20
...baby I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time, maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you... Maybe I'm Amazed  (Paul McCartney)

	In the days that followed, Rose delighted in tormenting me in dozens of small, playful, cruel ways.  Leaning across the billiard table, in full view of other tenants who were lounging in the recreation area, she made sure I could see straight down the front of her shirt, could see her braless bareness, her stiff nipples,  as she leaned over the felt to consider her shot.  At the swimming pool, she developed a sudden passion for jumping backward off the diving board, making sure I had an unrestricted view of her hips, her sweet rounded buttocks, pushing out as she pretended to line up her jump.  Once, helping me to clean up the upstairs dining room after a party that some of the tenants had given, she backed into me and ground her hips orgiastically into my crotch in a way that would have done a veteran stripper proud, stopping only a split-second before one of the tenants who had attended the party stuck his head up the stairs looking for a lost jacket.  Why had I not noticed all those grey hairs in the mirror before?  All these lines in my face getting clearer...
	After that night when Rose saw me in the shower, and while she had been struggling so hard with her unspoken desires, our relationship had been a shadow of what it was.  Now that the tension between us was resolved, our feelings for each other did far more than resume their rightful place, they transformed, became sweeter and deeper than I would have known possible.  Once again, we were meeting in my room on a daily basis, but now there was much less talk of trivial things.  Our conversations, if they can be called that, were much more about pleasing each other and were showered with sweet nothings and gentle caresses.  Now it was honey this, and darling that, and it felt like every other word was "beloved", as we touched here and there on each other's bodies, kissed this part or licked that part of each other.  We were careful not to stay too long or get too distracted to be mindful of our surroundings.  While it was fairly stressful, being constantly on the alert for anyone coming too close for comfort while trying to just relax in each others' arms, it was worth it.  We felt now like we had all the time in the world to just explore and learn about each other.  Her kiss was always fresh, always new and sharp and welcoming and intent and inquisitive and warm.  Countless times we lay there together naked beneath the sheets, slowly stroking each other's bodies and learning the little tendernesses that were most appreciated by the other.  She would kiss me all over, starting with my forehead and working her way down to my toes, then back up again, her tongue exploring each curve and crevice with an intensity that left me shivering, and she allowed (encouraged) me to return the favor in full measure.
	March came in like a lion, all bitter winds and grey days, but within a week's time, showed that it was serious about ushering in Spring.  After only a few days' worth of unseasonal warmth, most of the snow and ice had vanished.  On a lazy Sunday afternoon, as we lay on the floor of my room, me in a t-shirt and briefs, Rose in her bra and panties, deliciously massaging each other's chests, Rose suddenly looked me square in the eyes and said, "Tell me about Iris."  I was a little... well, not startled, but definitely uneasy.  After a few seconds' consideration, I asked what she wanted to know.
	"What did you do with her?  I mean, did you just kiss, or hug, or... did you..." and as she beamed her pixie smile at me, she waggled her eyebrows with such Groucho-style comic abandon that I was reduced to tears of laughter.
	When I could breathe again, I said, "No, we never actually had sex... well, yes, what we did was sexual, but we never made love... hmmm... okay, yes, it was love-making, but we never actually fucked.  She did give me a few blowjobs, but I was never close to cumming with her, not like with you.  Most of what Iris and I did was what you and I are doing now, just touching and caressing.  And we spent a lot of time dry-humping."
	"!!! Dry-humping?  What's that?" she asked, taking her hands off me so she could sit up; I took this as a signal that she considered it a serious discussion and wanted to give her full attention to the conversation.
	"Well, humping is another way of describing intercourse, less harsh, I suppose, than the word 'fucking', but not really any less vulgar.  Dry-humping is like fucking, except you leave your underwear on, so your genitals don't actually touch."
	"And just when were you going to tell me about this?" she ranted in mock-indignation. "You mean we could be pretend-fucking right now?"
	"To tell the truth, I hadn't thought about it in so long that I completely forgot it was anything I ever did.  You're right," I admitted, "it IS something we could do."
	"Well then, shut up and let's get down to it, boyfriend!" she laughed.  She straddled me, sitting on my chest to begin with, then slowly working her way back, until her cotton-covered buttocks pushed up against the hardness in my briefs.  "Mmmmmm, that's nice," she murmured, shifting back and forth, obviously enjoying the sensation of having yet another piece of me trying to work it's way into the crevice.  She carefully continued to maneuver her way down, until her sex was pressing up against the underside of my shaft.  "Ooooo, that's even nicer," she said with a lazy, greasy smile that made me harder still.  I reached out to slip her bra up over her breasts, and she undid the bra and tossed it lightly aside.  I was gazing at two gorgeous little mounds of flesh, the nipples sticking straight out, bouncing slightly under the movement of her body.  As I reached up to slip my fingers over her nipples, she let out a quiet little "aaahhhhh" and closed her eyes.  "Ohhh, that's nice," she purred, that greasy smile sliding further over her face, then, "Hey, wait a sec, I wanna do something."  She rolled off me, then pulled her knees up to her chest and slid her panties off.  "As long as they don't actually touch, we're okay, right?"  And without waiting for my answer, she climbed back on top of me, sliding her now exposed lips up and down over the underside of my trapped shaft.  "Ooooo, God, that's even better!" she said, her voice a sultry swirl of satin that made my hardness pulse uncontrollably.  When she felt that, felt the throb and felt my cock jump beneath her, she gave a very quiet shriek of delight.  "You like that too, huh?" she husked, and her smile just kept getting greasier and sexier, her eyes rolling back in her head as her unrestrained hair fell over her face.  She was really getting into it now, sliding up and down, up and down, her tender boobs rippling with the impact on every downstroke, when she reached my balls and started back up again toward the head.  The sensation was amazing, and I gently encouraged her to concentrate on riding the head.  The feeling was building deliciously slowly, mounting and fading, and it was pure pleasure.
	She must have spent a good hour just riding me through my briefs, grinding herself against me, moaning and breathless, until we were both covered in sweat and had each climaxed at least twice (I think it was more like a dozen times for her).  We finished the night with separate showers in the locker rooms and a little nighttime swim.  We had the pool all to ourselves.  God, it was so romantic, splashing around in the water with her so close, the only light coming from the underwater floods, one at each end of the pool, although I think we were emitting some light of our own from the afterglow.  It must have been almost 11 pm by the time we were busted by Marjorie, standing there with her hands on her hips and lips pursed, severely annoyed with me for letting Rose stay out so late on a school night.  I could only grin foolishly and promise not to let it happen again, and Marjorie just laughed it off, her annoyance seemingly vanished by my boyish charm (hah).
	Rose was like a kid with a new toy; she just couldn't get enough of it.  We rarely talked like we used to, because as soon as we were alone together, she was all over me.  We continued the dry-hump sessions for a couple of weeks, and probably would have kept it up, except that one night she told me she had just started her period and didn't feel up to a session.  I played with her a little through her underwear, and we fell to talking about her period.  After she had the first one, it had been almost three months before it happened again.  The next couple of periods after that were at least a couple of months apart, and she was noticing that they seemed to be settling into a regular rhythm.  The last two before this had been about 28 days apart (she had kept such a careful count, proud of herself for both her body's abilities and her attention to this detail), and the one that had started tonight was 29 days in.  "Guess I'm almost a complete woman now, right?" she teased, rubbing my thigh playfully with her knee and moving slowly closer to my crotch.  "If I wasn't having my period right now, do you think we'd be ready for it?"  I rubbed her shoulders and neck slowly, kissing her nose and closed eyelids while I considered my response.
	"The first time shouldn't be rushed," I said slowly, "the first time has to be magic, has to be starlight and rose petals and gently billowing curtains, since it will be a memory that has to last throughout your lifetime."  Her smile, and the look of love on her face when I told her that, was so beautiful that I almost got watery-eyed right then and there.
	The next night, Rose talked me into letting her repeat the blowjob she had started those several weeks before.  She wanted to suck me to completion, but I stopped her before I came, and she finished the job by hand, amused and amazed to see my load spurting out onto my stomach and chest.  She was so pleased by being able to witness her ability to make me cum that we actually gave up the dry-hump sessions as she repeated the performance every night for three weeks.  For the first dozen or so times, I just couldn't bring myself to cum in her mouth, and I always stopped her before I unloaded so she could finish the job by hand.  Strange, that I never had any such reluctance with Lilly.  Well, not so strange, I guess, Lilly was the teacher in that relationship, whereas here it was me.
	The time came, though, when Rose demanded the full experience, the feeling of me shooting into her mouth, so I eventually gave in.  The first time I did, I let her know when I was about to shoot, and she became much more vigorous, wanting to pleasure me to the greatest degree she was able.  When I finally did climax, her expression was priceless; her eyes got huge as she felt my juice shooting into her mouth, but she kept it up until she knew I was done, then spit it out into a tissue she had with her for that specific purpose, licking her lips as if to better gauge the taste.
	"Well," I asked, "what do you think of it?"  She had to consider for a few seconds, then said, "It was warm and salty, and gooey, sticky gooey like glue, it wasn't really like anything I've ever tasted before.  I think I liked it, but I'll have to try it a few more times to be sure.  And if I do, then I'll swallow it."
	Now it was my turn to pause and think for a few seconds.  "I'm not sure about that, sweetheart," I cautioned, "I don't know if that's really something you want to do."  As much as I had loved Lilly, there was just something unredeemably whorish about swallowing a man's load, and I didn't know if I was capable of thinking of Rose in that same whorish way.  In the final analysis, though, I had to admit that it wasn't up to me; if Rose wanted to swallow my cum, there wasn't much I could do to stop her.  I could only wait until the moment happened, and deal with it the best I could when it did; I didn't know at the time that the moment would leave me incapacitated and unable to deal with anything.
	The moment came one April night when we were out taking a stroll, enjoying the newly warming season.  We had walked to the Gas-N-Save station that sat on the entrance to the cul-de-sac where the complex was, for a tray of nachos and a couple of games of pinball.  Before we left, I bought each of us a hot dog, making her snort soda pop through her nose when I called them tube steaks, then we ate them as we slowly strolled back through the gloom of early evening, down the street that dead ended in front of the manager's office.  When we got back, Rose took me by the hand and pulled me behind the row of garages that sat next to the office; we were in a narrow space between the buildngs, just big enough for the two of us to walk side by side.  Still holding my hand, Rose pulled me around a bend in the space that completely isolated us from any outside eyes, then stopped and turned to me.  "That tube steak was good," she grinned in the dusk, "I think I'm ready for another one."  Before I knew what she was about, she had dropped to her knees and pulled my pants and underwear down in one smooth motion.  I was still soft when she took me in her mouth; that lasted about two seconds, and I got a full, raging erection faster than I ever had in my life.  Then she was sliding her tongue up and down my stiff member, licking and sucking, teasing my balls with her fingers.  I remember glancing up nervously, trying to see if there was any way we could be seen by anybody; we were completely concealed between the buildings, and only somone walking directly down that little space toward us would have seen us.  Her mouth was wet and incredible, and as I realized I was almost ready to explode, I also realized what she was doing and why.  As her fingers slipped down past my balls and worked their way back between my thighs, her wriggling fingernails touched what felt to me like an electric wire that had been jammed between my legs.  As the orgasm overwhelmed me and I shot my load, she was ready, her warm, willing mouth covering the head and aborbing my spurt.  She gagged just a little, then hit her stride and swallowed every last drop, milking me with her mouth and keeping up the pressure with her fingernails on that little magic button, as if she might be pushing the last little bits of cum out of my balls, until my legs turned to jelly and collapsed.  Before I knew what had happened, I was laying on my back, looking up in wonder at the little strip of stars that showed between the buildings, trying to catch my breath while the aftershocks raced the length of my legs and made little lightning strikes up my spine.  She climbed on top of me and nestled my still throbbing organ between her thighs, laughing and coughing.  "I made you fall down!" she whispered delightedly, "I sucked you dry and you fell down!"  I could only grunt in response.  As good as Lilly had been, as many times as she had sucked me off, it had never felt anything like this.  I heard myself breathing as I lay there, and still the aftershocks were jolting me, sending electric blasts through the area beneath my balls.  I could only guess that she had somehow triggered something in my prostate that kept sending rushes of pleasure for long minutes after the orgasm.  It was an altered state, like being high on a drug.  All I could do was lay there and twitch and breathe for such a long time that Rose started to get worried about me, then scared she had damaged me somehow.  With a supreme effort, I took her hand and squeezed, and managed to give her a weak smile, and after another few minutes I was able to sit up.  "My God," I told her, "that was the most intense thing I've ever felt in my life.  I don't think I could stand that on a daily basis, my heart would explode!"  Rose just grinned manically, and I could see she was taking careful note for future reference.
	It wasn't all one direction, no it wasn't.  I performed orally on Rose at least every other day, replaying our first encounter, with my mouth travelling the length and breadth of her body and always ending up with my tongue deep in her valley, great handfuls of my hair between her grasping fingers as urged me on, panting and shaking and cumming in my mouth with her delicate spicy essence, her thighs battering my ears and her heels pounding me on the back (a strangely relaxing pummeling).  These sessions were usually exciting enough for me that I wound up cumming along with her, ejaculating without ever touching my penis, simply reaching a spontaneous orgasm from the sheer thrill of making her feel so good.  When I pointed this out to Rose, she just touched my face and whispered, "It's love, you dope, love that's giving us all this happiness.  I love you, Jack, with all my body and soul."

21
...A fat pink cloud hangs over a hill, unfolding like a rose, if you hold my hand and sit real still, you can hear the grass as it grows... It's a hazy afternoon, and I know a place that's quiet 'cept for daisies running riot, and there's no one passing by it to see... Lazy Afternoon  (Vanessa Williams)

	As the weather warmed and spring moved in to stay, the savage thrill, the raw newness of sex that made her want it constantly, had begun to fade, to be replaced by a gentler rhythm that had less to do with animal lust and more to do with lifelong friends who shared the most intimate part of each other.  We still did it every day, and sometimes two and three times a day, but it no longer had the urgent, almost manic quality of pounding down shots of tequila; now it was more the tender, quiet loveplay of soulmates who savored each moment like fine wine.
	We started riding our bikes again.  Rose had discovered a hiking path that intersected with Griffin Ridge, and we rode down it into the newly greening woods that wound between the river and the interstate, stopping occasionally to share something we'd seen with each other, or to briefly embrace and steal a kiss before moving on down the path.  There were a few empty patches here and there, areas devoid of trees for a space of perhaps 20 to 30 feet across, with a wealth of long, yellow grasses that surrounded the tiny path on either side.  As we came to the edge of one of these clearings, Rose stopped and climbed off her bike, letting it down gently to rest on the soft ground where the grasses started.  I did the same, and taking my hand to pull me along, Rose led us into the middle of the clearing, where we lay down in the long grass next to each other.  The warmth of the sun on our bodies was a perfect counterpoint to the sound of highway traffic some 60 or 80 feet above us and the constant rush of the river, not two minutes' walk from where we lay.  Rose wiggled out of her pants and tucked the hips of her panties up to simulate a high-cut bathing suit, then pulled her shirt off and unhooked her bra, but left the bra covering her breasts as she lay down in the meadowlet.  "Trying to get a jump on some swimsuit tan lines," she grinned up at me.  Leaning over her, I could see only now in the full sunlight a faint sprinkling of freckles across her chest.  I'd never seen this part of her in light this strong.  I idly traced the pattern of the freckles and must have tickled her, because she giggled and pushed my hand away.  "They've been fading for a while now," she explained, "and I think they'll probably be completely gone in another year or two."  She reached up under my t-shirt to rub my chest.  We spent an idyllic hour or so, softly kissing and teasing, idly stroking, with no sense of urgency or need to do anything more than what we were doing, and no pressure of any kind to perform or move on.  We repeated the experience often throughout that spring and summer, just holding each other close and being with each other.  If there is any kind of Heaven, and we are allowed to have any say in what it's like for us, and I am not turned away at the gates, then I think those hours we spent together in the grass comes closest to what I would want my Heaven to be like.  I was so in love with her, and she with me, that everything was right between us, everything flowed, everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.  It was a sweet spot, a pocket of such utter divine bliss that we knew we had arrived in each other's hearts and found we were in exactly the same place.