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Message-ID: <37880asstr$1029449407@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: juliancoreto@operamail.com (Julian Coreto)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Aug 2002 08:12:55 GMT
Subject: {ASSM} Alan, Chapter 14: Making Preparations
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 18:10:07 -0400
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
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People pointed and stared at him that night as he walked through the
artisan's quarter of the capital.  Many knew who he was, but even
those that did not were transfixed by his regal bearing and the
resplendent uniform of his attendants, two full centurions.  It was
not often that the vizier waded amongst the everyday folk of the city,
and whispers and murmurings broke out as he passed each doorway.  It
had been many years since he ventured this way, still longer since he
had made a night visit, and back then he was a figure off little note,
a simple Magian soldier, the personal attendant to the crown prince,
not a remarkable personage in his own right.  He ignored the
mutterings of his subjects, moving smartly towards his destination
without pause.  A few times people tried to entreat him, either
inviting him in for some warmed wine and hot cider, or asking for his
intervention in some legal dispute, for he was the penultimate legal
authority of the empire, his rulings could only be overturned by the
emperor, which they all knew had never happened yet.  None took notice
of the battered leather satchel held by one of the centurions, a
non-descript valise made of goat leather, slung around his shoulder
and resting on his left hip, rubbing against the dull metal of his
bronze armor.

"You will wait here," he said curtly to the soldiers, though not
without a tinge of politeness.  "Allow no one to enter."

The right hands of each centurion hand came to his hip, and the older
one gave over the satchel while their eyes scanned the street, taking
in the movements of the people about, illuminated, such as it were, by
small cooking fires scattered hither and yon.  Each took up post on
opposite sides of the arched doorway.  The house/workshop they were
now guarding was an anomaly for this section of the capital, made of
stone and mortar, not the more inexpensive wood like most others on
this block.  Steam and smoke drifted up from the rear of the house,
byproducts of the forge in the rear yard.  A small boy, perhaps eight
years old, perhaps younger, approached them from down the street and
stopped in front of them, coming no closer than about ten cubits or
so.  He looked upon the pair with eyes full of fascination and awe. 
Since they did not address him he stepped no closer, a trace of fear
ascending his spine.

Upon entering the house the vizier saw his host, Achnai the smith.  He
mixed not with workers and artisans much lately, but remembered
dealings with this man in the past, in his former life, that of a
soldier and a young courtier.  Achnai, he knew, was superbly skilled
at metalworking, and an honest man to boot.  These were not the
reasons he was chosen for this important task.  The most important
cause which drew the vizier to this place was the fact that Achnai was
a foreigner, a descendent of the Israelites who were deported from
their homeland, Judea, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and brought
in exile to Babel.  Though some of their number had returned to their
motherland after Emperor Cyrus had issued a decree allowing it, many
had remained.  It was a good thing for the empire, too, for many of
these Jews were skilled at useful trades, and their contribution to
the empire was disproportionately high in comparison to their numbers.

Recently over wine the vizier and Mecumman, the tax minister,  had
discussed the benefits of keeping these outsiders among their midst,
and his companion had astounded him with tables of figures showing the
amount of taxes paid by these people.  By means of a double tax on
Jews the empire was currently flush with gold and silver, money needed
to support the armies of Devaryesh in their campaigns.  This money was
even being used to finance the construction of the new royal salt
works at Pumbedita, a project dear to the heart of the emperor.

At the sound of his entrance the smith leapt to his feet.  "Prime
Minister, peace-be-to you!" he cried, "To what do I owe this great
honor?"

"Peace-be-to-you, my old acquaintance. It has been a very long 
time since I have been here, Achnai." The vizier allowed his eyes to
wander, scanning the interior of the workspace, and added warmly, "I
see much has not changed in the shop since I last visited."

"Please, Minister, please, have a seat if you would.  My furnishings
are more humble than I am sure you are used to, but--"

"Gladly," the visitor replied, and with a stately gesture indicated to
Achnai that he too could sit.  Achnai pulled two wooden chairs up to
the hearth which dominated the room, and than went to the cupboard for
a flagon of wine and two earthenware mugs, placing the cups on the
table, and the wine near to the fire so it would warm.

"You are alone?"

"Yes, Vizier.  My wife is across town.  My eldest daughter had a child
last night, and my wife is still with her.  Except for my apprentice,
Shemaryahu, who is still in the shop, cleaning the tools, we are
alone."

They chatted for awhile, waiting for the wine to become ready to
drink.  A chilling breeze came through the doorway, for there was no
door, but rather a rug covering the entrance.  Ko'un-Zir sized up his
host one last time before deciding whether to entrust him with this
important task.  He had chosen this Hebrew because no Baal worshipper
would take the assignment.  These Jews paid no heed or fear to the
cult of the empire, and so would be without qualms against destroying
one of its sacred relics.  Shemaryahu came shuffling into the room and
placed some dishes on the table between then the two men, silently
retreating at his master's nod of approval.

Ko'un-Zir took a honeyed almond from the nearest bowl and placed it
over his tongue.  He liked these Jewish treats, a proclivity he kept
secret from his fellow courtiers.  The confectioners of his own people
never made these nuts as well as the Jewish ones, skipping the brief
brining the Jews gave their almonds before sweetening.  Achnai poured
the wine, and they got down to business.

"I have a commission for you," the vizier stated plainly.

"Yes?" the Hebrew smith answered, hoping that his guest didn't pick up
the raw excitement in his voice.  A royal commission!  With the money
he earned on this job he would be able to make a dowry for his last
unmarried daughter; the very thought of it began to consume him.

"Two commissions, actually."

Achnai was ready to faint, but he composed himself.

The first commission was simple.  The Prime Minister wanted a necklace
made for his wife, a filigreed piece, similar to one he had seen in a
market stall in Tyre.  He brought a drawing on parchment, and Achnai
perused it, named a reasonable price, six talents of silver over the
cost of the gold, and they quickly agreed on a delivery date.

Ko'un-Zir and the smith drank to the agreement, but instead of
continuing he became pensive, not relating the details of the second
commission right away.  He reached for the wine and poured another cup
for himself, and then gestured to his host to ask if he needed a
refill.

"Thank you sir, but I would rather pour my own," Achnai said
apologetically to the second most powerful man in the empire, if not
the world.  This stirred up a memory in the vizier, and he realized
that his host was following the Jewish custom which forbade them to
drink wine which had been poured by a gentile.  He was not upset,
though he could understand Achnai's consternation; Ko'un-Zir felt ill,
and it was showing on his face.  Being in the presence of the Orb did
that to him, but after tonight that danger would cease forevermore. 
He reached down under the table and pulled up the satchel, opening it
and removing the silver sphere from within.  Power radiated from it,
though only the vizier, Vessel of the First Seed, felt its waves.

"I want you to melt this down," he said, almost grunting in discomfort
as he spoke to the artisan.  "I want you to melt this down, and then
mix the slag with other metals, other silver ingots you have in your
shop.  The metal of this orb is exceedingly pure, and it must be mixed
with less
pure metals."

Achnai thought to ask why, but held his tongue.  If the vizier wanted
this done, his will be done.

"I will return in ten days.  You will have by then melted down this
orb, mixed it with baser metals, and created a replica of the orb for
me. Oh, and don't forget the rings we discussed earlier."  He reached
to his waist and pulled a large pouch from his waistband, placing it
on the table.  "One hundred talents of silver," he stated, bemused by
the widening of Achnai's eyes.  Within thirty seconds he was gone,
giving last instructions to the centurion who was taking up temporary
post on the street in front of the Hebrew's home/workshop.  As his
distance from the Orbis Tertius increased he began to feel better, his
powers returning.

* * *

The summer was in full swing.  Alan worked at the local paper five
days a week, rotating among departments every week or so.  It was fun;
he liked the people there, and the work was interesting.  Both Kate
and Pauline were working with non-profit groups which had
received generous grants from the Van Devanter Foundation, a
charitable organization (similar to the Ford Foundation, but on a
rather less grand scale) funded by the family  fortune, and chaired by
their dad.

Pauline's job was in town; she was a camp counselor for a day camp for
the children of illegal immigrant workers. There had been in the last
few years some accidents involving some of these children. With no
child care options, and without even the six hour respite school
provided to their parents, immigrant children were often brought to
work sites, not the best place for them.  The local authorities, with
a generous grant from the Van Devanter foundation, had established a
day camp, two day camps, actually, for these kids.  Pauline was
assistant activities director for the girl's camp, and also group
leader for the nine-year olds.

Kate worked in the city, driving in every day in her car; she was a
staffer at a shelter for teen runaway girls.  She had never done
anything like this before, but just a little bored by the day camp
work of previous summers she asked her dad to assign her something
tougher, and though James was hesitant, he agreed in the end.  Kate
worked longer hours, often leaving for New York not long past 6am, and
sometimes not returning before dark, though she only worked at the
center four days a week.

She was more at ease with herself since that night in the Plaza.  She
was seeing a therapist, though not mentioning a word of what was
happening between her and Alan.  Mostly she was focusing on why she
was not as nice to others as she could have been.  Kate was healing.

Her encounters with Alan were as satisfying as ever, perhaps more so. 
There was a new tenderness about him; no longer did he verbally abuse
her, and he even cut down on humiliating her so much she was thinking
of asking him to keep at her a little, but she held her tongue, the
submissive streak Alan had brought out in her holding her back.  He
almost never called her filthy names anymore (she sometimes missed
that, too), and she had never called him "Master" since that night,
prom night.  This gave her the strength to do some things she didn't
think she was ready to do.

First on that list was breaking up with Chad.  She had kind of planned
to just say goodbye to him when they went off to college, allowing
nature to take its course, as it were.  But right after the prom she
called it off.  When she threw the big graduation party at the family
beach house on Fire Island Chad didn't even bother to show up, though
she had invited him, and his new girlfriend, Suzy Cormier, her gossipy
friend.

* * *

"Delivery for you," the mailroom guy said as he laid the package on
Alan's desk.  Alan was sitting in his cubicle at the newspaper culling
wire service reports for possible use in the next edition of the
paper.  The newspaper mostly was concerned with local matters, and had
no national or international correspondents.  The only out-of-town
reporter worked in
Albany, and she was more of a stringer than a full-time staff member,
so it fell to Alan, who at the time was rotating through the
Nation/World desk, to keep his eye on the AP and bring "possibles" to
the editor, Arthur Mahoney.  He had spent a week at Obits, and another
at the Local Business desk before coming to Nation/World.  Though it
was considered a very low-prestige part of the paper, he liked it, and
liked working for Mr. Mahoney.

The Clarion was a "second paper."  Most people who read it did so
primarily for local coverage, and read the Times or the Wall Street
Journal for their main source of national and international news. 
Arthur had explained to him that his was one of the least important
desks at the paper because of this, but no self-respecting paper could
call itself a newspaper without a minimum of world and national
coverage.

Arthur Mahoney was a stereotypical newspaper man, right out of central
casting, from the bottle of rye whiskey he kept in his desk drawer, to
the hat with the press badge stuffed into the band which hung from a
hook next to his desk.  He never actually wore this hat, understanding
that he would be laughed at if he dared, but Alan saw in the photos
gracing his walls that he used to--including one of a very young
Arthur Mahoney asking President Eisenhower a question at a news
conference.

The paper closed at eight pm, and Mahoney rarely showed up before two
in the afternoon.  It was Alan's job to clip wire reports for him, and
also to suggest headlines to go with them, if they didn't like the
wire service ones.  Arthur also wrote a twice weekly column on
national affairs, and often had Alan doing some research for that. 
Alan was enjoying this assignment immensely.

"Delivery for you."

"Thanks," Alan replied.  He tore open the box, a small FedEx mailer,
and peered inside.  There was a leather case, about for inches square
and three inches tall, hinged at the back.  He opened it and gasped.

It was a ring, a ring just like the one he had on his finger, just
like the one Massimo wore as well.  There was no letter or card either
in the leather box or the mailer.  Alan froze, not knowing what to
think.  He couldn't concentrate for more than the better part of an
hour.

"Why would Jack send me his ring?" Alan thought to himself.  It was
the only explanation: the ring came from Massimo.  No other person
knew he was a Vessel of the Seed, and no other person knew about the
rings, and what their significance was.  He looked at the outside of
the box and studied the waybill again.  London. He knew no one in
London.  Sighing and shaking off his doldrums he turned back to his
computer and began to once again scan the AP.  The fourth story on the
website caused a chill to run down his spine.  The headline read
"WORLD FAMOUS ARCHEOLOGIST DEAD IN LONDON HOTEL FIRE."  He knew,
without even clicking on the link to the story, he knew.

* * *

LONDON (AP) July 19, 2002

World famous archeologist Dr. Jean-Pierre Massimo died tonight in a
three-alarm fire at the Hotel du Nord, one of this city's most
expensive and exclusive hotels.  The alarm was sounded shortly after 7
pm local time, and the fire department was on the scene within
minutes.  After getting the fire under control the firefighters made a
room by room search of the hotel, and found Dr. Massimo near death in
his suite shortly after 8 pm.  He died in an ambulance on route to the
hospital, and was declared dead at 8:23 pm.

Two firefighters were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for smoke
inhalation; they were held for observation and the released after a
few hours.  The Swiss-born archaeologist was the only fatality. 
Police and Fire Department spokesmen were unwilling to comment at this
time about the source of the blaze.

Professor Massimo was one of the giants of twentieth-century
archeology; at the time of his death he was semi-retired, holding
emeritus teaching positions at both Oxford University in Britain, and
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.  Most of his most
famous field work was decades behind him.  Born in Geneva in 1913, the
son of a physician and an opera singer, in the first half of the
twentieth century Jean-Pierre Massimo spent much of his time away from
home, on digs in the Middle East.  After taking a doctorate in from
the University of Basel at the age of 24 he led famous expeditions
near Baghdad and Damascus.  Retiring from field-work he spent the next
fifty years teaching at many of the world's leading universities
including Harvard, Duke, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Moscow University,
McGill, Columbia, Hebrew University, and many others.

His wife, Emile, died of cancer in 1979, and he is survived by a son,
Claude, a physician in Geneva, and four grandchildren.

* * *

"Shemaryahu, help me with this."  Achnai was holding a pair of iron
tongs and indicated to his assistant to grab another set.  They lifted
the ceramic pot from the huge oven and placed to on the stone
workbench.  It was heavy, filled almost to the brim with molten
silver, and they rested their arms for a few seconds before
reattaching the tongs to the hooks on either side of the pot and then
took it into the workshop proper.

They poured half of the molten metal into one pot, and the other half
into another one.  Achnai dipped a small iron ladle in each one a set
some of the silver aside to make the rings.  He instructed his aide to
wait in the shop and skim off the impurities which would rise to the
top of the pots while he set the next set of silver, the baser silver,
into the oven.  Shemaryahu waited for the impurities to rise, but they
did not come.

This was amazing silver, so pure, so beautiful.  The young apprentice
had never seen silver such as this, its purity unheard of.  Furtively
glancing to the oven room he figured he had time, so he took the ladle
off the peg in the wall and dipped it into the pot of molten silver,
then quickly poured it into a simple ingot die and tied the two halves
of the casting device together with a short length of linen rope.  By
the time his master had returned the die was safely hidden the his
cubby, lost among his tools and equipment.

His training would soon come to an end, and he was already planning
his own shop, so this silver would help him get started.  It was crazy
really.  The Prime Minister had commissioned his boss to destroy and
then forge one of the most sacred relics of the empire.  Achnai had
not recognized the orb for what it was, but he knew, having seen it
paraded through the streets up to the temple during one of the
religious parades.  Crazy!

* * *

"Young man?  Are you OK?"

The feminine voice shocked Alan back into reality.  He had been
sitting in his cubicle staring blankly forward for a while, and hadn't
noticed anyone approaching.  He was surprised to see who it was; the
publisher of the paper, Jamie McConville stood before him, impatiently
tapping her foot.

"Sorry, Ma'am.  I spaced out for a minute."

"Quite alright," she said testily, as if to convey that she didn't
really mean it.  "Is  Mr. Mahoney around?"

Alan didn't know where he was.  Some days he drove into Manhattan and
had long liquid lunches with some of his old-time pals, usually at a
tavern near Times Square.  Since Mr. Mahoney didn't carry a cell phone
or pager Alan sometimes had to call the bar and ask the bartender to
get him to the phone. A few days ago he didn't return before closing,
and Alan had put the whole section together by himself.  He couldn't
quite remember what the old man had said before, whether he was going
into the city this afternoon or not, so distracted was he by the wire
service report.  "I'm not sure, Ma'am.  Could I help you with
anything?"

 Jamie McConville was a decent boss, as evidenced by her giving a
position to a dinosaur like Mahoney, and another thing in her favor
was that it was she, as publisher of the paper, that had awarded this
prized internship to Alan, so he liked her.  Many of the others on the
staff, the real workers, not interns like him, did not share this
opinion. Oh sure, Mahoney liked her, but that was because she viewed
him as a newsroom legend, and was always nice to him, and furthermore
Mahoney and her dad were correspondents together in the war, so she
always thought of him as Uncle Art.  One of her first acts since
inheriting the paper upon the death of her father was to coax Mahoney
out of retirement and hire him for the Clarion.  She knew he wasn't a
top-notch reporter anymore, but she liked the idea of having him
around.  He could always make her laugh, something she was in need of
because of her numbing, soul-suppressing marriage.

"No, don't bother.  If you see him or if he calls in from whichever
bar he's wasting away the afternoon, tell him I need to talk with
him."  She turned and made towards her office.  Alan admired the view,
her tight skirt framing her butt nicely.  He could only see a little
of her legs under the length of her mid-calf skirt, but they looked
nice.

Alan tried the bar in the city, but they told him that Arthur hadn't
been in today.  That finished, he took his package into the bathroom
and entered a stall, locking the door.  He placed the box on top of
the toilet paper dispenser and sat on the seat.  Before doing anything
else he re-checked the packing material, looking for some sort of note
or message, but found none.  Examining the ring he saw that it was
identical to his, and identical to the one Massimo was wearing at the
time of their meeting.

Now Jack was dead.

Conclusions?

This ring before him was most likely Jack's.  But why would he send it
away?  Did he know he was going to die?  Was he missing something? 
Was there a message that wasn't getting through?  Should he put the
ring on?

He looked down at his hand, considering this.  He had on occasion
tried removing his own ring, but each time the blinding glow and the
roaring buzzing sound prevented him from leaving it off for more than
a few seconds.   He had noticed that no one else could sense the glow
or buzz from it; he had tried removing it once in school, and though
he had been affected by the attempt, no one else even turned around. 
In fact, no other person but Jack had even ever noticed that he was
wearing it.  No one ever asked him about it, or even commented on its
appearance. Should he just put the new ring on next to his own?  He
tried that,  Nothing happened.

"Well, here goes nothing," the mumbled to himself as he took his own
ring off his finger.  Instantly he knew something was different.  In
previous attempts his ring had began to glow at once, as he was
slipping it down his finger, before it was even off.  This time,
nothing of the sort happened.  He placed it in the box, next to Jack's
(at least he thought it was Jack's) ring.

He reached into the leather box  with his left hand, and took the new
ring between his thumb and forefinger, placing it gingerly into his
right palm.

It began to glow faintly, not the blue glow he was accustomed to, but
a rich scarlet red.  With a healthy dose of trepidation he slipped on
the ring.

Immediately he lost consciousness.

Well, not exactly.  It was more like a trance.  He could feel his
whole body tingling, just as it had those many months ago in the
hospital when the old and dying man had transferred the Seed of
Hyrcanus to him.

"Alan," a disembodied voice called out to him.

"Hmmm?" he mumbled back, trough his trance.  He felt drugged.  He
heard the voice again, calling his name.  Alan concentrated, and
through his haze he recognized the voice, that of Jack!

"I am here," the  voice answered.

"Where?" he grunted back.

"Do not concern yourself with that just now.  As you must know, I am
speaking to you through the ring--"

"--But, but--"

"I'm dead, yes, but that, ahem, little fact is not so important now. 
I need you to listen now, and listen carefully.  There is a danger
present against us.  Someone is targeting the Vessels.  I have been
sensing their presence for some time now.  This is why I sought you
out and came to meet you at your house.

"Who?"

"I don't know who and I don't know how.  My only message to you right
this moment is that you should be ever vigilant against danger. 
Before I `died' I transferred my Seed into my ring.  This is how you
and I are communicating now.  One day in the future you will pass my
Seed to another vessel.  Do not concern yourself about that just yet;
you will know when to do it when I let you know.  In the meantime,
place this ring on your left middle finger, and replace your ring on
this finger.  I will be in communication with you later."

"So...I have two Seeds now?" Alan asked, confused.

"No, you only have your Seed, but you are wearing my ring, which had
my seed within. From time to time I will contact you through it, and
will give you instructions to carry out.  I will, at some point, need
you to retrieve my research, so you can study it and `together' we can
identify our pursuers, and then neutralize the threat.  Understand?"

"Yes, some of it at least.  Are you really dead?"

"My body, the vessel you are familiar with is dead, but since sensing
this threat I began to take precautions, and make preparations for my
death.  I will instruct you later in what I need you to do, but for
now, live life as you have been recently, just beware of this new
danger."

Alan passed out.

* * *

An hour later, while Alan was sitting at his desk, finally able to
concentrate on work, Arthur walked through the doors, coming right
over to their desk.  Alan told him that the boss was looking for him,
and Mahoney went to see her.  He returned after about a half an hour,
shaking his head sadly, but opting not to share what passed between
the two of them.

"Your not in any kind of trouble, are you?  I mean, for being out
drinking with your old newspaper buddies?"  Alan asked him.

"Nah, kiddo, nothing like that," Mahoney replied, the scent of
Bushmill's heavy on his breath.  "We didn't discuss work.  Personal
stuff."  He left it at that.

They picked their stories from the wire, including the one about the
death of the famous archaeologist in London, an began cutting some for
length, and rewriting the headlines of others.  Ninety minutes later
they were done, and Mahoney went out, probably, Alan thought, to
another bar.

Alan stayed at his desk.  Some nights there was something for him to
do around the newsroom, and he was always eager to help.  He also
liked using the paper's computer system; its internet connection, a
T1, was much faster than his dial-up at home.

He did some mindless surfing, still preoccupied by the day's events,
not realizing the lateness of the hour.

* * *

Jamie McConville sat at her desk staring out of the window, not really
seeing the parking lot below.  A glass of white wine was in her left
hand, and it wasn't her first.

"That fucking bastard," she thought to herself.

This morning as she was about to leave for the office the phone rang
in her house.  She was gathering up various items, putting them into
her purse, and decided to let the machine take the call.  Just as she
was heading out the door, the caller began to leave a message.

"Hello, this call is for Mr. Rayford," the woman said.  Philip Rayford
was her second husband, whom she married two years after being widowed
upon the death of Gordon McConville; she and Philip were married now
for four years.  "This is Lauren, the pharmacist at the Walgreen's on
Brick Street.  I'm just calling to let you know your prescription is
ready.  Have a nice day." Click.

Jamie sat in her car for more than five minutes debating what to do. 
As far as she knew her husband was not taking any prescription
medicines.  Did she have the right to invade his privacy and go see
what the prescription was for?  One factor pushed her over the edge;
it was the Walgreen's calling, not their regular pharmacy, which was a
mom and pop store called Roth's.

Viagra!  "The son of a bitch hasn't laid a finger on me in months, and
he's taking goddamn Viagra."  She might have chalked it up to the
possibility that Phil was getting the pills for their own lovemaking,
but that balloon was deflated when the pharmacist said, "Please remind
your husband that this is his last refill."  His LAST refill.  There
had been others. Bastard!

Jamie had remained calm in the store, but by the time she reached her
car, quiet tears began rolling down her cheeks.  As she closed the
door an settled in behind the wheel she was bawling.  She wished she
had never married the bastard.  She wished her father was still alive
so he could hold her in his arms and tell her everything was going to
be all right.  She cried some more before she was able to start the
car and head to work.  "Thank god I still have Uncle Art."

* * *


"Divorce the asshole," Arthur had said immediately, once she had
managed to sob out her story.  He hugged her, and she wiped the tears
from her face on the shoulder of his shirt.

Now here she was, eleven o'clock at night, holed up in her office
afraid to go home, half in the bag. "For Christ's sake!  I'm some kind
of pitiable clich�," she thought bitterly.  She switched to coffee.

Twenty minutes and two cups of java later she locked her office and
turned to go out.  She walked as steadily as her fuzzy head would
allow.  She almost made it, too; just as she made the last turn around
the end of the far row of cubicles she saw him, that summer intern
kid.  Just the surprise of seeing him there, because she expected that
she was alone, caused her to stumble slightly.  Worse still, the kid
noticed.  There was a pile of phone books right outside a cubicle, and
her alcohol-sodden brain didn't process the fact of them in time. 
Coupled with the surprise of seeing Alan, she tripped, but caught
herself, her hands grasping the wall of the cubicle opposite his.

"Mrs. McConville? Are you OK?" he asked, standing up and approaching
her.  She was still off-balance, and he helped her regain her footing.

"Thank you, young man," she said wearily.  "I'm sorry about all of
this."  She straightened out her skirt, and when she looked up she saw
him watching her. She blushed almost imperceptibly.  "Oh my," she
thought to herself, "Why hadn't I noticed before that he was so cute?"
 Because she was married to a man she thought was faithful to her, as
she was faithful to him, that's why, she reasoned.

"What, what is your name again?" she asked him, returning his stare.

"I'm Alan Marshall, the summer intern."

"Right, right, now I remember.  Sorry again.  How -hic- are you
enjoying yourself this summer?  Everybody been nice?"

"Oh, yeah, everybody's been great, and I'm learning a lot.  Thanks
again for the opportunity."

"You're welcome."  She paused, her eyes never leaving him.  Could she
do it?  Was she really thinking about cheating on Phil with this, with
this, well there was no other word for him.  Was she really thinking
about cheating on Phil with this *boy*?  She was.

"Would it be too much of a bother if I asked you to drive me home? 
I've had a little too much wine, and, well, you know," she asked him
coyly.  She didn't think he knew she was coming on to him, and
frankly, she wasn't sure herself.

Alan scanned her, finding out about her cheating husband, her plans to
divorce him, and her desire to get back at him a little.  From inside
her mind he could see that her husband was away on a business trip, in
San Francisco, and that her twelve year old daughter was away at sleep
away camp up in the Adirondacks.

"Sure, uh, Mrs. McConville.  No problem."

"Please, call me Jamie."

No one in the office, with the exception of Arthur Mahoney, called her
by her first name.  She didn't allow it.

* * *

"What can I get you? " she asked while standing next to the bar in the
living room of her rather large house.  Alan thought the Van Devanters
had a big spread, but this place was approaching mansion status.  This
was her place, not Phil's.  She had grown up in this house, just her,
daddy, and the servants.  Her alcoholic mother had abandoned them,
skipping town with her boy-toy tennis instructor for Europe when Jamie
was a sophomore in high school.  The irony of tonight--that she was
tipsy and trying to seduce a teen boy--was not lost on her.

Alan could sense she was nervous, both in the regular way, and with
his powers.  He could have cracked a joke at this point, pointing out
that technically he wasn't old enough to drink, but didn't want to
freak her out, something his abilities told him she was close to
doing.

"Whatever you're having."

She poured a finger and a half of bourbon each into two glasses, then
added a single ice cube into the each one.

"So, tell me about yourself," she asked, her face visibly flushing. 
She coupled the question with her hand coming out to rest against his
forearm.  He could hear her breathing accelerate as she waited for his
reply.

"Not much to tell really," he told her.  She walked him over to one of
the couches, the nearest one, before he continued after they were
seated.  He told her about editing the high school paper, among other
things, and she paid rapt attention seemingly fascinated by the
mundane details he was sharing with him.  She licked her lips, making
sure he was watching her as she did so.

She leaned into him, "Tell me more," she said softly, batting her
eyelashes.  Flirting she was good at, though she had never been the
aggressor, never been the seducer.  She was swiftly reaching her
comfort limit, hoping he would pick up the hints she was dropping with
her mood and body language and make a move already.  "I mean, for
pete's sake! A man would have figured it out by now: a good looking,
semi-intoxicated woman invites a man, a handsome boy, into her house,
her empty house.  Make a damn move!" her mind was screaming out,
hoping he would get the message.

Alan leaned into her, covering her mouth with his.  Jamie groaned, all
the muscles relaxing, letting him pull her into the kiss.  It was as
if the boy could read her mind.

"Is that what you wanted, Jamie?" he asked playfully.

"Yessssss," she hissed, her faces inches from his, her whole view
taken up by his nice-looking face.  He kissed her again, his tongue
exploring her mouth, the tip tracing the inside of her upper lip.  He
sucked the whole upper lip into his mouth, then released it, moving
down to the lower one, biting down on it softly. She groaned in
arousal, unable to think coherently.

"Is this what you want?" he put it to her again.  Jamie nodded, then
pressed her lips to his, this time her tongue doing the exploring.  He
stood, and then lifted her up, cradling her in is arms, surprising her
with his strength.

"Which way?"

"Hmmmm?" she responded, lost in a haze of lust.

"The bedroom.  Which way to the bedroom?"

"Up the stairs.  End of the hall.  Hurry, please.  Let's go," she
panted.  She craned up her neck to kiss him, wanting more than
anything else in the world to feel his mouth on her again.

Up in the master bedroom he laid her gently on her frilly canopied
bed.  Her breathing was fast, and she writhed about, wanting him on
her, his body pressed against hers.  He stood next to the bed, slowly,
undressing.  Jamie reached for the buttons on her blouse, but he
stopped her.

"Don't do that," he ordered, his voice both commanding and soothing at
the same time.  As he shucked off his pants with his right hand, now
naked only but for his shorts, he reached out with his right, brushing
her hands away from her blouse buttons, and then opened her blouse,
exposing her lacy bra.  She lifted her butt off the bed to allow him
to unzip her skirt and pull it off of her, than laid down next to her,
drawing her in for another one of those kisses she found so dizzying. 
Jamie admired his body with both her hands and eyes, almost drowning
in the sensuousness of his embrace.  She felt his hands on her back,
unclasping her bra, and groaned into his mouth.  Before she knew what
was happening his mouth was on her left breast, his tongue lashing her
nipples.

Alan was surprised by the firmness of them for a woman so old; well,
she wasn't so old.  She was, by his guess, in her middle to late
thirties, but that did make her the oldest  woman he had been with
thus far.  Her breasts were small, and very firm, with pinkish-brown
nipples and very small areolae; instantaneously they were erect, and
Jamie gasped at the feelings of bliss shooting through her body.  He
reached down and felt her flesh through her panties, her secretions
soaking through the thin fabric.

"Take them off," she gasped.  He complied, and saw that her
reddish-brown pubic hair matched that of her head.  He tossed them to
the floor beside the bed and reattached his lips to her breasts,
slowly working a finger between her folds, his fingers lubricating
with her flowing juices.

"Ah ah ah ah," she whinnied, her vagina spasming around his invading
digits.  "Please, I'm, oh my GOD--"  she moaned throatily as he began
to move his fingers in and out of her, wiggling them as he did.

"Please, I'm going, ah ah YES, crazy.  I need you in meeeee!."  Alan
slowly slid his jockey shorts down and tossed them over the side, and
her eyes bulged at the size of his erection.  It was hard and an angry
red.

"You want me to fuck you, to fuck you with this?" he asked as he held
his dick lightly in his right hand.  She was transfixed, unable to
tear her eyes away from it.

"Yes," she whispered, "Right now."

"You're the boss," he quipped, lining the head up to her dripping
slit.  He slid in, and she shrieked, her body shaking violently as he
fed his whole length into her.  Her trembling continued, even when he
stopped moving, resting his large cock in her buried to the hilt.  She
didn't orgasm just yet, but she was as turned on as she had ever been
in her life.

"Fuck me, Alan, fuck me now," she pleaded, her lips quivering and dry.
 As he began to pull and push she responded by trying to pace her hips
with his thrusting, and her tremors became even more intense and
herky-jerky.  After only a few minutes she came with tremendous force,
her pussy walls clenching vigorously around his cock, and her screams
filling the overlarge bedroom.  Amazingly, or maybe not (after all he
was a boy and not a Viagra-popping asshole like her soon to be
ex-husband), he held back, slowing his thrusts considerably, but now
using the full length of his cock to pleasure her.  After she came
down a bit from her climax she felt like she was floating on a cloud,
relaxed to her core.  It had been a long time since she had felt this
way, not since the last time she and Gordon, her late husband, had
been in bed.  The memory brought a tear to the corner of her eye, and
she shut them, just relaxing and reveling in the sensations this boy
was stirring in her.  He fucked her for a long time, giving her
numerous orgasms, but unlike the first one, the ones which followed
were small, gentle explosions.  As she gasped and shuddered again--she
had lost count at this point--he came inside her, and she moaned his
name aloud upon feeling him deposit his seed within her.

Alan rolled onto his back and settled in beside her, and she turned
onto her side and snuggled up into him.  "Thank you," she sobbed
quietly, her emotions run amok both from the shitty day she had just
had, and the devastating impact of the lovemaking just concluded.  "I
needed that more than you will ever know."  Her head was on his chest,
and he bent his neck forward to kiss the top of her hair, sending a
wave of peaceful contentment through her.  She began to purr as she
laid on his body, shivering slightly from the evaporation of
perspiration from her overheated body in the air conditioned bedroom.

They laid together for a long time, and then Alan gently extricated
himself out from under her and sat up on the edge of the bed, bending
over to reach his clothes.

"Where are you going?" she asked him, her voice aquiver, as she
trembled in the chill air of the semi-darkened bedroom.

He looked over his shoulder back at her.  "Uh, home."

"Please, can you stay the night?  I really can't be alone tonight." 
Alan saw that she was nearing tears, so he dropped his pants and laid
down next to her, just holding her until she stopped shaking.  They
slept.

In the middle of the night, just before four o'clock, she woke him up,
and they made love again.

Next Chapter: Danger from afar, plus, college orientation.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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