moving cunt. Her skill had not diminished with time; soon my cock began its mad twitching against the roof of her mouth and I felt the beginnings of my climax ooze into the tubes under my cock. I gently pulled away, her mouth loosing me with a little slurp.

My eyes on hers, I watched as I slithered down, straightening my legs and settling onto her. The surprise on her face softened when she saw me rise on my arms and angle my cock toward her opening. She continued to gasp, her breath broken and her eyes staring helplessly, pleading to be filled, telling me she was still near orgasm. My cock touched her firm, drippy outer lips. Her thighs fell open again, and her pelvis lifted to me, her cuntlips welcoming, kissing, grasping, encircling my tip. I moved forward. And her eyes glistened and I exhaled with the pleasure of my slide into her, the familiar slickness of her welcoming channel, the clinging, loving comfort of the gripping flesh of her that my cock had known so well before. My shaft lurched upward, saying hello to her secret place, and she clinched me in return. And I began to slide in her, luxuriate in her, with long and deep and slow and powerful and steady strokes, my butt tightening in the warm hair and my belly grazing hers.

"Fuck," she whispered happily, her eyes glistening. "Fuck."

I watched her panting. I felt her spasm wetly around me. I tight- ened my tummy and moved upward on her slightly, brushing her seeking and swollen clit on every glide in and out of her, and her eyes flared with pleasure.

I whispered as I moved, "Are you close?"

She nodded, quickly, her eyes shifting and her breath shuddering.

I said, "Look at me. Cum in my eyes. I want to see your eyes while you cum."

Her eyes widened again, excitedly. Unsmiling and seemingly entranced, she parted her lips and tried to speak, but couldn't. She gulped thickly, and started panting. Her eyes melted into a longing, helpless stare. Her nails clamped into my shoulders, her taut arms quivered. Balancing on my right hand and still moving inside her, I swooped my left arm under her, around her trim waist, and held the small of her back in my spread palm. I felt the muscles in her hips lurching under my skin. I whispered "cum" to her, encouraging, helping, and whispered "cum" again, watching her eyes, watching her mouth part and her eyes glaze and watching her lips mouth the word yes and watching her gasp and mouth yes again and then feeling her stiffen, suddenly, taut as a wire, her pelvis grinding her firm clit against my shaft, and then her sudden, moaning, low-pitched, frenzied "Yes!" and she was cumming, her cunt fiercely clamping, her neck straining, her face nodding and pitching forward in small spasms as she stared at me and came, and I held her cheek with my hand and smiled into her face and crooned as her father might, "Yes. Yes," and her face and feverish eyes froze with pleasure and after a moment while she was cumming her throat uttered that strange, animalistic sound she sometimes made, something between a groan and the whimper of a helpless infant, and I held her face tenderly and slowed my fucking to make it last for her, and she shuddered, stiffened, shud- dered, and finally her face fell forward and her arms enclosed me and she hugged me to her and opened her mouth against my shoulder and seemed to scream quietly against my flesh there, and she relaxed, and whimpered, and gasped for breath, and then fell back with a sigh, her eyes tearing and her mouth moving with the word Steven, and her face soft and loving as her fingers held my cheeks, and she whispered plaintively, "Cum in me. Cum inside me," and I raised on my arms and looked down at her body stretched and spread under me and began lancing into her strongly again, steadily, deeply, and trembling with long-held lust I felt again the new pleasure of the nub of her womb nip at my tip deep inside her, and she tightened her cunt on me imploringly and soon I felt the blessed release and gasped and shook with it, seeing below me what I had always suspected, that as my glistening shaft pumped into her auburn tuft her tummy did indeed move, but subtly, her hips rotating in a slow tiny circle so that her slithering cunt could wring cum from me, asking ruthlessly for it all, and I slowed and groaned and kept twitching upward against the roof of her cunt and gushing hotly, hearing the faint slosh of me in her, and hearing her sweet "mmm" and her softly hissed "Yes" as she raised her head to watch me fuck into her, and with my last, slowing strokes she sighed a long, quiet, contented "aahh," and I stopped, and collapsed on her, feeling her neck hot against my face, and she hugged me warmly and cuddled into me, and reached down between us for me to raise my belly so she could give my cock a tug as she liked to do, and then she hugged me again, my breath hot and damp against her neck, and her hips writhing happily as my twitches waned inside her. She raised her legs around me, her body now enclosing me completely in her heat and damp flesh and the scent of warm milk that came from her.

She was still catching her breath. Against my ear, she gave a low, pleased chuckle. "Lord, do you know how to fuck."

I panted, my aching balls empty.

After a few moments I whispered, "Don't you have to go to the bathroom?"

She sighed wearily. "Not really. It's not the right time of the month."

"Maybe you should be sure."

"I'd love to sleep with your cum in me."

"Mother nature would love it too."

"Mm...Okay. But hold me a little longer. Wait 'til you're asleep."

At the window, the warm summer night sent a breeze that made the curtains whisper sleepily. For a few minutes, I thought, New York was stilled. My mind whispered silently: Stay. Stay here. Keep holding her. Hold this moment.

Unaccustomed to sleeping for more than five or six hours, I awoke on Monday a little before six. Beside me, I saw that Martha had changed into her blue pajamas while I slept. I touched my lips to her cheek, and got out of bed and dressed and made coffee. I had been sitting in the dining room only a couple of minutes before I heard the same soft knock at the door that I'd heard the day before. Going to the door, I cleared my throat loudly, as before.

"Steven?" Ronnie called softly from the other side.

I opened the door, removing my glasses first. Ronnie waited in the same pajamas and bathrobe as yesterday.

"Steven," she said. As before, she made the same begging gesture and sheepish grin. "Sugar?"

"Sure," I said, extending my arm into the room. She tiptoed into the kitchen. I sat waiting at the dining table until she tiptoed out again, holding a coffee cup half-filled with sugar. I opened the front door for her.

She glanced at the sofa, which of course was made up and intact as before. "What a fireball," she whispered, slithering into the hall.

I closed the door and turned to hear Martha rustling in the bedroom. In a few seconds she appeared in the living room doorway as she had yesterday when Ronnie borrowed coffee. Martha slumped in her pajamas and scratched her side. Her face was half-covered with the same fuzzy tousle.

"Ronnie again?" she slurred.

I nodded. "Right. She ran out of sugar."

"God...she's so disorganized."

She stumbled into the bathroom. I read the Sunday New York Times that I had not finished the day before. After a minute I heard Martha dropping things in the bathroom again. In a few seconds she emerged, carrying an armful of cosmetics and drifting toward the kitchen. She stopped in the kitchen door and sniffed, testing the air. She turned to me, her eyes still half-closed behind the hair in her face.

"You made coffee again?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, looking up from my newspapers.

She paused, seeming to fall asleep for a second or two, then drifted toward me and dropped the cosmetics on the table and shoved the table away from me with her hips, and then settled with a plop onto my lap and buried her face in my shoulder. She kissed my neck. She nestled into my shoulder for a minute, her breathing still noisy and sleepy.

She pulled her head away and looked at me, eyes hooded.

"Kiss me," she murmured, a little drunk with sleep.

We kissed, warmly.

She pulled away. Still sleepy, she gazed without expression at my mouth. She shifted on my lap, closer to me, her arms around my neck.

"Kiss me again," she murmured.

I did, for a long sweet minute.

She pulled away. She paused. She made a sound that was something like a little whimper of frustration.

"Kiss me again," she murmured.

I did, more longingly this time, giving her lips a little lick while we were still connected.

Pulling away, she experimentally ran her tongue around her lips. "Mm. New sensation." She looked at me, her half-closed eyes hidden behind her hair. Mostly, I saw nose, lips, and chin. "You never did it that way before."

"I didn't?"

She shook her head no. She leaned down. "Kiss me again," she murmured.

I did. This time she gently invaded my mouth with her tongue, which wrestled wetly with mine for a few seconds. When she pulled away she rested her forehead against mine.

"Do you know what you did to me last night?" she whispered.

"I have a vague recollection," I said.

"Try to remember. I want you to do it again when I get home this afternoon."

"I'll consult my notes."

"Okay." She rubbed her nose listlessly. "Remember," she said, "Fiore at ten. Ronnie at twelve. Then rest. Then me."

"Okay."

"You were very good last night."

"Mm. Thank you, Miss Scarlett."

"We're seeing West Side Story tonight, don't forget."

"Will we have time for that, and for you when you get home?"

She said, "Mm-hm," and then tilted her face again, her mouth parting. "Kiss me again," she murmured.

I did.

Finally she pulled away, patted my shoulders, and rose. Gathering her cosmetics, she sighed, "What a delicious mouth," and she drifted toward the kitchen. Again, she stripped quickly, affording me another view of her perfect, lithe body from the rear, and stepped into the shower.

I thought, my groin aching from the past three days: Fiore, help me with this.

At ten o'clock Fiore, looking me over with his hands on his hips, grinned at me from his big red face. "So! Still with smoke on your breath, heh? You're lucky you have only light work today! Every other day, we do the heavy work! Today you stretch like a rubber band! I will show you! Now -- onto the table!"

Once again, Fiore flipped and kneaded me on the massage table, showing me how to detect which muscles and tendons were too tight and required work. Then he showed me the stretching movements that the dancers in his gym performed. I strained and grunted through all of them. Then: "On the bicycle! Do it 'til you fall off!"

"This is light work?" I remarked, climbing onto the exercise bike. I started pedaling.

"No!" Fiore exclaimed. "You destroy your knees moving that way! Remember what I told you! Start again!"

By eleven o'clock, huffing and puffing, I was tired but definitely awake. I took Fiore's advice and stopped in a shop on Madison Avenue to buy a pair of first class workout shoes, then walked downtown to 32nd Street to meet Ronnie in the building where she worked.

She appeared at exactly noon, hurrying across the expansive lobby of the building, wearing a gray business suit. She carried a wide cardboard artist's portfolio. Ronnie had a youngish face whose slightly squared jaws and narrow nose might have been considered a liability were it not for her overall soft, pretty, youngish quality and her large, dark eyes. Not one to smile constantly, her normal expression was a serious, reflective, older one, with a hint in her eyes of some unspoken sadness. When she did smile it was a crinkly, playful, contagious one that brightened her whole face. I smiled at her as she approached, aware that her winning grin and friendly blue eyes were beginning to affect me warmly. She greeted me with a lilting "hello-ooo" and a flitter of her raised fingers.

She asked, "Did Fiore leave anything for the rest of us?"

"I'll be okay, as long as I can sit at lunch."

"No problem," she said, chuckling. "No extra charge for chairs at this place."

We walked quickly along the crowded street toward a restaurant on 35th Street. She asked about my workouts with Fiore. I described the special movements Fiore taught me and the diet he assigned.

"Uk," she said, making a face, "brewer's yeast. Yeah, he made me take that stuff once. Three tablespoons a day, right?"

"Me too."

She eyed me playfully. "You don't cheat, do you?"

"Nope."

"Jeez, what dedication. I had to lay off that stuff. It made me so healthy I stayed horny all the time. Couldn't stand it."

We sat at a small table near the window of the second floor of the restaurant she took me to. There was no lack of material to talk about. We shared many interests. I found Ronnie to be quite cheerful, despite her occasionally self-disparaging remarks.

"I can't believe," she said, salting her food, "that you worked for two years day and night to come up here. You must be very determined, Steven." She was interested in every detail of what it took to keep a paper route, a subject I considered tedious, but she wanted to know about it anyway. Then she asked about growing up in the Lauderdale Courts. "You know," she said, "Elvis Presley grew up there, too." I told her I'd seen Elvis in the neighborhood and that he still visited my stepdad's supermarket now and then, accompanied by a string of pink Cadillacs.

She winced. "Oh, the Cadillacs! Almost as bad as his movies, and some of his stuff is just too teeny. But I love it when he gets into the old rhythm and blues stuff." Pouring cream in her second cup of coffee, she sang lightly, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...," and concluded with a droll, "Am I awful, or what? Wanna see me wiggle?"

Out on the sidewalk, she asked me to hold still and put my glasses on. I balked, but she insisted, "Oh, come on, let's see what we have to work with. We'll still be friends."

I donned my glasses and let her have a look at me. She gazed at me, studying. I began thinking she was actually quite cute, with a casual, girlish charm and an easy acceptance of me as I was -- a far cry from my carping relatives.

"Yeah," she conceded, "Martha's right. New frames will make a b-i-g difference. Come on, we're going to a place that not many people know about."

On the way, she asked me about my theater work. She was awed that I had gone onto the stage before I was a teen. Teasing, she wanted me to perform a bit from one of my former roles. By the time we arrived at the frame vendor's place on the fourth floor of a building near Macy's, I felt easy and comfortable with Ronnie. I didn't wonder that she was a close friend of Martha's. And she was the first young woman I knew other than Martha who expressed a serious interest in and knowledge of the arts I'd left behind for my paper route.

In the frame shop I tried several designs, with Ronnie giving her impressions of each. "Really," she said, "I like every one you picked out. But you tell me which one you like best." I put on my favorite and she looked me over carefully, and then nudged her lips approvingly. "Right. They're drop-dead gorgeous, Steven. You look seriously like a New Yorker."

The frames cost sixty bucks -- a pretty sum in those days, consider- ing that my originals cost a mere twenty. The salesman behind the counter told me I could have my lenses mounted on the premises for five bucks if I would wait an hour. I agreed. Ronnie and I sat in a corner and chatted until she was due to return to work.

"You get involved in so many fascinating things," she said, sitting beside me and looking pensively down at the floor. She had a slim figure and a slinky, easy manner of sitting and moving. "I'd give anything to have your brains and endurance. I just slug along. Don't even know where I'm going yet. Feel like I'm twenty-two going on sixty."

"You've got a start in the design business, though. Back in Memphis, women don't even know such jobs exist."

"Yeah, Martha told me about Memphis. Minimum wage capital of the world, right? God, Mom, and apple pie?"

I nodded. "Red necks, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer. Memphis would be waste of your talent -- and your personality."

"Awww. Shucks. But those Southern accents are so cute. They never get it right in the movies. Yours is faint, but just right. Martha's is almost gone."

I leaned toward her, and she leaned closer to hear me. "Tell me," I asked furtively, "all the salesmen in this place...why are they wearing those little black caps?"

"Those what?" she asked, leaning closer.

"Those little black caps."

She widened her eyes and covered her mouth with her hands, grinning broadly behind them. "Those little black...?" she began, then she bent over with laughter as I sat and watched, confused. She straightened up, and took another minute to calm down. "Oh, that's precious! I have to tell Martha about this!"

The little black hat, she whispered, was a yarmulke; the salesmen there were hassidic Jews. I blushed, feeling like a complete country idiot again. She chuckled over it until she left for work. "You're such fun, Steven. I can't wait for us to get together Wednesday." She gave me another of her innocent pecks as she left.

Soon my frames were ready. I put them on, bought a new hard case for them, and headed for the street. The new frames felt better. The city looked better. I had made a friend of Ronnie. I wasn't wearing those loathsome hornrimmed gadgets. Instead of taking a bus to Martha's, I stuffed my old tennies in my shopping bag and laced on my new workout shoes. I broke into a jog up busy Third Avenue. As I huffed along in the breeze, I was surprised that no one on the street took notice. I could like New York, I thought; I didn't seem so uneasy about myself in New York.

I streaked up the stairs to Martha's apartment and looked at myself and my new frames in the mirror. Not bad. The frames were very thin, almost invisible. In the kitchen I swallowed my midday ration of yogurt, pills, and yeast. I took an extra dab of yeast. Settling onto the sofa with my New York Times, I awaited Martha.

She returned late, around five-forty-five, looking cheerless and enervated in the brown two-piece suit in which she had been so fresh and pretty a few hours before. I opened the door for her and grinned, wear- ing my new frames. Unsmiling, she entered sluggishly and plopped her purse onto the dining table.

I stood behind her, waiting, my new frames sitting squarely on my face in broad daylight. "Whaddya think?" I asked the back of her bobbed head.

She turned around and looked directly into my eyes, and leaned close to me, and then put her hands on my shoulder and, gazing intently at my mouth, pushed me backward against the wall and pressed full length against me. She held my face in her hands. "What do I think of what?" she asked distractedly, her lips coming closer to mine, her eyelids hooded sensually.

"The frames," I said.

Ignoring the frames, she raised one hand and gently touched my lips. She murmured throatily, softly, "Outstanding."

"You didn't look," I said.

"Yes I did, they're gorgeous. Steven, I hate the New York City edu- cation establishment. I hate the politics, the shortsightedness. But I love your mouth. I've been thinking about your mouth all day." Still pressing against me and watching my mouth, she unbuttoned her suit jacket.

I had not expected her to be so direct, willing, and ready after a day of work. I cleared my throat. "I learned what a yarmulke was."

"You did? You gonna start wearing one?" She slipped the jacket off her shoulders and let it slither to the floor without looking.

"And had a nice talk with Ronnie."

Gently she wedged one leg between my thighs. "Fiore didn't wear you out, did he?"

"No, it was okay."

Her voice was soft, sultry, whispery. "Steven, I demand that we fuck immediately."

"Right here? Now? Standing up?"

"Hmm...I didn't think of that. Can we do it standing up?"

"I guess. Horses do, don't they?"

"Not face to face."

"Well, they're horses, what do they know? I bet we could. We've both been very resourceful so far."

"Resourceful, yes. Not necessarily lucky."

I looked at her face and she looked at my mouth and I gathered the hem of her skirt and ran my hand up her leg. "Careful, hon, don't tear my hose. They're so expensive." She gave a low, small sigh as I cupped my hand between her legs over the hose and panties. She was warm and humid.

"Here," she whispered, "I'll pull them off. You get your pants off."

"Lucky? Why did you say 'Not necessarily lucky'?"

I heard things snapping under her skirt, and her shoulders jerked as her hands moved under her suit. She stayed against me, looking into my eyes and at my mouth, her lips nearly on mine.

"I think, " she whispered as she worked, "that the parts have to fit in a particular way, you know, for fucking to be conducted between standing humans."

"But we're the higher species, we differ from lower animals in our ability to stand upright."

"I think we stood up to hunt, Steven, not to fuck -- No, don't do that."

"...Just reaching for the table lamp, so we can --"

"No. No seeing. Just hearing. Feeling. There's just enough light from the window. I like to fuck in the dark."

"How wicked. You realize, you're seducing me."

"I thought standing was your idea."

"I was naive and innocent. I didn't know it would lead to this."

She gulped when I raised her skirt and my cock grazed her bared cunt.

"Look, you're already wet. I got you wet, didn't I? Hm, this is getting you hot. Isn't it? And you thought it was a silly idea. You fraud, you're as wicked as I am."

"You're one to talk, look how hard you got. Come on, get in me... in me, hon...a little more...a little -- oh, darn, I don't believe this."

"Don't spread your legs so wide, you get lower to the floor and I can't reach you."

"Let me lean against the wall. Then I can open my legs a little... try again, hon...easy...lower...Mmm. There."

"Your cunt's so hot"

"Slow, hon...This is too outrageous not to let it last...Oh, yes ..nnn, deeper...Feel okay?"

"It's very strange, our clothes on and the only place we can...mmf ..feel each other is where we're fucking."

"Yes, but...mm!...you can't go very deep."

"I know. No wonder horses do it the other way."

"Yeah? The mare gets down on all fours? Right?"

"Be interesting to see what they get out of it."

"I understand...ah, mm...I understand it feels very good that way."

"Yeah? How do you know?"

"Ahhh...Ronnie."

"Ronnie likes it that way?"

"No, hon, Ronnie and I discussed it."

"I see, the two wicked witches of East 87th Street."

"Okay, let's...let's try it horsie style. Come out, hon...oh, mmm, it's always so sad when he leaves me."

"He'll be back."

"You stay right there, little horsie. Oh, my, I got him all wet, didn't I? Here, I'm supposed to get on my hands and knees, right? This way...? Come on, you kneel behind me. Push my skirt up, hon. Okay, okay wait... Steven, where'd you go? Feel my hand back there? Huh? Where are you? Here, horsie. Here, horsie!"

"Wait, wait...Here, let me get up against you."

"Yeah, there he is...move closer....closer, hon."

"I think you have to raise your tail a little, miss filly."

"That okay? Hm? Oh! Oh, mmmm."

"Hmmmm."

"Oh that's feels so good! So depraved. Oh, hon, are you sure this is legal?"

"Ah...I won't tell if you won't. Mm, you're so tight and wet this way..."

"Baby...Mmp!...Why didn't we do this before?"

"We were too busy...doing other things. Oh, it's good. I'm out of breath already."

"All I can see under me is your balls bouncing. Oh, how sweet. How perfectly, beautifully obscene, your balls bouncing. Go all the way in and hold it, all the way in...ahhhh, hold it, Steven. Oh, it's so...your balls against me, so nice. I can just barely touch them, if I can reach back far enough..."

"Martha...no, don't do that..."

"You don't want me to squeeze 'em? Does that feel good, if I squeeze, just a little? They feel so heavenly in my hands. I can't feel them like this when we fuck the other way."

"Martha, don't squeeze..."

"Just a little? They're so fragile and warm and hairy."

"Oh, fuck."

"What are you -- are you cumming? Oh...oh that's so funny, you're cumming, I can feet your squirt muscles."

"...mmmmm..."

"Let it cum, hon. Is it better if I move on you a little?"

"MMM!"

"Hmm, feels good when I move, huh?...Does it?...uh!..uh!, oh, you animal...uh!...mmmm...Steven, I like this..."

"Whew! Okay. Okay. Okay, stop. Stop."

"Oh my, what a short-lived experiment. Look at you, you look like you're ready to fall on your face. Haha, oh, that's so funny, I never saw you cum so fast. Instant hot Steven! You poor thing, we'll have to take this a little slower next time. Did you like it?"

"Oh, yes, *ma'am*, yes...Very. Whew!"

"Wanna do it again?"

"Huh? Let me sit down. What?"

"Wanna do it again?"

"Whew! Okay. Right. Five minutes. No, ten."

"No, silly, after the show tonight. Oh, I have to wash up! I'm dripping. What a lot of cum! Here, you just have a quick nap right here on the floor and I'll hurry into the bathroom, and after you rest a minute you can fix us a quick sandwich or something, 'cause we won't have time to eat out. You can make me cum when we get back, okay?"

"Whew! What? I can't hear you when you're running water in the bathroom!"

"I thought cummin' too much made you blind, not deaf. I said, you can make me cum when we get back. Maybe we can even horsie fuck."

"It's doggie style, isn't it?...Whew!...Not horsie fuck."

"It's eff-yew-see-kay, hon -- horsie, doggie, froggie, whatever. Let's do it so I can watch in the mirror. Wouldn't that be delicious?"

"Right...Whew!...Cumma ti yi yippee yippee yay..."

After watching "West Side Story" we returned directly to Martha's. As soon as we entered the room she had me lick her to orgasm on the sofa with her clothes on. She came right away. But that was hardly enough to satisfy her. We undressed and went into the bedroom, where she closed the bedroom door so the mirror on the door faced the bed while we copulated doggie style.

She thought watching the mirror to be exciting for a while, but she soon found it artificial and distracting and preferred looking in my eyes and talking in the dark with me on top. My back was feeling the effects of the last few days with Martha and Fiore and the rest of New York. I turned over and she got on top, a position we seldom used. I directed her hips, reading her carefully to make certain she held back long enough to build what I hoped would be a thoroughly exhausting climax. When she started humping and grinding on her own, I withdrew my hips and avoided contacting her clit until I could get her going all over again. Finally, when she was so agitated that she seemed incoherent, I humped steadily under her until she came in a long, gasping, whimpering finish.

She gulped and floundered on me, swallowing and sweating and catching her breath with tiny yelps. She lay her cheek on my chest just under my neck and breathed heavily for a while. Soon, still slightly breathless, she raised up on her arms.

"Whew! You think you're pretty smart, don't you?...Whew...Holding me back like that and...driving me crazy."

"You didn't like it?"

"Whew!...Of course I liked it!" She rose on me and looked down into my face. "You didn't cum yet, did you?"

I shook my head no.

"Want to?"

"Yes."

"Now? Hmm? You wanna cum now?""

I lay still, strongly suspecting something was up.

"Well..." I stumbled.

She grinned devilishly. "So, you wanna cum now, huh??"

"Perhaps I made a slip in judgement..."

"Yeah?"

"...and drew things out a little."

"Yeah? A little?" She began moving on me, ever so slightly, most of it internal and secret. She smiled greedily. "Think you might have miscalculated?"

"I may have, uh, yes, miscalculated. 'S possible."

"Uh-huh." Knowing I was already hard as a rock, she made a tiny motion inside her somewhere that deftly squeezed the entire length of my sensitized and swollen knob.

I jerked. "Oh!"

"Hit the spot, huh?"

"God, I think so."

"Oh, I'm so glad I found it." She did it again and grinned trium- phantly when I jerked once more. "Think you're gonna cum? Hm?"

"Well..."

"Think so?" She raised on her elbows again, looking down to watch my wet, distended shaft. She lifted until the snug ring of her opening barely encircled the ridge of my tip, and held there. "Not yet..."

I whimpered and gasped. Suspended over me, she started squeezing my tip rhythmically. I moaned and tensed.

"Not ye-e-et," she sang, her face near mine. She pulsed slowly and methodically as she settled onto me, an inch at a time, pausing for several squeezes before lowering another inch. After a long minute of this routine she breathed a deep, wobbly sigh and imbedded me in her to my root, her pubic fuzz tickling my tummy as she settled and then circled her hips. She contracted, watched my face, and contracted again. my cock leapt yearningly inside her.

"Don't cum," she whispered. Then she began moving, watching my face and smiling as she rose and fell slowly, taking about two seconds to rise and two seconds to fall. "Don't cum," she said again, "It feels too good right now."

She worked on me in exactly that way for about ten minutes, never changing her pace or the depth of her stroke. Or maybe it was five minutes. Or maybe it was half an hour. Or maybe I have no idea how long it went on. "Not yet," she chanted cloyingly as she continuously caressed my face with one tender finger. Now and then she urged her cunt a little lower as she engulfed me, knowing that I now could feel her cervix at my tip, her smile widening each time I tensed and gasped at the sensation.

Finally, when she saw that my entire body had gone rigid as a lamp-post, she began kissing me softly on my eyes, face, and neck.

"Ready?" she taunted.

"...Yes," I groaned, sounding as if I were someone speaking on the other side of the room. Was this my voice? My legs stretched so tautly that I imagined they approached the far wall beyond my feet.

"Your balls nice and tight?"

"...Yes..."

She continued, her hands cradling my face, her lips bare centimeters from mine.

"It'll feel so good, Steven...it'll feel so good."

I trembled. Her words and movements had me in a strange, new, unimaginably erotic galaxy. I knew I had some cum left down there, somewhere. Where was it? I searched frantically for the elusive source of the orgasm I desperately needed lest I lose all control and start making absurd cries and noises. I feared everyone in the building would hear me if I didn't cum soon. But her crooning and her writhing, sliding cunt obliterated everything except wildly panting, arching, trembling sensation. I stiffened and arched and thought damn she's so good at this and I quivered and I...

Squirted. Once. Twice. Hot. Strong.

"Yes," she whispered.

Martha, I thought. And I squirted. And squirted.

"Yes," she whispered again. "Yes..."

I whimpered, floating out of the dark place of pure pleasure like flotsam rising to the top and bobbing on the surface.

I felt her face grinning with her cheek against mine and heard her chuckle near my ear. "There," she crooned, "There, baby." Her hips slowed and stopped. She held me securely inside her and stroked my face. I blinked and opened my eyes. She wore an amused, self-satisfied little smile.

She whispered, "Gotcha."

"Whew!" I had a mustache of salty sweat above my lip. I removed it with a finger.

"Didja like that?"

I pushed my hair out of my face and shrugged, nudging my lip forward nonchalantly while gasping for air. "It was, you know...okay."

"It was the best, wasn't it?"

I looked into her eyes, seriously. "Yes, it was. You fucked my brains out."

"Have any cum left?" She kept eyeing me, but her mind was on her inner muscles, which closed on me once or twice.

"Not only do I not have any more cum, I don't have toenails anymore."

"C'mon, after a cum like that I want to hear you say something deli- ously dirty to me in gratitude."

"Hmm."

"C'mon." She squeezed.

I looked at her. Her eyes studied mine mischievously. I stroked her hair. "Go ahead," I whispered. "Milk me with your cunt. Get all of it."

"Yeah..."

"Every drop."

"Yes..."

"There," I grunted, blinking. "You got some."

"I Did"

"Yes."

"Any more?"

"I don't think so."

"Sure?"

I nodded.

Her lips glistened. Her eyes smouldered. "God, I love this with you."

I looked up at her. I placed a palm warmly against her cheek.

She lowered her head and gently chewed my ear and slithered her wet labia and her firm clit against my tummy and whispered wickedly, "Maybe there's just a tiny, teeny, little bit more? Hm?..."

Tuesday morning I didn't open my eyes until I heard Martha getting dressed on the other side of the room. I turned onto my side and saw her slipping a belt through the loops of her skirt.

She beamed at me, "Hi. Did I wear you out?"

"Yes," I groaned.

"We can rest tonight." She fetched shoes from the closet and sat on the bed, embracing me and snuggling into my neck. "You certainly have me in a great mood for doing combat with the bureaucrats this morning. At least I can escape for a while later today and do some serious tutoring before I come home. I'd much rather struggle with the kids than with the grownups."

"Martha," I said into her shoulder.

"Mm-hm?"

"Do you have any idea how good you are in bed?"

She nodded against my cheek.

I said, "Then I don't have to tell you."

"Tell me anyway."

"I just did."

"Tell me anyway."

I kissed her neck. "Martha," I whispered, "you're so good in bed."

She sighed. "It's so nice to hear you speak up for a change."

She finished dressing and gathered her things into her purse and her briefcase. In my whole life in Memphis, Tennessee, I had never seen a woman carry a briefcase.

Martha reminded me that I had Fiore at ten, I had to take my vitamins and the yeast, and I could meet Ronnie for lunch again if I wanted. Later that night we were due at an Artur Rubenstein concert. "Then we'll rest," she said. "It's an early day Wednesday. We have to be up at five-thirty. We can't be late, the Long Island Railroad leaves on time and it takes Ronnie forever to get ready."

I yawned. "I thought Ronnie worked."

"She does, but not everybody in New York works nine to five. This isn't Memphis, Steven, people here get time off when they need it."

She blew a kiss as she rushed out the front door, leaving me standing in my underwear in the living room. I listened to the traffic bustling outside. I could like New York, I thought. I started laying out my vitamins on the kitchen table. I could like this hustle and bustle, this constant stimulation, this variety, this surfeit of possibility.

There was a knock at the door. "Steven?" Ronnie called.

I stood near the door. "Sugar?" I called back. "Coffee?"

She laughed. "No, no. Wanna meet for lunch?"

"Okay."

"Remember where?"

"Same as yesterday."

"Right. 'Byyye, y'aaall....Did I do that right?"

"...We'll work on it."

She laughed again. "All right. See ya!" I heard her clatter down the stairs in her heels.

I could like this place, I thought. I poured water for a cup of berry tea. I could even like brewer's yeast.

Fiore worked me to a frazzle. He set up a coordination and aerobics exercise in which I had to race around a small room and catch handballs that he kept pitching to me. He began pitching more balls, faster and farther from wherever I stood -- until, finally, I had enough. Snatching one ball that he pitched into a corner far from where I stood panting and recovering from the previous pitch, I squeezed the ball and grimaced and threw him a hot, angry stare, and then slammed the ball into the wall as hard I could.

Fiore grinned, his hands on his hips, while the ball bounced away and I stood gasping and glowering. "Good!" he said, nodding. "Good, my friend! I was wondering how long it would take you to speak up for yourself! Iss feel good, hah? Good! Know your limits! Admit them!" He strode toward me, his grin softening. "If you don' learn your own limits, THEY control YOU. As you build your body, build your awareness. As you develop awareness, develop the body. Mind and body, my friend! They work together! Hah? Good!" He slapped me on the back, and I managed to stay on my feet. "You rest a minute! Then...More of this! Hah? Good!"

Later, as I was walking downtown on Lexington Avenue, I thought: I'm surrounded by geniuses. Surrounded by artists, writers, thinkers, doers, teachers, seers, makers, strivers. Every store front, every skyscraper, every crowded street corner offered new possibilities, new freedom -- and new crises, with little room for the laxity or purposelessness I knew in Memphis. New York was swift, extreme. People seemed to have a certain cunning, a toughness, that came from being forced to look deeper and try harder. I felt intimidated, but that in itself incited me to look more deeply into myself, to listen to my impressions. As I strolled, I began observing everything more meticulously. New York struck me at first as simply a chaotic puzzle, a violent offhandedness. But taken separately, some pieces seemed studied, calculated, learned and honed to the point where they leapt out with an ease that seemed spontaneous, innate. Merged, everything appeared merely disordered. People seemed to know where they were going and how to get there; those who didn't wandered vaguely. The few who stopped to read a street sign were shoved by unpausing others, honked at by speeding and careening traffic, glowered at by those who suddenly found a lost soul impeding their own progress.

I somehow managed to express this to Ronnie during her lunch hour as we sat looking out the window in a Chinese restaurant on Seventh Avenue.

"Jeez, Steven," she said, staring at me, "you do need to live here. Did you really come from Memphis, Tennessee? I wish I had such a brain. I have such a hard time getting down to the guts of life. I guess I'm too busy trying to remember where I put my laundry ticket. But it's true: in Manhattan, if you don't learn life well, you either get stepped on or you miss out on everything. In my case, both."

She told me about the small Michigan town where she grew up. "It seemed so nice when I was very young. Very serene. But then I made a terrible mistake: I became twelve years old. And the land wasn't serene anymore, it was just flat. And the trees didn't seem to grow. People just walked in and out of my life as if I weren't there, while I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything. I kept saying, hey, there has to be a next moment somewhere. Y'know? There has to be a rest of me. So what do I do? I move to Manhattan and get stepped on and honked at like everybody else."

"But it doesn't stop you," I said, smiling at her.

She blushed. "Steven, there really aren't that many thinkers around here. Most people think you're supposed to be clever and slick...like, there's this formula they get down pat -- and they're good at it, too. But it's another thing to want to be knower. A seeker." She flicked her cigarette against the ashtray and leaned forward on her elbows. "You're a seeker, aren't you? You don't want to know the formula, you want to know where the formula came from. You don't want to find the ocean, you want to find out how it got there, and why, and what's under it."

"I guess that's me, yes."

"What the hell are you living in Memphis for? You need to move up here and start looking for life -- like the rest of us, who haven't found it yet." She gazed out the window, her chin in her hand. "It's out there somewhere. I know it is. It steps on my feet every day, so I know it's there. I keep thinking, if I'm in the right place at the right time, I can just -- " She motioned quickly, as if to snatch a mosquito in midair "-- catch it. Like that."

I asked, "That's a little chancy, isn't it? Like trying all the formulas until you get the right one?"

"But isn't that what everybody does?"

I thought for a second. "I don't trust formulas. I don't trust them because...so far, the formula isn't the answer, it's a replacement for answers. It's like self-help books. You read somebody else's answers and they work for a while, but you never look deeper for your own."

She gave me her crinkly grin. "No wonder Martha likes you so much. I always told her she was too picky sometimes. Maybe she just has good taste."

Soon, after leaving another peck on my cheek, she left for work. I watched her until she waved at me and turned a corner and went out of sight. I turned to walk back to Martha's, thinking again that I'd have little trouble mustering the effort to survive in a town where people talked with me instead of at me.

That evening Martha took me to a delicatessen on Sixth Avenue where I stuffed myself with more new, mouth-watering goodies: matzo ball soup, and cheese blintzes with sour cream and strawberry jam. I attacked it so voraciously I was almost embarrassed in front of Martha, who sat smoking a cigarette and watching me enviously. She said, "You act as if you haven't eaten for a year. If I ate like that, my nineteen inch waist would be fifty inches before I walked out of here. If I *could* walk."

Later we went to a concert hall somewhere on the West Side, where Artur Rubenstein perfomed Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." In the dark we held hands, an act that seemed as natural as eating or talking. It was unlike the giddy, conniving hand-groping of teenagers that I observed in the movies and at dances back home. It was simple, comfortable, expected, accepted. When the lights lowered, our hands coupled automatically, immediately finding the correct angle and pressure.

It was not a long concert -- chosen deliberately by Martha so that we could return home early and prepare for our trip to Fire Island. I had a list of things to prepare and was packing them into a shopping bag while Martha sat in her pajamas on the sofa, sewing a small tear in the seam of her yellow swimsuit. She worked wearing her reading glasses. She explained that Fire Island was a long, narrow lick of land off the south shore of Long Island that stretched from Brooklyn eastward to Montauk Point. The island was only a few blocks wide. It was dotted with small villages. The well-off built homes there, but it was fast becoming a mecca for tourists during the summer. No vehicles were allowed; people moved on foot or bicycle. The villages were not connected by roads or sidewalks, although there were wood plank walkways within most of the towns.

"You sure it's okay if I just wear shorts?" I asked, "They're cutoffs I made myself from old Levi's. I forgot to bring trunks and we don't have time to buy any."

"It's fine," she said, drawing her sewing needle into the air. "No one worries, Steven. It's very casual out there. We're going on a weekday, when it isn't such a hassle. There aren't any bath houses for changing, but some of the villages have showers to get the sand off you. People wear their swimsuit under their clothes and change on the beach. Anyway, you probably won't even need your shorts."

"People swim in their clothes?"

Martha smiled slyly as she searched the seam she worked on. "Some of them swim with no clothes."

I gulped.

"What's the matter?"

"Fire Island's a nudist colony?"

She gave a low, amused little laugh. "Hon. I'm surprised at you. We're going to a part of Fire Island that's Federal land, about four or five blocks along the beach. It's secluded, and sometimes it's even guarded. And most of the people you'll find there are fat old lawyers and their tubby wives who wouldn't be worth looking at anyway." She winked. "Think you can handle it?"

I shrugged. My face felt hot. "I won't mind if you and Ronnie don't mind."

"Ronnie and I go there all the time. But when we went in June, the Christians had closed the place down. They do that every once in a while, but it doesn't last long because the local township has no jurisdiction out there. Just in case they're up in arms again, though, bring your shorts."

"I will," I said nervously, hoping the Christians were active.

"You've never seen the ocean. You'll love it. It's nothing like Rainbow Lake swimming pool in Memphis. Nothing like it at all." She looked at me as I sat on the floor folding beach towels and shoving them into the bag. "Is all this paganistic New York stuff giving you the heebie-jeebies?"

I shrugged. "I'm holding up."

"How about the date I told you about for Friday? You never told me what you want to do, and I really ought to tell Marilyn now if you want to call it off."

"No. I'll go."

"Hm. You don't look like you're ready to explode with enthusiasm."

"I still say Marilyn might not think I'm all that great."

"Well, the opposite might be true. She might like you but you won't like her. Although I doubt that either will be the case." She cut the thread and held up her swimsuit to check the work. "Marilyn's a very sweet, very bright young lady. I'll introduce you to her at lunch, and hang around a while, and then you two can go to the Metropolitan Museum together for the afternoon, and then Marilyn will go home. It's that simple. No crisis, no big thing."

"Well...okay."

"It's just somebody who wants to meet you," she said easily. "Every time you meet someone, it doesn't have to be a major event." She glanced at me from the corner of her eye as she removed her glasses. "Maybe you'd like something a little more familiar." She grinned. "Want me to fix you up with Ronnie?"

"Of course not."

"Come on. You two get along pretty well." She walked to the refinished corner desk and put her glasses in a drawer, wearing the same teasing smile on her face.

"No. She's too old."

"Oh, re-e-eally? At twenty-two? Now I've heard everything."

I rose, blushing, and settled onto a chair on the other side of the living room. "I just wouldn't want to." I watched, sulking a little, as she returned to her swimsuit on the sofa. "What is this, a test to see if I can fly on my own?"

Martha smirked. "Well, I'm teasing. Oh, look at you. Don't be so defensive. You've wanted other girls, haven't you?"

"No," I lied.

"Oh, come on!", she exclaimed skeptically. She folded her swimsuit. "You can't tell me you don't think about other girls."

"Sometimes."

"Well...At least I've opened you up enough to admit it."

I sighed wearily. "Okay, Ronnie is cute. She's a lot like you, too."

"It's very convenient. We wear a lot of each other's clothes."

"But I still wouldn't." I grinned and added, "Even if she wore your clothes."

"Well...but you have tried, haven't you? You've been with other girls?"

My eyes kept shifting to avoid hers. "Yeah, well..."

"Well what?"

"Have you?"

"...Eh. Yeah."

"And?"

"It didn't work so well."

"What does that mean?"

"I mean it didn't work."

"Steven, what do you mean, it didn't work?"

"I mean it didn't work."

"...Well, that happens, Steven. But I'm glad you were honest with me. And I'm glad you tried. I tried, too, hon, and you know I did. Everybody tries. I didn't try often, but I did and it didn't work so well for me, either. But that's the way it goes, Stephen. Stop thinking it's always your fault."

"Okay," I pouted, sighing.

She came over to me and leaned against the chair, her arm around my shoulder as she stood beside me. "You wanna tell me about it?"

I shook my head no.

She knelt down beside me. "Don't think you were doing something behind my back," she said, gentle but frank. "You were lonely and you needed somebody, and you're young and healthy, and neither of us knew what was going to happen next. We still don't. And I don't think you needed it just because you wanted to get laid. I know you, Steven, you're too sensitive. You need more than that. Don't be ashamed of your needs, Steven. Please. You're allowed to be yourself and you're allowed to be selfish once in a while if no one's giving back to you."

I sighed, avoiding her gaze. "Okay."

"Look at me."

"No."

"Steven look at me."

I looked at her.

"You're quiet, hon, but you're so intense. I know you are. I can feel it in you. Take my word for it, buster, nobody ever made love to me the way you do. Nobody makes me cum the way you do, because you always think of my pleasure, you get your pleasure from mine. Don't you think I know that? There aren't many men who have sex that way, and I don't ever want you to be ashamed of it. Remember, not everyone's like your mom. A lot of women are, but not me. And there are others who aren't like her, either." She rose and walked to the dining table, where she started packing cosmetics and sun lotion into the shopping bag. "And whether you ever knew me or not, whether you ever had real parents or not, hon, you'd still have to know how to fly on your own. Not under their power, under your own."

I looked away, and then back her. I wiped my sleepy face. "Well... before I leave New York, would you write me an official letter of recommendation?"

She grinned. "Sure. Want it notarized?"

"Hmp. You need more than that in Memphis."

"You won't be in Memphis forever. And you're not in Memphis now, except maybe in your cute little your head." She stood up and went about the room, turning off the lights. "All I'm saying about Ronnie is that she'd spend time with you. Stop thinking everyone's going to put you down. Plenty of people will, but Ronnie isn't one of them. She really likes you. Maybe not sexually, but she likes you. She might not go romping in the hay, but that's something else. Too bad...I can imagine the orgasm you'd give her. All those sorry characters she ends up with, so many dates, and always the same results. Anyway, don't avoid the few people you can connect with, hon. There aren't many around like that, not for any of us. And for most of us, having something like we do is Very rare. Very rare indeed."

Later, I lay in bed while Martha placed a small fan in the bedroom window to help cool the room. It was a hot August night. She donned her pajamas, giving me another peak at her luscious body before sliding into bed and giving me a hug.

"Five-thirty gets here pretty early tomorrow," she sighed.

"Do New Yorkers always go through this just to get out of town?"

"Always, Steven. It's all they think about. And once they get away they spend the whole time complaining about all the New York things they miss. It's simple to explain and simple to understand: New Yorkers are nuts."

She curled up. I blew her a friendly goodnight smooch. She blew one back. I settled onto my side, gazing out the window, listening to the the whirr of the little fan. All I could think was: What the hell was I going to do on that beach with two naked women if I had a hard-on, and how could I hide it if I'd be as naked as they were? I didn't see any problem handling myself around Ronnie, but Martha's body was irresist- ible. On the other hand, the ladies could go nude and I could stay in my cutoffs. That would be pointless, of course: why go in the first place? But why avoid it? And what made me so fearful?

Each day in New York introduced me to a different and fascinating experienced that I had not imagined in Memphis. Wednesday was no exception. The Long Island Railroad was a world of its own. We rose at five-thirty and Martha and Ronnie and I had a quick, greasy breakfast in Pennsylvania Station before boarding a commuter train bound for eastern Long Island. We shuttled through Jamaica Station just as the westbound rush hour mounted; for miles and miles as we headed east toward Bay Shore, we were passed by one after another packed, speeding rush hour trains headed for Manhattan. I was flabbergasted at finding it true, as I had heard rumored, that people on the rush hour trains really were so packed together that their shoulders and backs, and in some cases their faces, were pressed against the glass doors of the commuter cars.

Martha and Ronnie, in bluejeans and printed shirts, sat smoking and reading as westbound trains roared and clanged past our window.

"God," Ronnie said, shaking her head as yet another crowded train blasted by, "I could never *DO* that! I'd die first! If I knew I had to go through that when I got up in the morning, the first thing I'd do is put my head in the oven."

By eight-thirty we arrived at the oceanside town of Bay Shore and took a taxi to the ferries that waited to shuttle small crowds of people to various landings on Fire Island. Martha and Ronnie carried shopping bags. I toted the aluminum deck chairs we rented at a clam shop near the ferry. Soon we boarded a boat and found seats on the upper level, the deck's stark white benches gleaming under the brilliant sun.

Martha put on her sunglasses. Ronnie sat next to her, combing back her fluffy black hair that fluttered in the brisk ocean breeze.

"Don't look now," Ronnie said to Martha as she primped herself, "but you're getting the eye again, Martha."

"Right," Martha said, unaffected, her chin in her hand as she sat bored and waiting for the trip to get underway. "One of them's giving you the eye, too."

"Which one? The fat sweaty guy in the big sombrero with the ammuni- tion belts strapped around his chest?"

I smirked at Ronnie, wagging my head. I lounged against the bench, inhaling sea air for the first time in my life. "Ronnie, it's true. Two guys right behind you are mesmerized by your beauty."

"It's not mesmerized, kiddo, it's heatstroke," she said, stuffing her comb into the shopping bag at her feet.

"No. Really. The whole deck's giving you the eye."

She leaned toward me and wrinkled her face and squeezed my jaw, pushing my cheeks together. "Aw, you're sweet. Keep talkin' to me, baby. mmm-MM!"

With several growls and a cloud of steam, the ferry got underway. The boat cruised slowly down a half-mile, narrow inlet. Soon I saw the channel open into a wide, endless expanse of sea. Sea gulls were everywhere, following in the roiling wake as the boat opened its engines and sped into the wind. It was exhilarating. I couldn't resist standing up and leaning on the railing to survey it all, my hair billowing in a blast of sea air. The sky was a clear wash of cerulean blue. It seemed the whole world opened up around us. I beamed at Martha.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, squinting up at me, her eyes hidden behind the dark sunglasses. "I told you you'd love it."

"I do," I said. "This is marvelous. This is really great."

The ride to the island lasted twenty minutes. I spent the whole time marveling at the screeching gulls that accompanied us. More birds greeted us at the village pier. Sea gulls and swallows swooped and glided everywhere. The port lay at the foot of a small village only three or four city blocks wide, dotted with wooden homes painted in bright pastels. The crowd of beachgoers alighted onto the wooden pier with their bags and umbrellas and chairs and headed down a wooden path that led slightly upward toward the horizon a few hundred yards away.

"The beach is straight ahead," Ronnie said. "Keep going. You can't miss it. When you start sinking, you're there."

We strolled down the wooden walkway, Martha and Ronnie chatting animatedly. I was oblivious to what they said. As I did when first walking along the streets of Manhattan, I gaped at everything in sight. Wood frame houses lined the path, set back in small yards of short, thin cherry and holly and dogwood trees. Each house had its garden of wild-flowers or cultivated plants, each front porch the home of rubber balls and rubber rafts and beach blankets hung out to dry. It was serene, painterly, mirage-like.

We reached the top of a hill, which I found was a dune of soft tan sand. Before us lay the blue ocean, waves creeping lazily to the shore.

"Let's get our jeans off and look like beach people," Martha said.

I thought: Uh-oh, this is where we get nekkid. But Martha and Ronnie stripped down only to their swimsuits, Martha's a bright yellow one-piece and Ronnie's a one-piece, dark indigo with a pink slash across one hip. I stripped to my shorts. We gathered our bags and walked in the sand to the water, then followed the waterline down the beach.

"Our place is just a mile or so down," Martha said. "Steven, walk out here by the water. Walking in soft sand will wear you out."

Dark sandpipers hopped and flitted around us. Small waves swooshed in loudly and then hissed away, gurgling as they coiled back from shore. We walked toward a blazing sun. The beach was sparsely populated, as Martha said it would be, with several long, empty stretches. Martha and Ronnie talked as they walked, their feet sinking slightly into the wet, packed sand. Walking behind them, I couldn't hear their conversation over the sound of the waves and the simmering ocean. I had never seen Martha in a swimsuit. I had seen her either dressed or nude. She walked gracefully, poised and smooth, almost as if she had trained herself to do so. Ronnie was more flippant, kicking up little spoons of sand behind her. Whereas Martha had a toned, firm, ballerina's body, Ronnie was sinuous, her limbs longer and softer. She had a slim, compact torso and delicate shoulders. She was the same five and a half feet as Martha, but Ronnie looked taller with long, slender limbs and hands, a sparse but tight tush, her long legs less muscular but smooth and gently tapering into lean calves and ankles. As they walked and talked, Martha hugged her shopping bag to her chest; Ronnie carried hers in one hand at her side, her other arm poised carelessly in the air while she flipped her hand loosely as she talked. I was too spellbound to do anything more than watch and listen to the Atlantic.

After a while Ronnie turned to me, pointing ahead. "There it is!" she yelled.

"Come on!" Martha yelled after her. "It's open! Come on!"

I caught up with them. Ahead, a few older couples and a younger one sat on beach towels, separated by wide stretches of beige sand. Some on their sides, some on their backs, some on their tummies. All nude.

Martha and Ronnie found a spot, spread the towels, and slipped off their shoulder straps.

"Oh, it's so NICE out here today!" Ronnie squealed as she peeled her swimsuit downward. "Oh, Martha, it's heaven! We picked a perfect day!"

I'm certain my eyes tripled in size as Ronnie's soft, jiggling, dark-nippled breasts came quickly into view. A couple of her ribs stuck out. Her tummy was flat; Martha's was so tight it seemed sucked it. Both women were the same size, but slim Ronnie looked alluringly long-legged. Martha's mound stood out prominently under her auburn bush; Ronnie's tummy sloped gently to a smallish black whorl, simple and feath- ery, and her pelvis curled inward immediately beneath it, showing only a hint of a slit. Now I had seen three nudes in my life: Martha, and a brief and incomplete glimpse of Karen, and now Ronnie. I found Ronnie surprisingly pleasing to look at; she seemed almost teen-like and looked younger naked than she did dressed.

Nude, they sat on their beach towels, knees bent, and fished for their bottles of Coppertone.

I stood fiddling with my shirt, shuffling around nervously and kicking off my shoes.

"Come on!" Ronnie called to me. I picked up my shoes and walked to them, and dropped the chairs on the ground. I started to unfold them, but Martha said, "Put the lotion on first, Steven! Hurry! You can get sunburned out here before you know it!"

Ronnie smirked and kidded, "Get undressed. Come on, it's so perfect out. Here, use up my lotion first." She handed me her bottle of Coppertone. I looked at it, and looked down at my clothed body. The moment of truth had arrived. Courageously, I removed my shirt and then unzipped and removed my shorts, looking around casually and trying to pretend That Ronnie and Martha weren't there. There I was: naked. Not nude -- naked. I knelt into the sand, facing toward the water with the others, the better not to let either of them notice I was half erect. I squirted lotion on my arms and chest, gasping as the cool stuff hit my skin. I rubbed it in, adding more to my legs and face.

Martha reclined, saying, "Come on, Steven, finish up and get comfy. You're never gonna get a tan like this in Memphis."

Ronnie asked, "They don't have water in Memphis?"

"Of course not, Ronnie, it's five hundred miles inland from the Gulf."

"Jeez, I couldn't live in a place that didn't have an ocean. I'd dry up and die. Steven, sweetheart, can you do our backs? I promise to do yours."

"Sure," I said, kneeling down and holding the bottle firmly so they wouldn't see my hands shaking. I thanked my stars that both of them turned their backs to me: perhaps my organ would have time to settle down. I rubbed lotion onto Martha, whose sleek back I knew only too well. And then onto Ronnie, whose unfamiliar, softer skin had a comfortably warm and melty feel to it. "Mmmm," she moaned as I rubbed, which didn't do much to calm me down. "Steven, what a nice touch. Martha, does he give you back rubs?"

"No," Martha said. "Women who ask for free back rubs are a pain."

"God, I haven't had a back rub since my last time at Fiore's. Martha, you don't know what you're missing here."

"Ronnie, he just did my back."

"Wasn't it wonderful?"

"Steven always had a nice touch."

"Oh, Martha, why didn't you *tell* me earlier?"

"Oh, Ron, shut up. Steven, finish her back. She's just teasing you."

"Steven, I'm not. You're a miracle man. Really. Oh, I was so tense. I'm always so tense in the city. It's so nice to come out here and relax, isn't it?"

"It's nice," I said, rubbing quickly to get it over with.

"Okay," Ronnie said. "Now you. Come on, sit."

I lay down on the blanket beside her, quickly aligning myself face down. "Go ahead," I told her. "I like it better this way." I also appreciated the fact that my half-hard was completely hidden in that position.

"Whatever," she said. "Here, I'll spread it on my hands first, so you don't get a heart attack from a cold splash. There. Therrrre we go, nice and gooey, huh? Wonder what they put in this junk to make it so icky? Mmm, Martha, look at this guy's figure. Can you believe this?"

"Believe what?" Martha said, shuffling and making herself more comfortable as she gazed skyward.

"Look at this body! Steven, where did you get a body like this? Martha, look at him. Did you know Steven looked like this?"

"I know, Ronnie, Steven's very lucky. He has perfect proportions. Broad shoulders, slim hips. Hey, I'll unfold the chairs. Our towels are already full of sand. Ronnie, stop gushing over him! Poor Steven is so shy. He's from Memphis, y'know, he's not used to this."

"Oh...Steven, am I bothering you? Gee, Martha, it's only suntan lotion...God, I'd die for a tush like this."

It may have been only tanning lotion, but it was on Ronnie's long, slithery, not very strong, slender fingers, her hands much wider and her fingers much longer than Martha's. I even found myself wishing that Ronnie were more vigorous; her hands had a sensuous, lingering quality that was not quite like Martha's more direct touch. Blessedly, she was soon finished and rose to help Martha with the chairs.

"Ah," Martha said, settling into the plastic straps of the lounge chair. "MUCH better!"

"Steven," Ronnie said above me as she sat in another chair, "you don't want a chair?"

"No," I murmured from the ground as I rested face down, hiding my hard-on. "I like it just like this for a while."

"Whatever," Ronnie said.

Martha and Ronnie rested for a while. I lay with my eyes closed, feeling free and clean with my back and buttocks and heels in the baking sun, the breeze rippling over my flesh. The new sensations were pleasantly calming. My erection soon dwindled as the sound of rustling ocean waves began lulling me into drowsiness. After a while Ronnie and Martha began chatting about a restaurant they had tried and about a sale coming up at one of the big department stores and about the clothes at Sach's being grossly overpriced, and I closed my eyes and relaxed. Before I knew it, I dozed.

"Hey," Martha said, stroking my back.

I blinked awake. Martha was kneeling over me. My eyes moved. The pair of feet standing near my head belonged to Ronnie.

"Turn over," Martha said, "You'll get baked on one side."

"Oh," I said. I directed my mind to my penis to make certain all was safe. It was.

Martha chuckled, "Ronnie, Steven isn't used to a real beach. It's a good thing we're with him or he'd get fried."

I turned over and looked up. Ronnie grinned at me from above, her hands on her hips, her slit plainly visible below her tummy, which rose upward to her sloping breasts. They were a little smaller than Martha's, not as rounded, with small brownish aureoles and darker nipples.

Ronnie said they were getting up their courage to try a dip in the surf. I rose and watched them walk toward the waves, Martha's round globes glistening in the sun and Ronnie's softer, flatter tush bouncing lightly. Martha dipped a foot into the water and jumped back, squeaking and laughing.

"Hey, it can't be that cold," Ronnie said, then screeched and jumped when she tried it.

The water looked inviting. I was anxious to feel what swimming in an ocean was like. I rose and walked to the water, where the two girls giggled and squeaked and hesitated about venturing more than ankle-deep into the water.

"Steven, it's cold!" Martha warned me.

The water chilled my toes, but it was bearable. I walked slowly, water licking at my ankles and then at my calves. I told Martha and Ronnie to step out gradually and pause to let their skin adjust to the water before proceeding. All three of us tried it, and soon we were waist deep in the water. I splashed my chest and face, discovering that sea water really did taste salty. I squinted up, into the sun. It was pleasant, new, comforting, exactly what a genteel character I once saw in E.M.Forester would have called "an excellent adventure." The sloshing waves pulled feebly at my hips, nudging me to and fro slightly. I revelled in the simple, calm excitement of everything around me. But always, there was that little tug from within, tempering every pleasure: Memphis was still ahead, somewhere. Damn, I thought, why wouldn't it go away?

I felt a hand touch my back, and stiff nipples against me. Under the water, blood warmed my cock.

I turned. Martha smiled at me. "It's nice, huh?"

I looked back at the sea. "It's wonderful. I don't want to leave. Can I build a shack back there on the island?"

"Sure," she said, laughing. "For about fifty thousand dollars."

Far ahead of us, a motor boat crossed our path on its way toward the city. It roared past merrily, stirring up a wake behind it.

"Jeez," I heard Ronnie say, "I've never been out this far." She appeared to my right and walked out just ahead of us. Martha strode to her, nodding lightly in the water.

"It's not so bad once you get into it," Martha said.

I watched the two of them bob as water crept toward their shoulders. Martha slid into the water, floating, and turned onto her back, her feet kicking and pushing her toward shore. I took another step forward, feeling the water rise to my chest. I was enjoying the unique sensation of unseen currents snaking around my waist and chest when I looked up and saw the choppy results of the boat's wake arcing toward us.

I yelled at the others to move back. Martha squinted at me, ques- tioning, and I pointed to the approaching waves. She cautioned Ronnie to pull back to shore, but Ronnie grinned and stood where she was. "Come 'n get me!" she yelled playfully ahead of her, but a few seconds later the height of the spreading wave, which would have been slightly above our shoulders, became apparent. She moved backward, laughing, chanting, "Here it comes, here it comes!", and even though I tried to move aside, she changed direction unexpectedly and backed directly into me, the furrow of her buttocks directly against my cock, her soft, warm, wet flesh seeming to cling to my shaft and generating a sudden and electric jolt in my groin. She jerked violently, rising out of the water and turning around to face me, her mouth an 'O' of shock. "Steven! God, I thought someone was sneaking up on me, I didn't know who you WERE!"

As the first wave hit us, her eyes shot open and the force shoved her into me, her forehead bumping my chin. I grabbed her shoulders to hold her up. She squealed, the cold water rushing over our shoulders, and my cock grew at the feel of her slim, delicate shoulders and her nipples brushing my chest. She shrieked again, "God, that's cold!", and moved away, and then shrieked again as the next wave pushed her into me again, this time pushing both of us backward, and her slim thighs embraced my left leg, leaving clearly in my brain an impression of the exact size, shape, and texture of her cunt on my upper thigh. She shrieked again, wiggling free, and wiped her face and waved her arms in the water.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Damn, I didn't expect that! Did I bump you in the face?"

"It's okay," I said, holding up my hands. "It's okay, don't worry." I laughed, my cock suddenly the size of a corncob.

"Are you okay? I didn't hurt you?"

"No, no," I insisted. "No problem."

"Gee, that wave was COLD! Lemme outta here, I gotta warm up!"

She struggled back to shore as quickly as she could, but I lagged behind. I stopped when the water fell to my navel. Dimly through the dark swirling sea water, I could see my organ at top mast. I would have to wait in that spot until things calmed down.

"Come on!" Martha called from the shore, "it's too chilly to stay in there! Come on, Steven, let's get some lunch and walk around."

I held up a finger to suggest one minute. The waves stirred up by the boat were receding, the water level threatening to bare me below my navel, so I moved backward.

"Aw, c'mon," Ronnie said, "I'm getting hungry anyway."

I grinned sheepishly, bobbing in the water and flexing my arms at my sides to keep from being pulled shoreward.

"Steven," Martha called, "Come on out, what's the matter?"

I raised my finger again. Two nude nymphs jumping and cavorting before me did little to stem the tide, as it were. I remained as hard as ever. Martha alone would have been enough, but the feel of Ronnie's soft, fleshy cunt on my thigh was still too fresh in my mind. I waited, the water suddenly receding so swiftly that I dropped to my knees, grinning and wobbling in the choppy water.

"What's the matter?" Martha yelled, impatient.

I grinned back. I held my finger high again.

Ronnie stood with her hands on her hips, smirking sarcastically. "Martha..." She indicated me with her thumb over her shoulder. "I think Steven's stuck out there with a big kielbasa."

Martha squinted. "A what?" Then she covered her mouth and her eyes shot open. She twirled on her toes once, laughing. "Oh, Steven! Oh, you poor thing! Oh..hahahaha!"

Ronnie called out dryly, "Sorry, Steven."

I grinned back foolishly.

Ronnie wagged her head, shrugged, and gave me an apologetic palms-up.

Martha yelled, "Do you want your shorts? I can throw them out there."

I shook my head no. Their humor and Ronnie's frank acceptance of my condition created an intimacy between me and the two girls that enlarged and enhanced my erection. I turned from them and strode further into the sea, my wobbling cock out of sight of the beach and just above the water, and I leapt into the air, feeling pleased, sexy, daring, vigorous. I stood on my toes, stretched my arms, arched my cock, and howled at the sea and the sky. No Mom to flinch in disgust, no aunt to screech in alarm, no nun to pummel me with guilt. I had no idea what the others thought I was doing, but I was enjoying my hard-on and the day and the sun and I closed my eyes and saw the image of Martha, naked and laughing on the sand, and remembered how incredibly good Ronnie felt against me, without wanting to do anything about it except enjoy it.