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Little Willful Thorns

A Novel (MMF, MMf) (58,600 words) by Fabula Salaxacis - A young veteran returns home and attempts to rebuild his shattered life by seducing his twelve-year-old neighbor. To his surprise, the healing comes from an unexpected source.

Read as: ePub file or mobi file

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Chapters: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30

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1

Margaret listened to the minister’s words with her teeth biting into her lower lip. The gesture was a reminder to keep her mouth shut and to resist the urge to denounce the hypocrisy of such undeserved praise. June was anything but a loving wife. She knew for a fact June rarely had sex with her husband. Chuck had been very specific about all the things June wouldn’t do the night he got drunk and begged Margaret to fuck him. June’s loving ways had reduced the poor bastard to tears.

Earlier Margaret had observed the two of them in their caskets. The sour look that first appeared on her sister after her religious rebirth had been etched so deep by fifteen years of a loveless marriage that even the undertaker could not press the unpleasantness out of her face.

Chuck didn’t look any happier in repose next to June than he did in life. The undertaker had tried, but only succeeded in making him look comical. Not that he was unattractive if you could put aside his mean spirit and his religious beliefs. Margaret was always of two minds about bastardly men.

The two of them had been very cruel to Margaret since she was a teen. Their criticisms were fueled by an unbearable self-righteousness and their insistence that Margaret should, as they had avowed to do, follow God’s Way. Margaret’s chosen path was usually The Way Of The Sword and the opportunity for payback had presented itself with Chuck’s plea. She certainly didn’t want to please the man by granting his fuck request, but letting June know of his intimate betrayal with the person June hated most would be quite satisfying.

Margaret conceived the perfect way to serve both aims. A clandestine rendezvous with Chuck was offered in an out of town hotel. He was absolutely delighted to accept and Margaret was not averse to his hulking tall frame and longish cock. She let him undress her and fondle her enough that his appetite was whetted. She insisted that he suck on her cunt first and he did a decent job of it making Margaret come twice. She snapped a few pictures of the action saying she wanted to use them to masturbate with later. She would have gone for a third orgasm but the man looked like he was about to explode. She stood him up, got on her knees, held his cock tight in her left hand, and with a swift upward motion of her right hand smacked his balls with her closed fist as hard as she could. He doubled up on the floor. She took a few more ‘selfie’ style pictures of the two of them, dressed herself, and left. June received the evidence a few days later. It didn’t balance the books but Margaret thought it was a good start.

Her sister bested Margaret easily, however, by following God’s Way down the wrong direction of a freeway exit in the middle of the night. Their death left Margaret with the child.

“…and remarkably loving parents,” the minister said.

The worst lie of all, Margaret thought. The young girl stood next to her grandparents with her head down in sadness. Margaret couldn’t tell if she was really sad or just mimicking those around her. Would Sheryl really miss those two? From what Margaret could tell her sister and brother-in-law were just as condemning of the child as they were of Margaret. Sheryl should be relieved to be out from under them and living with someone who wouldn’t rail at her constantly about her shortcomings. The girl wasn’t relieved though, by the look of her. Margaret wasn’t any happier about being stuck with a twelve-year-old, especially since she hadn’t liked the child since before she was born. She had never wanted to be a parent, and now she had no choice.

She hated being sucked into the trap of doing what was expected of her again, just like when she was fifteen. All of June’s religious friends just assumed Margaret would be delighted to do the Christian thing, and her parents insisted. Her father threatened to disinherit her if she didn’t take the child, as if their meager savings would have made the life-long burden worth it. She had tried to persuade the grandparents to take her, but they said it was her responsibility, and it was time she settled down and thought of someone besides herself.

The weight of that impending burden made her anxious and she needed relief. For Margaret the only truly satisfying relief came in the form of sex. She cast about the crowd gathered at the gravesite for possibilities. She eyed a couple of candidates but decided she would have to separate them from their wives, and that was unlikely. There was one man who seemed to be alone. He was tall, neat, about thirty, and in good shape. He had a thick head of dark hair which Margaret liked. She had noticed him talking to the child earlier and she wondered how Sheryl knew him and what his connection was to June and Chuck.

2

Matt positioned himself across the gravesite from Sheryl so that he could see her better. He knew from his earlier, brief conversation with the girl that she was devastated by the loss of her parents. She watched intently as the twin caskets were lowered into the grave and the sadness he saw made him want to hold her in his arms to console her. It seemed odd to him that her grandparents did not touch her, not so much as a hand on her shoulder.

He remembered the first time Sheryl touched him. Shortly after he moved in on the block Sheryl and her parents appeared on his doorstep to invite him to church. Somehow they had found out he was a veteran and decided he needed to belong to something. They didn’t know that once you belong to the Army you aren’t really fit to belong to anything else.

June was an unpleasant woman who tried too hard and used a lot of Bible jargon. Chuck was pleasant enough in a meek way but seemed overly intimidated by Matt. Sheryl, however, was as compelling a creature as ever stood on two feet. She laced her fingers together in front of her waist, her slender frame in a plain dress, her eyes fixed on Matt with as intent a stare as Matt had ever experienced. She should have been aware of how conspicuous her stare was but it was as if she was used to not being noticed. The exchange of looks aroused him and soon he could feel his dick grow so hard that it hurt. As usual when he got horny the tinnitus flared to the point that it was all he could do to not cover his ears with his hands.

Matt’s return stare was picked up on immediately, and the parents turned to Sheryl to see what could possibly be so interesting. They never did figure it out. The next day the four of them walked to church together, the warm sun gleaming off white shirts and dresses, the breeze rustling Sheryl’s dark red hair, and June praising God’s bounties on the way. They sat in wooden pews together, Sheryl next to her parents with her hands folded, Matt next to Sheryl with his hands resting on his lap. They rose to sing and he sat closer to her when they finished, his leg barely touching hers.

During the drone of the minister’s amplified voice echoing off the stained glass windows Matt felt something crawling on his arm. He jerked his hand up violently and made a gasp. He saw Sheryl retract her finger and the fright on her face. He whispered an apology as he realized she had touched the tattoo on his exposed forearm. He had deliberately worn a short sleeve shirt to leave his tattoo exposed hoping it would advertise he was not the church going type. “I thought you were a camel spider,” Matt said, and tried to reassure the girl with a smile. Later as they were filing past the minister on their way out he told her she could touch his tattoo any time she wanted. She didn’t look like she was ever going to take him up on his offer, though. He cursed himself for scaring her with his over-reaction.

June and Chuck were thrilled when Matt asked if he could walk to church with them next Sunday. That was the last time he attended though, as when they arrived at the church Sheryl was hurried off to a children’s service and there was no pleasure in sitting next to the two of them. The amount of Bible babble he had to listen to on the way there and back precluded any meaningful contact with the girl, so he declined to go again. They were disappointed at the loss of their seemingly easy convert. Sheryl would have converted him handily had she been allowed. He had seen her on the street in front of her house a few times since, always precipitating another painful erection and ringing, but he had the impression she was still afraid of him.

What he wanted to know most was; where was she going to go now that her parents were dead? After the service he decided he would broach the subject in a way that didn’t reveal an unhealthy curiosity. As he stood in line to offer final condolences to Sheryl’s grandparents it became clear from the conversation of those ahead of him that Sheryl would be living with her aunt.

A fair-skinned woman in a tight black dress, too long for a cocktail dress, too short for funeral wear, appeared to be the aunt. She was the most attractive woman at the service and she garnered many a look as she stood on one side of the grandparents, and Sheryl on the other. “Will Sheryl be able to continue at her school in the fall,” Matt asked the grandmother, hoping the girl would at least still be in the area. He was greatly relieved to hear the aunt would be moving into Sheryl’s house, and the girl would remain nearby.

The news lightened his step as he greeted the grandfather then turned his attention to Sheryl. “I’m very glad we are still going to be neighbors,” Matt said, bending down some to try to meet her eyes. Sheryl said nothing, and her hands remained folded in front of her as she turned slightly from side to side. Matt stared trying to understand what thoughts were concealed by her sad porcelain face. He was about to give up when she asked, “What’s a camel spider?”

The stir he felt looking into her green eyes was the same as when she stood on his front porch; both exciting and painful. “The next time we talk,” he said, “I will tell you all about camel spiders.” Matt stood, and said good-bye.

3

“It was right after I got there,” Matt said. “I had been up all night, so I was dead tired, trying to get some sleep on my cot when something woke me up.”

Sheryl was sitting at the kitchen table eyeing him warily as he spoke. He had been trying to win her over since he arrived with no visible evidence of success. He placed the sandwich neatly on the plate accompanied by a single, small carrot. The white bread and the orange carrot with a tuft of green left on made a pleasant presentation as he set it before the girl and sat opposite.

“The sun was shining, the air was hot, and as my eyes cleared I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was sitting half on my arm and half on my stomach,” he said. “Let me have your hand and I’ll show you.” Matt took her tentatively offered hand and shaped it so her fingers were standing on his outstretched forearm as though supporting her palm. “Can you imagine a spider as big as both of your hands? Four hairy legs on my arm and four on my stomach.” His expression was one of breathless wonder.

Sheryl’s eyes opened wide.

“It was looking right at me with its bulging eyes and it was so fucking big I was afraid to do anything. I knew if I made it mad it would bite me. They had all told me about one guy who fell asleep drunk and woke up to find a pair of them had eaten half his hand off.”

Sheryl’s fingers were still in place on his arm, but they were trembling.

Matt curled his index finger and thumb into a circle that he opened and closed. “It opened its big pinchers and then it raised two of its eight hairy legs like it was going to jump at my face, and I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to die.’” Matt fell silent and waited.

Sheryl stared impatiently waiting for him to resume the story, and when he didn’t she asked, “What did you do?”

“They say if you stroke their back it calms them.” Matt reached out a finger and caressed the back of Sheryl’s hand, saying, “The abdomen is black on top and it has a hump in the middle. That’s why they call it a camel spider.” He continued stroking the back of her hand. “I spoke very softly and said, ‘Good spider. Don’t you bite. Nice spider.’”

Sheryl swallowed, but kept her hand resting on his arm as he teased her skin with his finger. “What happened then?” she asked.

“The spider bit me,” he snapped, striking at her upper arm quickly and closing his pincher fingers around a little piece of loose skin. “And I died,” he said with a sigh, and his head fell to the table in mock death.

She said nothing as he remained still on the table with his eyes closed. He winked open one eye to see she had returned her hands to her lap, but she had an ever so slight smile on her face.

He sat up. “Actually, camel spiders are pretty harmless. But they are big and scary and that’s why I jumped like a baby when you touched my tattoo in church that day.”

Sheryl sipped at the tomato soup with both hands on the mug. “Did it hurt?”

“You mean when the big hairy spider started to eat my arm,” he said raising both hands and directing menacing pinchers at her, “or getting the tattoo?”

She smiled again. “The tattoo.”

“Like a son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “But you pretend it doesn’t so they don’t call you a pussy.”

“What’s a pussy?” she asked.

“It’s slang for a whining girl,” Matt said. “In the Army if you admit that it hurts or that you’re afraid, they make fun of you by calling you a pussy.”

“Why?”

Matt paused to look out the kitchen window and the bright light flooded his eyes until they glistened. Then he returned his gaze to the curious, serious, darling face of his young companion. He was surprised at what he had already revealed to the girl, and that he wanted to reveal more. Matt had never talked with anybody about what it was like to feel pain, not his Army buddies, not the Army psychiatrist, not his parents, Lucy, no one. Yet, he found himself yearning to tell Sheryl everything: every fear, every night terror, every inflicted wound he had endured, and in so doing free himself of them forever, as though her innocence could wash away his experience. Instead, he said, “Because most of the time it is so scary and painful there if you admit that you’re afraid or how much it hurts you couldn’t survive. You would hide in a hole all day, or run away, or worse.”

“If it is so scary, why did you go?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I used to think I knew why, I even went back twice. But now I think maybe it was just a way of pretending I wasn’t a pussy.”

“So, are you a pussy?”

“In a war, everybody is a pussy. Some guys are just better at pretending.”

4

Sheryl and Matt looked up from the game of Risk spread out on the living room floor as the front door opened and a woman dressed smartly in a business suit and carrying a briefcase entered.

“Hi, Maggie,” Sheryl said, her legs kicking in the air casually as she laid on her stomach propped up on her elbows in front of the board.

Margaret’s jaw dropped as she beheld the scene. “Who are you?” she stuttered, looking in Matt’s direction. “Where’s Mrs. Williams?”

He stood to introduce himself, “Matt Harrington. We met briefly at the funeral,” and he reached out to shake her hand, a gesture her shock seemed to make difficult for her to complete. “I live three doors down. I stepped in when Mrs. Williams had to leave suddenly this morning.”

“Why? What happened?” she asked, taking time to set down her briefcase, and then stand to face him.

He turned to the girl on the floor and said, “Sheryl, can you excuse us while I talk to your aunt? Now is a good time to get started on that summer reading book we talked about.”

The petite twelve-year-old’s lips pushed out into a pout, then she said, “Okay,” and got up and left the room.

“Shall we sit?” he suggested, pointing to a couch and chairs surrounding a glass coffee table.

“Mr. Harrington,” she said, her face full of frustration, “will you please tell me how you came to spend the day with my niece? And why wasn’t I notified?”

“This conversation is likely to last a while,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

Reluctantly, Margaret sat on the edge of a chair opposite him on the couch, the impatience clear in the curl of her lips. She watched his easy movement as he sat down, thinking he looked familiar. He spoke clearly with a deep voice. “It came to my attention that Mrs. Williams was not the gentle, caring woman she may have portrayed herself to be, so I dismissed her and took on the care of your niece myself.”

Margaret’s face morphed into one of cartoonish shock. “You what?”

“I was surprised myself that a middle-aged woman with such a kind face was smoking pot within minutes of you leaving this morning,” he said. “I think you’re lucky. If she hadn’t set the house on fire she would have exposed Sheryl to all of that sex talk.”

“What sex talk?” the woman asked.

“Caring for Sheryl wasn’t her primary job, or interest. Most of her income came from providing phone sex. Sexy Sadie, I believe was her pseudonym.”

“Mr. Harrington,” she said. “I don’t believe any of this. I interviewed the woman and I am a very good judge of character.”

Matt chuckled at her hubris. “Everyone thinks they are a good judge of character, Maggie, but the fact is, people are easily deceived, especially when they want to be. I think you were happy to unload your niece on the first applicant who looked the part.”

She stood up, “Mr. Harrington, I find all of this entirely too presumptuous. You had no right to dismiss the woman I hired, and I do not believe what you have told me is true.”

“Your character judgement is failing you again, Maggie,” he said. “Otherwise, you would know that I am telling you the truth. I have no reason to lie.”

“Other than to spend the day with the child,” she said. “If I find out you have harmed her in any way, I’ll go directly to the police.”

“I have no problem with you going to the police, Maggie–”

“Stop calling me Maggie,” she said. “I’d like you to leave, now, Mr. Harrington. I won’t be needing your services.”

“Very well,” he said, standing. “I believe you leave for work about eight. I’ll be here a little before to see you off.”

“No,” she said with her teeth showing in an unpleasant way. “I said I will not be needing your services.”

“Oh,” Matt said, his confident smile showing again. “Then who will watch Sheryl during the day?”

“That is none of your concern, thank you,” Margaret said curtly.

“Oh, but it is,” he replied. “Sheryl is now my one, abiding concern. And she needs someone who cares now that her parents are gone.”

“How dare you?” she said. “I forbid you to have anything more to do with my niece, or I will call the police. Is that understood?”

“And what will you tell them?” he asked. “That I, a purple heart veteran who knows Sheryl better than you do, who attended church with her parents, who is well-liked by your neighbors and your niece, rescued her from the criminal you hired to inculcate her into a world of illegal drugs and sleazy sex. I think they would have more questions for you than for me. I’m sure your parents would have questions, too.”

He was entirely too at ease and Margaret was taken aback by his confidence. She felt her outrage dissipate and she was confounded as she stood facing the attractive man whose muscles bulged out of his Polo shirt.

“I could mention the rumors about you,” he said. “Rumors that you are very liberal with your affections.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, snapping her gaze back to focus on the man. “That is just neighborhood gossip.”

“My information doesn’t come from the neighbors, Maggie,” he said. “More from the horse’s mouth.”

“Who?” she demanded.

“Your sister.”

Her briefly renewed umbrage eased out of her like the air from a freshly punctured tire, and she sat down. “What did the bitch say?”

“No need to go into details, Maggie,” Matt said. “I am not the judgmental type and have no desire to wound you in the way your family has. I merely wish to come to an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”

“I would like to be Sheryl’s caretaker while you are away with work. I will come over in the morning and leave when you return. When school starts, I’ll make sure she gets to and from safely, and to swim club, and other activities as required.”

“What are you going to do to her?”

“You needn’t trouble yourself about Sheryl’s well-being. From now on that is my mission in life. And a soldier always places the mission first. I promise you that I will never harm Sheryl, or do anything she isn’t more than willing to do. I am sure if you ask her, she will verify this.”

“You don’t really think I am just going to let you have at the child, do you?”

“I understand your concern, Maggie. Relationships between adults and children have been so vilified, it is easy to lose sight of the positive aspects for both parties when the child is a willing participant.”

“You are insane. I know what you want and this is never going to happen.”

“Our arrangement will be to your advantage, Maggie. You are successful in work as director of a charitable organization, but as a parent, the best that can be said about you is that you are an under achiever. It’s the kind of thing some people just don’t take to. As I understand it, Sheryl was foisted upon you by your parents after her mother and father died so tragically. You don’t even like children, you especially don’t like Sheryl, according to her. So now you will have complete freedom to attend to your career, to be gone for days at a time, to roam and copulate as you wish without any encumbrances.”

“This is preposterous,” Margaret said, trying to fight the relief she perceived in the possibility of the unwanted burden being lifted.

“I notice you dress very expensively, Maggie– ”

“Will you please stop calling me Maggie. Sheryl only does it because she knows I hate that name.”

“Of course, Margaret,” he said. “Your manner of dress, the Prada shoes, the Coach purse, suggest an appreciation for fine clothes that must be difficult to maintain on the salary from a non-profit. Now that you must provide for a child, it will be even more difficult. One of the advantages of our arrangement is that I will only charge you a nominal fee, less than Mrs. Williams. Doing it for free might cast doubts on my motives.”

“What if I say no?” she said.

“Then I am deprived of getting to know Sheryl, and you are stuck with her and all that entails.”

“You’re not blackmailing me with something?”

“If you were as good a judge of character as you say, you would know I am not the malicious type.”

Margaret held her forehead with her thumb and forefinger contemplating the responsibility. It was all she could do to not appear too anxious and agree to it on the spot. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Do let me know what you decide,” he said handing her a piece of paper with his number on it, then reaching for the door. “I would like to take Sheryl to a museum in San Francisco tomorrow, and I want to get an early start. Sheryl has expressed an interest in art, and I think it’s important to encourage young people in the humanities. Don’t you?”

5

Margaret entered the child’s room not for the first time, but for the first time taking note of what she saw. The walls were pink and white in wide vertical stripes. The top of the dresser was clotted with stuffed animals and trophies from swimming and soccer. Next to the bed was a small table upon which there was a Bible draped with a silver chain and cross. The comforter was flowered and in the middle of the bed sat Sheryl with a book. “What are you doing,” Margaret asked, easing herself onto the edge of the bed.

Without looking up Sheryl said, “Reading.”

Margaret hadn’t had that many conversations with the child, but she had never had one with her that wasn’t awkward. She could tell this was going to be another one. “So, was Mrs. Williams as bad as he said?”

“I guess so,” Sheryl said. “She was on the phone all morning.”

“And did he just tell her to leave?”

“I didn’t hear what they said. She sure was mad when she left, though.”

Margaret tried to imagine that scene. Was Matt forceful, menacing, or just full of that swaggering confidence she had seen earlier? “What’s he like?”

“He’s okay.”

“What did you do all day?” Margaret asked.

“We played some games. He made me soup and a sandwich,” she said. “It was good.”

“I thought you didn’t like soup?”

The child shrugged.

“You know,” Margaret said, “some men can’t be trusted with little girls. Knowing June I’m sure she warned you about that.”

“He’s not like that,” she said, still not taking her eyes off the book.

So you’re a good judge of character, too, Margaret thought. It must run in the family. “Is there anything else you can you tell me about him?”

“He’s afraid of spiders, the big ones, like they have in Afta– Agfa–”

“Afghanistan?”

“Yeah,” Sheryl said. “Afghanistan.”

The word jogged Margaret’s memory. She realized he was the neighbor her sister mentioned who had served in the Army in Afghanistan. June had tried to rope him into going to church but he didn’t fall for it. Margaret liked him for that, at least. “Well, does he have a girlfriend?”

For the first time Sheryl took her eyes off the book and glared at her. Margaret recognized the look. It was exactly the same as June’s, full of self-righteous condemnation. “Oh don’t be like that,” Margaret said. “I’m just trying to decide if I should let you stay with him or not”

“Like you care,” Sheryl said with a smirk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know you don’t like me,” she said. “Mom told me all about it. But you don’t have to feel bad leaving me with him, because he likes me.”

“How do you know he likes you?” she asked.

Sheryl thought for a few seconds. “I can tell by the way he looks at me.”

“And how is that?”

“Like I’m… special. Not the way you look at me, like I’m broken.”

So she knows how a man looks at a woman, Margaret thought. But does she know what it means? She was pretty sure the little bitch was going to find out the same way Margaret had. Margaret slapped her hands on her knees and stood. “Fine,” she said. “He’s all yours. If you decide you don’t like him, let me know.”

Margaret  returned to the living room and retrieved her cell phone and the piece of paper from her purse he had given her. When Matt picked up, she said, “I leave at 7:45 every morning.”

“I’ll be there at 7:30,” he said.

Hearing how willing he was, Margaret pressed for more. “There will be some weekends, too,” she said.

“Not a problem.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said.

It irked her that he seemed to be expecting her call, but the relief she felt from having most of her parental responsibilities lifted was enormous. The insurance would pay off the house, so she didn’t have to pay rent, and she didn’t have to pay him much, so Margaret was far better off than she was before. Best of all, she wouldn’t have to spend much time with the child.

6

Matt didn’t bother to knock when he arrived at the front porch, but opened the door saying, “Hello,” loudly as he entered the house. He passed through the living room and found the two of them in the kitchen. Sheryl was sitting at the table, Margaret was standing, and it looked as though he had interrupted an argument.

“She doesn’t like the cereal I bought,” Margaret said.

Matt smiled and assured her that she could go to work and that he would make sure Sheryl had a healthy breakfast.

“Good luck pleasing her,” she said. Margaret handed him the keys to the house and a card with her phone numbers, and left.

Matt turned his attention to Sheryl. She sat like she was daring him to please her and he took up the challenge. “I’ve met a lot of people from all over the world, people who didn’t like meat, people who didn’t like vegetables, and people who didn’t like fruit. I even met someone once who didn’t like chocolate, but do you know who I have never met?”

Sheryl was silent, but attentive. Matt waited until she said, “What?”

“A girl who doesn’t like pancakes.”

She hid her smile behind tight lips, but he knew it was there. Sheryl sighed heavily when he enlisted her support in the preparation of pancakes as though it was a monumental task. Soon they had a stack they could sit down to eat. “Where did you learn to cook?” Sheryl asked.

“I haven’t had anybody to cook for me since I was a kid, except the army,” Matt said. “So it was either learn or starve.”

“I like Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” she said.

“I’ll make sure we have some on hand,” he said.

After breakfast he jotted down all of her food preferences and they made a shopping list. Then he had her read from her summer book list while he cleaned up the kitchen. Midmorning they checked the weather and got ready for the trip to the city.

The drive to San Francisco was pleasant and Sheryl seemed to enjoy the breeze blowing through her hair. When she asked why he had a convertible Matt explained that he didn’t like closed in vehicles because he had spent too much time in Humvees. Riding in anything that reminded him of one made his ears ring.

They parked near the Clock Tower and ate lunch at the Fog City Diner before spending several hours at the Exploratorium. An hour into the MOMA Sheryl was looking tired. Matt took up one of the benches and Sheryl was glad to sit as well.

“Why do people go to art galleries?” she asked.

“To react,” he said. “Art should make you think about something, or laugh, or be sad. Sometimes you see something so beautiful it makes you cry.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that here.”

“I have,” he said, “but I didn’t want you to see me cry so I held it in. Otherwise, I would have cried like a baby.”

“What did you see?”

“A beautiful girl,” he said, and smiled.

“Which one,” she said looking around to see if the art work was near.

“Don’t worry about mine,” Matt said. “Find one that makes you react.”

Matt thought she remained bored until they entered an exhibition of The Satyrical Drawings of Martin Van Maele. The series of pen and ink illustrations with often outlandish erotic themes seemed to disturb her. She brought it up during dinner at Park Chow in the Sunset district with a curtly delivered question. “Why did you take me to see dirty pictures?”

“Oh, you’re angry,” Matt said. “That’s okay. Anger is a perfectly good reaction to art. Which ones did you think were dirty?”

“The ones at the end where they were doing bad things.”

“They were having sex,” he said. “How did you get the idea sex was a bad thing.”

“My mother said good people don’t do that.”

“I wonder what made her think that?” Matt asked. “Most people find sex very enjoyable. Even fun. What else did your mother tell you?”

“She said a lot of things about boys, and that I should be careful.”

“Careful of what?” he asked.

“She said they might show me dirty pictures to try to have sex with me.”

“Oh, I get it,” he said. “You think I am showing you dirty pictures to have sex with you?”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know you that well,” Matt said. “I only have sex with people I know and really care about. How about you?”

Sheryl looked indignant, and said, “I don’t have sex.”

“How come?” he asked.

“Because I don’t want to end up like Maggie.”

Matt looked dismayed. “You know she doesn’t like that name.”

“I know.”

“Why do you dislike her so much?” he asked.

Her response was again sharp with anger, “She didn’t like me first.” After a pause, she said, “Mom said she was a harlot, and harlots don’t respect God’s laws.”

“Did your mother have bad things to say about you, too?”

Sheryl frowned as she said, “Sometimes.”

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She said I was too much like Aunt Maggie already, and if I wasn’t careful I would go to hell, too.”

Matt considered this for a minute. “Maybe your mother was wrong. I think you will be like most other kids; grow up, learn to enjoy sex, find a job you like, get married, have kids of your own, and be happy.”

Sheryl seemed nonplussed by the possibility presented to her by Matt, and was quiet on the way home. She snuggled down in the seat under a blanket and he turned the heat up all the way to keep the open car warm as the cold air whipped around her and made her nose drip. It was after dark when they arrived home. Seeing that Sheryl had fallen asleep Matt prepared the way by opening the front door to the house first. Sheryl slept in the dreamy way of children being carried by an adult, awake enough to hang on, too asleep to attend to her surroundings. It was an act of trust, he thought.

Matt pushed open the door to her bedroom without turning on the light and laid her gently on the bed. She released her arms from around his neck and fell back onto her pillow, eyes closed, arms sprawled, legs straight, and began breathing heavily.

He retrieved a folded pair of pajamas from the drawer and sat next to her watching her face relax into sleep. “You have to put your pajamas on,” he whispered. Sheryl did not respond until he tugged at her long sleeve shirt, and then she pulled her arm back out of the sleeve and tucked it into her braless chest. He repeated the maneuver with the other arm, then pulled the shirt off as she barely lifted her head. He rolled up the pajama top and slipped it over, pulled her hair through, and helped guide her hands into the sleeves.

Carefully unbuttoning her pants, he pulled down the zipper exposing her pink panties. Gently, he tugged at the bottoms of the jeans to indicate what was needed. Her delicate hands reached for the top of her pants and she hooked her thumbs in the waistband. Sheryl lifted her hips, and pushed them halfway down her thighs before giving up and dropping her hands to her side.

There she was lying on her back, eyes closed and her pants pulled down and covered in shadows that revealed only the smooth outlines of her crotch. Did she know the invitation she was extending in her somnambulistic state? Matt considered the answer for a long while as he took in her beauty. Too soon, he thought. He would take his time with her.

He slipped off her shoes and socks and pulled the jeans down and off. He fitted the legs of her pajama bottoms over her feet and pulled them up over her panties. After he tucked her in, he took his first liberty with her young body. He kissed her on the center of her forehead, and said, “Good night, My Sweet.” As he got up and turned to the door he saw Margaret standing in the doorway in flannel pajamas. She was leaning against the frame, relaxed with her arms folded, suggesting she had been watching him for a while.

“What was that?” she demanded.

He pulled the door shut forcing her into the hall and said, “What?”

“That kiss, and the ‘My Sweet crap.’”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do to kids when you put them to bed. It’s Parenting 101.”

“My parents must have flunked that course.” As Matt opened the front door she asked, “Don’t I get a kiss, too?”

“I’m sure you deserve one,” he said as he left, closing the door. He walked home considering how well the day had gone. As he laid in bed he thought about the little signs that Sheryl was starting to like him; like when she offered him a sip of her milkshake. She didn’t need to wear a bra yet, but he liked the idea of buying her one. It gave him another painful erection and the ringing filled his head.

7

The conference in San Francisco was the first opportunity Margaret had to get out of the office since the funeral and she was looking forward to it. When it ended at five she declined all the offers for dinner saying she had to get home to the child and drove out of the Union Square garage. Twenty minutes later she found a parking spot in the Cow Hollow area near a bar called The Bus Stop. She removed her jacket, opened her white blouse so that the red bra was just barely visible and traded her walking heels for a pair of four inch open-toed fuck me shoes.

It was a noisy dive with a dozen televisions hanging off the walls frequented by the young tech crowd. She jammed her way in and found a single seat at the bar and ordered a martini. In her experience, young men liked older women who drank martinis. For the first hour she brushed off the many attempts by guys to talk to her. She wanted to feel the alcohol lighten her mood and she wanted someone who wasn’t easily put off. Eventually, she moved to a small table that opened up, ordered another drink, and watched the basketball game on one of the televisions as though she was interested.

He had an expensive suit for a young guy, maybe twenty-five-years years old, suggesting to Margaret he was wealthy. You don’t get paid well enough at that age for a suit like that. Nor would you wear it to a bar with the coat buttoned unless you were there to impress. He was blond with a good body and a face that looked too tan. He came over the instant she gave him a long look.

“Your alma matter?” he asked when he saw what game she was watching.

“No, I just like to watch athletes do their thing.”

When he wasn’t looking at Margaret’s breasts, they chatted, the usual small talk of lies and half-truths until they both could say they had made an effort to get to know the other. He was ready, she was ready, and then he surprised her. Margaret saw the gesture to another guy, same age, dressed casually, nerdier. He joined the two of them and bought another round of drinks. Guy number two smiled a lot, she liked that. Guy number one was smug. She liked that too. Drinks at his place was the offer. Margaret accepted.

When the three of them got to the car another guy called out to Number One and asked for a ride.

“Sure,” he said.

She admired the smoothness, the ease with which he pressed his advantage, the way he raised the stakes watching to see if Margaret would fold or stay in the game. Number One sat with her in the back, Two and Three in the front. The chatter was lively and trivial. She liked that there were no lewd remarks, nothing obvious to reveal their intensions, or hers.

Number One’s place was a third floor apartment in the Marina District. It was plush, real art on the walls, and an ostentatious amount cocaine in the bowl he placed on the glass coffee table. There was a couch on either side of the table. Numbers Two and Three sat on one couch, she on the other. Number One sat in a chair to her right. They had drinks, did a line, then they all got quiet. No one wanted to break the spell, to broach the topic of what was next. There were no clumsy attempts to dance with her, or to sit too close, or tell a dirty joke or to paw the woman. Margaret liked patience in men, sometimes.

She kicked off her heels and stood, drawing the rapt attention of the three young men. She unbuttoned her blouse, not like a stripper, but like she was changing in the gym. She set each item carefully on the couch. She liked that they were quiet, that they didn’t hoot. They paid attention as she stepped out of her skirt, like they were being instructed in something they cared about. Like she was new technology. She draped the nylons over her skirt and blouse, and removed her bra. One of them reached for his cell phone.

“No,” Margaret said. “If I see a camera or phone I walk.”

He stuffed it back in his pocket and snorted another line.

When she was naked before them she asked, “Whose first?”

Number one loosened his tie and stepped out of his pants and boxers and strode to her naked, as comfortable in only his skin as a life-long nudist. As he wrapped his tie around her neck Margaret felt a rush of excitement knowing that a little strangulation could precipitate some terrific orgasms. He made a windsor knot, snugged it against her neck, and draped it between her breasts. He stepped back to stare admiringly. “You are a good looking woman.”

Margaret surprised herself with a flush of embarrassment. She was long past the breathless girl of fifteen who was easily flattered, but this guy had style. It made her want to swallow his cum, so she dropped to her knees and sucked his dick into her mouth. As he removed his shirt he positioned himself between the other two seated on the couch. Margaret could see their pants tenting up so she reached an arm out to each grasping the closest thigh and rubbing. They got the idea, stood and removed their clothes until she held all three dicks. They were normal dicks, nothing special, but they felt good, like just fired pistols; heavy, gun barrel hard, and hot. Margaret was dripping wet.

Number One pulled her head off of his dick, and said, “I want to fuck you.”

Good man. Make it hard and fast, she thought. Margaret stood thinking she would go around to the back of the couch for some doggy style and suck the other two dicks at the same time. Number One had another idea. He instructed Number Three to put his back to her, lock his elbows in hers, and pull her onto his back until she was off the ground. Number One grabbed her hips and jammed into her hard. Margaret had never been in this position in her life and it took some getting used to. She didn’t know if she should hold her head up and watch or let it rest on Number Three’s neck and just feel the fucking. Number One was doing a good job and when Number Two grabbed both of her heels, lifting them and pushing them wide, it allowed One to really press into her. She could tell she was going to come. The stretched tension of her shoulders and back against Three’s made her feel as though she had been tied to wild animal. Number One was mashing her tits as she shuddered and came, releasing a yelp of long awaited relief.

She came again on his back two minutes later as One chased Three around the room, and Two followed holding her legs like a bridal train. Three got jammed up against the couch and One ejaculated inside her with a satisfying series of pulses. Her arms were released and she rolled off of his back and onto the couch on her stomach, laughing as she tried to relax after all of the effort. “I gotta hand it to you boys,” she said, “that was a first. You are one hell of a team.”

Number Two was on her quickly, setting astride her legs, crouching over her back until he maneuvered inside her sloppy wet cunt. She didn’t try to respond until he had ridden her for awhile. Then she wanted to raise her ass in the air, but he kept her pinned down. His face was jammed in her ear and she liked his hot breath and sweaty body sliding up and down her back. She thought she would just ride him out but as he began to plateau she felt herself responding to his increased pace and stiffening prick. He came as he drove her into the couch and continued for a while after sensing that she was close, just long enough for Margaret to come again.

They laid together but only for a few seconds before Number Three tapped him on the shoulder. Two got off and Three asked her to sit up, which she did. He got on the floor on his knees in front of her and began licking her hairless cunt. Margaret spread her legs, surprised he wanted to dive into that mess with his tongue, and thinking he must really like the two guys that went before him. She could tell he was sucking their cream out of her which she thought was too much, but it was making her want to come again, so she laid back and let herself enjoy it. As One and Two sat on the opposite couch watching and snorting lines Margaret came again. Three stood and went around to the back of the couch, coaxed her to turn and put his dick into her mouth and she worked him until he filled her throat; one, two, three pulses. Sweet as a candy.

The three looked depleted and fresh drinks were poured and Margaret thought the evening was done. She went into the bathroom to relieve herself and freshen up trying to make sense of what had occurred. The boys were confusingly polite, she thought. Usually a bunch of young guys quickly adopt a frat house mentality, promptly get drunk, start calling her names and spend the time trying in various ways to humiliate her with their dicks. Most of it was a cover for the anxiety they felt at not being able to satisfy a woman on their own. A woman with a rapacious sexual appetite was a source of fascination and a threat to most men.

These boys were different, though. It was, she believed, because they were firmly under the control of Number One. The nature of their relationship puzzled her, but it made her feel comfortable that it wouldn’t get out of hand. It was like he was their college quarterback and these were his two tight ends still waiting for him to use them in whatever way it took to win the game. When she exited the bathroom all three we sitting on one couch, still naked. She sat across from them, crossed her legs and sipped her drink.

On a signal from Number One, Three spoke up. “I have, we all have really enjoyed… fucking you. If it is all right with you, we would like to continue.”

Margaret nearly laughed, saying, “Damn! Your mothers raised you boys right. This the most pleasant gang bang I have ever had.” They looked at each other, perhaps surprised by the praise. “What did you boys have in mind?”

Number Three said. “We would like to fuck you in the ass.”

Margaret couldn’t keep from smiling at the incongruence of what he was asking for and the manner in which he asked. “Well, that sounds grand, fellas,” she said mocking their politeness slightly. “It has been a very stressful week and I would really enjoy a good ass fucking. Maybe you could blow a little of that coke up their first to make sure I can keep up with you youngsters.”

There was a lot of discussion and internet searches about how this was to be accomplished. Apparently, anally administered cocaine was a new concept for them. Eventually, they got her on her hands and knees on a cushion on the coffee table with number Two’s dick in her mouth. Number Three inserted a turkey baster worth of coke dissolved in water and flushed her guts with it. Margaret lit up almost immediately and started calling for someone to fuck her in the ass. Number One dumped on a gob of lubricant and pushed it in too politely to suit Margaret and she begged him to, “Get it all they way in. That’s right. Now harder.” She continued shouting her encouragement because she could feel jolts of electricity pulsing from her brain to her ass, a weird combination of numbness and hypersensitivity.

Number Three crawled on the table on his back and slipped under her until he could suck a breast into his mouth. She sucked hard on Two’s dick and when Three stuck his hand in her cunt she came so hard her arms and legs went limp and she fell onto number Three. They picked her up and impaled her ass on One’s dick as he sat on the couch. Number two slipped into her cunt from the front and she reveled in the double ramming she was getting by the two very energetic young men. Number Three bounced around sucking her tits from one side, then the other, and watching his friends pound the hell out of her. She lost track of the number of times she came. She was nearly delirious with the sensations ringing through her. The two men finally came inside her and left her on the couch for Three to lay her out, prop one leg over the back of the couch and suck her cunt and ass clean. It was as good a fuck as she had ever had and she was contemplating moving in with the three of them when she dozed off.

She was awakened by an explosion of noise and she rose up to see a police swat team rush into the room and throw the boys on the floor. Two of the men in helmets yanked her from the couch and threw her on the floor as well. She was terrified as she was handcuffed and contemplated the end of her career after it came out she was arrested during a drug bust. When the boys were handcuffed and the police stopped pointing their guns someone said, “All clear.” From the crowd of uniformed men emerged a short, rugged looking man in street clothes who came to stand over her face-down naked body. “Son-of-bitch,” he said. “Who the hell are you?”

“I thought I was getting a ride back to my car,” Margaret said, “but they forced me here. Then they made me take drugs, then they raped me, in the most awful way possible– ”

“Nice, polite boys like those three on the floor?” he said chuckling. “I don’t think so.” The man grabbed her by the silk tie still around her neck and pulled up until she stood before him. “Stand her over there in a corner,” he said. “I’ll get to her after.” She was taken roughly to stand and every eye in the room turned to stare at her as she was pushed against the wall.

“Can’t I get dressed?” she asked.

“You just be a good girl and wait,” he said. “We have evidence to collect.”

Margaret could tell his desire to have her naked in front of a group of men was more than police procedure. She stood with her head down contemplating the loss of her job as the board of directors read about her arrest in a drug raid. She would be released with no references, a career death sentence.

The boys were hauled off when Number One started asking for a lawyer and she stood for another hour as dozens of plastic bags were filled with evidence and pictures were taken. One of the pictures was of her standing naked. She imagined it on the front page of the newspaper and the call from her parents full of their renewed disappointment and condemnation. She had garnered a pittance of their respect when she took on raising Sheryl, but she never expected it to last.

Finally, Margaret was brought to sit at the kitchen table, still naked and handcuffed, with the man they referred to as Inspector Isaacson already seated across from her. He was looking through the evidence bags, and making notes. Another officer set her clothes and purse on the table telling the detective they were clean. He also dropped what looked like a computer thumb drive into a bag and set it before him. “It’s just like the others,” he said.

Thumbing through the items in Margaret’s wallet the detective said, “Margaret Kincaid– Executive Director of Rising Phoenix Foundation– resident of Palo Alto– Sex: female– hair: auburn– eyes: blue– height: five feet five inches– weight: 135 pounds– date of birth: almost twenty-nine. Driver’s licenses don’t give a bra size but they should. It would make identification so much easier.” He gave her a long, admiring look then said, “I’d say 36C.” He wrote down the information and tossed the wallet back in her purse. “So, Margaret, I’m guessing you didn’t know they were going to kill you.”

8

The porch light was on, but the house was dark as Margaret entered. It took her a few seconds to adjust to the low light and it appeared their was someone stretched out on the couch. She stepped carefully until she could turn on the light in the kitchen, which then illuminated the living room. Matt was on his back, half out of a sleeping bag and he stirred when the light came on, then sat up. “Oh, hi,” he said, and threw off the bag exposing his nude form covered only by boxer shorts.

Margaret was taken aback by the tattoos on his torso, his front and back were covered. She had seen plenty of men with tattoos but these were different somehow. He pulled on his tee-shirt covering the colored ink images and she found herself disappointed she hadn’t gotten a better look in the light. Margaret had always been attracted to him and his terrific body reminded her why. As he stepped into his jeans she said, “You could have slept in the spare room.” She thought it would have been the perfect excuse for him to sleep with Sheryl, too.

“This works for me,” he said, rolling up the sleeping bag and setting it on the couch. He stepped into his sandals.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said. “I didn’t mean–”

Matt interrupted her, “You don’t owe me any apologies. That’s not part of our understanding.”

“Well, you don’t want to spend all your time here. You must have friends to spend time with? Army buddies? A girlfriend, maybe?”

Matt adjusted the pillows on the couch, arranging them neatly.

“I’m sure you must have better things to do than watch her all the time,” Margaret probed again.

“I can’t think of anything better than being with Sheryl?” he said.

Margaret could feel her stomach turn and the flush of anger. “I never asked to be a parent, okay?” she yelled. “So just knock off the guilt tripping.”

He stood silent for a few seconds, caught up by her sudden anger. “You misunderstand me, Margaret. I’m not condemning you. I’m fine with you being whatever you want to be.”

“Just get the fuck out of here,” she said, turing out the kitchen light.

“Are you okay?” he said tucking the sleeping bag under his arm. “You don’t look well.”

“It’s none of your business,” she snapped, then she took a breath. Her wrists were sill red from the handcuffs and she rubbed them. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”

Matt reached for the door, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and left.

As she walked down the hall she paused at the partially open door to Sheryl’s room and peeked in. The child was sprawled on her back, sound asleep. She didn’t look like she had just been fucked and maybe lost her cherry, but who does? Nobody noticed when Margaret lost hers. Maybe they had been fucking all night and if Margaret had come home earlier she would have found him stretching her little ass with his dick.

Margaret wondered if the child liked getting fucked. Was she ashamed and guilt ridden like June had taught her to be, or was she more like Margaret; so happy with the relief of a good orgasm she didn’t care who was delivering it. Matt was a good looking man. Margaret imagined him with a straight as a ruler cock, and a few more guys just like him taking turns pleasing her.

She flashed back to earlier in the evening and to the bliss of being well fucked by three men, the panic at the prospect of losing her job, and the terror that followed when she realized she had almost been murdered. That kind of experience should change you, scare you into being more conventional, she thought. Yet, only a few hours later she could feel herself getting wet thinking about a Matt led gang bang. If the child was anything like Margaret, she loved any and every thing he did to her even if she was only twelve-years-old.

If she was like June the child will tell and Matt will go to jail. Margaret would miss him. He did everything; the laundry, grocery shopping, fixing meals, repairs, even mowed the lawn on weekends because he said he liked the smell of fresh-cut grass. The image of him pausing to wipe the sweat with the bottom of his tee shirt as he mowed, pulling the shirt up just enough to expose some of his tattoos, was vivid in her mind.

He only did chores when he was not doing something with Sheryl, of course. It seemed to Margaret he spent as much time with the child as he could. She could understand him wanting to fuck the girl, in her experience men would fuck anything with a hole, but why did he want to spend so much time with her? And talk to her?

The child liked his attention, too. Margaret had seen the smiles as they talked and Sheryl’s furtive, lascivious glances when he wan’t looking. If she owned up to her sexual self she would enjoy the ride he gave her. If she couldn’t let go of June’s religious condemnation of everything enjoyable, they would haul him away and Margaret would lose the care-free life his desire for the child had given her.

9

His was a dumpy apartment building in Daily City. It didn’t take long to get there as Margaret was going opposite the commute traffic. She took the elevator to the second floor, found the number, and knocked. The Inspector opened the door and invited her in. His coat was off showing his holstered gun strapped over his shirt and tie, and the gold badge was barely visible on the belt under his bulging stomach. Combined with the craggy face his appearance was as intimidating as he no doubt intended. She guessed him to be in his early forties. She had done older men, but she preferred the exuberant carnality of youth.

He had a drink in his hand and she accepted when he offered one to her. It was clear from his whiskey breath and glassy eyes that he was way ahead of her, and probably always would be. She set down her purse, glanced at a picture on a shelf of a woman and a boy, turned to notice he wore no wedding ring, and took a sip of her drink. She said, “I gather since we’re meeting here rather than at the station the question you wanted to ask me is of a… personal nature.”

“I thought a woman like yourself,” he said exposing a sneer, “would appreciate a little discretion. If I were to show up at your employer’s they might assume you were involved in this very sordid investigation. I can’t imagine anything good would come of that.”

“That’s very astute, Inspector. Did they teach you that in detective school?”

“Quite the smart-ass, aren’t you,” he said. “Not at all like the frightened naked woman crying rape a few nights ago. The one I saved from being murdered.”

Margaret trembled at the reminder. She had been stunned when he told her the boys had killed four women that they knew of. The method was always the same. Number One had picked up the women up in bars and was joined by the other two. Drugs and sex ensued, sometimes weird, but it was always polite, even complimentary. There was never an indication of what they intended until the end. When they had all fucked the woman several times they tied her up, took her to a secluded spot, cut her into pieces with a reciprocating saw while she was still alive and buried her.

The Inspector had been looking for them for two years and got the first real break when they discovered a video of one of the murders. Turned out they had recorded them all and posted portions on an obscure web site. Someone recognized one of the art prints on the wall in the video that allowed them to track down all the purchasers, and eventually Number One. As soon as they got a warrant they came to the apartment. It was simply luck they got there that night before the boys tired of fucking Margaret.

Margaret swigged the drink in an attempt to stop the trembling. “Don’t worry, Inspector. I’m prepared to be grateful. Just lay it out for me.”

He expressed an inordinate amount of satisfaction as he sipped from his glass, and said, “In exchange for your cooperation I will do my best to keep your name out of the investigation. No one need know you were the next intended victim of the Gang Bang Murderers.”

“And just what kind of cooperation were you looking for, Inspector?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary for you, I’m sure,” he said, reaching behind and presenting a pair of handcuffs. “I’d like you to try these on, after you lose that pretty skirt and blouse of course.”

Margaret smirked, saying, “You’re full of more clichés than a Dirty Harry movie.”

“Come again?” he said.

“A divorced, alcoholic detective who uses his power to force women into handcuffs because that’s the only way he can get it up anymore. You sure you don’t want me to wear a catholic school girl outfit, too?”

“I can tell you’re going to be a good fuck,” he said, finishing his drink with a final gulp.

“Think you’ll remember it?” Margaret didn’t wait for an answer, finished her drink, put down the glass and started undressing. They never look crazy, she thought, but she knew he would be in a position to do her some harm if he wanted to. That was always the risk with men, and she tried to let go of the fear.

The Inspector watched her while he set down the cuffs along with his badge, poured another drink, and dropped his trousers. When she was naked she walked to him, picked up the handcuffs and held out both hands. He fastened them to her wrists with a grin, and fondled her breasts thoroughly. He was not at all attractive, she thought, but with any luck he had a decent sized dick and he wouldn’t pass out too soon. He pointed to the bedroom as he removed his holster, and she said, “Are you sure you won’t need that?” He shoved her from the back prodding her toward the bedroom and she went in and laid down. A minute later he followed with a drink in his hand and directed her to get on her knees. After securing the cuffs to a ring that had been fastened to the headboard, he climbed on from behind.

The Inspector pulled her ass toward him roughly causing the handcuffs to pull at her wrists and forcing a yelp from her. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled back as he worked his way into her cunt. “Juicy, aren’t you?” he said. Once in, he started slamming his hips and pulling her hair as though he had something to prove. “Is this too rough, bitch?” he asked.

Gentlemanly conduct was no guarantee of safety, Margaret knew, as the boys had proved. “Give it all you got,” she said. “I don’t ever want a guy to be polite while fucking me again as long as I live.”

The Inspector wasn’t and Margaret managed to get off twice before he yanked her legs out from underneath her, tied her feet to the bottom of the bed, reached around and grabbed her tits in a death grip, and pounded her ass like he was breaking up concrete. Margaret’s third was a shrieking orgasm, although muffled by her mouth pressed into the mattress, and the best of the lot. He had managed to trigger a familiar sensation in her cunt that told her she could have a dozen more orgasms with a little effort. It was a letdown when he came a few seconds later sounding like a wounded animal that needed to be put down.

She was afraid he had stroked out because he was laying there in a crushing stillness, and she was pretty sure he was drooling on her back. Eventually, he rolled off and breathed spasmodically. She would have jerked herself off if her hands were free, but she had to accept there would be no more pleasure from him that night. It was a shame he hadn’t brought a friend along to give her one more for the road.

He released her a few minutes later and they laid together, her wondering if it was worth waiting around for the off-chance that he might get it up again. His drink was perched on his chest, his dick shriveled between his legs, and his mind as far away from her as it could be.

“So Inspector,” Margaret started, “what was that burning question you wanted to ask me?”

The immediacy of his answer told her he was still pre-occupied with the case. “I can understand how a good looking, smart guy bleeding wealth can spot a woman who wants to get fucked. But how did he know all those women would go for a gang bang. They all went along like they fucked three guys every night. I could understand if they were hookers or porn stars, but they were all regular women. Two were married with kids, one was a doctor for crissakes.”

“That’s no surprise,” Margaret said, “Men are the ones interested in limiting women to one partner. Left to their natural inclinations all women would prefer a gang bang.”

He turned to her in surprise. “You’re kidding? Why?”

“It’s simple math,” Margaret said. “More dicks, more orgasms more often.” Margaret could see the mind of the detective working as he reasoned out what her response meant about Margaret’s current level of satisfaction.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

10

Matt and Sheryl arrived early for swim club. As they parked and got out of the car another girl ran toward them. “A convertible!” she said loudly as she ran into the car. Only her hands slamming up against the side kept her from running through the door. “That’s so cool. Is it fun? I’ll bet it’s so fun to ride in.”

“Yeah,” Sheryl said. “It’s okay.”

The girl turned in response to a call from a woman walking toward the entrance, smiled quickly at Matt, said “See ya, Sheryl,” and ran off. The woman, an attractive brunette holding a cup of coffee, gave an awkward smile, took the girl’s hand, and entered the building. As they followed Matt asked about her.

“That’s Carolyn,” Sheryl said. “I’m not allowed to play with her.” In response to a look from Matt, she continued, “She’s a bad influence. She steals things.”

Matt made a point of introducing himself to the swim coach. By appearance he was a mid thirties African American and he was uncommonly gracious, offering his condolences to Sheryl in a genuine way. Sheryl’s group couldn’t begin until an older group of girls cleared the locker room, so they found a couple of chairs facing the pool. Matt removed his light jacket and sat down next to Sheryl in his army issue tee-shirt. He rubbed his head then sat back and closed his eyes contemplating his exhaustion. He used to be able to make up lost sleep with naps during the day, but that was no longer possible now that he spent all day with Sheryl. The tinnitus was always worse when he was tired, too. He was near to falling asleep in the chair when he felt something on his arm. He jerked away so hard he toppled over in the chair. The other parents and kids around the pool turned to the noise of his yell and the clattering chair.

Sheryl looked terrified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you jump. I just wanted to–”

“It’s not your fault,” Matt said, picking himself up, righting the chair and sitting again.

“I won’t do it again, I–”

“It’s not your fault,” he yelled.

He cursed himself for yelling at her, and they sat quietly for a few seconds. “It’s perfectly natural that you wanted to touch the tattoo,” he said. “That’s everybody’s first reaction. I said you could touch it anytime you wanted, so it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me. I just got… scared.” He glanced over to see the girl was still upset. He wanted to make her feel better more than anything. He wanted to hold her in his arms and promise to never frighten her again. He wanted to tell her why he jumped. He wanted to tell her everything. “I get scared sometimes,” he said, “for no good reason. The Army does that to you. Being there scares the shit out of you and you don’t know how to stop being afraid even when you’re no longer there.”

Sheryl looked at him, her face asking for forgiveness.

He stretched his arm out to her exposing the camel spider. “Go ahead. I won’t jump this time.”

She reached for him, testing the truth of what he promised. He smiled and she let her finger, then her hand roam over the image and through the coarse hair that covered his arm. “It doesn’t feel like anything,” she said.

“It does to me,” Matt said, enjoying the touch of her slender fingers.

“What’s it feel like?”

“Like that big spider is still walking on me,” he said, his expression taught.

“How come you only have half of the camel spider on your arm?

“The rest of it is on my stomach,” he said.

“Why didn’t you put it all on your arm or on your stomach?”

Matt looked at her freckled, earnest child’s face. “Because when I woke up and saw it staring at me, it was half on my arm and half on my stomach.”

“Why did you get a tattoo of it,” she said, letting her fingers slip away from his arm.

“So I don’t forget it,” he said.

“Why don’t you just remember?”

He folded his arm up, disappointed at the loss of her careful touch, saying, “It’s easy to forget the good things that happen in your life, and sometimes it’s too hard to remember the bad things. My tattoos are reminders of all the important things that have happened to me. Things that happen to you determine who you are. If you forget how you got to be the person you are– Well, nothing’s worse than not knowing who you are. So everyday I wake up and look at all my tattoos and I remember. This is me, and this is how I got to be me.”

“Maggie says you have lots of tattoos.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to remember a lot of things.”

“Can I see them?”

Matt turned away from her, not sure he wouldn’t cry. “If you look at my tattoos, then you’re going to know all of the important things in my life. Are you sure you want to know me that well?”

“Why not?”

“If you really get to know a person, you’ll start to like them. You might like me more than you want to. More than you should.”

“I like you.”

“You do?” he said, returning his gaze to her and smiling. “Well, this is big news, and I am very glad to hear it.” He took a deep breath. “Why do you like me?”

She dropped her head shyly, “I don’t know.”

“Well, are you sure you can handle knowing all the important stuff about me? It’s a big responsibility.”

Matt watched her stir the idea around in her mind. “Maybe just tell me about one,” she said. “and I‘ll see.”

“All right. Tomorrow I will show you my tattoos, and you can ask me about one of them.”

The swim coach blew the whistle and called for the girls, causing Sheryl to sling her bag over her shoulder and trot off. Matt watched the warmups, the training games, and the races. Sheryl seemed to place consistently in the middle of her group. He admired her slender, shapeless form as she stroked and glided up and down the pool. He thought he would be bored, but he found he could not take his eyes off of her. He enjoyed that she looked at him several times.

His enjoyment prevented him from noticing the woman who had approached until she spoke. “Hello, I’m Barbara Nolan, Carolyn’s mom, the girl who ran up to you in the parking lot.”

Matt stood and introduced himself, and offered her a seat while they watched the girls finish a heat. Sheryl came in third, Carolyn came in last. “No focus,” Barbara said, her disappointment clear in her harried expression. She seemed to let go of the discomfort, though, and said, “We were devastated when we heard about Sheryl’s parents. The whole team was. How is she doing?”

“I am not sure,” he said. “I am just getting to know her, and she doesn’t talk about them.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “Are you a friend of the family?”

“I am a neighbor,” he said. “I knew her parents, not well, but her aunt has asked me to watch her. I guess that makes me Sheryl’s nanny.”

“Have you known her aunt long?”

“No, we’re all getting to know each other.”

Carolyn swam to the side of the pool, yelled for her mother’s attention, then said, “Did you ask him yet?”

“Pay attention to your coach,” her mother said, and dismissed the girl with a wave of her arm. Barbara dropped her head into her hand, and said, “That girl is going to drive me insane.”

“She looks like a handful,” Matt said, smiling.

“Oh, she’s a good kid, really, but I understand why Sheryl’s mother wouldn’t let them play together. She’s done a few things…”

“Stealing?”

“Oh, you know,” she said. “It was wrong, but I mean don’t all kids get in trouble? That’s no reason to ban them for life.”

“Are you wondering if they can play together?”

The woman’s face opened in a smile. “Would that be alright? Just for a short while. It could be kind of a trial run.”

“Probation?” Matt offered. “With time added on for good behavior?”

She chuckled, “Yes, I suppose so.”

“As long as it’s okay with Sheryl,” Matt said.

“Thank you so much,” she said, as though he had done her a tremendous favor.

Matt shrugged, amused that he was so pleasing to her. “Your house or mine?”

“Whatever you prefer. Sheryl can come over if you like. I won’t ask you to watch them both, you probably have better things to do.”

“Watching Sheryl is the only worthwhile thing I have to do,” Matt said.

“Oh, well, perhaps Carolyn could visit you then. I could certainly use the break. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Aren’t you concerned I am going to molest your daughter?”

Her face closed down again. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean to imply anything,” she said, clearly shocked.

“That would be the natural suspicion. I would be just as suspicious of you molesting Sheryl if she went over there.”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Barbara replied, still floundering.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Matt said. “Now that we have discussed the topic we should both feel free to discuss it with the girls, ask each other any questions that occur to us, visit each other unannounced, and do anything else we think necessary to assure the girls are safe.”

“Well, yes. Yes, of course,” Barbara said, her face opening up once more. “Aren’t you an interesting man?”

11

Margaret was glad to hear that the shakeup in the Board of Directors had been resolved. The president of the board had recently undergone bypass surgery and had decided to resign as soon as possible. It was known that the vice president had wanted to resign since his retirement and was only standing in for the president until he recovered. As was customary the vice president found his own replacement, and in a stroke of good fortune, found a suitable candidate for the presidency as well. The board had moved quickly to take advantage of their willingness to serve and had voted them both in at the last meeting.

The new president, described to Margaret as an energetic venture capitalist from San Francisco named Johnson, was anxious to meet the staff of the Agency and assume his duties. He had scheduled interviews with key staff at his office in one of several buildings in an office park near the airport. By all accounts he was a man with a lot of connections that would help in the Agency’s fundraising, and the Board was surprised someone of his caliber was willing to take on the role. Margaret arrived at his office on the twenty-second floor a few minutes early for the interview and was called in promptly at the appointed time.

She opened the door to an ornately decorated office and a man seated at a large wooden desk. The light from the bank of large windows overlooking the bay reflected off the massive black surface of the desk as she approached. There was something familiar about the pose of the man, fifty-ish, with thick, solid gray hair looking intently at her personnel folder. He looked up as she neared and her knees went so weak she had to stop. Her breath caught and her stomach tightened into a knot.

Displaying a broad smile, he said, “Hello, Maggie.”

Margaret was without words.

“You look surprised,” he said with a satisfying grin. “Please, have a seat.”

She sat telling herself not to stare at him while continuing to stare at him. “You!” she finally blurted.

“Indeed, Maggie,” he said. “It is I, the new president of the board. When I found out you were the director here I couldn’t resist the opportunity to renew our acquaintance.” His tone was one of joyful gloating.

Her mind clicked through a dozen images and her hands floated around in front of her until she could say, “How?”

“It’s actually a very interesting story,” he said, leaning back in his chair in a commanding way.

Margaret no longer cared about the answer to the question. It wasn’t even the right question. She wanted to get out of there as fast as she could, but she felt trapped. It was as though she was gripped by the steel jaws of a bear trap, but it was a trap of her own making, so she listened.

“I was called in as a consultant on a criminal case. A hobby of mine has led to me being somewhat of an expert in a particular type of art for which they needed assistance.

Her mind retrieved the images unbidden. “I remember your art work,” she said. He had a penchant for depictions of bestiality and he enjoyed the discomfort showing them to Margaret instilled.

He waved his hand, “I never understood your lack of appreciation for my collection. Anyway, I’m happy to say my contribution helped lead them to the culprits. It was quite a famous case, referred to informally as the Gang Bang Murders. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

Margaret felt as though she had stepped into a second bear trap.

“The detective working the case– although I believe in San Francisco they are called Inspectors– anyway, at the conclusion of the case he was nice enough to fill me in on the details, even show me some of the crime scene pictures. Very grisly stuff, I don’t recommend it, except for one picture taken at their arrest. It seems a woman was found there who had just had sex with all three of the culprits and was about to be murdered had the police not arrived at just that moment. Imagine my surprise when I saw you, Maggie, as beautiful as ever, even though it looked like a mug shot, except for the necktie. The detective declined to identify the woman, of course, but he did confess to a liaison with her himself. It seems she was so grateful for her rescue that she wanted to thank him in the most personal way possible. That was very generous of you Maggie.”

The shock was starting to wear off and Margaret could feel the anger rising. She hadn’t seen him in years but it seemed like she had spent most of her life trying to get away from him and leave all the turmoil he caused behind. Now he was back. She alternated between the impulse to kill herself and to kill him.

“Naturally,” he said, “I was thrilled with the prospect of resuming our relationship and I jumped at the chance to serve on the board. I look forward to working closely with you from now on.”

The prospect of being involved with him again was making her nauseous, yet now he was her boss. If she refused he could let it be known to the board she was involved in the case and her career would be over. She needed to say something, anything. “Well, it is good to see you again, Mr. Johnson– ”

“Call me Ben, Maggie. I want us to be friends like before.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, I have a family now. My sister and her husband died and I have taken on the responsibility of… the child.”

“I love children,” he said mockingly.

“Yes, but I have a fiancee, too. Just recently. I haven’t even told anyone at the office, yet. So, I am afraid my days of casual dating are over. I’m settling down now, and very happy.” Margaret’s lies sounded preposterous even to her.

“Lots of married people maintain important relationships from their past. Surely you can find the time–”

“He knows me too well. He would know right away and he wouldn’t allow it.” Margaret could feel herself about to start trembling. “I’m sorry.”

He took a deep breath as he gazed at her intently. “I know you Maggie. I know you still have feelings for me. You’re trembling just like you did the first time I told you how I felt about you. It doesn’t matter that you have a fiancee and a child, or a dozen husbands and children because our love transcends all of that, Maggie. Our love is as raw and inescapable as an earthquake, a tornado, or a tsunami. You’re back in my life now, Maggie. You are of age, my wife is out of the picture, your parents no longer matter so there are no more obstacles. You are mine again, and you will always be mine, forever.”

Margaret once again lost her capacity for speech and her hands fluttered. Her gaze fell to one of the pieces of art on the wall; a shadowed oil painting of a woman in the embrace of a larger man. He was in a tuxedo, she in a long black dress concealing impossibly long legs and high heels. It wasn’t clear whether the man was dancing with or mauling the woman.

He leaned forward in the chair. “Oh, my God. You’ve got your wet expression, Maggie, just like before. I could always tell when you were wet by the way one side of your lip curls up and your eyes close down a little. I always loved that about you. It’s like you’re wearing a flashing sign that says, “Fuck me, I’m ready.” Ben sat back again and laughed.

She remembered his inappropriate cachinnation from before because it always confused her. He never told jokes or tried to be funny, but he was always laughing. It was as though there was a great cosmic joke that only he understood. He laughed the first time he gave her a pair of high heels. He laughed the first time he told her he loved her. He laughed the first time he fucked her, and he laughed every time after.

Ben stood and walked to the window, shoved his hands in his pockets, and said, “I love the view from here when the fog rolls in. Come look with me, Maggie.”

Margaret was staring at the picture on the wall, frozen in place in the chair. His laughter was all too familiar to that heard long ago as she clawed at the papers on his desk in the back of the store. She could still feel him pressing her onto the desk, and his bludgeon first mashing into her vulva, then centering on her vagina, then pressing in like a bearing into a sleeve. She shuddered in orgasmic bliss even before it was in all the way. She remembered spreading onto the desk after like warm honey and thinking, ‘I must love him. How else could he make me feel so divine?’

“I’ve come a long way since I owned a few crummy shoe stores, Maggie,” Ben said to the window. “Now I am a venture capitalist,” he said laughing. “I own this whole complex, can you believe that? A fucking Titan of Tech they call me. It’s like I’m Zeus and you are my Leda. It’s going to be grand, Maggie, the two of us together again.” He turned to her and reached out his hand.

Margaret’s response was automated, a mechanical clunking movement to rise and walk to him. She did not look at him, but focused instead on the fog just starting to seep into the bay from the north. The wet gray of the sky enveloped her mind and suppressed all that she had fought so hard to gain; her anger, her independence, her very being.

As she had dozens of times in the beginning she asked herself why she went to him. He never overtly threatened her or forced her, although she believed he would certainly ruin her career if his desire was thwarted. It was the man’s mad, effusive love that drew and held her. Her father was a stoic man and such an outpouring of feeling was beyond his capacity which made Ben’s all the more compelling. She let him do what he pleased with her because she thought that was how one returned love.

Margaret felt his hands slip onto her shoulders burdening her with his presence and his hot breath in her ear. The hands swooped down to her breasts and squeezed as he pressed his bulging groin into her backside. He undid the buttons of her blouse, unbuttoned and unzipped the skirt so it would slide down to her ankles, then pulled the blouse and covering jacket off and dropped them to the floor. He undid her bra and it fell to the base of the floor-to-ceiling window and he pushed her forward until her palms were flat against the glass.

Ben’s next move was achingly familiar. He reached down and felt the slender spikes and heels of her shoes, then he tickled both of her Achilles tendons with his fingers and drew them slowly up her calves, the backs of her knees, and her thighs until he clutched both nylon clad cheeks hard and he chuckled.

She felt the tug of her panty hose at her butt and heard the sound of scissors making a hole, felt the back of her panties being pulled through the hole and being cut across the crotch. She knew he did this because he liked her to remain in her high heels, and he didn’t want any visible dishevelment after. He pushed her forward so that she stepped out of her skirt and was pushed against the glass, his hands groping, his chest pressing into her back, his cock finding the cut hole and probing for it’s target.

His entrance was rough and deep, like he was driving a wooden stake through her heart. The glass was cold against her face, breasts, and thighs, and his lips were hot against her neck. Margaret prayed there wasn’t someone with a long distance camera in one of the other buildings. Ben rammed her hips against the glass, the window shook, and their breath condensed into a cloud on the cool surface, and then smeared clear under her cheek. She felt him go deep inside her, spreading her wide as he entered, drawing out her insides as he pulled back, each oversized thrust firm and complete. She could feel her climax building, unwanted but needed, hated but craved.

Even back then Margaret realized that for her fucking was like breathing; she did it because she had to. Sometimes the air was fresh and clean and uplifting and sometimes, like now, rank and choking. She would rather come for a group of homeless men sprawled on a piece of cardboard under a bridge than for him. But she came in great waves of fluttering joy from his fucking. Like she did the first time he pinned her to the desk. Like she had every time he had taken her.

What she could never accept were the lies he spoke as he made her come. And just as she feared he whispered the lies again in her ear as she moaned and twitched a second time. “I love you, Maggie. I love your body. I love your unquenchable lust and your need to surrender. I love your wet look before and your sated look after. I am going to fuck you blind, Maggie, fuck until your eyes close so tight you go blind. You are mine now completely and forever, because no one can love you like I do.”

Her tears mingled with the fog on the glass as he reached around and fingered her clitoris and she came again and again and again. When Ben finally unloaded inside her, he gasped, kissed her neck, then roared with laughter.

12

Sheryl was sitting on the edge of the pool, her feet dangling in the water, and reading a book. Although she swam most mornings at the club, she still liked to use the backyard pool in the afternoon on hot days.

Matt was stretched out on a chaise lounge in his Polo shirt and khakis, soaking in the sun. Margaret was in the adjacent lounge reading a magazine. She thought Matt looked haggard.

“Can you watch her for a few minutes?” he asked, covering his eyes with his forearm. “I’m really tired.”

“She wins trophies for swimming,” Margaret said. “She’s not going to drown.”

Annoyed at her unwillingness to have anything to do with Sheryl, Matt asked, “Why aren’t you at work?”

“There are things going on at work,” she said, “Thought I would take the day off and think about it.”

“Well if you could just keep an eye out for a minute I would appreciate it. You can deduct the time from my pay.”

“You’re in a fine mood,” Margaret said. “What happened to all the smiles and that always trying to be helpful attitude?”

Matt stayed silent.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s nice to know you’re not a saint. I wouldn’t be able to put up with her for one day, much less every day.” She turned through a few pages of her magazine hoping for a response. When it didn’t come, she said, “Sheryl says sometimes you really lose it.”

Matt’s head snapped in her direction. “I don’t lose it,” he said on the verge of anger. “I have reactions… sometimes… minor ones. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of Sheryl.”

“You’re loosing it now,” she mumbled.

The splash of the pool caused Matt to sit up immediately and watch. Sheryl swam the length of the pool, her graceful form in a too-small one piece suit cutting through the water as smoothly as a dorsal fin. She turned and splashed about in ragged strokes on the way back as though she was drowning until she reached the other end, then did another lap in a perfect backstroke. She did a dozen laps alternating between clumsy girl who didn’t know the first thing about swimming, and serious adult training for the Olympics. Matt knew he would see less and less of the splashing child as Sheryl aged, and more of the cooly efficient adult, and it weighed heavily on him. When she was an adult, she would want what other women wanted, and she wouldn’t want him. He hated her adulthood already and it had barely begun.

He looked at Margaret. Her hair was perfect, her face was perfect, and her body was near perfect in a two-piece. There was a time when he would have enjoyed fucking a woman like Margaret. The pain in his prick flared as he remembered a few good fucks from his past.

Sheryl sliced through the water with a breaststroke and watched as her aunt thumbed the pages of her magazine. She saw her aunt glance at Matt between pages. He was gorgeous, Sheryl thought, but looked out of place by the pool in his street clothes. But then Matt was out of place in a lot of ways and unlike any other man she had met. Especially, he was different from her father. If her father liked Sheryl, it rarely showed. She knew Matt liked her, though, but she wondered in which way he liked her.

Sheryl couldn’t hear what they were saying but she didn’t like that Margaret seemed more interested in Matt all of a sudden. Did she stay home from work to be near him? Sheryl realized she had come to think of Matt as hers. It was silly because she was too young for him to be interested in her, yet she didn’t want him to be interested in her aunt.

As Sheryl started another splashing lap she called out, “Help me. I’m drowning.” The woman ignored Sheryl’s faux cries for help, but Matt didn’t. He always watched Sheryl closely, and she liked that.

“Carolyn’s coming over later,” Margaret said. “I hope you’re feeling better by then because I am not ready for two of them.”

“You make it sound like such a burden,” Matt said.

“It is if you don’t have a thing for little girls.”

“Why?”

“Simple math,” Margaret said. “Two girls, twice the pain in the butt. And not the good kind either.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of them.”

“Make sure you don’t take care of Carolyn,” Margaret said full of sarcasm. “That kid is a little tart waiting to happen, but she can’t keep her mouth shut about anything. I’d hate to see you end up in jail.”

“Only because you might have to spend time with Sheryl,” Matt said as he rubbed his ears, “but you needn’t worry, I have no interest in Carolyn.”

“Oh, right, I forgot,” Margaret said. “Pedophiles are famous for their self-control.”

“I’m not a pedophile,” he said, the anger flashing on his face.

Margaret laughed in a dismissive way. “I asked Sheryl what you two have been up to, and she said you haven’t done anything… inappropriate. I assume that means you have already taught her how to lie.”

“Little girls have a natural talent for lying that needs no instruction. They generally hone that talent into a fine art by watching their mothers. By the time they are grown, the skill is second nature.”

“Why, Matthew,” she said mocking surprise, “do I detect a vein of misogyny in that granite surface of little girl love?”

Matt clutched his ears knowing it wouldn’t stop the ringing but it might shut Margaret out.

“How do you keep her quiet?” she asked. “You can’t threaten to murder her parents. She wouldn’t care if you murdered me. Or do you hypnotize her with those big blue eyes of yours until she feels all special and important. I’ll bet a lot of little girls have fallen for those.”

“You assume a manipulation of some sort,” He said, “as though Sheryl has no interests or desires of her own. She is not just, as you call her, the child. She is a person.”

“Isn’t it called grooming?” Margaret said, taking a rare look up from her magazine to watch Sheryl swim.

“It’s not like trimming her nails or cleaning her ears, I can assure you.”

“So how far have you gotten? First base? Second? Knock one out of her little park?”

“Really, Margaret, you can’t possibly expect I would be interested in locker room gossip with you.”

“You’re fucking my niece,” she said. “I ought to at least get to hear the gory details.”

“You might have to admit you know those details some day. That wouldn’t look very good.”

“I had no idea what that man was doing to that poor little girl,” Margaret said, her tone one of earnest innocence. “If I had, why… I would have killed him with my bare hands.”

“Very good,” Matt said. “I’m sure Sheryl will be an expert liar in no time with you as her mentor.”

“So, does she do it with you because she likes you, or because she just likes getting fucked. I hope it’s the latter. That would start June spinning like a dervish in her grave to know all that religious condemnation couldn’t derail Sheryl’s true nature.”

“In the hope of ending this crude discussion, I can assure you what Sheryl said is accurate. I have done nothing with her that could be construed as inappropriate.”

“Isn’t that the point of all this?” she said. “To fuck my niece any time your dick stands up. What are you waiting for?”

“Unlike you, I manage my sexual impulses. And unlike the men you frequent, I am not simply interested in a conquest to add to my collection.”

“You mean you’re trying to seduce her?” she said, full of surprise. “How? I would love to know. I haven’t had anybody try to seduce me in years. What’s it take to get a twelve year old into the sack?”

“I am tiring of this discussion, Margaret,” he said. “Isn’t there a biker bar around here with an available pool table upon which you can entertain a gang or two?”

“Geez,” she said. “You’re a pedophile with the sensitivity of an old queer.”

Matt fumed again. “I am not a pedophile.”

“Then what are you?” Margaret realized she would get no answer when Sheryl climbed out of the pool.

The girl trotted like a shivering duck to the two of them and wrapped herself in a towel. She looked to her aunt still engrossed in the magazine, and to Matt with his longing gaze. Her decision made, she plopped her wet body next to the man in the lounger, her head on his chest facing her aunt and said, “I’m cold.” He wrapped his arm around her letting her wet suit soak into his clothes, as happy as he had been all day.

Matt rubbed her arm and kissed the top of her head, then closed his eyes to the warming sun. Sheryl’s initial shivering eased and he allowed himself to enjoy the weight of her against him. He imagined being in this position with her naked in bed and his heart swelled, then sank. Margaret kept glancing at the two of them, and Sheryl returned her gaze.

“You two should get a room,” Margaret said showing a sarcastic grin.

Sheryl looked crestfallen, and excused herself to change out of her swim suit.

When she was out of earshot, Matt said, “Why did you have to say that?”

“She should learn to be discreet,” Margaret said, almost laughing. “She’s going to want to hold down a job some day, and she won’t be able to if she advertises what a slut she is by throwing herself on top of a guy every chance she gets.”

“She is not going to be a slut,” Matt said.

“Isn’t that what you want? Your very own little girl slut.”

“No, of course not,” he said.

“Bullshit. That’s what all men want,” Margaret replied smugly. “Besides, I think we’ll make a good team. You can teach her how to be a slut, and I’ll teach her how to get away with it. Every girl needs a well-rounded education.”

“This is all about Sheryl’s mother for you, isn’t it?” Matt accused. “You like the idea of ruining her child in some kind of postmortem revenge.”

“That bitch is dead,” Margaret snapped. “Let’s leave her buried, okay?”

“Fine. Then don’t contaminate Sheryl with your whorish notions of sexuality.”

“I am not ashamed of my sexuality however you label it,” Margaret said. “So if your balls start to turn blue while you’re waiting for her inner slut to emerge, sneak into my bed some night. Maybe I could make you appreciate a real woman for a change.”

“Real women like you are the reason I prefer Sheryl,” was Matt’s retort.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Neither wished to antagonize the other and, as their relationship was born of mutual benefit rather than affection, their anger cooled.

“Another headache?” Margaret queried. “I could get you something.”

Matt looked up to assess her sincerity. “No, but thank you for offering.”

13

They had spent most of the morning playing Monopoly when Sheryl suddenly tired of the game and asked to quit. As they were putting away the board and pieces she asked, “When do I get to see them?”

“Think you’re ready?”

“Yes,” she said, not at all convincingly.

“Let’s use the big mirror in your bedroom,” Matt said. He told her to bring in the step stool from the kitchen while he went in and waited. He positioned himself in front of the mirror, staring with trepidation. He didn’t mind the inked images being observed by others because they didn’t know the why of them. Knowing what they were about was a different matter.

Although executed by an extraordinarily talented tattooist, Matt was both designer and canvas for his private gallery. He had conceived and begun acquiring the images shortly after his last tour. No one had seen them all or knew their meaning. He wanted Sheryl to see them, however, and was terrified of her reaction if she did. He wanted her to see only the good in the images and none of the bad. He knew this was impossible, but he wanted her to know him so badly, and she wanted to know him, at least, she said she did.

Sheryl set the stool down in front of him and stood on it bringing her green eyes nearly level with his. He lost himself in the two orbs for a few seconds taking in their exquisite, youthful beauty, wide with innocence, then removed his Polo shirt and turned toward the mirror.

The girl was in awe. His back was covered with brightly colored images, and through the mirror she could see his front was covered, too. She looked at each one, and carefully fingered each to verify there were no bumps under the shapes and lines. She turned him around and did the same to the ones on the front, even stepping off the stool to get a better look. She saw half of the camel spider was on his stomach and when he brought his arm in the spider joined its two halves and came to life. The body and each leg cast a shadow, and when he breathed it moved up and down as though ready to pounce. It made her shudder to look at it so she moved on to the other images until she had seen them all.

She bit her lip and looked him over until she said, “This one,” and touched it with her finger. This would be a hard one, Matt thought, and he found himself biting his lip, unable to begin. He sat on the edge of her bed, then backed against the headboard to sit up enough that he could see the image in the mirror. The reddish dachshund’s face was large in the forefront, his long body trailing into the distance where his rear legs were attached to a harness with two wheels on either side. Sheryl sat on the bed facing Mat as he spoke. “What does that one make you think of?” he asked.

“He looks so cute, but he has wheels instead of back legs.”

“This was Pistachio,” he said. “I got him when I was a little younger than you. I had always wanted a big dog that I could run and ride my bike with, but my parents got me a wiener dog instead. His legs were so small he couldn’t run fast enough to ever keep up with me and it always bothered me. He slept with me every night buried under the covers near my feet. Every morning he would crawl out and lick my face to wake me up to feed him. I hated having to get up and I tried to ignore him, and usually he would go wake up my mom and she would take him downstairs and feed him.

“One day I was playing with him in my room, throwing the ball and roughhousing with him and he bit me. Nothing bad, just a little nip on my hand, but I was angry and I struck out with my foot. I caught him on the rear hindquarters, and he went down with a yelp. I tired to help him but he wouldn’t get up. I carried him downstairs and told my mom and she asked what happened and I said he fell down the stairs. His short legs sometimes made him stumble and I didn’t want her to know I had kicked him. We took him to the vet and he said he wouldn’t be able to walk any more. My dad made a harness for him and he could get around pretty good as long as there were ramps everywhere. I took better care of him after that. I put him to bed and got him up every morning, put him in his harness and fed him.” Matt sighed. “You are the only other person in the world who knows him needing wheels was my fault.”

“That’s so sad,” Sheryl said, reaching over and fingering the image again, as though petting the dog. “Why did you want to remember that?”

“Lots of reasons. He reminds me that sometimes we hurt the things we love, and that you have to take responsibility for the things you do whether you meant to do them or not.” He took her fingers in his hand, felt their delicate warmth, and brushed the top of her hand with his thumb. “I guess the main reason is to remind me that the ones you love don’t have to be perfect.”

Sheryl swallowed, unsure of what to make of the man’s confession. No one had ever told her something like that before and it seemed inviting and frightening at the same time.

“Tell me something important that’s happened to you,” he said. “What would you have tattooed on your chest?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“There must be something important that’s happened to you.”

“My parents died.”

“Okay,” he said. “Imagine a picture about your parents. What would it look like?”

“There would be a church. We always went to church together.”

“And what would you feel looking at the picture?” Matt asked. “How would you react every morning when you woke up and saw it?”

“I don’t know. Sad, I guess, but happy they are in heaven. They wanted to go to heaven.”

“Would you like me to try and draw a picture like that?”

“Why?”

“We could make it your first tattoo.”

Sheryl’s eyes went wide with wonder and fear. “You said tattoos hurt.”

“It wouldn’t be a real tattoo. More like getting your face painted. Only we would put it right there on your chest and only you and I would know it was there because your bathing suit would cover it.”

“I’m not supposed to show you under my bathing suit, and I’m not supposed to have secrets with boys.”

I could put it where it shows, but then everybody would know you. “I’ll draw the picture. If you like it, then you can decide if you want me to paint it on your chest.”

14

Margaret enjoyed her quiet time with the Wall Street Journal in the morning before Matt arrived. The child always got up when she heard him and then Margaret had to listen to them babble about their planned activities. She resented their days filled with trivial pursuits while she had to work and wondered how he managed it. He certainly didn’t live like he was independently wealthy, but he would starve having to live only on what she paid him. She assumed he sold drugs or did something illegal, which caused her to rehearse her surprise; ‘He seemed like such a nice, quiet young man, and so brave for serving his country. I had no idea he was chopping up children and selling their vital organs to the highest bidder.’ Her amusement at the black humor ended when her cell phone rang.

In response to hearing her name in a voice she immediately recognized, she said, “Let me guess, Inspector, you have another personal question to ask me.”

“No, nothing like that. This is… more a… a social call.”

“You can’t get much more social than sticking your cock in me, unless you’re planning on changing my tampons or something. Is that what you had in mind?”

“Margaret, listen, I just wanted to see you again. Have dinner with me.”

“You make it sound like I have a choice.”

“You do. It’s not like before. No threats, no quid pro quo. Just go with me on a… a nice date.”

“Inspector, did I do or say something that gave you the impression that I was the kind of woman who was interested in a nice date? Because if I did, let me know and I’ll make sure I never do it again.”

“I guess that’s a no, huh?”

“A brilliant deduction, Inspector. Sherlock Holmes would be proud.” Margaret was sorry to hear the phone go dead because she enjoyed reversing the power play on the craggy detective. It was then she noticed the child standing just outside the kitchen. “Oh,” Margaret said. “Sorry, I didn’t intend for you to hear that.”

“Who was it?” Sheryl asked as she entered and sat at the opposite end of the table.

“Someone who thought I wanted a nice date,” Margaret said, resuming her scan of the paper. “Don’t ever tell a man he can’t keep up with you in bed, or he will come after you like a hungry puppy trying to prove you wrong.”

“Why don’t you want a nice date?”

“Go on a nice date with a guy and he will get the wrong idea,” Margaret said. “He’ll think you want to get married, have kids, and never fuck anyone else for the rest of your life. I don’t do nice dates.”

“Why can’t he keep up with you?”

“Most men can’t keep up with me, but him probably because he drinks too much,” Margaret said turning the page.

“What does keep up with you in bed even mean?”

“I think Matt wants to be the one to answer all your questions about sex,” Margaret said. “Why don’t you ask him.”

Sheryl thought about this for a few seconds, then said, “Do you think Matt wants to have sex with me?”

Margaret snickered. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

Sheryl was confused by the answer in the form of a question, but her aunt wasn’t often willing to talk to her, so she took advantage of the opportunity. She asked, “Am I pretty?”

Margaret gave her a quick look. It pained her to look at the child too closely or for too long. It always had. Margaret recalled being told she was pretty at Sheryl’s age and by whom. His voice echoed in her head, and she found herself repeating the line from Tennyson aloud. “A rosebud set with little willful thorns, sweet as English air could make her, she.”

“What does that mean?” Sheryl asked.

Margaret found herself feeling the same as she did when she was a teen. Like her attractiveness to men was a curse. A curse because the attention made it easy to believe a man when said he loved you. “Nothing,” she said, returning her eyes to the Journal. “Nothing at all.”

Not understanding the woman, Sheryl asked again, “Am I pretty?”

“You’re alright.”

“Mom always said I looked too much like you.”

“Look, in our family I was the pretty one. Everyone said so, and June hated that. If she gave you a bad time about looking like me, it just means she thought you were prettier than she, and that made her jealous. She was always the jealous type.”

“Why didn’t you like her?”

“Simple math,” Margaret said. “June was mean times three.”

“Mom said you have sex with men.”

“Yes, I do,” Margaret said, filling her response with pride.

“But you’re not married.”

Margaret was glad for another opportunity to sound proud. “And I never will be.”

“Why not?”

“Never met a man I could stand for longer than a few weeks,” she said.

“Doesn’t that make you a harlot?”

This caused a chuckle to erupt from Margaret. “I wish I’d had an orgasm every time June or our parents called me that. I’d be the happiest woman earth.”

“I don’t understand.”

Margaret put down the paper and spoke directly to Sheryl. “First of all, nobody has been a harlot for about 2000 years. But I am a whore, or a slut, or any of a dozen other names people use to put down women who don’t hide the fact that they like sex.” Margaret continued unable to restrain the anger. “June liked sex, too. I know because I used to catch her masturbating all the time. Then she just changed, she found God, and she met Chuck and started preaching you shouldn’t masturbate, or have sex outside of marriage, or in their case even inside marriage. But they were both fucking hypocrites!”

“You don’t have to get so mad.”

“I don’t apologize for my anger either,” Margaret said. She then took a breath and tried to read the paper.

A minute later Sheryl asked, “What’s an orgasm?”

“Oh, I am sure Matt wants to teach you that one.”

“So, am I allowed to have sex?”

“If I said no, that wouldn’t stop you,” Margaret said. “When you want to do it God himself can’t stop you.”

“Wouldn’t I get in trouble?”

“You wouldn’t,” Margaret said, “but Matt sure would, if you tell anyone. Then I would have to be the one to watch you and neither one of us would like that.”

“If I have sex will I turn out like you?”

Again Margaret put down the paper, “Look, Kid, I didn’t turn out the way I did because I had sex. I turned out the way I did because a guy said he loved me and I believed him. A guy saying he loves you is like a blind man putting on sunglasses. It doesn’t mean anything to them and they only do it so you don’t see the ugliness underneath. So if a guy says he loves you just tell him to, ‘Shut the fuck up,’ walk away and don’t look back.”

Matt came in the door and they turned to watch him enter the kitchen. They were both glad for the interruption.

15

When Matt opened the door he was only mildly surprised to see Barbara standing in shorts and running shoes and a small pouch slung around her waist.

She said, “I hope this is okay. You were the one who suggested unannounced visits, so here I am.”

“Why don’t you come in,” he said. “I’ll make you some coffee.” As Barbara followed him into the kitchen, he caught her glancing at the girls in the living room, and he said, “They’re watching a movie. Lolita, I think.”

Barbara gave a surprised gasp, then attended to the sounds coming from the room. They were obviously of a loud action movie. She then chuckled in her unusual way. “You can be very funny, sometimes.”

“Sorry,” he said. “You remind me of my sister. It makes me want to tease you.”

She was pleased with the comparison and took a brief look at a ‘selfie’ type photo stuck to the refrigerator of the two girls embracing at swim club. Then she sat at the table and watched Matt fill the coffee maker. “You have certainly won over Carolyn,” Barbara said. “She has a crush on you, but she won’t admit it.”

“You must be worried I’m going to take advantage of her.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “I trust you implicitly.”

When the coffee began to fill the pot he deftly swapped it with a cup until it was full. He set it before her, then sat down himself. When she asked he told her he didn’t drink coffee because it made him jittery.

She looked around the house a little before she started with, “I thought you might like to know you are the topic of conversation when the girls are at my house. Carolyn has been fascinated by tattoos ever since she saw a naked lady on one of her cousins. She keeps looking at them on the internet. She is convinced you have naked ladies all over your body. Although, Sheryl says she has seen them all, and there are no naked ladies according to her.” She sipped at her coffee, then said, “I guess what I am curious about is why you let Sheryl see them, but not Carolyn.

“I rarely show them to anyone,” Matt said.

“But they are tattoos. Aren’t they for display?”

“Mine aren’t,” he said.

“See, you are a very interesting man. I understand why the girls are fascinated.” She sipped from her coffee again. “May I know why you have tattoos that no one can see?”

“Do you have any scars?” he asked.

“Sure, on my knee,” she said rubbing the small scar. “I fell off my bike when I was ten. Eight stitches.”

Matt’s deep set blue eyes trained on her, “How about emotional scars?”

“Yes, but thank God you can’t see those.”

“My tattoos are like emotional scars made visible,” he explained. “So they are not for display. They are more like a visual diary.”

“You realize that makes them twice as interesting?” Barbara sipped at her coffee. “I’d love to snoop at Carolyn’s diary if she had the discipline to write something every day.”

Matt smiled, then shrugged.

“Apparently, your tattoos have had quite an impact on Sheryl. She says you are working on a tattoo for her. She wouldn’t tell me what her tattoo is about. I see now she learned that from you.”

“I am working on a drawing,” Matt said. “We’ll see if she likes it enough to have me paint it on.”

“On her chest, Sheryl said. Under her swim suit where it can’t be seen.” Barbara sipped at her coffee while keeping her lips tight. “Sheryl doesn’t have any breasts yet, but that made me a little nervous.”

“Although it is supposed to be personal, I haven’t shown it to Sheryl yet,” Matt said. “I could show it to you if you want. That way you could be sure I’m not going to be putting a naked man on her chest.”

“Of course I would love to see. I won’t tell Sheryl if you don’t want me to.”

“That’s alright,” he said. “I don’t lie to Sheryl.” Matt left the room and returned with a drawing pad.

Barbara said, “Carolyn has already said she wants one. If you draw one for Sheryl, she will want you to draw her one, too.”

Matt opened the pad to several sketches, all variations of the same scene. June and Chuck standing together on a celestial cloud with a stained glass cross behind them on one side, and a car crash on the other.

“Oh, my God,” Barbara said. “These are beautiful drawings, you are an artist, but so… macabre. Is this what she wanted?”

“When she looks at it she wants to feel sad about the loss of her parents and happy they are in heaven.”

Barbara fell silent as she looked, eventually saying, “It makes me want to cry.”

“I think Sheryl wants to cry, too. Maybe this will help.”

Barbara sniffed and Matt retrieved her a tissue for which she thanked him. “I wonder what Carolyn will want. She must have emotional scars. Now I’m worried.”

“I really don’t know her that well,” Matt said.

Barbara sniffed and motioned to the refrigerator. “I hate that picture.” When Matt questioned her with a look, she explained. “It reminds me how different she is. They’re both the same age, in the same club swimsuit, but Sheryl is the petite, beautiful girl in braids, good at sports and school, and never gets into trouble. And then there is Carolyn,” she said, punctuating the sentence with a sigh. “Six inches taller, black hair hanging over one eye like a criminal, her boobs poking into Sheryl’s flat chest, and hanging on her like Sheryl is a stripper pole. She looks as though she is going to swallow Sheryl whole like a snake.”

Barbara broke into sobs. Matt sat quietly.

“Damn!” she said interrupting her tears. “I apologize. I told myself I wasn’t going to let it get to me, but you have no idea what that girl has put us through.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said.

“She doesn’t mind, she steals, she can’t stick with anything. She’s only been part of swim club for two months and already she wants to quit. I can see it like it’s yesterday’s news. Carolyn is going to fall for some thug, a member of a black gang or something, get pregnant, drop out of high school, become a drug addict, live on the streets and die a horrible death covered with tattoos.” She blew her nose again, then said, “Sorry, no offense.”

Matt said nothing, which Barbara appreciated. When he closed the pad she asked, “Do you do anything else? I mean anything artistic.”

Shaking his head, Matt, said, “Not any more. I studied art in college, used to paint quite a lot, but nothing since I joined the Army.”

“Do you have something I could see?” Barbara asked. “I majored in accounting because my father insisted art was a waste of time, but I always loved it. I used to work at an art gallery until Ray complained I was losing more money with child care than I was making.”

Matt explained that he had a studio at his parents house, unused now for years, but if she was interested he would show her what he had done. They left the girls in front of the television and walked three houses down, entered and went to a cottage at the back of the property. He opened the door to a room filled with boxes of his stuff packed up when he joined the army, artist supplies and a wall lined with paintings. Barbara took her time picking through the canvasas.

“I think some of these are really good, a bit dark, but… you’re very talented. Do you mind if I show some of these to someone?” Matt agreed and she took a few pictures with her phone before they returned to Margaret's house, and she took her daughter home.

16

Sheryl wrapped herself in a large towel after the shower and came into the living room. Matt had placed the paints and brushes on a small TV tray and a cushion on the coffee table in front of him. She sat on the cushion with her back to him and he scooted close so that he could reach her hair. As he combed through the dark red tangles she picked up the black and white drawing he had created for her tattoo and held it in her lap. She tried to pretend the picture was in an art gallery, but it didn’t stir any feeling at all. She felt as empty as the space between the lines. She set the drawing down and hunched the towel around her naked shoulders for warmth while he pulled her hair into a braid.

“How do you know how to braid a girl’s hair?” Sheryl asked.

“I looked it up online,” Matt said.

“Why?”

“Because I heard you tell Carolyn that you wanted to see what your hair looked like braided.”

Sheryl knew a reverse French braid was difficult to do well, even Carolyn’s mom said so. She considered why Matt would go to all the trouble of learning how for her. “Is watching me a good job?”

“Best job ever,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I like you,” he said. “It’s important to like your work.”

“Why is the Pope Catholic?” Sheryl asked.

Matt laughed wondering where that question came from. “The Pope is the head of the Catholic church. Only Catholics can be Popes. Why?”

“How long will my tattoo last?”

“A couple of days, maybe more. If you like it we can make a transfer and then we can put it on really quick whenever you want.”

Her mother had braided her hair a few times but Matt’s technique felt different. She liked the strength of his tugs to pull the braid tight. She could feel Matt’s breath on the back of her neck and it occasionally made her shiver. When he had finished she stood, turned to him and felt the ends of the braids with the hand she wasn’t using to hold the towel closed. He asked if she was ready, and when she nodded he reached for the towel and eased it off her shoulders exposing the creamy skin of her arms and torso and wrapped it tightly around her waist.

He was the only man who had ever seen the area underneath her bathing suit and he smiled as he looked at her carefully. She felt uncomfortable with his looking at her but she wasn’t sure if she should. Carolyn had little breasts, but Sheryl had no evidence of breasts at all. Her mother wouldn’t even buy her a bra until long after the other girls in the sixth grade. Then she told Sheryl she could only wear it to church. Her mother said when her breasts started to grow she would be tempted by Satan and she should be glad to hang onto her innocence as long as she could. Sheryl wasn’t sure what that meant but it seemed to indicate it was okay to let Matt look at her as long as her breasts still didn’t bulge out.

Just the same, she asked him to take off his shirt, too. He did, and she wondered if she would have a lot of important things to tattoo on herself when she grew up. At his bidding she laid on her back on the cushion so that he could easily reach her chest with the brushes and the funny tool he called an air brush. He put a pillow under her head and she watched him as he began to work. Occasionally, she would reach to finger one of his tattoos. Taking time to consider which, she pointed to one and asked him to explain.

“This is one of the angels on my shoulders; the Angel of Mercy,” Matt said as he painted her chest. “She stands on a red cross pedestal, has large, beautiful wings and is wrapped in the American flag.”

Sheryl fingered the red lettering underneath the pedestal. "What is Combat Medic?"

“That's what I was in the Army. We treated wounded soldiers and got them to the hospital. Some of the guys called us angels, and I felt like one when I kept somebody from dying.”

“Did you fight, too?” 

“I fought every day, but not usually with a gun. I fought the angel on my other shoulder.”

Sheryl turned to the image on his right shoulder. She had seen it before. The dark, hooded figure with red eyes frightened her and she did not like looking at it. "It’s scary. What is it?"

“It’s the Angel of Death,” he said. “The Angel of Mercy always tries and sometimes she wins, but if the Angel of Death wants you, you have to follow. I have it to remind me that death is always on my shoulder, and that I can lose the people I care about at any minute, no matter what I do.”

“Like my parents,” Sheryl said.

“Yes,” Matt replied.

She wanted to ask about the other tattoos, but she remembered his warning about liking him too much if she learned too much about him. She didn’t really understand why that might be a danger, but she sensed he was right. Perhaps it was because if you liked someone too much you would be too sad if they died. She did like him, though, particularly the way he looked at her, as though she was his favorite person in the world. She couldn’t recall anyone ever looking at her like that before.

The brushes tickled sometimes as he drew, especially the airbrush, but mostly it was boring just lying there. When he finished she sat up and he led her into her bedroom to stand in front of the big mirror on the closet door. He sat behind her on the bed while she looked at the design that filled the space in the middle of her chest. It was different than the drawing largely because it was brightly colored. The colors and shadows gave it an otherworldly appearance and he even incorporated one of her nipples into the design as a bright star in the stained glass. The faces of her parents in the forefront of the design held just the right amount of sadness and hope.

Still looking in the mirror at the tattoo she backed up until she bumped into Matt, and when he grasped both of her bare arms in his big hands tears began to trickle down from her eyes. There was no sound from her, no sniffing and no gesture of pain twisted into her face. Just tears flowing past her nose, lips, and chin, then dropping silently onto the freshly painted image of her parents.

When she could look no more she turned into him and he picked her up and laid back on the bed with her, holding himself just above her. His lips were warm as they absorbed the tear drops on her chest. He then kissed the tears off of her chin and face and each eye and she blinked under the warm, gentle theft of her sadness. She did not expect him to kiss her lips, and was surprised when his crushed against hers. She realized it was her first real kiss and she didn’t want it to end. She reached her hand for his neck and felt the heat of him there and on his shoulder and arm. It ended all to soon as he pulled back and looked at her.

His exquisite face held something powerful, a desire, almost a prayer, but she couldn’t believe it was her he wanted. Sheryl had seen similar looks on him before but never were they so full of longing. Sheryl didn’t think she had ever wanted something so badly as Matt appeared to want her. She drank in his desire and the pleasure of his admiration warmed her. He undid the robe still tied around her waist and laid it open exposing what she was cautioned by her mother to never show a man. Yet there she was, naked before him and it did not feel wrong. His hands caressed her thighs and his kisses began again on her chest, then down her stomach and below, his hot breath disturbing the downy hair and making her tremble. Embarrassed at the moisture she could sense was there she tensed.

She didn’t know what he intended, but an image on the internet of a man with his face between a woman’s legs she and Carolyn had laughed at hysterically sprang to mind. Sheryl raised her head and as he was kissing the longish hairs beginning to cover her pudendum, she said, “No.”

Matt stopped and raised up to look at her. His desire was gone, replaced by what she thought was guilt, which in turn made her feel guilty. He sat up and covered her with the towel. He put on his shirt, stood and started to leave. “What would you like for lunch? Soup and a sandwich?”

Seeing how disappointed he was she regretted refusing him. What he had done with his lips felt good, so good, but it must be wrong. Her mother would threaten her with hell for enjoying what Matt had done. Did that mean she was a harlot like her aunt?

He was so handsome, she thought, and he took care of her, too, as though he was the big brother she had always wanted. Then there was the way he looked at her; like he was a planet and Sheryl was the sun he orbited. She loved that most of all.

17

“Barbara, this is Matt Harrington,” he said into the phone. “Could you come by? Everything is fine, I think, but Carolyn is asking for you.” Matt tried his best to reassure her given the limited information he had. It was not easy trying to explain that the girls had locked themselves in the bathroom and they wouldn’t say why. A few minutes later Barbara appeared at the door and Matt let her in. “They were in Sheryl’s room and they went into the bathroom,” he said. “Then they started calling for me. Carolyn seems to be the one with the problem, she sounds a little panicky. I think Sheryl is in their for moral support.”

Barbara was admitted and a lot of loud, upset whispering followed. A few minutes later Barbara exited, folded her arms, and looked at the floor. Matt waited until she spoke. “It seems Carolyn was experimenting,” she explained haltingly, “and now she has managed to lose something… inside.”

“I don’t understand,” Matt said.

Barbara took a breath trying to find the right words. “She stuck a hotdog in her cooter, and she can’t get it out.”

“Oh, well,” Matt said, “sounds like a trip to the Emergency Room is in order.”

Barbara waved her hand back and forth, looking a little panicky herself. “No, that won’t do,” she said, explaining her husband was an administrator at the hospital and there was a lot going on there and he didn’t need an embarrassment like this on top of everything else. “Not only that,” Barbara said, “he had a very difficult childhood and he has issues about this sort of thing. It’s too much to go into now, but it would be best for everybody if he didn’t find out.”

Matt wasn’t sure where the conversation was going until Barbara offered, “Sheryl said you were a medic in the Army. Is that right?”

“You want me to remove it?”

“Oh, could you?” she said. “It would save us all a lot of embarrassment.”

“I’ve extracted a lot of shrapnel, Barbara, but no hot dogs,” he said, considering how it might be accomplished. “Is Carolyn going to be okay with this?”

“She will be when she understands the alternatives,” Barbara said. She went inside and there was more excited whispering when the door opened and Matt was motioned in. “She’s ready.” Barbara laid a hand on his shoulder as he went in and she said, “I have every confidence in you.”

Matt entered to find Sheryl sitting on the counter smirking at her friend and Carolyn sitting on the edge of the closed toilet with a towel covering her waist. One hand held on to the shower door and one to the counter edge as though she was afraid of falling off. Carolyn alternated expressions between mortified and scared. He washed his hands thoroughly, opened a drawer and extracted a pair of sterile rubber gloves from a box. When he had put them on he held them above his waist and said to the girl, “I’ll have to take a look.”

Carolyn hesitated, then slowly removed the towel exposing her nude body from the waist down. Her legs were thin and tan and her pale white vulva was smooth with a soft patch of down just above like a hat. Her pink lips were spread wide between her open legs. Matt got down on his knees in front of her while her mother leaned in over his shoulder. Sheryl looked down from her position on the counter.

“A hot dog, huh?” Matt said.

Carolyn nodded solemnly, and nodded again when he asked if it was in one piece.

“Let’s try this first,” Matt said. “There is a muscle inside there that you can use to push it out. You have probably never used it, but I am going to push on your tummy, and I want you to try to feel that muscle in there and push it out. Okay?”

Carolyn’s face twisted into a dozen expressions as he pressed below her bikini tan line and above her vulva as she strained to find something she wasn’t sure even existed.

“Can you feel the muscle?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Keep trying,” he said as her face went though several more contortions.

“Push, Carolyn, push,” her mother said with more than a little annoyance.

After straining until her face was red, Carolyn said, “I can’t,” and started to cry.

Matt, spread her legs a little father and tried to see the hotdog in what was a hole about the size of his little finger. “I could try an instrument,” he said. “but I am afraid that would only mash it up inside without getting it out. Then we would have to go to the ER for sure.”

“God damn it, Carolyn,” her mother said. “How could you be so stupid?”

The girl teared up again and Sheryl tried to stifle a laugh. “I didn’t know it could get lost,” Carolyn said.

“Well, now what?” her mother asked Matt.

“I could try with my fingers, but it might be… uncomfortable,” he said. He turned to Sheryl, “Your fingers are smaller. You could try.”

“No way,” Sheryl said firmly. “I’m not putting my fingers up there.”

“What about you?” Matt said to her mother.

“Oh, no. You’re the professional,” Barbara said. “Just do what you have to do.”

Sheryl started laughing again causing Carolyn to yell, “Shut up, Sheryl.”

“Is that okay with you, Carolyn,” Matt asked.

Carolyn nodded, sniffing her tears.

“Sheryl,” Matt said, “hand me the tube of KY jelly from the drawer.” When she did, he said, “Now squeeze a little on my fingers without touching the glove.” He rubbed his fingers together to warm the liquid and spread it around.

As all four leaned in for a stare Matt lubricated her vulva thoroughly. Then he inserted his index finger inside the small hole feeling for the hot dog. “Does that hurt?” he asked.

“It feels weird,” Carolyn said.

He probed a little deeper and said, “I can feel it.”

“Can you get it out?” Barbara asked.

“If I can grab it, I think so.” He lifted his finger trying to expand the narrow canal and tried to insert his thumb so that he would have something to grab with. “It’s very tight,” he said. “I want you to take a deep breath and exhale through your nose and try to relax everything down there. I am going to massage it a little to see if I can help your muscles relax.”

Carolyn leaned back and exhaled loudly several times as Matt massaged the opening with his index finger. Her breathing grew ragged as he pressed on her tummy with his left hand and used his finger to massage the opening. “Try to push,” he said, and she closed her eyes and twisted her face. Her hands tightened their grip on the shower door and the counter edge. Carolyn’s breaths turned to little gasps. Suddenly her breathing stopped, her knees clamped shut pinning his forearm between her legs, she gave a short shriek, then another, then her voice dropped an octave as she said, “Oh, fuck!”

After some slight jerks of her legs and a curling of her toes Carolyn’s breathing resumed and her legs relaxed open. Matt pushed them wide, inserted his thumb into the now expanded opening, grasped the hot dog and pulled it out.

“Yea,” Sheryl exclaimed.

“Thank God,” Barbara said. “You did a great job.”

Matt stood, dropped the slimy hotdog in the garbage, and tossed the rubber gloves in after. “Extracting bullets is easier,” he replied as he left the bathroom closing the door. A few minutes later they all came into the kitchen. Barbara looked very relieved, Sheryl was still wearing a smirk, and Carolyn was hiding behind her mother trying to not be seen. Barbara thanked him again and the two left.

Matt had returned to reading the newspaper when he was joined by Sheryl who still had a smile on her face.

“Carolyn is the dumbest girl ever,” Sheryl said when she sat at the table.

“What was she doing with the hot dog?”

Sheryl burst out laughing again. “She was trying to show me how to have sex with a boy.”

“So she knows how?”

“She doesn’t know anything, but she thinks she knows everything,” Sheryl said. “Serves her right it got stuck up there.” Sheryl burst into laughter again. “I can’t believe she had an…” The sentence ended abruptly when Sheryl realized what she was going to say.

“Orgasm?” Matt offered. The word quieted her further, and he continued. “Have you ever had one?”

“Not with someone trying to remove a hot dog,” she said, but her laughter sounded forced.

“So you have, then?”

There was a short silence, then, “Mom said I shouldn’t talk to men about sex or they will take advantage of me.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to take advantage of you?”

“Aren’t you? You showed me dirty pictures and you kissed me… down there. now you’re talking about sex.”

“I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to,” Matt said.

18

Margaret yelled at the girls again as she walked by Sheryl’s bedroom door. “If you two aren’t ready in five minutes, no more sleepovers. Get a move on.” She stomped into the kitchen carrying the Journal even though she knew she wouldn’t have time to read it and started the coffee maker. When she couldn’t find the filters she swore loudly. Matt had gradually taken over the kitchen and rearranged nearly everything to suit himself. She knew it was a small price to pay for the services he rendered, not to mention watching the child. It still pissed her off that she couldn’t find the coffee filters. She swore again when the doorbell rang.

Carolyn’s mom was standing there when she opened the door wearing a tight fitting running outfit, looking as though she had never worked a day in her life. Margaret invited her in telling her the girls were too busy talking to get dressed and she was having second thoughts about sleepovers.

Not wanting to antagonize the parent of Carolyn’s only friend Barbara apologized on behalf of her daughter. The apology was so excessive Margaret tried to soften the impact. “It’s not really Carolyn’s fault. I should have gotten them up earlier. The truth is Matt is much better at this sort of thing than I am.”

“Where is Matt?”

“He’s gone up to the VA for a doctor’s appointment this morning,” Margaret said, as she looked through some papers in her briefcase. “So I have to play parent for a while.”

“Oh, would you like me to watch Sheryl. I’d be more than happy–”

Margaret dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand, “Thank you, but I’m taking her to work with me this morning. I thought it would be good for her to see what it was like to have a job instead of having someone wait on you hand and foot all day. Matt’s going to pick her up there and bring her home.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. Barbara stood with her arms folded under her breasts and one hand fiddling her necklace. “Is Matt not feeling well?”

Margaret paused her shuffling of papers, “He didn’t say. He’s very private in some ways. Anyway, it can’t be too serious. He looks good.”

“Yes,” Barbara said. “He does.”

Margaret recognized the signs of attraction in the woman’s faraway look and breathy tone. It took Barbara a few seconds to return to the conversation. Then she said, “I was so moved by Sheryl’s tattoo, I nearly cried. I think it affected Carolyn, too.”

“What tattoo?” Margaret asked.

Barbara explained to Margaret all she knew about the painted tattoo and how it came about. Margaret found herself very annoyed she hadn’t been made aware of it before, but she tried to give the impression it was unimportant to her. It did make her quiet for most of the ride to her office, though. She wasn’t able to let go of the annoyance, however, so she brought it up to Sheryl.

“So, I understand you have a tattoo,” Margaret said quietly. “You should tell me about those kinds of things. Otherwise, I look like an idiot when your friend’s mother mentions it.”

“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you,” Sheryl said with what had become a typical unpleasantness.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Margaret asked.

“It’s not like you’re interested in what I do.”

Margaret’s anger erupted, “I would have been interested that you had your dead parents painted on your tits.”

Sheryl’s anger was just as quick. “I could be covered with dead people and you wouldn’t care.”

“Damn! You sound just like June,” Margaret snapped back. She grimaced, thought for a minute, then said clearly and slowly, “I care.” She grimaced again, then said, “I know I am lousy at showing it, but… I care.”

“You don’t care if I have sex.”

“I do too,” Margaret replied. “I’m just not a hypocrite. I don’t bang guys I like and then tell you to save yourself for marriage because of a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo. I don’t tell you that you are going to hell because a boy makes you feel like you are in heaven.”

Sheryl calmed as she became interested in what Margaret was saying. “I thought sex was bad for girls my age.”

“It’s like anything else. If you feel bad afterward it’s bad, if you feel good after, it’s good. Don’t listen to what others think you should feel. Only you know what feels good to you.”

“So I need to try it so I know how it feels?”

“You can’t take a pill,” Margaret said.

“Should I have sex with Matt?”

“Do you want to have sex with Matt?”

“I don’t want him to go to jail.”

“Then don’t have sex with him. Or keep your mouth shut. And especially don’t tell Carolyn. That girl doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut.” The two were quiet until Margaret asked, “Has he tried to have sex with you?”

Sheryl thought about laying naked before him and the feelings of his lips on her. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so, not really.”

“Well, he will,” Margaret said. “It won’t be long before guys start lining up to have sex with you. But it’s your choice. Don’t let anyone talk you into it if you don’t want to. For sure it will not feel good if you don’t want to do it in the first place. If you’re too nervous or scared, just say no and wait until you are ready.”

“How will I know when I’m ready?”

“I don’t know,” Margaret said, feeling on unfamiliar ground. “How do you know if you’re ready to ride a roller coaster? It looks and sounds scary and you’ve heard people have died on roller coasters, but everybody is screaming about how great it is. And you don’t want to be the kind of person whose fear keeps you from doing what everyone else does. I guess you just have to decide you can live with the decision, however it turns out.”

“How did you decide?”

Margaret paused, searching for the best way to say it. “I wasn’t given a choice.”

Sheryl was keenly interested in this turn in the conversation. “I don’t really know how to do it,” she said.

Margaret considered what she was about to say, then offered tentatively, “I could explain it to you, sometime, if you want. I’m sure it’s all on the internet now, but if you want to talk to somebody about it, I could be the one, if you want.”

“Mom said you never liked me.”

“I like you– alright?” Margaret said gripping the steering wheel tightly. “You’re family. That’s one of God’s little gotchas to make sure you’re never too happy. No matter how lousy your family is to you, you still want to like them, even though they don’t deserve the effort you wish you could just let go of the past and… and like them.”

“You shouldn’t try so hard,” Sheryl said, “you might hurt yourself.”

“You want to resent me for not liking you in the beginning, fine. That’s on me,” Margaret said sharply. “Things were very… difficult when you were born. I didn’t know how to handle it.” Margaret paused to gather her thoughts. “But I see you now. You’re a good kid, you do well in school, and you have manners. Matt says you’re a good swimmer and soccer player. And you’re not afraid to ask questions, or to be angry, and those are qualities every woman should have. I’m sure June was much better at this being a mother thing than I’ll ever be, but it’s not because I don’t like you.”

“Mom wasn’t that great at it, either,” Sheryl said. “At least you said you like me. She never did.”

Margaret could see the tears on Sheryl’s face, but she had no idea how to respond.

19

Sheryl was impressed with the tall building and the large, busy office where her aunt worked in Palo Alto. The woman had her own office with her name and title on a plaque by the door, and it was spacious with comfortable chairs and a big window. She didn’t get to stay there long because Sheryl was handed over to her aunt’s secretary, Betty, who was told to put her to work. Sheryl found herself stuffing envelopes at the woman’s desk while she filled her in on the Agency and what her aunt did.

“How do you get to be an Executive Director?” Sheryl asked.

“It’s not easy,” the young secretary said. “You have to be smart and tough. Ms. Kincaid graduated early from high school and got a B.A. and MBA in five years and could go 13 rounds with a bear. I don’t know any men who could do as well at her age. This is just the beginning for her. She’s going to move up to a technology company one of these days and end up a CEO.”

“Why do you call her Ms. Kincaid?”

“The only people who didn’t call her Ms. Kincaid were fired.” The woman giggled in admiration, saying, “She runs this place with an iron fist, and if you’re not careful she’ll put that fist where the sun doesn’t shine.” They both giggled at Betty’s gesture illustrating the action and then the secretary said, “I wish I was more like her. She really knows how to handle things. Men, too. I should give her my boyfriend for a while. She would whip him into shape, probably with a real whip.” The two giggled more and Sheryl found herself thinking about her aunt in a very different way.

The secretary asked, “So how about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Sheryl shook her head shyly.

“Oh, but you’re so cute. Those braids are beautiful. There must be lots of boys checking you out.”

“Well, there is one,” Sheryl said. “He looks at me a lot. I think he likes me, but he is older.”

“Oh, an older man,” the secretary said as a tease. “I used to like older men, too. When I was in the seventh grade I had such a crush on a eighth grader. I think mainly because he was the only one in school who had to shave. But he was a little too advanced for me.” She reached out and tickled Sheryl while saying, “He had a bad case of Roman hands and Russian fingers.” The two erupted in laughter again, and the secretary cautioned her that her aunt wouldn’t like it if they had too much fun, and she made a threatening fist, causing them both to laugh more.

Helping out with several tasks and the easy banter with the secretary made the morning pass quickly for Sheryl. She was surprised when the secretary’s phone buzzed and Betty said, “Your nanny is on her way up. I’m sorry you have to go, I’ve enjoyed working with you today.”

“Me too,” Sheryl said with a smile.

The door to the elevator opened and Matt appeared in his khakis, deck shoes and Polo shirt, stepped out, sauntered to the desk, greeted Sheryl, then asked, “How was your first day on the job?”

“It was fun,” Sheryl said.

“I’m Betty,” the secretary said as she stood, smoothed her skirt, and reached to shake Matt’s hand.

“Matt Harrington,” he said, returning her stare.

“Very pleased to meet you,” she said, smiling effusively. “Are you related to Sheryl?”

“No,” he said, “I'm the nanny.”

“Really,” she said with considerable surprise. “Sheryl didn’t tell me you were a– but of course she didn’t have to, now that I see you. I mean, how nice for Sheryl that she has someone like you–” She sat down and moved things about on her desk. “Well, I hope you know what I mean.”

“Is Margaret available,” Matt asked.

Betty punched a button on the phone and said, “Mr. Harrington would like to see you.” When she put the phone down she said, “Go right in Mr. Harrington.”

When Matt entered the office, Betty turned to Sheryl, “Why didn’t you tell me your nanny was such a… man. I thought those blue eyes were going to turn me into a puddle of– of– of something very wet. Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend?”

Sheryl was confused by the secretary’s reaction and asked, “What about your boyfriend?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” she said, “but maybe while Ms. Kincaid is whipping him into shape, Mr. Harrington could whip me into shape. That’s fair, don’t you think?”

The phone rang again, and this time when Betty hung up she said, “Shit! Mr. Johnson. Ms. Kincaid does not like Mr. Johnson.” She punched again and told her boss of the man’s imminent arrival. Margaret stuck her head out the door and said, “Betty, take Matt and Sheryl out the back way, please. Now.”

By the time Matt had taken Sheryl’s hand, the elevator door opened and Ben Johnson appeared, then moved quickly toward the four of them just outside Margaret’s office. “Hello, Ms. Kincaid. Forgive my unannounced visit but I need to speak to you on a matter of some importance. I was hoping we could have lunch.”

Margaret’s response was voiced with controlled politeness, “I’m afraid I am not available. There is a family matter I have to attend to and I was just about to leave.” She said to her secretary, “Betty, will you find some time in my schedule for Mr. Johnson next week?”

“Certainly,” she said.

Ben had been eying Sheryl up and down and he stepped forward. “Who is this, Ms. Kincaid?” He reached to shake Sheryl’s hand. “She looks smart enough to be a business magnate and pretty enough to be a movie star.” The girl smiled openly in response.

“My niece, Sheryl,” Margaret said.

“Oh, yes,” Ben said, his eyes still on Sheryl. “I knew your mother, and your grandfather. He ran one of my shoe stores back in the day.” He laughed loudly. “Maybe one day you will come to work for me, too? Would you like that?”

Sheryl’s eyes brightened at this and she nodded vigorously, and Ben laughed again.

“And who might you be?” Ben asked the man standing next to Margaret.

“Matt Harrington,” he said offering his hand.

The two men shook and Ben asked, “What line of work are you in, Mr. Harrington?”

“Currently, I am a nanny. My primary responsibility is taking care of Sheryl.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would be content with just that, Matt.”

“Actually, I have never been more content.”

“Well, if you ever want a real job,” Ben said with exaggerated magnanimity, “let me know. I have connections.”

“He was in the Army,” Margaret blurted, surprised by her sudden need to defend him. “He’s taking a break to decide what he wants to do.”

“No kidding?” Ben enthused. “I was marines, artillery, Desert Storm. Kicked Saddam’s butt all the way to Baghdad. That was before your time, of course.”

“I heard about that war,” Matt said. “Only one hundred forty-five American casualties.”

For the first time Ben looked chagrined. “You were in Iraq?”

“Afghanistan. Three tours.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ben said, almost shuffling his feet. “They say that it’s still bad over there.”

“Twenty two-hundred American casualties and counting.”

“Well,” Ben said backing away. “Nice meeting you all. We’ll talk another time, Ms. Kincaid.” He turned quickly and left.

20

Matt had just sent Margaret off to work and was sitting on the couch with a sketch pad when Carolyn appeared in her pajamas. Margaret had said they had a sleepover and the two were up late so they would probably sleep in. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked.

Carolyn shrugged and sat on the end of the couch, pulling her knees up, and wrapping her arms around them. “Watcha doing?” she asked.

“Just sketching some things,” he said.

“Mom said you showed her some paintings. Are you an artist?”

“I showed her some old stuff. I haven’t painted anything for a long time.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess my muse abandoned me.”

“What’s a muse?”

“It’s someone who inspires you,” he said.

“You paint things on Sheryl. Does she inspire you?”

“Not like that,” he said. “That’s more helping Sheryl discover things about herself.”

“When are you going to paint on me?”

“You haven’t told me what you want yet.”

“Can’t I just have a Pegasus?”

“It has to be art, and art has to mean something.”

Carolyn dropped her hands in frustration, “Why does it have to mean something? A Pegasus is cool.”

“Because I am not a doodler and your body is not a school binder,” Matt said. “If you want to decorate yourself you can slap Hello Kitty stickers on your tits.” He paused when he saw she was hurt by his words. “Look, if you’re going to put something on your body that you look at every day it has to mean something. You deserve better than just a decoration. Millions of people have tattoos that are just stupid decorations. Find something that makes you think about who you are, or who you want to be. Something important.”

The girl folded her arms and said, “My parents didn’t die. Nothing important happened to me.”

“I’m sure something must have happened to you in your twelve years.”

“I can only think of one important thing. Will you paint that on me?”

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“You.”

“Me? Why am I important?”

“Because you were my first.”

“First what?”

“Orgasm.”

“Really?” Matt said. “You hadn’t discovered that before?”

Carolyn shook her head. “Sheryl has. I said I did, I guess I thought I did, but when you… did that to me… with your finger… that was… better. Do you believe me?”

“Sure, if you say so.”

“Mom doesn’t. She says I was imagining it.”

“I don’t think anybody imagines an orgasm.”

Carolyn liked that Matt didn’t treat her like her mother did, like a child. He didn’t make her doubt what she knew to be true. Her orgasm was real and that meant she was a woman. Most importantly, Matt could make her orgasm with just his finger, and that mean’t she must love him. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Matt said. “You couldn’t relax, and I could tell you were responding, and I hoped if you had an orgasm you would relax and I could get it out. I had no idea it was your first.”

“Did you like making me orgasm?”

“Yes, actually. I’ve always liked helping people. It was a lot better than pulling shrapnel out of some guy’s chest. They never looked as pleased as you did.”

Carolyn scooted over toward Matt settling in close to, but not touching him. “Would you like to make me orgasm again?”

Matt sighed. “I was afraid you were going to ask me that,” he said. “You’re a very pretty girl, Carolyn and quite likable in a wild child kind of way, but I won’t for two reasons. One is your mother would find out and I would go to jail, and two, I have feelings for someone else. I wouldn’t feel right about doing that with you, as much as I am sure I would enjoy making you have another orgasm.”

“It’s Sheryl, isn’t it?”

“Who it is none of your business. And It doesn’t matter who it is. It wouldn’t feel right.”

“You did it to me once,” Carolyn said. “Why can’t you do it again?”

“Because you want me to feel about you the way you feel about me, and I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Carolyn returned to the bedroom and sat on the end of the bed with her back to Sheryl.

Not at all sure she wanted to know the answer, Sheryl asked, “Well?”

Carolyn stood and took off her pajama top, found a sleeveless top in her bag and pulled it on. “He said, no.”

Sheryl smiled to herself under the blanket so Carolyn couldn’t see how pleased she was.

Carolyn was more disappointed with Matt’s rejection than with any other rejection she could remember. It took Carolyn a long while to let go of the feeling. Carolyn was envious of the way Matt looked at Sheryl and she wanted Matt to look at her that way. Her body trembled with the memory of how the shower door rattled in her hand as she came with Matt’s fingers stuck in her cooter, and how she said, ‘Oh, fuck,’ out loud. She had never been in love before, and she wanted Matt to love her and finger her and make her come again. She saddened at the thought of not being smart enough or pretty enough for Matt to love her.

She heard her mother enter the front door and begin a lively discussion with Matt about some art exhibit in San Francisco. She finished dressing, picked up her bag, said good-bye and went out to greet her mother.

The sun was up, but the house grew quiet after Carolyn and her mother left, so Sheryl closed her eyes for a few more minutes of summer sleep. She awoke again to Matt putting some clean laundry in her drawers. When he noticed she was awake, he smiled broadly at her. She regarded him thoughtfully.

“What?” he asked, curious about her inquisitive look.

“Tell me about another tattoo,” she said.

“Alright,” he said. Matt pulled off his tee shirt and laid on the bed on his stomach next to her. “Pick one,” he said.

Sheryl looked first at his back and used her finger to trace a series of a crosses stuck in the ground with helmets set on top. Each helmut had a red cross on the front and a last name. She thought she understood what these were about, so she asked him to turn over. Leaning close she traced a small circle that had been inked over his heart. “It looks like a real hole,” she said. “I keep expecting to be able to stick my finger in. What does it mean?”

“Just what it looks like,” he said. “It’s a hole in my heart.”

The girl looked into his blue eyes catching the morning light through the window. His return stare was steady and intense. “Why do you have a hole in your heart?” she asked.

Matt took the hand that had been tracing the hole, rolled on his side and set the hand down on a tattoo of a large caliber bullet on his ribs about a eight inches below his armpit. It looked as though the bullet had ripped through the rib bones and torn the skin on it’s way out of his back.

“The bullet came in the front at an angle,” he said, “because she didn’t face me when she fired, and it exited out here. The hole where a bullet enters is small. It does most of the damage as it expands on the way out.”

She looked closely at the bullet and had to remind herself it was a tattoo and not real by feeling it with her fingers. She assembled the letters engraved on the bullet casing into a word. “Who’s Lucy?”

“She’s the one who put that hole in my heart,” he said. He went on to explain that Lucy was a fellow art student he met in college and they were lovers until he went in the Army. He received a letter during his second tour that she had fallen in love with a friend of his. He tried to talk her out of it when he got home, but she had already become engaged and was pregnant. He loved her and he thought she loved him but discovered she had been cheating on him practically since they met.

“So every morning you look at the hole in your heart and you think of her?”

“Not so much her,” Matt said, “but how much that bullet hurt, and how that hurt affected me.”

“How did it affect you?” she asked.

“It made me afraid,” he said. “See, if you’re strong you can take one hole in your heart, but two will kill you for sure. I worry about getting another one. I worry about it a lot.”

Sheryl had never had anyone talk to her the way Matt did. He had seen and done things she couldn’t imagine, fascinating, terrible things, and he carved those things into his body like hieroglyphs. She laid back on the pillow and looked up at him. He was beautiful, like a boy model but more rugged, and he smelled good, and he liked her. The strength of his feelings both frightened her, and made her want more.

Matt placed his hand on her breast teasing the cotton-covered nipple, and he leaned in and kissed her cheek. She held his neck and turned to kiss his lips, hot, dry, and arousing. She flexed her knee to confirm the wetness she suspected was between her legs. It was as slippery as it could be.

She considered what she should do next. She thought she knew the mechanics because Carolyn and she had extensively discussed several videos of men and women fucking that appealed to them. Yet, Sheryl was apprehensive. She hadn't taken Margaret up on her offer to discuss sex, but she decided she would soon. Like Margaret had said, having sex was like getting on a roller coaster. It seemed both fun and scary and she didn’t want to be the kind of girl who was afraid to have fun. And what if it hurt? Carolyn said the first time hurts and you bleed, but she only learned that from the internet.

Matt unbuttoned the top of her pajamas revealing the painting of her parents and her erect nipples on her flat breasts. He kissed the one covered by the star and pulled it out with his lips and teased it with his tongue. His hand pressed onto her other breast and swept down towards her pajama bottoms. He caressed her stomach and thighs and he dragged his fingers up over her vulva inducing a slight gasp and returned to the top of her pajamas.

Sheryl felt warm all over, and she twisted her legs again to feel the wetness. She wanted to feel the sensation of his fingers working their way down into her pajamas, over the soft hair, into the slit and onto the spot that made her come. She had done it to herself many times and she wondered if he would be able to make her have an orgasm, too.

Matt stood up abruptly, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

In less than a minute he returned to her side wearing rubber gloves and holding a tube of liquid she recognized as the same kind he used on Carolyn. He warmed the thick goo on his fingers then held up the waistband of her pajamas. His liquid finger slid over her vulva and into the slot already opened wide by her desire.

Matt had always made a reasonable effort to please the women he bedded. If they weren’t satisfied, he knew he would have no trouble attracting a new partner. However, he had not been with a woman since he left for his last tour, so he was nervous. If he couldn’t please Sheryl he knew he would be lost and alone forever.

He worked his finger slowly and methodically over the fat bulge her clitoris had become. He didn’t penetrate her vagina but rubbed around the opening as though promising more later. He returned to massaging her clitoris when her hips told him she wanted it, then he strayed, and returned repeatedly. It didn’t take long until the girl shook in the throws of her first orgasm induced by someone other than herself. Matt was immensely satisfied with the proof of her pleasure; her dripping cunt, her gasping breaths, and her twitching legs. He smiled at his success when she collapsed underneath him and uttered just what Carolyn had, “Oh, fuck.”

21

Sheryl appeared with the towel draped over her shoulder in what had become a ritual of sorts every few days. Matt had set up the TV tray with his paints and brushes to do touch up after applying the transfer image of her parents. His shirt was off, his hands covered in the latex gloves he always wore, and the cushion was in place on the coffee table. She sat down for him to braid her hair. There would be no swimming this weekend so the image and the braids would last until Monday. When he had finished braiding her hair she stood and turned to him as he readied the transfer. “I want a different one this time,” she said.

“Oh,” Matt replied, “what do you want?”

“A rosebud.”

“What does that mean to you?”

“I got the idea from something Margaret said. I think it means I’m just starting out, like a bud, but I will grow into a rose. I want to be reminded that someday I’ll be a rose, like Margaret.”

Matt returned an odd look. “Margaret’s very attractive, although I don’t think I would describe her as a rose. And it’s nice, but not exactly something important that’s happened to you.”

“Isn’t it important to know what you want to be?” Sheryl said. “I think it is. And it’s what I want.”

Her tone was defiant, the first time he had detected such a hard edge in her. It felt to him as though it was conditional; paint what she wanted or else. Matt shrugged in acquiescence. “Are you calling her Margaret now?”

“She doesn’t like Maggie.”

Matt wasn’t sure what to make of the change in her feeling about her aunt. He was perturbed as he initiated the remainder of the ritual. When her hair was braided, he grabbed the edges of the towel wrapped around her shoulders. “Are you ready?”

She nodded and he slid the towel down to her waist and started to tie it. “I don’t want it on my chest,” she said.

“Where do you want it?”

She pulled the towel out of his hands and let it drop to the floor. Matt was taken aback as the girl laid down on her back on the cushion presenting her nude form to him seated above. She spread her legs slightly exposing her silky smooth vulva and said, “I want it right there.”

“A rosebud? Right there?” Matt confirmed.

“Yes,” she said confidently. “See, I shaved. Carolyn and I both did.”

Matt stared at the beauty of her youthful genitalia, the lips slender and neat as though they had never been engorged with desire, the crease enlarging as it trailed down to a narrow slit still mostly closed. The perfect nature of the girl’s vulva nearly moved him to tears. He envisioned the rose there, a barely opened pink bud and a single thick green stem wrapped around her waist with long sharp thorns. It did not take long to create the colorful petals ready to burst out of the green bud. He had to have her stand on the foot stool and rotate to create the stem which turned toward her hip and wrapped around her. The stem was lined with long pointed thorns and bent downward again into the crack of her butt. In a prominent position on her cheek he painted a drop of blood as though a thorn had pricked her alabaster skin.

“Why did you paint that?” Sheryl asked, holding her cheek to make it visible in the bedroom mirror after Matt had finished.

“To remind you that you that great beauty can also cause great pain,” he said.

Sheryl wasn’t sure what to make of his interpretation of the thorn, but she decided she liked the look of it. It made her feel dangerous. She got on top of the bed and laid back spreading her legs as she did so, then pulled her knees up observing the rosebud from different positions. Matt crawled onto the bed next to her and she suddenly felt nervous about what she had planned. Excited and afraid, Sheryl wanted to go ahead and she wanted to hold back. She wished Carolyn were here to share the experience with her so they could hold hands, and scream their fear and joy together like a roller coaster ride.

He was quiet as he looked at her in his admiring way. When she reached for his hand and placed it on the rosebud he trembled, then asked, “What do you want me to do?”

She thought he would know what she wanted. It had never occurred to her she would have to say it out loud, so she said the first thing that occurred to her. “Find the hot dog.”

Matt smiled then got up and left the room. He returned a minute later, shirtless but wearing rubber gloves and carrying the tube of jelly. Sheryl’s nervousness flared and she considered changing her mind as he laid beside her again. She closed her eyes and he leaned in very close. She felt his hot lips touch her cheek, linger there briefly, then fall softly onto her lips. She had kissed him before but she knew now where it was leading. She delivered her best kiss and held his illustrated torso tightly. Tattoos were for ungodly men and whores her mother had said, and that made her clutch even more.

As she welcomed his tongue into her mouth she wondered what it would be like to have his penis inside her. Would she scream or moan like the porn women? She wanted to grab his penis, feel the stiffness in her hand, and guide it inside, but he still had his jeans on. She tugged at the waist band until she felt his liquified finger slip into the slit below her newly acquired rosebud.

He shifted his weight off of her and massaged her clitoris in long gentle strokes. Ever since the hot dog extraction Sheryl had imagined herself on the toilet with Matt’s fingers inside and making her come. She couldn’t believe he was actually doing it now and it began to feel very good very fast, especially when he started kissing her nipples. There was nothing for him to grab onto but they were super sensitive.

His touch was smooth and caressing, and his stare loving, and she could feel her climax building. It was much faster than when she was masturbating and she suddenly thought she should stop because it was so wrong to let a man do this to her. Her mother and father would be so ashamed of her. However, the sensations were making it hard to do anything but close her eyes and breathe. Matt’s finger felt large and wiggly as it traveled the short journey side to side over her clitoris in the cleft of her vulva. ‘Wouldn’t Carolyn be jealous?’ she thought.

Matt wanted to make her come. It felt as if he was assisting one of the surgeons again doing a delicate repair of a vein and any mistake in his manipulation of the instruments would cost a life. He feared if he could not make her come he would be of no use to her at all. So he watched her face for signs of disapproval. The girl seemed tense, but impassive. He kept the pace steady and eventually her legs began to stretch and her fists to clench. He watched a reddish bloom in her face and he used her hops in breath to gauge if he was bringing her closer to a climax. She went quiet suddenly and he worried he had done something wrong and then the sweetest, most endearing, tremulous noise erupted from deep in her throat and her neck twisted in the ecstasy of relief. She curled up trapping his hand between her legs and he kissed her neck and ear as gently as he could and said, “My sweet, sweet girl.”

After a couple of minutes of quiet stillness, Sheryl asked, “Am I a harlot?”

“You are an angel,” Matt said. “Perfect in every way.”

“Angels don’t do this,” she said.

Matt sat up and pulled her feet straight, separated them, then positioned his head at her crotch. “They do,” he said, “It’s how they become angels.” He took a small piece of plastic wrap she hadn’t noticed before and covered her vulva. Then he pressed his tongue onto her clitoris over the wrap. The sensation made her spasm and gasp. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Giving you an orgasm,” he said, then resumed licking.

“But, I’ve already had one.”

“You can have more than one,” he said. “As many as you want.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s too sensitive.”

“Then we will try something else.” Matt smeared more jelly onto his fingers and pointed his big finger between her legs.

“Oh, fuck,” Sheryl whispered as she realized what he was going to do.

Matt probed the entrance to her vagina with gentle pokes until the very tip penetrated the small hole. He pushed inward until it disappeared up to the first knuckle.

Her head resting on a pillow, and afraid to acknowledge what he was doing by looking, she asked, “Is it going in?”

He pushed deeper inside her warm cunt until his finger was buried as far as it would go. The warm, wet, tense grip of her hole set his prick to burning, which triggered a volume increase in the tinnitus.

“It’s in there, isn’t it?” she exclaimed.

Matt answered by inserting another finger and pushing them both in as far as they would go.

“Oh, fuck,” she said as her body strained against the rapture.

Matt began a gentle but thorough thrusting into Sheryl’s cunt, enjoying the sense of power pleasing the young girl gave him. It made him want to sink his prick into her and fuck her until she was numb with joy. As his thrusting quickened Sheryl began to gasp and twist more, and breathe harder. He could see she wanted to come again and that she liked being fucked by his fingers and that made him go faster. As she neared her second climax he slipped his thumb onto her clit and curled his gloved fingers upward against the wall of her young uterus. Like he had hit just the right button, her voice exploded in orgasmic relief and she folded herself up like before, forcing his fingers out of her twitching canal.

He pulled off the gloves and laid beside her, caressing her as she straightened her body until she could rest her head on his shoulder.

Sheryl was very pleased with the glowing warmth she felt everywhere and her success at bringing about what she had planned. She had already decided she would lie about it to Carolyn, which was too bad because she really wanted to share it with someone. Perhaps Margaret would be interested.

As her tension dissipated Sheryl turned her attention to his tattoos which she always found interesting. She fingered one on his stomach below his rib cage. It looked like a cave or a well, dark, but with great depth as it wound farther back as though it was a hole into his body. As she took it in with her eyes and fingers she realized the entrance to the cave was in the shape of an ‘A’.

“What does this one mean?” she asked.

“The great abyss of life,” he said. “We try to find meaning in everything, it is in our nature, but there is no meaning. We are just wandering in the dark trying to make sense of the shadows. It is there to remind me not to try to make sense of the things that happen to me.”

“What’s in there?” she asked.

“God, the devil, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or nothing. You see what you want to see. You believe what you want to believe.”

Sheryl looked into his blue eyes, “Do you believe in God?”

“No,” he said. “I am what you call an atheist.”

“What’s that?”

“An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe there is a God. He thinks it is just a story that people like to tell.”

“Do you have to go to church to be an atheist?”

“No. That’s the best part.”

“How do you become one then?”

Matt paused, then, “Well, you wake up one day and you go to work. You like your job, because you help people, and helping people is the only thing that makes you feel good about being alive. For the first time in your life you feel useful. And you like the people you work with because they like helping people, too. Then, in the middle of the day, a good day with a clear sky and fresh air, they die. All the people you work with that you like, and the people you were helping, they just… die. For no good reason. And then you’re an atheist.”

Sheryl felt uncomfortable listening as she often did when he spoke of his tattoos. “I think I should go to church,” she said.

“How come?”

“I just had sex… with a man… and I’m not married,” she said. “I think I need to go to church to see how it feels. Will you take me?”

He said, “Of course,” but he worried church might precipitate too much guilt and she wouldn’t let him make love to her any more.

Sheryl worried about the same thing. She was sure she had done something wrong and what if going to church made her feel so bad she had to promise to never let him make her feel that way again? She didn’t like the idea of having to go back to making herself feel good. It was so much better when Matt did it. “You’d better do it again,” she said.

Matt complied happily. He spread her legs wide and lapped at her newly opened sex, slathering every part of her with his saliva and mixing it with her juices. He worked his tongue over her clitoris, inside as far as it would go, and forcefully across her asshole. The young girl squirmed her delight, grasped at his thick hair, and said “Oh, fuck,” a dozen times before she came a third time.

Matt crawled up her body and kissed her, then stared into her eyes. Sheryl was in awe that she could be made to feel this way, and he hadn’t even used his penis yet. “I’ve changed my mind about going to church,” she said. “I think I’m going to be an atheist.”

22

Carolyn waited behind the bushes for Margaret’s car to pull out of their street. When she and Sheryl drove out of sight, Carolyn rode her bike to Sheryl’s house, parked it on the side and walked to Matt’s house.

At the bell, Matt wiped his hands on his pants and opened the door to find Carolyn standing there by herself. When he looked around and realized no one was with her, he said, “I thought you were going shopping with Sheryl and Margaret.”

“I didn’t want to go,” she said.

“They just left,” he said. “I’m sure if I call they’ll come back–”

“Can I come in.”

Matt frowned. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

“She’s on a run. I thought of something important,” she said. “You said I had to think of something important to paint on me, and I wanted to tell you what it was.”

“Alright. But I’m going to tell your mother you were here,” he said.

Carolyn bounced into the house and began looking about. As he had seen her do in any new setting, she began approaching and touching the various objects she encountered. She looked at pictures on the walls in the living room, handled objects on shelves and glided around as though in a museum where the objects moved around and she had to keep up. She turned to see him pick up a box containing old tubes of paint and asked, “Watcha been doing?”

“I was just cleaning up the studio,” he said.

“Is that where you paint?”

“It’s where I used to paint. I don’t paint anymore,” he said.

“Can I see it?”

“Sure,” Matt said, with a shrug, and set down the box.

Carolyn followed him through the kitchen and to the back of the house to the adjoining cottage that had served as his studio. There was an easel and a stool, a T.V. tray with oil paints and brushes, a settee and dozens of canvases stacked against the wall on one side. On another wall was a picture window with closed curtains, and there was a large skylight directly over the easel.

“This is cool,” said Carolyn, her fingers landing on every object she encountered. “Why is it so dusty?”

“I don’t use it anymore,” he said as he drew the curtains back flooding the room with light. “I noticed it when your mother was here so I thought I would clean it up a little.”

Carolyn began pulling the canvases forward to see what had been painted on them. “What are they?” she asked.

“Lots of different things, mostly abstract,” Matt said. “Abstract is a visual language that is independent of–”

Carolyn interrupted, “I know what it means. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Oh,” Matt said. “Did your mom explain that kind of art to you?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “Mom’s not very good at explaining things when she thinks your dumb. I looked it up on the internet.”

“You did?” Matt said, impressed with her initiative. “Well, what did the internet say?”

“It’s a painting that means something only to you,” Carolyn said. “Like your tattoos.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Matt replied. “That’s actually very good.”

Carolyn smiled at the praise as though it was a warm breeze on a cold day. “Sheryl says she has seen all your tattoos. Will you show them to me?”

“Even Sheryl hasn’t seen all of them,” he said.

“Will you show me one you haven’t shown her?”

“Why are you competing with her? I thought you were best friends?”

“We are, sort of,” she said. “What’s this one?” Carolyn held up a brightly colored canvas with two tall objects and one shorter one.

Matt remembered the painting, one of his early ones, and what he was trying to accomplish with it. The same painting had interested Barbara, too. “It was about something I remembered as a kid.”

“What’s it mean to you?” she asked.

“I was trying to capture a feeling,” he said, running his fingers through some brushes to see if they were still good.

“It feels ugly.”

Matt laughed. “So, what’s this important thing you want me to paint on you?”

Carolyn pointed to the half spider on his arm. “Is that the one that makes you jump if you touch it?”

“Sometimes,” he said.

“Can I touch it?”

“You want to see me jump?” he said, eliciting a smile from the girl and a tentative reach with her finger toward the spider tattoo.

Before she got near enough to touch it, he said, “Boo,” softly.

She smiled and withdrew her hand. She then sat on the settee and picked up a folded piece of blue velvet from a box. “What’s this for?”

“When I was taking art classes I sometimes would have a model and drape her with the sash.”

Carolyn’s eyes widened. “Like a muse? I know what a muse is now.”

“Good for you,” Matt said, as he went through old tubes of paint, tossing those that were no longer any good.

“There are nine of them,” she said. “There isn’t one for painting, but all the great painters had muses. How come?”

“Because,” Matt said, “the muses were Greek, and the Greeks loved the written word; poetry, comedy, history. Painters were considered unworthy of a muse. But saying you have a muse sounds better than saying you have a mistress.” He paused to look at the girl. “And why do you care about muses?”

She shrugged, “It’s interesting. So I looked it up on the internet.”

“Really,” Matt said. I had no idea you were interested in such things.”

“There’s lots of things you don’t know about me. I can be a very interesting person when you get to know me.”

“Can you?” he said. “Suppose you tell me something interesting about yourself.”

Carolyn dropped the sash and resumed looking inside boxes. “Mom says you paint like Picasho. Did you know Picasho had a muse?”

“It’s pronounced Picasso and I’m sure she didn’t say that I paint like him. I paint in the abstract style, as did Picasso.”

“He had a muse,” Carolyn said. “She was his model and he painted her all the time. He had sex with her, too. I figure that was the inspirational part.”

“You think so, huh?”

“Sex inspires me,” Carolyn said.

“To do what, exactly?”

“To learn, I guess,” she said. “Did you know Gaugwyn married a girl in Tahiti he painted who was only thirteen. She had his baby.”

“It’s pronounced GoGA, and that was over a hundred years ago. Men can’t marry thirteen-year-old girls any more.” Matt picked up a box of paints to be discarded, saying, “I’m going to toss these. I’ll be right back.”

“All the great painters had sex with their muses,” Carolyn said as he started to leave. “So, if you want to be a great painter…”

Matt emptied the paints into the trash, made a call on his cell phone, and returned a few minutes later to find Carolyn draped in the sash and laying on the settee, grinning. He smiled briefly at her attempt at a pose until he noticed the small pile of clothes on the floor. He could see the top and bra, shorts, panties, and sandals confirming she must be naked under the sash. “Carolyn, what the fuck?”

“I’m a reclining nude,” she said. “All the great painters do reclining nudes. Am I your first? I didn’t see any, but it’s hard to tell because your others are so… ugly.”

“The word is abstract.”

“I don’t want to be like the others. I want to be hot. Can you paint me hot so I will end up in a museum?”

“I don’t paint anymore,” Matt said with considerable frustration in his voice.

“Mom says you should paint some more,” Carolyn said sitting up and adjusting the sash to keep herself covered. “She showed a picture of one of your paintings to someone and he liked it, and I want you to paint me.”

“Who did she show it to?”

“Somebody she used to work with, and he liked it,” Carolyn said. “She said you need to find your muse again and I want to be your muse.”

The ringing in Matt’s head, the ringing that never stopped, grew louder consuming his patience. “I don’t need a muse because I don’t paint. So put your clothes on and get the fuck out of here.” He turned away from her and slammed more things into the discard box. He didn’t hear any movement so he glanced over his shoulder. Carolyn had reclined again so Matt turned revealing an angry stare.

“No,” she said in quiet defiance.

Exasperated, he stood silent as he regained his composure, then asked softly, “Why not?”

She sat up again, adjusting the sash to keep from exposing more than her head, shoulder and legs. “I’m not like Sheryl. I not good at things. Not as smart, and I’m not as pretty, and I don’t have good ideas and nothing important has ever happened to me that you can paint on me. But I can be a muse, I know I can. Just let me try, please.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t paint any more.”

“You paint on Sheryl. That’s painting. Paint me. Just pretend I’m important and you’re painting me on Sheryl.”

The ringing in his head was unbearable and Matt thought he might go insane from the noise. “If I paint you will you put your clothes on?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t be a reclining nude with my clothes on.” Carolyn stretched out on the settee again trying to keep her breasts and crotch covered with the velvet.

Matt stared. Carolyn was a caricature of blossoming adolescent sexuality, his for the taking if he wanted. He didn’t want her, though. He wanted her friend. He wanted Sheryl more than he had ever wanted anything. But Sheryl had not made the effort to trick her parent so she could spend time with him. Sheryl had not made the effort to learn something because she knew it was an interest of his. Sheryl let him finger her, and suck her, and he knew she would let him fuck her, but he wasn’t at all sure Sheryl would ever love him. She might be just like her aunt, unable to love. Matt could not look at Carolyn with the eye of a lover, but he could look with the eye of an artist. Was there something in her worth capturing?

Carolyn’s eyes widened in apprehension as he approached her. He got down on his knees in front of her and she clutched the velvet holding it in place. Picking up a pillow he placed it behind her head until she could rest comfortably on it. She watched him carefully as he took her hand forcing her to release her grip on the sash and placed it resting on her hip. He tried to expose her leg and the girl grabbed the material to hold it in place.

“If you’re going to be a reclining nude,” he said, “you have to show a little skin.”

She released the velvet and he then pulled the material between her stretched out legs so that the top leg from the thigh down was exposed. He stood back and looked, stepped in to make a few more adjustments to the sash to show the curvature of her small breasts, then said, “Modeling is hard. You have to remember the pose and hold it for a long time.”

Carolyn smiled, “I’ll be as still as a rock.”

Matt placed a blank canvas on the easel and began sketching. Carolyn managed to hold the pose for a solid fifteen minutes before she started talking and moving every muscle of her body a dozen times a minute. She twisted around to look at things showing either more or less of her naked self, and eventually got up to wander around. She kept adjusting the blue velvet trying to keep it around her. Sometimes it fell off as she asked questions and poked around in the boxes, and she would look to see if Matt noticed, then throw it over her shoulder and return to the settee for a few more minutes of posing. He issued countless admonitions to hold still and be quiet but they had no effect.

Matt heard the front door open and his name being called. Barbara popped through the door of the studio a few seconds later. She appeared at one of the rare moments in which Carolyn was actually posed on the settee and as she took in the scene she exploded. “Where are your clothes? God damn it, Carolyn, have you lost your mind?”

“I’m a reclining nude.” Carolyn said. “All the great painters do reclining nudes. It was on the internet.”

Barbara gritted her teeth and turned her attention to Matt. “How could you do this to a child?”

Matt put down his brush. “She took them off while I was on the phone with you, which,” he said looking at the clock, “was over two hours ago.”

“I was… my phone was off. I thought she was shopping. That doesn’t excuse you for keeping her in the nude.”

“She has a mind of her own. It didn’t seem a good idea to send her away, so I chose not to fight it, but to go with it. I spent the time doing her portrait. Would you like to see it?”

“A nude of little girl. That’s very tacky, and probably illegal.”

“I wanna see,” Carolyn said, standing up and nearly losing the sash.

“Put your clothes on,” Barbara yelled.

“You already let him see my cooter,” Carolyn said while turning her back to them and pulling on her bra and panties. “What’s the big deal?”

Barbara looked like she was going to scream.

“I think you’ll like it,” Matt said, pointing to the easel.

Reluctantly, Barbara walked around the easel and stared. Now in her underwear, Carolyn came around, too, and leaned in to look. “Where am I?” Carolyn asked.

Matt pointed to a several reclining body parts; an eye obscured by something that resembled the sash, and a large foot, saying “Right around here.”

“It’s a mess,” Carolyn said.

Barbara followed with, “Yes, I think you have captured her essence.”

“But it means something to you, doesn’t it?” Carolyn said to Matt. “What do I mean to you?”

“Leave the poor man alone,” Barbara said, “and get dressed.” As Carolyn returned to her pile of clothes Barbara folded her arms and looked at Matt. “What am I going to do with her?”

He wiped is hands and as he rose from the stool he said, “I think she’s interested in art.”

“That will last about ten minutes,” Barbara said. “She’s interested in you, though. I suppose I should thank you for not taking advantage of her. You didn’t take advantage of her, did you?”

“No,” he said.

Barbara looked around. “Does this mean you’re painting again?”

Dressed now, Carolyn came over and said with the happiest of expressions, “I’m his muse. I inspired him to paint again, and we didn’t even have sex. Isn’t that awesome?”

“What do you know about muses?” Barbara asked.

“I know all about them. I learned it on the internet. You can learn anything on the internet because the internet doesn’t think you’re stupid. I don’t understand why you have to go to school when everything you want to know is on the internet.”

“You are not anybody’s muse,” Barbara said sternly. “Do you hear? Everybody will think you’re… You’ll get Matt in trouble. And I don’t want you to tell anyone you were posing in the nude,” Barbara said, “reclining or otherwise. Do you understand?”

“You always say we’re not suppose to have secrets. How come when I get in trouble it always has to be a secret?”

“Because your father will murder us both.”

23

Ben had insisted on a getting together after the board meeting and Margaret held firm that it had to be out of town where there was no chance of running into people from work. She worked very hard to keep her personal and professional life separate and even he didn’t think it was a good idea for the board to know about their relationship. Margaret parked her car in North Beach and walked up to the house of a friend of Ben’s on Telegraph Hill. She adjusted the overnight bag on her shoulder as she rang the bell.

“My love,” he said as he opened the door. “I tell you seeing you sitting there at the board meeting so stiff and official it was all I could do to keep from crawling under the table and sticking my face between your legs.” His laughter followed her as she entered the spacious, recently decorated house.

The place had several large rooms filled with long sectional couches, lots of futons and pillows, a sex swing, and an array of sex toys spread about as though it was a place where swinger parties were held. Margaret didn’t like those kind of events because there was too much going on. She preferred having a handful of guys to herself and in a home where you didn’t feel like you might catch something if you sat in the wrong place.

Ben caught her disapproval and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get a place of our very own and you can decorate it any way you like.” Ben had made several references to living together in previous conversations and Margaret remained cool to the idea. Now she tried to imagine herself the wife, mistress, concubine, whatever of a very wealthy man. It had been a long time since she imagined herself living with Ben and, to her surprise, she allowed herself to flesh out the fantasy again.

Clothes, cars, and jewelry, are all things Margaret appreciated and would be hers for the asking.

The sex would be good. He fucked her every day for weeks at a time in the beginning so there was no problem with his appetite. His dick was certainly the biggest one she had ever had. She had often wondered if it had only felt big because it was her first, but the fucking against the window of his office confirmed it was every bit as fat as she remembered. She knew with a dick like that she wouldn’t even have to try to come. She wouldn’t be able to help it.

She liked variety, though, and one man could never be enough for her for long. Ben knew of her participation in a gang bang, but he didn’t say how he felt about it. Like most men he probably assumed it was an aberration, the result of too much alcohol or drugs. If he knew the truth, she doubted he would be willing to share her. However, with enough money she could hire a few guys for discreet gang bangs regularly. Contemplating the satisfaction of a couple of hours of non-stop orgasms every week made her wet.

Sheryl would stay with Matt, of course. She was sure Sheryl would prefer him to being with her. Especially now that she was getting off regularly. Margaret could always tell when he had diddled her because of the stupid grin she couldn’t wipe off her face. She was a more interesting kid than Margaret had thought, not at all like June. Margaret actually enjoyed their sex talk, because it made her feel like she had something useful to give. The feeling of being looked up to by a child was new, and pleasing.

Ben’s connections could also advance Margaret’s career significantly. She could move into a technology company; a senior position in a medium business, or CEO of a small start up. It would give her a chance to make a name for herself.

And he did love her. At least he said he did. It occurred to Margaret she may have no idea what love is. There was scant evidence of it in her family. There were men who were infatuated with her, but that always faded. Ben’s professed love was convincing, she had believed with all her heart in the beginning, yet she doubted any man could truly love a slut.

“I got something for you,” he said. His Cheshire smile evolved into a chuckle as he handed her the exquisitely wrapped package.

She knew instantly from the shape what it was. He had been fond of giving her shoes since she first went to work for him and it was always a prelude to their fucking. She remembered his frequent comparisons to her being Cinderella and him the prince. At the time she actually felt like Cinderella.

Margaret began removing her clothes and Ben did the same. As she undressed his childlike excitement grew along with his cock. When she was naked and stepped into the bright red Jimmy Chu open toe six-inch heels she thought he was going to shoot his wad. It wouldn’t be the first time he smeared his cum on a new pair of heels. That was long ago but it was still a vibrant image in her mind.

Did she smile? Was that a nostalgic breeze that swept over her for a time long past? She recalled dressing up for work after school every day, finding just what compliment would get a woman to buy shoes, feeling like she was good at something, and the excitement of cashing her paycheck. She recalled doing her homework during the lulls, closing up the store, getting fucked by Ben in the back room and thinking each orgasm was a touch from God. Now she knew she was smiling. How could she have been so stupid as to think God was making her come.

Ben dropped to his knees and stuck his tongue into her ass. She bent her knees to spread her cheeks and tried to swallow his face with her butt. His fingers caressed the back of her legs, gradually working their way up to her naked snatch. The index fingers from both hands slipped into her willing canal, then both thumbs, then the next two fingers stretching her wide, making her want to sit on his hands. With his hands still clasped together, his fingers deep in her cunt, and his thumbs digging into her asshole as he stabbed like a woodpecker until she fell to the floor, her knees robbed of their strength by her orgasm, and rolled over.

He fell on her pushing her legs apart, sucking her breasts, then kissing, his tongue probing her depths and finally his massive cock bearing down on her. As always she clutched, clawed and slapped at him as the pleasure-pain of his entrance overcame her and he drove her into the rug. He fucked her hard, he smiled at her pleasure, and he giggled when she twitched her climax underneath him.

She knew he enjoyed taking her, being in her, possessing her so completely that he could make her shake in ecstasy. He loved filling her with his cum, and he did, every last drop, then he rolled off and laughed at the ceiling.

Margaret got up, assessed her back for rug burns, spread her skirt over the couch cushion, then sat down. The afterglow felt different than at his office. She had been caught by surprise then, but now his jabbering while she enjoyed her post fuck warmth felt familiar, like going home, like pulling on comfortable old clothes.

Ben fixed her a drink, then one for himself and joined her on the couch. He offered a toast to the two of them and laughed. “You are a hell of a fuck, Maggie,” he said, swirling the ice in his glass. “Smart, too. Look what you’ve done with your life; graduate degree, good job, admired by your staff. Who says intergenerational sex ruins your life? You were what; sixteen?”

“Fifteen,” she said. “I had to lie so that I could work for you, remember?”

“You were hottest fifteen-year-old that ever graced a pair of high heels, that’s for sure,” he said. “Ooh, I have something to show you.” He picked up the remote resting nearby and turned on a large TV hanging on a wall and began a slide show. “I used to take Polaroids back then, but I’ve had them all digitized. I think you’ll like these.”

Margaret recognized the picture of the shoe store and her mother, father and Ben standing in front. There was another at a dinner at her childhood home with Ben and his wife in attendance, more of the four Kincaids, then one with Ben with his arm around each of them, as though he was a celebrity. The last one was of Margaret a couple of years later, alone, dressed in a skirt, blouse and heels. She remembered this one as her first day at work at Ben’s shoe store. The smile seemed genuine.

“Here it is. Look at you,” he said chuckling. “Damn, you were gorgeous. I never understood how someone like you could come from your parents. Your father was pathetic, a terrible salesman. He couldn’t sell shoes to a naked lottery winner at the bottom of a gravel pit. Then when I made him manager he embezzled from the store!” This set Ben to laughing.

“He what?” Margaret said, again confused by his laugh.

“You didn’t know?” he said, finding her ignorance even more humorous. “He was nickel and dime-ing me for years, then he got stupid and wrote a big check to a phony wholesaler and cashed it.”

Margaret knew nothing of this and she wondered if Ben was lying. She couldn’t see any benefit to him doing so, so she just listened.

“What a dumb fuck,” Ben said. “What your mother saw in him, I’ll never know. Not that she was particularly attractive, either. I only boned her to humiliate your father.”

“You had an affair with my mother?” Margaret asked, shocked again.

“I didn’t think they would mention that to you,” Ben said. “You were only about thirteen then. But affair? No. When I discovered the evidence of your father’s crime I brought your mother a pair of shoes and insisted she try them on. They were a lovely lime green with spiked heels which she couldn’t even walk in. They were wasted on those skinny legs of hers anyway. But I looked old George in the eye and said she was pretty enough to fuck and if he didn’t let me he was going to jail. He gave in so quickly it’s hardly worth mentioning. Your mother resisted more, but she finally gave in when I reminded her that convicts never get good jobs when they get out of prison.

“Your father looked so ridiculous when I threw your mother over the back of the couch and shoved my fat dick in her cunt, her skinny ass in the air, her little boobs dangling.” Ben laughed and laughed. “You should have heard your mother sputtering an apology to your father for having an orgasm. I’m sorry, George, but it feels so go– go– good.” He laughed for a while more and drank from his glass. “He must have made her feel bad about it though, because I took her a few more times after and she didn’t come, or at least she hid it from the both of us. What little life there was in the woman he had managed to snuff out.”

Margaret was barely breathing. This explained a lot, she thought. Why Ben was always coming over to the house during that time, why her parents were so deferential to him, and why they insisted June and she be nice to him.

“Look. Here’s one,” he said, gesturing to a picture of her mother on her knees trying to get Ben’s fat cock in her mouth. “I made your father take these. He actually tried to make them good shots, like that’s what I was interested in.” Several more shots displayed of her mother getting fucked in various ways by Ben. When one appeared with her father’s hands holding her mother’s cheeks wide and Ben’s cock entering her ass, Ben laughed, saying, “What a putz!”

Margaret was shocked by the photos. Not by their explicitness, or that they were of her parents engaged in sex, but by the sad looks on their faces in every shot. There was no pleasure, no passion, no desire, only grim acceptance.

The next image appeared and Margaret recognized a full length shot of June at about sixteen dressed very much as Margaret had been on her first day of work.

“Now your sister was just like your mother, only with a difference,” Ben said. “She was what; three, four years older than you? She started to make a play for me her first day on the job.”

That had to be a lie, Margaret thought. June was never the kind of person to make a play for a boy, much less an older man. “I don’t believe you,” Margaret said.

“Surprised the hell out of me, too,” Ben said, speeding though some of the slides, then he stopped on one. “Here she is at the store trying to get my dick in her tiny little sad mouth. Man, she was a terrible cock sucker. I’d be surprised if she could draw liquid from a straw.”

Margaret still couldn’t comprehend that June had offered herself to him.

Ben caught her look and said, “All the family secrets are coming out now. You didn’t know I did your big sister before you, huh? She worked in one of my stores for awhile. Remember? When she came after me I was only to happy to bloody my dick breaking her in.” He pointed to another image taken in a mirror. Ben was fucking her from behind and a closeup of June’s face filled most of the frame, her expression one of strained ecstasy. “She looks pretty happy there. June was a much better fuck than your mother, but no comparison to you. At least she came when I fucked her and she had good legs for heels. The muscles in her calves and thighs really stood out as she trotted around the store.

“June took it all too seriously though, said she loved me, thought I was in love with her. As if! I think she just liked all the free shoes I gave her. I fired her and told her to find someone else and she got all dramatic about it. Then it turned out she had an infection of some kind, but didn’t tell anybody, and never went to the doctor or complained until she passed out in school one day. She ended up in the hospital, they put her on a bunch of drugs for the infection, she blamed it on me, threatened a bunch of shit. What a mess that was.”

Margaret’s head was spinning. The memory of June’s hospitalization was clear because they were told she might die. As it was she was in the hospital for weeks and the physical effects were permanent. June’s personality changed after that, too. They had always gotten along, but sometime after she got out of the hospital she grew angry, and later, religious and condemning.

“We cleared all that up, though,” Ben said. “Your sister recovered, I paid all the bills, and I gave your father a wad of money to keep everybody quiet. I was going to wash my hands of all of you but then I received the greatest gift of my life.” He waited for Margaret to ask what, and when she didn’t he laughed and said, “You.”

Margaret hung her head knowing the rest of the story. Her understanding of it, however, was now turned on its head.

“I’d do it all again, Maggie, because all that led to you. The love of my life; tits like a cartoon pinup, a cunt sweeter than Hawaiian pineapple, a snug little asshole, and you come as often as planes at an airport. What a fabulous bitch you are.” Ben leaned over and started sucking on her tit.

It wasn’t long before he was clutching and kissing her, then he pulled her up and dragged her over to the sex swing and he lifted and maneuvered her into the contraption. As he lashed her wrists, face up with her legs in the air so that she was positioned for a standing fuck, Margaret thought about all that had transpired from her first day on the job with Ben to when it ended. She thought she had accepted each of their contributions and put it all away. These revelations about her family certainly cast it all in a different light.

“I love that ass of yours, Maggie,” he said lubricating a large egg shaped toy. He shoved it into her vagina and positioned the extension over her clitoris, pressed it all firmly in place and turned it on. Margaret’s insides began to vibrate and she let herself sink into the chair and her eyes close. He lubricated his chubby cock and began working it inside her ass. She came the first time before he was all the way in. He used the back and forth motion of the swing to penetrate her completely and Margaret’s perceptions grew fuzzy.

The best orgasms were the ones she didn’t have to work for. Sometimes, if there was enough sensation and it went on long enough, the orgasms would start rolling over her unstoppably like waves on a beach. That was why she liked gang bangs in which the guys fucked her one after the other and holding out as long as they could. By the second or third guy the orgasms were coming every three or four minutes and she didn’t have to lift a finger. In that transcendent sexualized state she could not help but believe in God. After about an hour, and fifteen or twenty orgasms, her brain would melt and she couldn’t come any more.

Ben was starting to have the same effect on her. His massive cock in her ass and her vibrating vagina and clitoris were starting to create the breaking orgasmic waves and she just hung there and let him make her come. She didn’t have to think because he knew how to manipulate her. He could read her. He knew when to speed up or slow down, when to go hard or soft. He knew that right after a climax was the best time to influence her, and each time she shuddered and squeaked he told he how much he loved her. In that weakened state she believed his was a great love because she wanted to believe she was worth loving greatly. She decided she could be very happy with Ben and to stop fighting his attempts to bring them together again.

In between orgasms she could see the television still running the slide show. She had forgotten he was always taking pictures. As she swung back and forth, her butt being reamed, the images of her family being fucked by Ben flickered in the background. Each time she came she closed her eyes and the images faded, only to loom again when they opened.

24

Sheryl appeared in the kitchen while Margaret was reading the Journal. It had been happening more frequently, and it surprised Margaret that Sheryl was interested in talking to her. It surprised her more that she usually enjoyed talking to the child. The trip to work had been a turning point in their relationship, and the sex talk. Sheryl had more questions than Margaret thought possible, but the girl seemed to appreciate the extent of Margaret’s practical knowledge on the subject. She said it helped her make sense of what she and Carolyn had been learning from the internet.

“Well, you look very happy this morning,” Margaret said. “Matt must have paid you another visit last night.”

“No, I was just… practicing.”

“Practice my ass,” Margaret said. “I could jerk off in class in front of thirty kids and a teacher and not crack a smile. But when a man you like makes you come you glow like you have been touched by an angel. Besides, I heard him sneak in.”

Sheryl blushed and grinned.

“Well, tell me,” Margaret said. “Don’t make me guess. What happened?”

“He woke me up with his finger,” she said. I was sound asleep and then I felt something rubbing between my legs, and I knew it was the rubber glove because it makes a funny squeaky noise sometimes–”

“Does he always wear rubber gloves?” Margaret asked.

Sheryl nodded and when Margaret asked why, she shrugged. Margaret told her to continue.

“So I knew it was a rubber glove but I didn’t know it was Matt. I must have been dreaming because I was sure it was… someone else fingering me. And just as I was about to orgasm I woke up and saw Matt learning over, staring at me. Then I orgasmed, a really dreamy nice one, and he kissed me on the cheek like he always does, and left.”

“That’s it?” Margaret asked. When Sheryl nodded, Margaret said, “He hasn’t tried to fuck you, you know, with his dick inside… some hole?”

“No,” Sheryl said, “You said he would, and I keep thinking he will, but– Maybe I don’t turn him on enough.”

“That seems unlikely. Turning most guys on is like flipping a light switch. But I haven’t had any experience with pedophiles. They must be more different than I thought. Anyway, I’m sure he will get to it. Have you tried grabbing his dick?”

“Do you think I should?”

“It’s up to you. It’s kinda of nice that he is not rushing you along, I suppose. I probably would have liked that if I had been given the chance.”

“What’s it like… with a dick inside you?”

“Have you ever had a fancy dinner with lots of courses?” Sheryl shook her head and Margaret continued. “Of course not. June wouldn’t have wanted you to do something you might enjoy.” Margaret sighed, expelling her condemnation of her sister. “You start out with an appetizer, then a soup, maybe a pasta, then a salad, a palate cleanser and then the main part of the meal, the meat, called an entrée. All that stuff you and Matt have been doing so far have been the early courses. His dick inside you is the entrée. You don’t feel full until you’ve had the entrée.” Margaret sipped at her coffee. “That’s why I have never understood lesbians, they always stop at the salad.”

“It sure feels good so far,” she said as she stared off out the kitchen window.

“You’re not in love with him, are you? You remember what I told you about love?”

“No,” Sheryl said, “I do like him though, especially when he makes me orgasm.”

“Just because he found your magic spot doesn’t mean you have to love him. Any guy should be able to make you feel good. If a guy can’t make you feel good with his cock he’s as worthless as a bag of bricks.”

“Carolyn is the one in love with him,” Sheryl said, “but he won’t touch her.”

“Tell her not to feel bad. He won’t touch me either. I think Barbara would like to get a piece of him, too. It seems he only has eyes for you.”

Margaret’s cell phone rang and she rummaged around in her purse until she found it and answered. “Inspector, I was wondering if I would ever hear from you again.”

“Margaret, how are you?”

“Seriously? Small talk? You handcuffed me to your bed you fat son-of-a-bitch, remember?”

“Look, I know that was wrong. I’m really sorry. I wish we could put that behind us and… move on.”

“You should stick to blackmail, Inspector. You’re apologies lack the persuasiveness necessary to keep a woman in an abusive relationship.”

“I’ve been through a nasty divorce, my wife’s lawyer is a piece of shit, my kid hates me, and I’ve made some bad decisions. I don’t want to do that any more. I want a chance with you, Margaret.”

“Are you gong to cry?”

“No, I’m not going to cry. I am just trying to be… real. I thought women appreciated that.”

I’m sure there is a sixteen-year-old somewhere in San Francisco who would appreciate a man who is real like that, but that ship sailed out of my harbor long ago.”

“You are the most incomprehensible woman I have ever met.”

“Why are you trying so hard, Inspector?”

“I don’t know.” There was a long pause. “You’re… different.”

“What are the other women you handcuff to your bed in the line of duty like?”

“None of them were like you. They didn’t come like you did, twice.”

“Three times, but whose counting,” she said. “Is that what got you? That I came while you thought you were being mean and powerful. I had no idea you were such a softy. I don’t usually like men who care if I come, Inspector. If a guy starts thinking about pleasing me they can’t concentrate on the task at hand.”

“Just… give me another chance. Please.”

Margaret paused for a long while. “Well, as it happens, I haven’t had a date in a while, nice or otherwise, and I’m going to be in the city Wednesday. I guess you can take me to dinner and back to that dumpy apartment of yours.”

“That would be great. I’ll call you Wednesday. Thank you.”

“I suppose you would be offended if I asked you to bring a friend.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just lay off the booze, and get some Viagra. It wouldn’t hurt to try a diet, either.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, wear your gun.” Margaret disconnected and threw the phone back in her purse.

“Was that the guy who wanted to take you on a nice date?” Sheryl asked.

“Yep.”

“I thought you didn’t want a nice date.”

“He has promised it won’t be nice, so I said yes.”

Sheryl began to giggle. “Does that mean he is going to put his penis inside one of your holes?”

Margaret smiled at her giggling. “Yes, it most certainly does. I can hardly wait.”

“Is he cute?” Sheryl asked.

“Definitely not. His face is cratered like the moon, he’s overweight, and a booze hound.”

“Why do you want to have sex with him?”

“Men like to be powerful and in control, but once they decide they want to have sex with you, they are willing to give up some of that precious control. Then you can do pretty much what you want with them. Making men submit is not really my thing, but I might enjoy giving the Inspector a little payback.”

Margaret paused briefly to smile as she contemplated what she might do to the man, then resumed. “Besides, looks aren’t everything. One of the best fucks I ever had was with an ugly truck driver. Most ugly guys fawn all over me, but he never said a word about how I looked. There is an old joke that unattractive people have been ‘beaten with an ugly stick.’ This guy went at me like he was beating me with an ugly stick, like he wanted to produce a dozen kids as ugly as he was, like he was going to take revenge on the universe for making him ugly by producing so many ugly babies that all the attractive people disappear. Damn, I’d like to find him again.”

Sheryl’s silence became obvious and caused Margaret to look up from the paper. “What?”

“In my dream, it wasn’t Matt’s hand that was in the glove. It was someone else’s.”

“Oh, who else have you been thinking about fucking?” Margaret said, smiling at the girl’s blossoming interest in the subject.

“The man from your work,” she said. “Ben.”

“What?” Margaret snapped.

“He sent me a present, too,” Sheryl said. “I guess that’s why I dreamed about him.”

“A present!” Margaret said, surprising Sheryl with her apparent annoyance. “What present?”

“It came yesterday,” she said. “Would you like to see it? I would have showed you last night but you came in too late.” Sheryl stood and trotted away, returning a couple of minutes later only to stand in the entry way to the kitchen. She pulled up the pants of her pajamas to display the red high heels she was wearing. “I’ve never had a pair of heels like these. Aren’t they beautiful.”

Margaret’s stomach started twisting like a cinching knot. Sheryl was effulgent. Margaret could not help but compare the smile on her face to that of her sister June, and herself, wearing similar shoes.

“He gave me panty hose, too,” Sheryl said. “And there was a card.” She handed the card to Margaret. The handwritten note read: For a beautiful, budding red rose.

“How did he know my shoe size?” Sheryl asked.

“He has seen a lot of women’s feet.” Margaret said.

25

Sheryl was staring in the mirror while Matt sat behind her on the bed also looking at the just completed work on her nude form. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I love it.”

Matt smiled, glad that he had pleased her, but curious about what the image meant to her. “How’d you come up with this idea?”

The scattered freckles on her shoulders rippled under a shrug, and she said, “I was just thinking that Margaret and I are alike in some ways.” She pointed with her finger to the area that looked like a patch of dirt encompassing her vulva, and said, “It’s like we are from the same garden.” Her finger trailed upward alongside two green stems that had burst up through the dirt and began to intertwine at her navel. “We give each other support,” she said and brought her finger to rest below a fully blossomed red rose centered on one of her nipples. “The big one is her,” she said, then she pointed to the tightly closed bud covering the other nipple, “and this one is me.”

“You’ve really taken a liking to her, haven’t you?” he said.

Sheryl’s face changed from pleased to troubled. “Do you think my mom would be mad at me for liking her?”

“I think your mom would want you to be happy.”

“I hope she is happy in heaven,” Sheryl said. “She was never very happy here.”

Matt held her arms below the shoulders in his hands and kissed the freckles at the base of her neck softly.

“Do you like Margaret?” she asked.

Matt interrupted his kisses just long enough to respond, “Sure.”

“How come you don’t have sex with her?”

“It wouldn’t feel right,” he said, still kissing.

“Why not?”

Matt pulled his head up, and asked, “Would you feel right having sex with someone else besides me?”

“I guess not.”

Matt wasn’t at all pleased with her lack of conviction, but he resumed the press of his lips onto her warming skin.

“I like when you kiss me,” she said, falling back into him. “I like all the things you do to me.”

“That makes me very happy,” he said, letting go of her long enough to remove his shirt, and pull her back onto her narrow bed next to him. He kept gloves and jelly in her dresser drawer now, so he put them on and began massaging her clitoris, taking care not to disturb the garden image painted just above.

Sheryl looked at his handsome face, the sparse stubble of his beard, and the magnificent blue of his eyes. He leaned in and kissed her cheeks, then her lips, and she welcomed his tongue into her mouth. His finger had begun to work it’s magic, however, so she closed her eyes and enjoyed the kisses that fell onto her neck, each nipple, and down the stems of her twin roses to her navel.

Up until a month ago she had been masturbating occasionally for about a year. When she discovered Matt was better at bringing on her orgasms than she was, she stopped masturbating and just waited until he came to her. Which he did most every day, sometimes twice, and it made her feel like she was growing up. She didn’t have any close friends besides Carolyn, but she didn’t know of any other seventh graders who were being fingered by someone else. She remembered what Margaret had said so she didn’t tell anyone, especially not Carolyn, what she and Matt were doing. She liked that it was a secret, but the things he did made her feel so wonderful she wanted to tell someone.

Matt placed his thumb over her clitoris and slipped his finger inside setting her to pant quietly. He had only penetrated her a few times with his finger but she found she loved the sensation of fullness it provided. It made her wonder what it would be like to have his penis inside her. She had been afraid of that at first, but now she felt impatient. She knew Matt would get to that eventually because each time they were together he did a little more, and made her come more often.

Sheryl closed her eyes as he flicked her clitoris with his thumb and then thrust one, two and then three fingers inside and pumped at her rapidly. Glancing up from his disappearing big fingers revealed he was staring at her face, and she closed her eyes again in response. She was embarrassed about her enjoyment of what he was doing to her.

Sometimes she wondered how her mother would react if she knew what Sheryl was up to. She knew June would yell and shame her, not so much for what she was doing but because Sheryl enjoyed it so much. She had always said if Margaret repented she could be forgiven for her sinful acts, but not for taking so much pleasure in them. Thought of her mother’s condemnation quelled the pleasure of Matt’s manipulations of her cunt, but never for long. She couldn’t help but surrender to the sensations he created in her young body.

Matt’s thumb brushed across her slit and his fingers stabbed into her until she was almost there. His speed increased as he followed her quickening breath and she felt the slight overall numbness that told her a climax was coming any second. It felt so unbelievably good that she tensed every muscle in her body and her mouth opened. As the sensation rolled over her Sheryl said just what Carolyn had said when she came her first time. The very same words Sheryl uttered every time Matt made her come, so often now that it felt as much a part of her response as the convulsive twist of her body. “Oh fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

Matt watched her slip into a nearly unconscious state and breathe more easily. He pulled her into a cuddle with her head resting on Pistachio and her hand on the half of the camel spider on his stomach. Very pleased with himself for pleasing her, he smiled at her body folded against him like a child. The press of her against him made his prick hurt.

It was only a minute later when her eyes popped open and she said, “You’re molesting me, aren’t you?”

Matt swallowed hard, afraid she was going to put a stop to it. “It doesn’t feel bad, does it?”

“Sometimes,” Sheryl said, “when I think about my mom, and going to church, and hell.”

“Maybe,” Matt offered, “if you love the person it isn’t so bad… especially if they also love you.”

“Margaret says I shouldn’t believe men who say they love me.”

“How are you going to fall in love if you don’t believe someone can love you? How will you ever be happy?”

“Have lots of sex, I guess.”

The words, and even more the tone made her sound just like Margaret. Matt realized Sheryl was becoming attached to Margaret in a way he had never anticipated. In the way he had hoped she would become attached to him. It made the painful erection he felt dwindle, but the tinnitus intensify. Would she ever love him? He felt her stir to life and slowly reach for his crotch.

“What are you doing?” he snapped, causing her arm to freeze.

“I think I’m ready for you to…”

“Make you come again?” He said, and jerked himself up, grabbed the plastic wrap and quickly climbed between her legs. He plunged into her vulva with his tongue and began to work her clit over the wrap.

Frustrated that he wouldn’t let her say what she wanted, Sheryl thought about asking again. Her desire for his penis inside her dissipated when she felt an altogether new sensation. In addition to his tongue on her clit and his fingers in her cunt she felt what must be another finger slip into her butt hole. So surprised she almost cried out, Sheryl looked to verify with her eyes what she felt. He smiled at her and she dropped back to the pillow. She knew he was going to make her come again and she decided a finger in her ass was a welcome addition to his repertoire.

26

Margaret and the Inspector spoke amiably over drinks at the Tadich Grill and dinner at Postrio. She hated dating behavior and the required divulgence of personal details, as though it was an employment interview where each was looking for hints of things that would result in disqualification. He insisted she call him Roscoe, although with a name like that she didn’t understand why. He was certainly infatuated with her, and one of the few men who didn’t seem put off by knowing she liked gang bangs. Such knowledge would preclude most men from developing any strong feelings for her.

As Margaret dabbed at her dessert with a spoon, she said, “I think I’d rather we go back to my hotel, Roscoe. That apartment of yours reeks of depressed divorcee.”

“Whatever you say, Margaret,” he offered with a smile.

“You’re being very pleasant and cooperative tonight,” Margaret said. “Is this your usual modus operandi with women or is blackmail and handcuffs.”

He frowned and said, “I was afraid this was going to come up.” He paused and began again, “I am really sorry. It was wrong, unethical, and I shouldn’t have done it. You would have every right–”

Margaret held up her hand and said, “Save the mea culpas, Roscoe. I accept your apology. Besides, you were a pretty good fuck.”

“You are something else,” he said shaking his head. “Damnedest, sexiest, most likable woman I have ever met.”

When Roscoe had paid the check, Margaret said, “Take your little blue pill now, Roscoe. I’m just going to text my niece and let her know where I will be, just in case you decide to murder me.”

Roscoe’s jaw dropped slightly as he struggled for a response. When she had finished texting, she smiled and said, “Just kidding.”

The hotel was just off Union Square, modern, with two queen size beds, a large bath and a big closet at the foot of one of the beds. They fixed drinks at the mini bar, the Inspector had consumed very conservatively all night to impress Margaret, and they had kissed briefly to break the tension. Margaret told him to get in bed and went into the bathroom to ready herself. She returned without clothes, eliciting a compliment from the naked Inspector. When she slipped into the bed next to him they rubbed and kissed as they warmed each other with the heat of their bodies.

He looked very happy as she massaged him to a turgid state noticing for the first time that his cock had a gentle upward curve and a bulbous cap. She climbed onto him and lifted herself forward so that her slit could ride his cock and she could slide up and down the length of it lubricated as it was with her plenteous liquid. After a few slides in which she gripped his cock like she was straddling a fence she came, explaining that her orgasms came quickly when she hadn’t had sex for a while.

Margaret quickly slipped onto him driving the curved implement deep inside and was surprised by how effectively the upward curvature massaged her G-spot. She rode him hard for no more than two minutes and then shrieked her climax like a banshee.

He was too amazed by her aggressive, uninhibited sexuality to even move under her while she gyrated above him. When she recovered her senses and rolled off of him he just stared at her. He didn’t know what to expect from a woman like her.

“Roscoe,” Margaret said, “I find I’m still feeling resentful for what you did to me that night. I really want to let it go, but I can’t, not yet.” Massaging his dick again, she said, “I wonder if we could turn the tables. Let me do to you now, what you did to me then. Would you be willing to try that?”

The inspector was aghast, stumbling for words, and finally saying, “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think you do, Roscoe,” she said. “You took advantage of the power you have over me and used that power for your own selfish purposes. I think it is only fair that I do the same to you.”

Roscoe looked at his stiff dick being worked by her strong hands as he asked, “How is that even possible?”

“You would have to be afraid of losing your job,” Margaret said, “one of the very few things that is important to you. You would have to wonder if I am really crazy and might decide to murder you, like I wondered that night when I came to your apartment. You would have to ask yourself really tough questions like, what if I like the fact that she scares me, that scaring me turns me on, and why is there a part of me that wants to let her do anything she wants to me.” She leaned into his chest, one hand on his dick and the other holding his chin. “You see, Roscoe, those are the kind of questions I had to ask myself that night.”

The inspector began in earnest, “I’m sorry–” but she kissed him quiet. “No more apologies, Roscoe. I forgive you. I made my decision that night and I’m fine with it. I surrendered to you, Roscoe, completely, without hesitation because I knew that with the surrender comes the opportunity for passion, fulfillment, and the shuddering bliss of a good orgasm. You fucked me, Roscoe, you fucked me hard and I liked it.”

The inspector was breathing heavily and still looked confused. Margaret said, “I came three times for you that night, Roscoe, because I liked the way you pressed that fat stomach of your’s into my ass and fucked me like you were murdering your wife’s divorce lawyer.” She rose to drag her breasts across his chest, turning her nipples hard by the tickle of his hair. “I could have come more, a lot more, but your drunk ass finished too soon. That was a disappointment, Roscoe.”

“What do you want?” the inspector stuttered. “I still don’t under–”

“I want you to surrender to me, Roscoe, completely, absolutely, unequivocally.”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“Well,” Margaret said, climbing off him and sitting on the edge of the bed, “it was worth a try.” She stood and walked toward the bathroom. “I still like you, Roscoe. I just don’t think I can let go of what you did to me.”

“Are you leaving?”

“No,” she said. “You are.”

”Wait!” he said. “What are you going to do to me if I… let you?”

“You did whatever you wanted to me, remember? Scared me with your threats, raped me with that bent dick of yours, then left me wanting more. I’ll do the same.”

“But it’s a game, right. You won’t really do… things like that, will you? I mean raping me can’t be the same, can it? And wanting more. What’s that about? Once I come, I’m done. I’m sorry, but you know that about me.”

“Surrender, Roscoe,” she said. “It’s all about the surrender.”

The Inspector was bewildered. This was unusual for him as he was primarily linear in his thinking, and when one only travels in a straight line it isn’t necessary to consider alternative paths. There was only one path to the woman in front of him, and he yearned to arrive at that destination. “Alright!” he said. “Go ahead, I suppose I deserve it for what I did to you.”

Margaret returned to the bed and cuddled against him. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Are you going to do something crazy?”

“That’s the chance you have to take. That’s what it means to surrender. Don’t you think I wondered that night if you were crazy?”

“Fine!” he said, without really understanding why.

A few minutes later Roscoe Isaacson was on his knees in handcuffs lashed to the headboard, and his ankles bound together and fastened to the bottom of the bed. He could feel the breeze of the air conditioner in the crack of his ass. He heard the closet door open and Margaret placed a small duffle bag on the bed. He watched her pull out a device with leather straps. He recognized what it was as she began to fasten it to her waist. “For God’s sakes, Margaret, he said rattling the handcuffs to see if he could get loose, “not that.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Roscoe,” she said, cinching up the straps and lubricating the medium-sized dildo before attaching it. “You’re thinking this is like the movie about the girl with the dragon on her back who tattoos her revenge on her rapist’s chest.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” he said.

She got onto the bed on her knees beside him and ran her fingers through his hair as she kissed his face. “I am not going to hurt you, Roscoe. I quite like your rough face, your rumpled manner, and your infatuation with me. I’m just going to even the score. I think relationships between equals work best.”

“It’s too big,” he said.

Margaret dragged her fingers across his back, partly scratching, partly soothing him. “Just let go, Roscoe. What you liked about me that night is that I gave into you so completely that I came for you. So give in to me Roscoe, or say no, and I will release you now and you can go home.”

“Really?” he said. “It’s not a trick? You’ll let me go, now?”

“The decision is yours, but understand this is the last chance you have to back out, or to be with me.”

The Inspector yelled in frustration as he rubbed his face on the bed as though scratching a lottery ticket, hoping if he did it enough the answer to his dilemma would be revealed. Eventually, he said, “Okay. But please don’t hurt me.”

“You’ve got big balls, Roscoe,” Margaret said as she got behind him and nudged the dripping dildo into his ass. “I like that.” She instructed him on how to breathe through his nose and relax as she pushed it in a little farther each time. She was far more gentle with her penetration than he was with his that night, but then she wasn’t a virgin. Soon she was in to the hilt and she reached forward and grabbed his hair and pulled back and she went a little faster. He had started emitting small gasps but these morphed into to solid grunts as she slammed home against his ass cheeks.

Margaret turned her head to the closet and said, “You can come out now, Sheryl.”

The Inspector turned behind as best he could and cried out when he saw the young girl step out and stand at the side of the bed. “Who the hell is she? She’s too young, she can’t see this. It’s a crime. For God sakes, Margaret. Please.”

“Relax, Roscoe. I am not trying to get you in trouble. Sheryl is my niece and she is here because she is still learning about sex. So think of it as you providing an educational opportunity for an interested student. As Margaret continued sodomizing the Inspector, she asked Sheryl, “Can you see his cock? Is it stiff?”

Sheryl bent over to look under the Inspector’s hanging stomach and said, “Yes.”

“You can touch it if you want. Nothing else in the world feels like a cock. Feel his balls, too.”

“No, no she can’t,” the Inspector said. “That’s illegal.”

Margaret nodded encouragement, and the girl reached in under the Inspector’s paunch and gripped the thing as though it was a handlebar on her bike. She reported that it felt good to hold, and Margaret instructed her on how to rub it. She encouraged her to position her head under his stomach so she could manipulate his genitalia with both hands. The Inspector was swearing continuously, partly out of anger and frustration, and partly a response to the pleasure of his johnson and prostate being vigorously massaged at the same time.

“I think he’s getting close,” Margaret said. “If you want to taste it, put your mouth around the tip, tickle his balls and rub faster. Sheryl was amazed by the appendage and its unique feel. She had seen men ejaculating on the internet and the women always looked like they loved it, so she was willing to try. When she reported that she couldn’t quite reach it Margaret maneuvered the Inspector’s knees so that his dick was closer to Sheryl’s mouth. His swearing had diminished as his climax neared and he contemplated the crime he was unwillingly committing. The strange reaming of his ass by the dildo and the girl’s clumsy ministrations with her dainty hands and lips were too much to bare. His balls surged and his cum exploded into the girl’s mouth, which caused her to pull back and subsequent surges smeared her nose and face.

“Next time, don’t let go,” Margaret said to Sheryl, and gave her the choice of eating it or wiping it off. She ultimately did both until it was gone. “How did it taste?” Margaret asked as she slowed her thrusts to long deep strokes eliciting barely audible ‘Acks’ from the Inspector.

“I don’t know,” Sheryl said. “Kinda like mushrooms, sticky though.”

“Why don’t you get your clothes off while I turn him over,” Margaret said. “Unless you want to try the strap-on. What do you say Roscoe? Would you like a little more ass fucking?”

“No, please Margaret. I’ve had enough.”

She withdrew the dildo saying, “I don’t know Roscoe, you came so fast I think you might grow to like taking it in the ass. Plenty of men do. I knew a pro football–”

“Margaret, please. No more.”

Margaret tried to soothe and calm the frazzled man as she turned him over onto his back and stretched him out, but he looked overwhelmed. “Sheryl,” Margaret said, “now that you’re naked, why don’t you see if you can reassure him that I am not forcing you. I think that’s what’s got him worried.”

“What do I do?”

“Just rub his head and talk to him until he doesn’t look so red in the face.”

Sheryl sat facing him on the bed, crossed her legs, and stroked his forehead.

The Inspector was jerking his head back and forth as he battled his desire to admire the girl’s beauty and his fear of what she could do to him. The more he did look the stranger she appeared. She wasn’t just a cute, naked teen with no breasts tickling his chest with her braids of red hair. She had images painted on her chest like tattoos. He had to stare for a while to perceive the flower images, only to turn away again out of guilt and confusion, and then, inevitably turn toward her again. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Twelve,” she said, “but I’ve had my period.”

He cried, “Sweet mother of God, I’m dead.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Sheryl said, genuinely worried.

“He’s not going to die,” Margaret said, flopping herself onto the bed on the other side of him, “because we are never going to tell, are we? But he is going to feel like he died and went to heaven by the time we’re done with him.”

“Margaret,” he pleaded, “You have to stop. Do you have any idea what they do to pedophiles in jail, or cops. My God, I’ll be both!”

“Take a breath, Roscoe,” Margaret said. “I don’t want to hurt you, or send you to jail. I want your surrender, remember?”

Margaret was afraid the man was going to cry, but she continued. Sheryl’s education on the subject of cocks was about to begin and it would be as thorough as Margaret could make it with only one man. Using plenty of lubrication she instructed the girl on the mechanics of jerking a man off; how to position yourself, how to alternate hands, and move from hands to mouth seamlessly. Fellatio was also covered and Sheryl showed considerable aptitude and a strong desire to learn. The basics of using a lubricated finger in the anus to stimulate the prostrate proved effective in that after twenty minutes of instruction the Inspector began to grow hard. Margaret was careful not to let him come and she pointed out the warning signs such as the ascension of the testicles and the pre-cum that signaled the beginning of the plateau phase and his impending release. After several cycles of bringing him to the edge, ignoring him while they discussed the lesson, then bringing him to the edge again, Margaret decided it was time for his second coming. They agreed Sheryl should go first.

She explained to the Inspector that while Sheryl had had many orgasms with men previously his would be the first cock inside her young cunt and he should feel honored.

Honor was not the emotion flooding through the man as he watched the colorfully decorated teen climb on and straddle his johnson. Fear was the prevailing emotion and the strength of his fear caused him to soften under the press of her reddish cunt lips. The liquidity of her cunt amazed him, however, and soon the fear was replaced by an altogether different feeling. Such a beautiful creature riding him like a rocking horse made him want to sink his tool into her as far as it could go. He was glad he was handcuffed to the bed because he was afraid he might damage the novice slut if he had the chance.

Sheryl did not perceive his baser desires as she was focused on the new experience of riding a penis. She found this movement quite compelling, and didn’t want to stop. She thought if she could do it a while longer she could have an orgasm. She was surprised to discover how warm and hot it felt to have direct contact with a man’s skin, rather than through rubber gloves or plastic wrap. Her aunt watched the girl with a smile as Margaret rubbed the Inspector’s forehead.

“Can I kiss him?” Sheryl asked. “I want a real wet kiss.” Margaret nodded and Sheryl pulled herself forward and looked into the face of the inspector. As she compared his brown eyes and pockmarked face with Matt’s blue eyes and handsome, youthful countenance, she wondered if what Margaret had told her about ugly men was true.

The Inspector stared in wonder at Sheryl simultaneously kissing each of his cheeks tenderly and sliding up and down the length of his johnson. She is as wet as a grown woman, he thought. He found himself pulling at the cuffs thinking he would like to throw her on her back and fuck her like one.

For the first time in her life Sheryl felt sexy. She had never realized what the word meant before until she saw the raw desire on the man’s scared face. The more she wiggled and kissed, the more animalistic his furrowed brow looked to her. Matt had always been gentle and adoring, but the Inspector was exiting, and maybe dangerous.

As though he heard her thoughts, the next time she rode a little too far forward on his penis and slipped over the knobby head he jabbed upward with his hips. She felt the swift movement lodge his penis directly at the entrance to her vagina. Sheryl stopped the sliding and held still. She watched his face grow dark and his lips curl into a leer and wondered what he was going to do. His hips bucked violently off the bed and his penis drove into her a little farther. Margaret had said it was average size but it felt way bigger than Matt’s fingers.

He bucked again causing her to grunt as it went in. Each time he bucked she felt him go deeper until he was in all the way. She trembled with the pleasure of him filling her and murmured softly with each punch of his hips. He rattled the cuffs and the bed and Sheryl held on to his shoulders so she didn’t get pushed off of him by his rapid fucking.

The man’s curved penis was stretching her in a way she hadn’t imagined could feel so good. The pleasure was too overwhelming to move in response so she just held on. As she began to orgasm she laid her head on his chest and whispered, “Oh, fuck.” The Inspector continued to pound her from below until she lost her grip and fell off to the side of him.

“Get back on,” the Inspector yelled, “I’m not done fucking you, you little–”

Sheryl looked up unsure of what she should do.

Margaret said, “Oops. Looks like Roscoe learned something about himself tonight.” She climbed onto him, took his cock inside her, and began gyrating. “So you like fucking little girls, do you?” she teased. “But now you have to make the big girl happy.”

The Inspector was disgruntled at the loss of Sheryl’s tight little cunt but Margaret’s ample breasts dangling in front of him refocused his attention. He resumed his fucking from below and only occasionally thought of the slender, painted slut lying next to him in a post-orgasmic quiet. The girl watched the two of them, no doubt trying to pick up pointers from her aunt oh how to torment men.

Margaret came twice before she let Roscoe come again. After she climbed off she fell to the other side of him and reached across his chest for Sheryl. All three were quiet as the two held hands. Sheryl saw in her aunt something she had never seen before; affection. Her mother had made her aunt a cautionary tale on how to avoid the fires of hell for as long as she could remember. She had long admired her aunt, but had never seen a hint of reciprocation until this last month. Sheryl had always acted as though she despised her because that was less painful than feeling rejected by her. She decided the joy she found in being with Margaret recently was worth the possibility of going to hell.

The Inspector watched the woman and the girl talk over him and across from each other non-stop for an hour. They continuously touched him, Margaret dragging her fingers through the hair on his chest, Sheryl playing with his flaccid dick like it was one of her braids. He might as well have been a piece of furniture for all he had to contribute to the conversation. They spoke like his wife used to speak with her friends, sharing something, a closeness that he had never observed between men. Women could share the intimate details of their lives and their bodies in a way men never could. They spoke of the girl’s lack of breasts and how Sheryl hoped her’s would be as big as Margaret’s and not small and pointy like her mother’s.

The girl wiped her finger across the front of his johnson scooping up the last of his ejaculate and they discussed the taste, then the size and shape of the limp flesh that had produced it. He would be the laughing stock of the force if he told anyone about the shape of his dick. That’s why he always fucked women doggy style so they wouldn’t see it and laugh at him. It didn’t bother Margaret, though. What a strange, wonderful woman she was, he thought. He couldn’t believe what he felt for her. He couldn’t believe what she had done to him. He couldn’t believe he had let his feelings for a woman get him into a situation like this.

That kid, that beautiful, breastless, redhead with the creamy skin and the flowers painted on her body was going to be the end of him. Another girl might have felt bad about having sex with a man, and feeling bad could keep the girl quiet for a long time, maybe forever. But a kid like Sheryl, a kid who seemed to really want it, would want to tell someone, would want to brag. Yes, she was going to tell someone as sure as a morning piss and when she did he would have to eat his gun. He hoped his son would forgive him.

Margaret noticed the Inspector’s contemplative expression and she reached over and kissed him, smiled, and asked, “Are you alright? You look pale.”

The Inspector felt pale. He felt like he had been drained of blood by two hungry vampires. Beautiful, rapacious, blood-sucking killers, who were more dangerous than the gang bang murderers. He should beg to be released and run as far away as he could. He knew he wouldn’t, though. She was right. He was learning a lot about himself tonight.

“I never believed alien abduction stories before, but I am a believer now,” the Inspector said. “What planet are you two from, really?”

“That’s impressive, Roscoe. After what I’ve put you through you still manage a sense of humor.” He smiled and she kissed him again.

“Margaret?” he said, suddenly turning serious.

“Yes, Roscoe.”

“You’re going to call me an idiot, but… I… I think I love you.”

“Oh,” she soothed, “That’s so sweet. But you know I’m not like that, Roscoe. I’m not the kind of woman who falls in love. I like gang bangs, remember.”

“I know,” he said. “But I needed to say it.”

“You are such a sweet man, I am going to make you come again and you are going to please me in the process.”

“I would really like to, but I’m not a young man any more…”

Margaret ignored his protests and she set Sheryl to stroking and sucking on his limp dick while she grabbed the headboard and sat on his face. He licked her wolfishly until she came so hard she almost wet herself all over him. When she climbed down and laid next to him, putting her breast in his mouth, she could see Sheryl was having little success. She complimented her on her technique and reminded her about the finger in the anus. The girl lubed up and under her aunt’s direction went into his ass aggressively. She started seeing results when she used two of her slender fingers instead of one.

“Look,” Sheryl said, “It’s working.”

“Good girl. How about you let me dance on that pole for a while. I could use another one. If he doesn’t come, you can go again, too.”

Margaret pinched the base of his cock and jammed it inside as she slid astride him. Sheryl climbed up and kissed the Inspector a few more times to make sure she had done about everything you could with another mouth. “Would you like to suck my tits?” she asked, thrusting her flat chest forward. The inspector had never considered himself a pedophile and he couldn’t recall anything more than occasional brief fantasies about particularly attractive girls her age. So he hesitated before asking, “I’d like to stick my tongue in your ass, would that be alright?”

Sheryl thought that would be fine and she climbed onto his face in front of her aunt. The rough-faced inspector tickled her ass with his tongue and the idea of doing something so nasty made her want to come again. She couldn’t help but gradually slide down his face and use his fleshy chin to try and make herself come. Sheryl tried really hard but she couldn’t quite get there and after Margaret had come twice, and the inspector came, she gave up.

They finally released the inspector and they all took a friendly shower together. The females got into their pajamas and the Inspector dressed. As he put on his holster and badge, he said, “Are we even, now, with the blackmail, the rape, and the disappointment?”

“Well, let’s add it up,” Margaret said. “You certainly made up for the disappointment. I don’t think any one man could have satisfied two women any better. Do you Sheryl?” The girl smiled. “And you let me rape you. Was that really your first time taking it in the ass?”

“Yes,” he said solemnly, scratching his head.

“I told you there would be tough questions to contemplate, and I bet you’ll be thinking about that one for a while. So we are even about the rape.”

“And?”

The blackmail?” she said. “I’ll give you a call on that one.”

“Oh, shit” he said, and his shoulders sank to a new low.

“Next week?” Margaret asked. “Maybe we could eat in, this time.”

“Not the kid, though, please,” he said, then he turned to Sheryl. “I mean you were great, I never thought a kid your age– It’s just so fucking dangerous for me.”

“Your choice, Roscoe,” Margaret said. “I really do like you and I want you to enjoy our relationship.”

“So, we have a relationship?”

“Yes, an almost equal one.”

27

Margaret and Sheryl watched closely as Matt checked the meat thermometer then closed the oven door. “It’ll be done in twenty minutes,” he said. “Just put it on the platter, slice it and serve. Everything else is ready.”

Margaret was more nervous than a couple of dinner guests would suggest, Matt thought. “Just people from work,” she had said.

“It smells yummy,” Sheryl said.

Matt turned to her, “I could teach you how to cook.”

“I like it when you do the cooking,” she replied. The girl was dressed up, wearing an actual dress, nylons and red high heels which Matt found disconcerting. Principally, because it made her look older and more like Margaret who was dressed in her usual, stylishly seductive way. They were both smiling like they were up to something. Sheryl seemed less engaged with him the last few days. She allowed him to finger her as before and he made sure she had several orgasms, but there was a look of– what? Dissatisfaction? She had finally asked if he was going to fuck her, and he put her off. Her question made Matt worry. He took a deep breath and for an instant he thought he felt the wind breeze through the hole in his heart.

“Give me a call if you need me,” Matt said as washed his hands in the sink.

“Thank you, Matt,” Margaret said. “I appreciate all your help.”

He nodded as he dried his hands. The doorbell rang and Margaret went quickly to answer. “Oh, it’s you” she said. “I didn’t expect you so soon.”

Ben Johnson stepped into the house handing Margaret a bouquet of red roses, and saying, “Your favorite. See how tight the buds are?” He embraced her and delivered a friendly peck on the cheek all the while watching Sheryl. “I’m sure they will be extraordinary when they unfold.”

Matt came into the living room and stood next to Sheryl and watched as Margaret accepted the flowers and hug awkwardly. He recognized the man as the board president he met at Margaret’s office.

Ben approached Sheryl who had a broad smile for him. “Well, those shoes look twice as good on you as they did on the shelf,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” Sheryl said. “I just love them.”

Matt could see the shoes were new but he assumed Margaret had bought them for her. It told him Sheryl must have spent some time with the man and a surge of restless agitation washed over him as he imagined the three of them all shopping together.

Ben next handed the girl a small, rectangular and expensively wrapped box. “I saw this and I thought, I’ll bet Sheryl has a sweet tooth, just like her aunt.”

Sheryl accepted the gift and asked for permission to open it, which he gave. She lifted the lid on the box letting the wrapping fall to the floor. She looked, then her face flushed as red as her shoes as she stared at the contents.

Matt was appalled at what was in the box. A gift like that was a flirtation and it irked him that Sheryl was delighted to participate. He could feel himself heating up like a kettle about to boil.

“Go ahead, Sheryl,” Ben said. “Eat the whole thing.”

Suppressing a giggle, Sheryl extracted from the box a life-size, erect, dark chocolate penis. The tip was covered in white chocolate as though it were semen. She held it up by the stick on the bottom like a lollipop as if she was giving a performance. She reached for the tip with her tongue and gave it a lick, then her giggle burst forth again.

As Margaret closed the door shaking her head Ben said to Sheryl, “You knew just what to do with it, didn’t you, My Dear. I’ll bet you’ve had one of these before.” They both laughed, Sheryl from her embarrassment at enjoying participating in an adult joke, and Ben because Ben laughed at everything.

“A little inappropriate for a twelve-year-old,” Matt said trying to dampen his jealousy, “don’t you think?”

Ben ignored the question, drew a little closer to Sheryl, held up a thumb drive dangling from his key ring and said, “I have some pictures to show you I think you’re really going to like, too.”

“What pictures?” Matt asked.

Ben was so focused on Sheryl’s confident licking of the chocolate penis that there was a long pause before he took his eyes off the girl to respond. “Hello, soldier. I understood you weren’t going to be here tonight.”

“He was just leaving,” Margaret said. “Weren’t you, Matt?”

“What pictures?” Matt demanded.

“Didn’t Maggie tell you,” Ben said. “We go way back. I’m an old friend of the family and I have lots of pictures,” he said jangling the keys with his fingers. “Maggie suggested I bring them.” He returned his focus to Sheryl, “Would you like to see Maggie when she was about your age?”

“Maybe I should stick around,” Matt said, stiffening his posture even more and keeping his eyes locked on Ben.

“No need soldier boy,” Ben said. “I can take care of both of these fine ladies all by myself.”

Matt was livid. Clearly there was some kind of relationship between the three of them. That would have been Margaret’s doing, he thought, taking advantage of Sheryl’s new found admiration of her. She was trying to mold the girl in her own slutty image. Ben thought he had the advantage, too, judging by his smug, slightly crazed look.

Sheryl didn’t know what to make of the change in tone of the conversation. It seemed funny at first, but now Matt was red in the face and his fists were clenched. She had never seen him this worked up and she felt both pleased to have men fighting over her, and annoyed that Matt might discourage Ben. She tried to ease the situation by resting her hand on Matt’s arm. “It’s okay,” Sheryl said.

Matt softened some, mainly because the assurance was from Sheryl. He asked himself, though, who was she trying to protect; him or Ben? Then he fell back on his Army training. He took a breath and tried to assess the situation. He didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do but soldier on. He looked up at Margaret, “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“There’s no war here, soldier,” Ben said. “No need for heroes.”

“Ben, shut up!” Margaret said. “And wipe that smirk off your face.” She turned to Matt, “I’m sorry, he wasn’t supposed to be here until later. We’ll be fine.”

Matt was hoping for another provocation from Ben so he could feel justified in dropping him to the floor. Ben merely stood with his head down holding his keys in one hand and giggling quietly as he watched Sheryl lick the penis. Matt kept picturing Sheryl licking the old guy’s penis with a similar enthusiasm. He had decided to leave when the doorbell rang again.

“Now, he gets here,” Margaret said, voicing her frustration, and pulling open the front door.

Standing on the porch and looking very troubled was Carolyn, Barbara and a man about Barbara’s age. “Hi, Margaret,” Barbara said. “We need to talk. Can we come in?”

“This isn’t a good time,” Margaret said abruptly, frustrated by another surprise visitor. “I have a guest. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the woman said, “I don’t think this can wait until tomorrow. It’s kind of important.”

“Barbara,” Margaret said, “I don’t care how important it is, it will have to wait.”

“Now see here,” the man said, “I demand you give us some time right now.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Margaret said, her words accompanied by a glare.

“That’s my husband, Ray,” Barbara said. “I’m sorry to barge in on you, but he insisted.”

“It will have to wait,” Margaret snapped. “I don’t have time for this now.”

“Then I’m going to have to go to the police,” the man said.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Margaret said, her exasperation overflowing.

“If you will let us in,” Barbara said, “I’ll try to explain.”

“Make it quick,” Margaret said after a humph, allowing the three to enter. Margaret eyed Carolyn who was trying not to make eye contact. Whatever this was about, she was sure Carolyn was at the heart of it. Trouble follows that girl like thunder follows lightening.

When they were inside, Ben introduced himself in his overly solicitous way, lingering as he shook Carolyn’s hand. “If I’d known you were going to be here I would have brought two treats,” he said.

Carolyn was in awe at what Sheryl was licking, but her parents didn’t seem to comprehend what it was. Carolyn didn’t understand how she could lick it like that in front of everybody.

Carolyn’s father looked around the room and demanded, “Which one of you is the nanny?”

“Oh, not me. I have a real job,” Ben said, laughing, and pointing at Matt. “Ask the moocher.”

“Sweet mother of God,” Margaret said, directing her words to Carolyn’s family, “What the hell is this about?”

Ray puffed himself up as though preparing for a speech, then his face went crooked as he glanced at Sheryl. “What on earth is she eating?”

“Never-mind that,” Margaret said. “Why are you here?”

Puffing himself up again, he said, “I have reason to believe the nanny is molesting your niece.”

Margaret rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Thank you,” she said opening the door for the three again. “I can assure you Matt is not molesting Sheryl. I appreciate your concern. Good-bye.”

“Now just a minute,” Barbara said. “You can’t just dismiss a charge like that.”

“I can if it is not true,” Margaret said, “and it is not true.”

Barbara was aghast. “You haven’t even asked Sheryl if it’s true.”

“Sheryl,” Margaret said, “has Matt been molesting you?”

Sheryl stopped licking the chocolate penis, let it drop to her side, and said, “No.” Margaret could see the girl’s lackluster denial didn’t convince anyone and she reminded herself to make sure Sheryl was more convincing in the future. Margaret liked her arrangement with Matt and didn’t want anything to disturb it. “Great. That settles that,” Margaret announced ignoring Sheryl’s unconvincing tone and gesturing for them to leave by swinging wide the still open door.

“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “He may have threatened her to keep her quiet. I think this should be investigated to see if Sheryl is being molested by your fiancee.”

“Fiancee?” Matt and Carolyn chorused perfectly.

Barbara said, “That makes it even more important that this gets cleared up before you two are married.”

Margaret looked about to scream in frustration. “We are not getting married.”

Ben chuckled. “You’ve finally come to your senses. Is that why you invited me this evening, to tell me the good news?”

“You certainly can’t marry a child molester,” Ray chimed in.

“I agree with him,” Ben said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Barbara said. “A charge like this has to be investigated.”

Matt’s rigid form had softened at the accusation and he could see that it was all going to end very badly for him. At least Sheryl tried to protect him by denying it. He didn’t think she would be able to maintain her denial under tough questioning, though.

Margaret slammed the door shut, crossed her arms and paced back and forth in front of the door. Her dramatic gesture caught everyone’s attention and she said, “Listen up. I am only going to say this once. Sheryl and I have talked extensively about sex, and she would tell me if Matt had so much as blown a kiss her way. Isn’t that right, Sheryl?”

All eyes then turned to Sheryl and realizing she had resumed licking on the penis, she let it drop to her side again. Margaret had told her to never admit to having sex with anybody, so she was sure she was supposed to deny it, but wondered why her aunt looked so earnest in asking her again. Sheryl said, “Yes– I mean no. I mean you’re right. He hasn’t molested me. So, that’s my answer.”

“That doesn’t sound at all convincing to me,” Ray said. “I forbid my daughter to come here anymore.”

“Daddy,” Carolyn cried out. “That’s not fair. Sheryl’s my only friend.”

The doorbell rang again. Margaret threw up her hands and opened it. “You’re late,” she snapped at the man in a suit standing there.

Roscoe looked at the crowd of people standing in the living room, swallowed, and said, “Sorry, someone dumped a body–”

Margaret grabbed his sleeve and pulled him in, saying, “Nobody cares about your excuse, Roscoe.” After closing the door, she turned to the crowd and said, “This is Inspector Isaacson with the San Francisco police.”

Matt felt the jealousy drain away only to be replaced with guilt as he slumped onto the end of the couch. He came to the conclusion that Margaret had set this up to have him arrested. Now that she and Sheryl were getting along so well, Margaret must have decided she didn’t need him anymore. How could he have been so stupid as to think he could end up with Sheryl?

Ray spoke up, “Excellent. Now the police can handle the investigation.”

“What investigation?” Roscoe asked while turning to Margaret. “You didn’t say anything about an investigation.”

“This woman,” Ray said as he pointed at Margaret, “has a niece,” his finger turned to Sheryl, “who is being molested by,” his finger landed on Matt, “this guy,  who is her,” the finger returned to Margaret, “fiancee.”

“You have a fiancee?” Roscoe asked.

Margaret said, “Of course not. I just said that a while back thinking it would get this son-of-a-bitch off by back.” She was pointing her finger at Ben.

“Can you please watch you’re language, Ray said, his tone full of self-righteousness. “There are impressionable children present. It’s bad enough we have to watch a child eating pornographic food.”

Margaret glared at Ray, then turned to Ben. Roscoe looked in the same direction as Margaret, and in response, Ben said, “Hello again inspector. I’d be happy to assist you in this investigation, too. I’ll bet we could team up to solve all sorts of crimes, be a real dynamic duo.”

“Suppose you sit down and shut up,” Roscoe said to Ben. “I’ll get to you later.”

Ben laughed, stuck his keys in his pocket, then said, “Whatever you say, Inspector,” and sat down.

“In fact, why don’t you all sit down,” Roscoe said. “I don’t like all this standing and pointing.” The Inspector put his hand to his head as he contemplated running out of the front door. This wasn’t the situation Margaret had described to him. He wondered what she had gotten him into and if he would survive.

Everyone found a place to sit, and when Carolyn saw Sheryl was alone in a big chair she left her parents and joined her. Carolyn stared at the chocolate penis as Sheryl licked. When Sheryl offered it to her, Carolyn looked to her father. He gave her his ‘Don’t you dare,’ look. She politely declined Sheryl’s offer and turned toward Matt. He looked so sad she wanted to sit next to him, but she knew her father wouldn’t allow it.

The Inspector eyed the two girls and what Sheryl was licking with disbelief. The image of the cute twelve-year-old riding his hard dick had been springing unbidden into his mind more frequently than he liked. It made him hard each time and he was going to get hard again if he looked at her sucking a dick even if it was only chocolate. He changed his focus to Matt. “Who are you?”

“Matt Harrington.”

“He’s the nanny,” Ben said derisively.

The Inspector turned to Carolyn’s parents and they introduced themselves and their daughter. He looked around to make sure he hadn’t missed anybody then considered what to do. A real investigation would discover his evening with the girl and he would have to leap off the Golden Gate Bridge. He had to somehow keep this from being a real investigation.

Knowing how the girl took to fucking him he didn’t doubt Sheryl had got someone else to do her as well, probably with Margaret’s help. With considerable trepidation he posed a question to Sheryl, “Did you say someone molested you?”

As Sheryl realized all eyes were turned toward her, she froze. The penis shape had evolved into something more liked a small peeled banana under her constant licking. She brought it down to her lap and said, “No.”

The inspector breathed a silent sigh of relief. Without the child accusing someone the investigation wouldn’t get very far. Unless the molester got to feeling guilty, as they usually did, and confessed. Judging from Matt’s morose face, he looked like he wanted to confess to something, so the Inspector wasn’t about to give him the opportunity.

He returned to Sheryl hoping he could solidify her denial, “So nobody molested you, in any way, right?”

Sheryl was about to bite off the head of the penis because it was so delicious, but she held it in her lap again, and said, “Right.”

Only one more hurdle, the Inspector thought. “I don’t think we have a case here, unless of course you can prove the girl is not telling the truth. Does anyone have proof he was molesting her?” He held his breath waiting for the answer.

“I do,” Ray said.

Damn! The Inspector was so close. He wasn’t surprised, though. Pedophiles always took pictures. It was a compulsion with them. He motioned with his hand, “Let’s see the proof?”

Ray reached into his pocked and pulled out a cell phone and handed it to the Inspector.

“Pictures?” the Inspector asked, his hope sinking.

“Text message,” Ray said. “We all have the same phone. I picked up Carolyn’s by mistake. The girl described the… the act to our daughter. It’s bad enough she bragged about it, but she shouldn’t have ruined our Carolyn with that filth.”

“I’m not ruined,” Carolyn said.

The Inspector breezed through a few of the messages until he came upon a thread which seemed to be an ongoing game of Truth or Dare. It was there he found a phrase which made him feel like his heart was going to stop. Hz cock bent up - felt sooooo good inside. He looked at Sheryl thinking, the little slut took it like a pro and loved it. He returned his attention to the phone, worried that the sensation he was experiencing was the beginnings of a hard on.

He evaluated the messages as evidence. It was thin, but Sheryl did indeed seem to be bragging. It wasn’t enough to prosecute if she continued to deny and say it was just a game. It was enough to bring a team of Child Protective Services workers raining down on the girl, though, and he had seen them extract confessions from reluctant victims many times. And once a confession starts there is no limiting it. The owner of the bent dick would be identified. Life over.

“Well,” Margaret said. “what do they say?”

The Inspector took a deep breath. “Sheryl’s message mentions a penetrative sexual experience with an older man.”

Margaret tried to bore a hole in Sheryl’s head with her eyes as punishment for telling Carolyn after she expressly forbid it. “What older man?”

Still scanning the messages, he said, “He is not identified.”

Matt suddenly perked up from his slouch. “What kind of penetrative act?” he asked.

“It would appear vaginal penetration with a penis occurred. Definitely penetration and ejaculation.” As the Inspector continued reading the messages sent by Sheryl he could feel his cock coming to life. “Sheryl,” he said, “did you send these messages to your friend?”

The redheaded girl had resumed discreetly licking the penis, but took it away from her mouth as she answered, “Yes, but it never actually happened. It was just a stupid game.”

“No it wasn’t,” Carolyn said softly.

“Yes it was,” Sheryl replied sharply. “We lied about things we did all the time. Just like when you told me about the hot dog. That was a lie, remember?”

Carolyn shut up at that point, remembering the conversation about the hot dog was on her phone, too. Her father must have missed it, and she hoped the policeman missed it, too.

Matt knew the hot dog wasn’t a game, so neither was the guy doing the penetrating and ejaculating. “Who is the man?” Matt asked as he glared at Sheryl.

“Nobody,” she said. “I made it all up.”

The Inspector let his shoulders relax and said, “As near as I can tell, no molestation has occurred. We certainly don’t have any convincing evidence otherwise.” He looked around the room to see if his analysis would be accepted.

Ray spoke up. “Now see here. What about the unusual penis?”

The Inspector felt like running out the door again. “Ah, what about it?”

“She described the man’s penis,” Ray said, “I looked it up. Less than five percent of men have a penis like that. How could she know about a man with that condition unless she had seen one up close?”

“What condition?” Ben asked, smiling. “Is it unusually small?”

The Inspector looked trapped as the whole room stared at him. He really didn’t want to mention this, but it appeared he had no choice and it would come out by anyone who looked at the text messages anyway. “She described his penis as having a bend,” he said softly, “an upward bend while… erect.”

Matt knew his penis didn’t bend when erect and that meant Sheryl had seen another one and, according to the message, she had it inside her. That meant she had been with another man and that she didn’t love Matt enough to be faithful. The volume of his tinnitus flared and he held his ears.

“Well that’s easy to confirm,” Ben said. “Let’s all pull out our snakes, get them hard and see whose fit the description.” He laughed riotously.

“You are insane,” Ray said to Ben. “How could you suggest such a thing in front of women and impressionable children.

“It would be kind of a penis line up,” Ben replied. “Number one, can you step forward and ejaculate?” Ben held his stomach in laughter.

The Inspector told Ben to be quiet, then said, “However, if it were to be demonstrated that Mr. Harrington does not have a penis with Peyronie’s disease– ”

“With what?” Barbara asked.

“The condition of a penis with a bend has a name,” the Inspector said. “It’s called Peyronie’s disease. If Matt can prove he doesn't have it, that would support Sheryl’s contention the whole thing was a game, and there is no need for further invenstigation.”

Matt was looking at Sheryl who was still licking the chocolate penis, now half of it’s former length. He wanted to slap it out of her hand and angry fuck her. He felt the familiar pain between his legs. Sheryl glanced at him and he was filled with misery at her look of indifference. He couldn’t stand to be near her any longer.

The Inspector said, “If Mr. Harrington were to allow myself and Ray to… observe him while… ”

Matt abruptly stood and walked toward the front door.

Ray shouted, “He’s running away! He has the disease and he has been molesting the girl.”

“Put the cuffs on him,” Ben yelled.

“Please don’t leave, Mr. Harrington,” the Inspector said holding out his hand at chest level to prevent Matt from reaching the door. If he couldn’t squelch the accusation now, he knew Ray would press the issue until there was a real investigation. That would lead to the end of the Inspector’s life as he knew it.

Matt stopped, and said, “Am I under arrest?”

The Inspector tried to sound conciliatory, “Of course not, but if you can demonstrate that you don’t have a bend in your penis, we can all forget about the whole thing. Otherwise, an investigation would be necessary and that would be extremely difficult for everyone involved, you especially.”

Matt’s head was throbbing and he could barely hear the words over the pain and tinnitus. He looked at Margaret, who looked blank. Barbara and Ray stared as though he was some kind of monster, and Ben looked just plain crazy with his inappropriate giggles. Sheryl was more concerned about the penis in her mouth than him. Only Carolyn seemed able to express any sympathy with her fat, pouty lips.

Matt looked back at Sheryl, and he knew from her impassiveness she would never love him. “My life is already ruined,” he said angrily. “I don’t care what you do.”

As Matt moved toward the door Margaret stood in front to block him. He stopped several inches from her face. “Please, Matt,” she whispered as she rested her hands on his chest. “Just prove that you don’t have one of those and we can go back to the way things were.”

Matt’s return stare was as cold and hard as marble. “Nothing is ever going to be like it was.” He turned one more time to look at Sheryl. She stopped licking the penis briefly as she caught his eye, then resumed. Matt unbuttoned his shorts and let them drop to the floor exposing his boxers.

“All right, soldier,” Ben said. He had retrieved his keys and was tossing them from hand to hand. “Show us what you’ve got.”

“Are you crazy?” Ray yelled. “Carolyn, cover your eyes.”

Matt reached for the waist band and pushed the boxers down to his knees. Several gasps arose near simultaneously, Barbara’s and Margaret’s louder than the others. The two teens were stunned to silence. Even Ben couldn’t respond intelligibly for the first minute. As the shock of seeing an attractive physical specimen like Matt with only the stubby remnant of a penis waned, they were able to take in the inked images surrounding the area where his genitals used to be. The tattoos were of torn flesh, exposed bone, blood and shrapnel appearing as if whatever explosion had taken his penis and testicles had occurred only seconds before.

Matt looked around the room, glad at least that everyone knew. He could see the relief in the men’s eyes that Matt had suffered the loss and not them. He could see the disappointment in the women that his attractiveness did not extend to his genitals, and then the dismissive look from Sheryl as though she understood Matt would never be able to give her what she wanted. As he pulled up his pants, he looked at Margaret, and said, “You’ll have to find another Nanny.” Matt left the house, closing the door behind him.

Barbara and Ray glanced quickly at each other, then rose to leave, with Barbara trying to be apologetic as they motioned for Carolyn to follow. The inspector quickly deleted all of the text messages from the phone and handed it to Carolyn as she went by. Margaret was too preoccupied with what she had seen to attend to their leaving. She closed the door behind them, wondering if she would ever see Matt again.

28

“Damn!” the Inspector said. “That poor bastard.”

“He really gave his all for his country,” Ben said, snickering.

“Ben, shut the fuck up.” Margaret walked over to stand in front of him. “Give me the pictures,” she said reaching out her hand for the keys he had been playing with.

“What for?” he asked, his face showing an uncharacteristic apprehension.

Margaret swung her arm and snatched the keys from his hand while he was still too surprised to react. She went to her bag and pulled out her laptop, stuck the thumb drive from the key chain in the slot, and turned the screen toward Roscoe.

“Maggie, what are you doing?” Ben exclaimed as he quickly stood up.

“Just sit there and be quiet,” the Inspector said holding out his hand until Ben returned to his seat. Turning to Margaret he said, “Are these the pictures you wanted me to see?”

Margaret nodded and initiated a slide show of the pictures on Ben’s thumb drive.

“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “Those aren’t mine. I don’t know where they came from.”

As the images she had first seen in San Francisco appeared, Margaret narrated for the benefit of Roscoe and Sheryl. There were pictures of Ben and his wife and the Kincaid family together, of the shoe store he owned that Margaret’s father managed before it became a chain and made him rich, of a 17th birthday party for June at a restaurant with the Johnsons and the Kincaids. The last taken through a mirror revealing June wearing high heels, bent over a desk, her dress pushed up around her waist, and her hands tied to the far side.

“Bingo!” Margaret said as she paused the slide show so they could all observe a pants-less Ben with his hips pressed into June’s naked ass. The next shot was a close-up of June’s face, still tied to the desk, with her mascara running from tears. The next was a from-the-top view of June on her knees trying to get Ben’s big cock into her mouth.

Sheryl was shocked to see her mother engaged in sex and she could sense the violence in the images as she stood quietly and watched. She set what was left of the chocolate penis on the box it came in.

There was another series of pictures of a naked Margaret in similar poses and being fucked by Ben. There was no tear-stained face on her, however. She looked like she was enjoying it. When Margaret paused the slide show, she said, “This is what I wanted you to see, Roscoe. Is it enough?” The Inspector remained silent for a few seconds as the compelling images cleared from his mind, then said, “Yes, it’s enough. How old were you?” he asked Margaret.

“Fifteen,” she said.

He nodded again, then said, “More than enough for a long prison sentence. It will never even go to trial.”

A loud moan emanated from Ben. “Maggie,” he exclaimed. It was the first time since he arrived there was no hint of laughter. “How could you do this to me?”

Margaret smirked.

I don’t understand,” Ben said. “Your life isn’t ruined. You’re doing very well, and you liked it. You liked my cock in you. You never said no, and you came every time. You know you did. How can you be angry for what I did to you?”

“I’m not angry for what you did to me, you fool,” Margaret said. “You think I would waste my life dwelling on the way you took advantage of me when I was a teenager. I would have given myself to you anytime because I believed you when you said you loved me, and I loved you. So sure I came, so what? Fat dicks make me come.”

Ben was too shocked to move.

“It isn’t for what you did to me that you are going to pay, Ben. It was for what you did to my older sister before me. She went to work at the shoe store first. You told her you loved her first, and she believed you. You raped her first, and she got pregnant first. You didn’t want any evidence of what you did so you paid for the abortion, and paid my father off to keep it all secret. They never told me or even warned me not to work for you. After the abortion June was told she couldn’t have kids. That hurt her unbearably, but not as much as when you became infatuated with her younger sister and tossed her away like a rag.

“That’s what you’re going to pay for, Ben. The misery you caused my sister. She wasn’t as strong as I was and had to substitute religion for self-acceptance. You made her bitter and angry, mostly at me for replacing her in your eyes. I loved my sister and you made her hate me. I wanted so much to regain her love that I gave her my child, Ben. The child you fathered with me. The child standing right here. The child you will never see again unless she wants to stare at you through prison bars.”

Sheryl was stunned at the revelation of the identity of her biological father and mother. She looked at Ben carefully to see if she could verify with her eyes what she had heard. It was true, she decided, there was an unmistakable likeness between them. Somehow she was not surprised that Margaret was her mother.

Ben was also astonished at the news he had a child by Margaret. His eyes fell upon Sheryl and he gaped.

The Inspector grabbed Ben by the arm and pulled him out of his chair saying, “All right let’s go, Johnson.”

Sheryl watched as her father was handcuffed. Ben and Margaret being her parents explained so much of what she knew and felt about herself and her family. She had liked Ben from the first minute she saw him, and she wanted to get to know him, and know more about herself through him, and now he was going to be taken away. “Wait!” Sheryl said to her mother. “I don’t want him to go to jail.”

“Why the hell not?” Margaret asked. “He’ll do the same to you. You think he won’t fuck you because you’re his daughter.”

“I’ll make sure you never work again, Maggie,” Ben said. His face looked dramatically different when angry. “Every employer in California will know what a gang bang slut you are.”

“Because,” Sheryl said, her lips trembling, “I have a mother again, and a… father, and I don’t want to lose him.”

Margaret softened at her daughter’s plea. She had never thought of herself as a mother before, and now that she was, she wanted to be one that listened. She talked Roscoe into letting Ben go after he agreed to resign from the board and never try to contact Margaret again. He could see Sheryl only if and when Sheryl wanted to see him and only with supervision. Margaret kept the thumb drive and said if Ben didn’t give her glowing references all over town she would give the pictures to the Inspector.

Ben took a final long look a Sheryl, smiled inappropriately, and left.

29

Margaret looked at a still dazed Sheryl then walked over to her, placed a hand on each shoulder, and pulled her in for a hug. Sheryl was unsure how to respond at first, but gradually returned the embrace. When they pulled apart, Sheryl asked, “Why didn’t you want me?”

“Because I didn’t know you,” Margaret replied. “Now I do, and I like you, and I want you with me always.”

The inspector had been hanging back while the two women held each other, then said, “I guess you don’t need me any more. I’ll shove off then.”

Margaret turned to him, came in close, and planted her lips onto his. After a long kiss, she said, “I can’t thank you enough, Roscoe.”

He shrugged, happy to be appreciated by Margaret. Happy enough that he accepted her invitation to dinner and to spend the night. He considered himself lucky to be in the company of such an attractive woman, not to mention getting to fuck her. Wouldn’t the guys at the precinct be surprised to see her on his arm? Knowing she was way more than he deserved made him nervous as they conversed and ate the over-cooked meal Matt had started earlier. He relaxed some when Margaret said flat out she was looking forward to a good fuck then he tensed up again wondering if he could keep up with the sexually voracious woman.

Sheryl was contemplative through much of the meal and grew more so as it became clear that her mother and the Inspector were flirting with each other. When they excused themselves from the table and went into the bedroom, Sheryl sat and tried to make sense of all of the changes in her life that had occurred that summer.

In bed, Margaret gave Roscoe explicit instructions as to what she wanted and he was glad he didn’t have to risk disappointing her with a guess. He spent the better part of an hour making her come by lapping her clit with his tongue, ignoring the kink it put into his neck. His fat cock was hard the whole time and he was more than ready to get inside her when he heard a knock at the bedroom door.

When Margaret responded with a, “Yes?” Sheryl’s voice followed asking to come in. The Inspector tried to cover himself when Margaret agreed to her request.

The girl entered quietly showing an uncharacteristic timidity. “I wanted to talk some more… about you… and my father.”

“I’m in the middle of a really good fuck,” Margaret said.

“Sorry,” she said letting her head droop. “I was kind of lonely, too.”

Margaret saw herself in her daughter’s expression and realized it no longer annoyed her. “You want to get in on this, don’t you?” Margaret said. “I can see it in your face.”

Sheryl’s shoulders shrugged as she tried to hide a smile.

“Better get naked, then,” Margaret said.

The Inspector erupted, “No, no, you said I didn’t have to do that. You said it was my choice, and it is just too risky for me.”

Margaret spoke in as soothing a tone as she could muster. “You already did her once and you can’t take it back. Besides, Roscoe, things have changed. I have a daughter now and I want us to do things together. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“No, not at all,” he said crisply. “There was nothing understandable about it when she was your niece. It is even less understandable now that she is your daughter.”

“We’re a package, Roscoe, the woman said. “Take it, or leave it.”

The man sighed his acquiescence while watching the teen undress before him. As he picked out physical similarities to her mother, the perfectly shaped calves, the high cheekbones, he contemplated how long he might be able to enjoy the two of them before he had to eat his gun.

Sheryl came around to his side of the bed and as she got in he reminded himself to name his son as the beneficiary of his pension, and to tell Margaret that he wanted to be buried next to his mother and father in Daily City. Thinking about his inevitable death had softened him but the girl immediately put her hands to work making him hard again. Even if he didn’t get arrested and kill himself he would likely die trying to keep the two edacious perverts satisfied.

“I really like penises,” she said just before sliding his into her mouth.

Sheryl practiced what she had learned the last time she held the gently curving dick in her hands. She had thought about the experience with the Inspector in the hotel room quite a few times when Matt was getting her off. Dicks were fascinating to her and she had wanted to get a hold of Matt’s dick, too. Now she understood why she never did, and never would. She felt bad for him, but she found it hard to maintain sympathy for a man without a dick when she had such a great one in her hands and knew how good it felt inside her. She liked that Margaret was looking at her as though proud.

“Margaret…” she started, then changed to, “What am I supposed to call you now?”

“Anything but Maggie,” she said.

“You mean like… Mom?” Sheryl tried the word out again to see if she liked it. It felt natural, she decided. “Mom, what’s it like with more than one dick?”

Her mother sat up and reached for Roscoe’s balls to tease them. “One cock is like smoking weed,” she said, “intense but very fun.” Margaret’s face brightened as she spoke. “A bunch of them in a row, well, that’s like smoking crack. It can take you places you never imagined, scary, overwhelming places, and make you do things you never thought you were capable of.”

“It almost killed your mother,” the Inspector blurted out. He immediately saw the irony in condemning Margaret for liking something so perverse while he was enjoying being jerked off by a child.

In response to Sheryl’s concerned look Margaret said, “That’s a long story best saved for another time. The main thing to remember about a gang bang is to pick your partners carefully, use protection and decide what you are willing to do in advance. It’s easy to lose your head after you’ve had a few orgasms. And never admit you like it or you will be reviled.”

“What’s that.”

“Jealous anger in the guise of righteousness,” Margaret said. “The kind June always espoused.”

The Inspector wanted to shout at both of them to stop all the gang bang talk. It was crazy and their talk had created an image in his mind of the young girl being fucked in every possible way by him and a group of fellow cops. His prick went rigid causing Sheryl to look up from her hands. Embarrassed by the image in his mind the Inspector looked away from the girl working his cock with her fingers and lips.

“Can I sit on it like before?” Sheryl asked her mother.

The woman smiled, then said, “Okay, but don’t let him come yet. I want a turn on the cock merry-go-’round.”

Sheryl straddled the man and eased herself onto the thing that reminded her of a bent tree limb. She decided she liked Margaret’s word better than penis. Her eye lids fluttered and she moaned in ecstasy. “Your cock feels so fucking good,” she said.

The Inspector watched her ride his johnson up and down emitting a dainty grunt each time she hit bottom. She was just so damn cute with her flat chest and exquisite face and such a turn-on with her hairless tight cunt wrapped around his johnson he didn’t think he could hold out for Margaret. His member had grown so painfully hard if he didn’t come soon the blood vessels would burst from the pressure and he would bleed to death all over her. To prevent him from spurting in her the Inspector had to think about the mangled body of a recent homocide victim until Sheryl signaled her climax with a whispered “Oh, fuck,” a few minutes later.

As her slender body collapsed on his chest he wondered if sluts were made or born. Margaret pushed the girl off, causing him to whimper as his johnson pulled out of her warm meat and whimper again as Margaret shoved it in her own swampy cunt. Born, he concluded. Some things can’t be taught.

30

Carolyn was standing on the porch with an envelope in her hand when Matt responded to the bell by opening the door. He didn’t want to see her, or anyone else for that matter, wishing he could be forgotten by everyone. She handed Matt an envelope saying it was a check from the gallery her mother asked her to deliver. He tore it open immediately. Barbara had told him some of his old paintings would sell and he hadn’t believed her, but this was proof. It forced the first smile into his face that he could remember since his self-exposure that day at Sheryl and Margaret’s.

“Can I come in?” Carolyn asked.

“What for?”

“I told Mom I would make sure you were okay.”

“What do you mean, okay?” Matt asked, his annoyance clear in his voice. “Of course I’m okay. Is she afraid I’m going to kill myself just because my prick got blown off?”

“You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Well, I am useless,” he said, still staring at the check. “I might as well.”

Matt remained preoccupied with the realization that he was a paid artist as he stood a step above the girl just inside the house. Carolyn tentatively stepped forward, reached her arms out and encompassed his waist while pulling herself in tight and burying her head in his stomach. She had seen his stomach muscles once before and she liked the way they felt against her face, even through the shirt. He tapped her head with the envelope and check. “Hey. I not going to kill myself. Plenty of guys got it worse than I did.”

She pulled back revealing an unsure expression.

“I’ll stick around as long as someone is willing to buy my paintings,” he said. “So go home and tell your mother to keep the checks coming. Where is your mother, by the way?” he asked. “She used to come by once in a while when she thought I had a prick.”

“She’s on a run.”

“She sure does run a lot. Well, you had better get back before she shows up to find out if I am molesting you.”

“Oh, I can stay. It’s okay with her if I’m alone with you now.”

“What do you mean it’s okay– oh. You mean because I’m a eunuch?”

“What’s a eunuch?”

“A man without genitals,” Matt said. “Eunuchs guarded the harem women to make sure nobody besides the emperor could screw them. I would have made a good harem guard, until I went insane from staring at all the things I couldn’t have.”

“Then why would someone want to be a eunuch?”

“They didn’t volunteer. They were created,” Matt said making a waist-high snipping gesture with his fingers.

Carolyn’s expressive face showed her discomfort with the ancient Chinese practice. “Can I come in,” she asked slipping off one strap of a small backpack.

“Fine,” he said after giving it some thought. He allowed her to enter and closed the door. “Welcome to the harem. We have a guard, now all we need is an emperor and a few women.”

Peeved at his put down she followed him to the studio, set down her backpack, and began looking around at both the things she had seen before and those that had escaped her rabbit hops of attention. Matt sat at the easel and resumed sketching, glancing occasionally as Carolyn roamed. She handled most of the objects she observed while she talked. “Sheryl said you took her to an art gallery once. Maybe you’ll take me sometime?”

“Are you really interested in art?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically to counter his skeptical tone. She found the painting he had done of her before and held it up. “You made my foot too big. I don’t think anyone is going to buy it.”

“It’s not one of my better ones,” Matt said. “The model moved around too much.”

Carolyn slipped into a pout as she realized he was slighting her. “I could do better. You should paint me again, but make me look like a real girl this time, like one of the famous reclining nudes, and put it in the gallery and maybe somebody would buy it for a million dollars.”

“Keep your pants on,” Matt said. “I’m not doing reclining nudes anymore. I’m working on something serious.”

Her pout deepened, and she walked to the easel and observed what Matt was sketching. It didn’t look like anything she could recognize, so she wandered off again.

After watching her paw through his effects for a few minutes Matt spoke in a way that he hoped disguised the extent of his interest. “So, are you still friends with Sheryl?”

“Sort of. I dropped swim club but I see her once in a while. She hangs out with the cool kids now that she doesn’t think she’s going to hell. They talk a lot about having sex.”

“Does she ever talk about me?”

The girl looked at Matt directly. “She doesn’t love you. She likes you but… “

Matt sighed.

“I know you love her.” Carolyn said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Matt said, not sounding as indignant as he wanted to. “What makes you think I love her?”

“Sheryl told me. She said she could tell by the way you looked at her.” Carolyn returned a painting and asked, “How did you look at her?”

Matt thought about how seeing Sheryl could lift his mood, and how her smile made him feel less tired, less bitter, and better in every other way. Even the tinnitus dampened in her presence. She could also make his prick feel like a piece of iron being tempered in a forge. “She’s nuts,” Matt said. “Since she got fucked she thinks she knows everything.” He slammed the charcoal pencils down on the T.V. tray. “Who was it?” he yelled. “Who was it that fucked her?”

“She won’t say,” Carolyn said taking a step back from his intimidating anger.

His expression was a mixture of pain and rage. “She must have said something?”

“She wouldn’t even say what she did with you,” Carolyn said. “She says it’s important to protect your sex partners. I think she got that from her mother.”

“You mean Margaret?”

“Yes, and I mean her mother, too,” Carolyn said. She briefly told him how the change in their relationship had happened causing Matt to say, “No wonder she is a little slut. She inherited it from her mother.”

“So,” Carolyn continued, “What did you do with her?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t fuck her.”

“Did you make her orgasm?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Why is sex such a big secret? Everyone is doing it but they never want to admit it.” When she didn’t get an answer Carolyn resumed her roving around the room while Matt stared at his canvas. “What’s this?” she asked, not waiting for an answer before opening a tattered shoebox. Inside was a large envelope and a small plastic box containing two military medals.

“That’s none of your business, either. Put it back,” he said rising to a threatening pose.

In response Carolyn closed the box of medals with a snap, but when he sat down again she opened the big envelope to find a picture of Matt in his uniform. She scanned the picture and read portions of the accompanying text aloud. “Awarded to Sergeant Matthew James Kincaid, cool name by the way, for acts of gallantry and inte…intra… intre-pid-i-ty while griev-ous-ly wounded and under heavy enemy fire did risk his life to rescue and treat three wounded soldiers who would otherwise–”

Matt stood again and lunged toward the girl snatching the envelope from her hands. He turned away with it and sat on the couch. The envelope slipped to the floor and he put his hands on his ears in the always futile gesture to dampen the tinnitus.

Carolyn was in awe as she said, “You’re a hero. You’re a real-live war hero.”

Matt started rocking back and forth looking as though he might throw himself on the floor. When she saw the tears running down his cheek Carolyn realized how upset he was. She picked up the picture, stuffed it back into the envelope, sat beside him and put her arm on his shoulder. He said nothing, but his face remained wet with tears. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” she said. “I won’t do it again. Please don’t send me away.”

He waved his hand as though to discharge her from blame. “The thing is,” he said, “I wasn’t being a hero when I went after those guys.”

Carolyn was silent, so Matt looked up to see if she was listening. Her rapt attention showed on her face. He had never told anyone, not even the shrinks at the VA.

“We were ambushed, and I was treating a guy when an RPG went off in front of us. The blast made me deaf, but I didn’t feel much until I looked down to see my pants torn away and blood where my prick and balls used to be. The guy I was treating took most of the blast and he was decimated, and there were body parts everywhere. I stuffed a big wad of gauze between my legs and started looking around for my prick as I dodged bullets. I thought if I could find it they could sew it back on. I wasn’t trying to save those guys. They were just near where I was looking for my dick. I gave up after a while, and treated their wounds.” Matt covered his face again to hide his crying. “I would have gladly let them die if I could have found my prick.”

His face lifted away from his hands as he sat up, then he fell back on the couch with his feet still on the floor. Carolyn had no idea how to console him, so she laid herself beside him with her head on his shoulder. She had never seen a man cry before and the act created in her a helpless silence that continued for a few minutes until his tears subsided. Then she allowed her hand to brush his arm below his T-shirt. She discovered that she was touching the Camel Spider tattoo, and he didn’t jump. She let herself explore the visible half on his arm watching for a reaction from him. When none came, she said, “I want to see them.”

“See what?”

“Your tattoos,” she said. “I want to see all of them. Even the ones down there.” She pointed with her finger to his crotch.

“They are my tattoos, and my business. I’m not a sidewalk art gallery for nosy teenage girls.”

“I’m not nosy,” Carolyn said. “Sheryl said the secret to you is your tattoos. She said if I want you to love me I should get you to tell me about your tattoos.”

“What do you want me to love you for?” Matt’s words were like the crack of a whip. “Don’t you get it?” he said pushing her hand away. “I’m useless. I can’t have kids. I can never please a woman the way you’re supposed to, I can never fuck you. You’re going to want someone to stick their prick in you some day, just like Sheryl did.”

Startled by his anger again Carolyn sat motionless.

“Who was it?” he yelled. “Who was it that she wanted to fuck so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Carolyn said.

“How could I have been so stupid to think she would love me?” Matt said. “I thought because she was young and had never been fucked I could please her enough that she wouldn’t miss a prick and would learn to love me.”

“You can’t make someone love you,” Carolyn said.

Matt looked at her hard, and sighed, surprised at her sudden, if obvious, wisdom. She was cute. Not like Sheryl, but cute in a different way. Like Pistachio was cute when he danced on his front legs and shook the carriage behind him when he wanted to play. As though Matt was the only person in the world who could make that dog happy. He wondered if he would ever be loved like that again. He wondered why Carolyn wanted anything to do with him. He wondered why Carolyn hadn’t understood her own wisdom and given up on trying to make him love her.

He stood up, saying, “You sure you want to see these?”

Carolyn nodded.

He removed his white teeshirt, and tossed it to the floor. With his back to Carolyn he dropped his pants and stepped out of them. He turned to face her. Naturally, she looked at the scars around the area where his genitals had been. Matt thought he should feel embarrassed about standing naked in front of a young girl, or any woman for that matter, but he told himself a man without genitals has nothing to be embarrassed about. Without clothes he was no more than an undressed mannequin. The feeling was quite freeing and he wondered if all eunuchs felt this way.

Carolyn’s gaze rose to his chest and the inked images there. She reached for his hand and pulled him to the couch, turning him as he sat so she could see his back. She asked about each one. He explained all of the ones on his back as she outlined the images with her finger. The row of boots, guns, and helmets with names were fellow soldiers who had died. “I look at them through the mirror every morning and I say their names,” he said. “so I don’t forget.”

She listened intently as he explained the image of an Afghani woman with a bullet in her head above one eye, saying she was a suicide bomber and the first person he had ever killed. “Her name was Armagan,” he said. His comrades chided him as he hastily sketched her lying in the sand so he would remember what she looked like.

Carolyn reacted viscerally to the stories behind the art on his body, almost to the point of asking him to stop, but she wanted whatever magic Sheryl thought came with the telling to take effect.

When he had told of all the ones on his back, Carolyn asked him to lie on his back and she straddled Matt’s thighs below his crotch. Then she leaned over and looked at the front images, her fingers grazing his stomach and chest. She took her time, then pointed to the image of Pistachio in his carriage. “Tell me about this one,” she said as she fingered the ink. Matt told her the story behind his dachshund tattoo and each image thereafter as she maneuvered around on him so she could see. She listened quietly, trying to remember each story. When he had finished telling her about all of the images above his waist, she pointed to his crotch and said, “Now these.”

“You already know that story.”

“I know what happened,” she said. “I want to know why you decorated it with all that blood and bones and stuff.”

Matt grinned a little and said, “I guess it is sort of a decoration, ugly though.”

“So, why?”

“After I was discharged, I started having dreams about loosing my prick every night. I was so stunned when I first looked down at my torn pants, all the blood and shrapnel, and realized what had happened to me… I guess I’ll always remember what it looked like. So I recreated it in tattoos. I figured if I saw it all the time I wouldn’t dream about it any more. That didn’t work, though. I still dream about that first look all the time.”

Carolyn stared intently at the last remnant of his genitals. Less than an inch of it stuck out of his body. His simulated torn flesh amidst the real scars was beautiful in a disturbing kind of way. “Can I touch it?”

“Not much to touch,” Matt said. “I’m luckier than some, though. There is just enough left that I can still pee standing up.”

Carolyn’s hand fingered each of the tattoos, so realistic that she feared she might stick her hand inside his body if she wasn’t careful. Eventually she wrapped a finger around his stub. “It’s kind of cute,” she said.

Matt responded with, “No man wants his genitals to be cute.” Then he said, “Stop it. You’re making it hurt.”

Carolyn withdrew her fingers quickly.

Matt could tell she needed an explanation. She knew most everything else about him now, so there wasn’t any reason to hold back. “If I get horny, my prick hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.”

“But there is nothing there,” Carolyn said.

Matt explained. “It’s called phantom limb pain. It happens with any kind of amputation. In my case, if I get horny it feels like I still have a prick that is so stiff it hurts. Sometimes it feels so long and hard that I feel like I could fuck somebody. I used to have erections that hurt before, when I was your age, but this is worse.”

“Does anything come out of there? I mean, besides pee?”

“If you mean can I have an orgasm, no.” Matt clasped his hands behind his head at Carolyn’s disappointed look.

She was disappointed not because Matt couldn’t have an orgasm, but because jerking and sucking his dick was the only way she knew to please a man. The men on the internet always wanted to be sucked until their cum spurted on the woman’s face. Now she was at a loss as to what to do, unless Sheryl’s suggestion worked. She glanced at her backpack, not sure if she was ready for that. “Does it feel good when I touch it?” she asked.

“Look,” Matt said as she gently pulled and stroked his nub, “you’re wasting your time with me.”

“What about if I suck it?” Carolyn immediately wrapped her lips around the inch long penis with a blunt end, then swirled her tongue over and dipped into the hole that was dead-center.

“Stop it,” Matt said, pushing her head away. “You’re making it hurt, and I hate when it hurts because then I get pissed off about not being able to fuck somebody.”

Her plump lips formed a thoughtful pout which was interrupted by her tongue darting out to locate the taste of him. They stared awkwardly at each other, then Carolyn got off the couch, unzipped her backpack, pulled something out and held it up. “You could use this.”

“What the hell is that?” he asked, staring at the shiny dildo hanging from wide straps.

“If you put it on, you can fuck me. It looks too big to get inside me, but Sheryl said it would work.”

Matt’s jealously flashed across his face. “She let someone use one of those on her?” he asked as he sat up. Then loudly, “Who has she been fucking?”

“I told you I don’t know,” Carolyn said.

Matt stood in a threatening way. “It’s time for you to go home.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl pleaded. “I just wanted to make you happy.”

“I can’t be happy, you idiot. Not like that. Not any more. If you want to get fucked so bad go find a guy with a real prick.”

Tears streamed from her eyes as she stood with the dildo like a child dangling a broken doll. “But I love you,” Carolyn said.

Matt wanted to scream at the unceasing noise in his head and at the absurdity of the girl’s confession. He sank to the couch again and, eventually, said, “But I don’t love you.”

“You don’t have to love me,” she said. “Just let me be your muse.”

Matt held his head in his hands as he recalled her first mention of the word. “And all the great painters have sex with their muses.”

Carolyn, still holding the strap-on, sat beside him on the couch and waited.

“Your mother would kill me if I used that thing on you,” Matt said. “She’s probably on her way here right now.”

Carolyn shook her head, saying, “She won’t bother us any more. We made a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“She won’t tell anybody about who I have sex with if I don’t tell who she has sex with.”

Matt was dumbfounded. “Who is she having sex with?”

Carolyn smiled, “My swim coach. If Daddy finds out he will divorce her. Mommy doesn’t want to have to go back to work. She doesn’t like accounting.”

“How did you find out she’s having sex with him?”

“I followed her on my bike. She always runs to coach’s house and has sex with him in the pool. She has sex with him a lot, and he’s black.”

Matt was impressed with all the effort Carolyn had extended just to get his prickless ass into bed. He couldn’t imagine anyone else who was that interested. It made him smile at her and she returned his with one of her own. “I think that thing is bigger than mine ever was,” he said.

Carolyn threw a worried look. “Do you think it will fit?”

“I don’t know,” he said taking the device from her and holding it in both hands. “But if it does, you’ll be the happiest twelve-year-old on the planet.”

She smiled shyly until Matt leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back in the best way she could, delighted to be desired by the very attractive war hero artist.

When he released her she stood and removed her clothes for him, leaving them piled around her ankles. She draped the sash over her shoulders covering her breasts and crotch. “Does the artist have sex with his muse before he paints her or after?” she asked.

“Both,” he said while reaching to tug the velvet from her. Next he took her hand and pulled her into his lap. After a long mashing of her engorged lips he laid her back on the couch and slid his finger onto her vulva. The fact that she was already wet made him flush with desire. It made his phantom prick hurt, too, and he slipped another finger inside her. It felt like he was being tightly gripped by a wet sponge. It frustrated him that he couldn’t sink his prick into her willing cunt and fuck her silly.

He had to settle for listening to her moan as his two fingers imitated a prick until she came so hard her head jerked up off the couch with each orgasmic wave. Her responsiveness delighted him and he decided to show her what a harem guard could do. He positioned himself leaning over the couch with his knees on the floor. She sat up on her elbows wondering what he was going to do and watched as he pulled her by her legs to his mouth. She remembered giggling with Sheryl while shaving their pussies the first time and she hoped Matt found it attractive.

When his tongue slavered over her clitoris she fell back again not believing how good it felt. After a few minutes she started thrusting into his face until another head-jerking and shivering climax pulsed though her. Carolyn had dreamed of Matt making her come again since the first time when he extracted the hot dog, and this time was even better. “Oh fuck,” she whispered.

He crawled up her body until he could reach her lips, settled on her, kissed her and said, “This is where I stick my fat prick in you and make you come a few more times. Then I shoot a gallon of cum in you and it leaks down the side of your leg for the rest of the day.”

“You’re wonderful,” she said, feeling the smile stretch her face. “You’re the best fuck ever.”

“I don’t think you’re qualified to make that judgement yet,” he said, kissed her again, then rolled to a position next to her and fondled her small, fleshy breasts.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked.

“Yes. Don’t tell anyone or I will go to jail.”

That would be unthinkable, she thought. He was so gorgeous she would never do anything to lose him. Carolyn wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. His return kiss was gentle and loving, more than she could have ever hoped for.

“Had enough?” Matt wondered if she had more or less capacity for orgasms than Sheryl.

Carolyn shrugged. “I guess so,” she said snuggling into him.

“Holy shit,” Matt said as he caught the meaning of her shrug. “You want me to strap that thing on and bury it in you, don’t you?”

She shrugged again, “If you want to…”

Matt didn’t want anything to do with an artificial prick. The idea seemed so pathetic to him, but here was a girl who enjoyed sex with him like Sheryl, and unlike Sheryl, loved him.

He rose from the couch and picked up the strap-on from the floor. Carolyn helped but since neither of them had any experience it took them a few minutes to get it on right. Standing over her with the shiny monster sticking straight out he tried to merge the sensation of his burning phantom prick with the artificial one he could see. He succeeded partially, and pictured himself alternately as a broken man and a cyborg.

Carolyn had a worried look and she asked, “Is it going to hurt?”

“I’m not sure, but I think you’re going to know you’ve been fucked,” he said. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Carolyn laid back and nodded, her legs spreading nervously. He excused himself and returned with a tube of lubricant which he used to douse the black plastic shaft until it was dripping like an old faucet. It seemed bigger somehow now that it was attached to him and the lubricant seemed a very good idea to Carolyn. She took a breath when he knelt on the couch between her legs.

As he kissed her she relaxed and he guided the slimy object onto the opening of her vagina. She was surprised at the sensation of being so pleasantly stretched open and filled up as it entered. She wanted to see it slide into her but Matt kept her lips occupied with his own. She gasped when she realized it was all the way in, but it was the idea of the handsome man wanting to fuck her more than anything else that made her clutch and shiver out another orgasm.

He continued fucking her for a while in a steady rhythm and she could barely speak for the waves of joy that ran through her. After she had come once more and slumped into the couch in exhaustion she was able to haltingly say, “You’re so much better than the hot dog.”

Matt smiled, stopped thrusting at her with the monster prick and pulled out. He settled in next to her on his back with the dildo glistening from Carolyn’s cunt juices and pointing straight up. She snuggled against him, grazing her fingers across his hairless chest and over the tattoos. “I wish I could do something for you,” she  said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Thanks,” Matt said.

“I found something on the internet… that might work,” she said timidly.

“What?”

“It’s called prostate massage,” she said, getting up and pulling several pages from her backpack she had printed, then showing them to Matt.

“I had a nurse at the VA try to tell me about this once,” Matt said perusing them briefly. “It’s too weird.”

“Oh,” Carolyn said shuffling through the papers. “It says I might be able to make you orgasm. Just like if you had a…”

“You mean by using this thing?” Matt said pointing at the dildo.

“Well, yeah.”

“You expect me to let a twelve-year-old girl fuck me in the ass with a dildo the size of a baseball bat?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I just want to make you happy.”

Matt stood up and started clutching at the straps trying to get the dildo off. “What the hell kind of guy do you think I am?” Once disconnected he threw the device on the floor.

“One who needs an orgasm,” Carolyn said. “The internet says it’s good for guys who can’t get hard, or who… don’t have penises any more.”

“Jesus Christ, Carolyn,” he yelled, “you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

“I didn’t read it,” she said. “I saw it, in a video. He didn’t have a penis, but he had an orgasm, at least it sounded like he did, and a little bit of white stuff came out. The woman was using one of these,” she said picking up the device from the floor.

Matt stared. What a strange girl. No normal twelve-year-old would do what Carolyn had done, and only a completely insane one would be willing to do what she was suggesting. The tinnitus grew louder, and his prick throbbed with pain and he nearly cried with the irony of wishing his phantom prick could be blown off, too. Then, as he had a thousand times before, he wondered why he hadn’t been killed instead of being given the most embarrassing and debilitating wound possible. He always said other guys got worse, but he didn’t believe it. What could be worse than a man who couldn’t experience the pleasure of fulfilling a woman, and creating a child with her?

“I can do it,” she said, “if you let me. I watched the video a hundred times and I read all about it. Please let me try. I love you and I want to make you happy. But you don’t have to love me back, just let –”

Matt halted her with his hand, sighed heavily, and sat down on the end of the couch. “Okay,” he said, “you can try.”

Carolyn smiled briefly then grew serious as she stepped into the device and started adjusting it to her narrower frame and legs. When she had it positioned correctly, she started thrusting to see if it would work as she had seen on the video. It appeared to Matt she was doing some bizarre dance and she stopped when she noticed him smiling at her.

She walked over to him watching the dildo sway as though it was leading her and stopped within a few inches of his face.  She quickly leaned over and kissed him, holding his face in her hands, and pulled away slowly. “Lie on your back, she said, “and put your knees up.” Matt did as instructed and Carolyn placed pillows under her knees so that she was at the right height to penetrate him at the edge of the couch.

“You’re not going to forget the lubricant, are you?”

Carolyn retrieved the tube and slathered it on, then centered it on the target below his nub of a penis. Matt tried to relax as the girl pushed the tip of the foreign object into his ass.

His efforts at relaxing were abandoned the instant it slipped in. “Holy shit,” he said. Carolyn was anxious to please him so she wasted no time getting to the point of the exercise. With three quick thrusts she was in to the hilt and Matt was moaning, “Son-of-a-bitch! You’re going to kill me.”

Afraid he would make her stop before she could succeed she began to thrust the entire length of the dildo steadily and firmly, angling up as much as she could. She had learned from her studies that it had to stimulate the prostate gland so she delivered each stroke with that goal.

Matt was holding his knees and his eyes were closed. He grunted at each penetration, but she couldn’t decipher his twisted expression to determine if the sound was the result of pleasure or pain. Carolyn worried that she was hurting him so she speeded up to hurry the process along.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Matt moaned again.

Carolyn went faster, held onto his hips and slammed harder. His nub had been flopping back and forth with her hip action but it appeared to be getting stiff. She grabbed it with her finger and teased it and she was pleased that although it hadn’t changed much in size it felt harder. All of this was encouragement to Carolyn and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead as she thrust madly at her war hero, artist, lover.

Matt thought he would die from the fiery sensations of the dildo reaming his ass. He looked at the dark haired girl her with darling breasts flopping back and forth as she drove into him with more determination than he thought she possessed. He hadn’t believed it could ever happen again but the he could tell he was going to come. “Oh, Carolyn,” he said. “Fuck me.” It was the most intense orgasm he could ever remember having and lasted longer that he thought possible. It seemed to go on for minutes and Carolyn smiled broadly as a few drops of white fluid shot out of his nub and she didn’t slow down until she was sure it was over. Then she pulled out and licked up the prostate fluid that he had ejaculated and suckled his nub. She had never been so proud of herself.

They rested, cuddled together on the couch, laughing at the experience, praising each other for their part, and thoroughly happy in the way only good sex can make one. Eventually, Matt got up, posed Carolyn as a reclining nude in the manner of one of the old masters, and went to his easel. As he sketched his subject began to take shape, a recognizable shape. He was going to make her look hot this time because she was, and he wanted to please his muse.

∞

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