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  This story is part of a series that I've entitled 'Seasons'.  The
series as it stands so far:

 1. Hazy Shade of Winter
 2. Summertime Blues
 3. Season of the Witch
 4. April Showers
 5. The Cruelest Month
 6. The Real World
 7. A Time to Cast Away Stones

Email is always appreciated.  In fact, it provides a large part of
my incentive to write.  :-)

Hawkeye
_______________________________________________________________________

  Do me a favor, and only redistribute this with the following notices
attached.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance between the
characters herein, and any real people living or dead, is purely
because I draw from many sources, real and imaginary.  Chew on that.

(c) 1993 Pure Blue Enterprises.  All rights reserved.  Explicit permission
granted for electronic re-distribution, without changes.


[v1.0]
                    A Time to Cast Away Stones
                      (part 7 of 'Seasons')
                           by Hawkeye

  The summer went pretty fast, as they all seemed to.  In September,
the company picked up a big contract that they had been angling for
since the previous January.  We suddenly had more work than we could
reasonably do.  They extended our hours, and the pressure at the
office started to become uncomfortable, and then unbearable.  I was
constantly in a foul mood, and Jen and I started to fight.

  Or I should say, we started to fight more often.  We'd had a somewhat
rocky relationship right from the start.  I had always been pretty
easy going, but she had a way of pressuring me -- by insisting that
nothing was wrong -- which for some reason infuriated me.  This began
to happen more and more often as the problems at work frayed my
nerves.

  In December, the merry season of Christmas rolled around, bringing a
stocking full of aggravation for me.  Jen and I had vastly different
religious backgrounds.  For all her kinkiness and easy attitude
towards sin, she still had the remnants of a Catholic upbringing, and
she took Christmas, both the religious and secular aspects, quite
seriously.  I didn't, plus I was going mad at work, and didn't care
to be nagged about my lack of interest.

  The last straw came one friday night, when she was putting together
an artificial tree in the living room.  She had the top-piece in her
hand, and asked me to put it on the tree, so she wouldn't have to
fetch the ladder.  I frowned at being interrupted out of my reverie,
in which I was tearing apart the customer liaison who seemed to shift
every complaint about my department right onto me.

  I grumbled something about "why could anybody care about putting a
plastic tree in the living room".  She said, in a sullen voice, that I
_would_ care about it, if I cared about her, but since I obviously
didn't...  well.  That was what finally shorted my fuse.  I blasted
out a lengthy tirade about "god-damned feminine illogic", and topped
it off with an exhortation to take her Christmas tree and all her
other "stupid fucking pagan idolatry", and shove it up her ass.

  She stared open-mouthed at me, too aghast to say anything.  Then she
erupted with hurt and fury, and she hit me across the side of the head
with the top-piece of the tree.  The "needles" stung my skin, enraging
me.  I smacked her open-handed, knocking her back onto the couch.
Then I got on top of her, pinning her throat with one hand, and
raising the other to strike.  She closed her eyes and tried to turn
her head away, her face contorted in a grimace of fear.

  I stopped, my heart pounding furiously, and my breath hissing
dangerously between my clenched teeth.  Suddenly, my eyes were hot and
burning.  I let go of her throat, and slumped against the far armrest
of the couch, sobbing and squeezing my eyes shut to try and stop the
tears.  I heard her get up and run out of the room.  I didn't care
if she called the cops on me, or went and got a gun to blow my head
off.  I sat there, wallowing in misery and belated regret.  The front
door slammed.

+++

  Several hours later, I was drunk for the first time in months.  Not
really stinking rotten drunk.  I'd learned that lesson all too well in
college.  But just wasted enough so that I didn't care that my life
was a fucked up mess again, or that everyone at the company was going
to hear about what an asshole I was, or that I thought they probably
ought to.

  I heard the front door open, quietly, and close the same way.  I had
some moody music playing on the stereo, and all the lights were out in
the apartment.  There was still enough illumination coming from the
street lamps outside that you could see your way around.

  I heard her come down to the end of the foyer, which left her
standing in the entrance of the living room, right behind me.  If I
turned down the stereo, I would be able to hear her breathing.  I
would have liked that.  But it would mean moving, and I had decided
that I was never going to move again.  At least, not until I needed
another beer.

  "Sam?" she said.

  I took another swig of beer, as my way of saying, "I hear ya, babe."

  She walked over, and stood beside my chair.  I guess she was looking
down at me.  I didn't know; I had my eyes closed, and was rocking my
head slowly side to side with the music.

  "Sam?"  A little pause.  "Are you sober enough to talk?"

  I opened my eyes and looked up at her.  Her hair was glistening with
flakes of melting snow.  God she was lovely.  I cleared my throat.
"Hi there." She looked pained.

  "Sam, I--," she started.  She glanced out the window, and looked back
at me.  "I want you to move out."

  I knew that was coming, but my heart still fell, like a stone into a
bottomless well.  "I know." I said.  I closed my eyes and leaned my head
against the back of the chair.

  "I'm sorry, Sam.  I don't mean it the way you think."  She paused again.
"I want to keep seeing you, but we're going to tear each other apart if
we stay in this apartment together."

  I don't think most of that registered with me.  There was a really good
eerie guitar passage in the music, and I was following the notes like
colored points of light in my head.

  She sat down on the armrest of the chair, and pushed my unruly hair
away from my face.  "Sam... I love you.  I don't know what the problem
is between us.  But we need to be able to get away from each other
while we figure it out."

  "Sam?" she asked quietly.  "Are you listening?"

  I put an arm around her waist, and pulled her off the chair's armrest,
into my lap.  I hugged her close to me, and buried my face in her sweet
smelling, and slightly damp hair.  I kissed her ear.

  "Sam..." she murmured, and slid her arms around my neck.

  I hadn't intended to start anything.  But somehow the smell of her
skin, and the nearness and warmth of her body got past my alcoholic
depression.  Without really realizing how we had gotten that far, we
were kissing tenderly, like we were discovering each other for the
first time.

  I sort of felt that we shouldn't be doing this, since it was apparent
that we both had to do some thinking.  I thought that really, we should
talk about the future, and how we were going to work things out between
us.  But her lips were warm and soft against mine, and I decided that
maybe just kissing for a while was a decent compromise with my principles.

  I wasn't very happy with myself when, about 10 minutes later, I
wanted to feel her breasts.  I realized that my compromise was caving
in rapidly.  I mentally sorted through the different outcomes of this.
I knew damn well that if I put my hands on her breasts, I'd end up
wanting to take her to bed and make love all night.  In fact, I
realized, it was too late.  I already wanted to do that.

  Jen felt the change in me, as my kisses turned from a tender display
of affection, into a hungry effort to devour her.  She responded with
a hot ardor of her own that made my already unsteady brain feel
positively dizzy.  When she whispered "Let's go to bed," I put one arm
under her knees, and another around her torso, and lurched to my feet.

  Of course, I only fell back again.  I'm a fairly husky guy -- I can
carry Jen pretty easily.  But it was my balance, not my strength, that
failed me.  Standing up made me realize that I had drunk more than I
thought.  Jen got out of my lap, and helpfully pulled me to my feet.
"C'mon, you wino, you're not getting off that easy."  I followed her,
feeling alert but wobbly.

  We went into the bedroom, and took off our clothes.  By the time I
fumbled my way out of my pants and socks, Jen was already huddled
under the giant comforter.  Instead of getting in beside her, I
crawled under the blanket at the foot of the bed, and used her legs
to navigate towards the headboard.

  I got distracted by sightseeing along the way, though.  I bumped
into Jen's thigh, and decided that as long as there were such nice
warm, pleasant legs down here, what was the big hurry?  I scooted
underneath them, and came up between her thighs.  I bumped my head
against her groin as I got my bearings, and she laughed.

  I found the insides of her thighs, and kissed and licked at the
tender skin there.  Jen ran her toes along my back as I nibbled on
her legs.  She giggled when I tickled her bottom.

  Finally, using my hands to guide me in the darkness, I lowered my
mouth towards the thick patch of hair where her thighs met.  The
warm odor of her skin filled my senses.  I lowered my mouth until
my lips were brushed by the curls of her hair.

  I extended my tongue slowly, and touched her with the tip of it.
Her lips were warm and slightly musky, but she wasn't really aroused
yet.  Well.  I couldn't possibly let _that_ continue.  I drew back my
tongue, and breathed out, slowly and deliberately, onto her -- letting
the hot air saturate the curls of her hair, and flow across her skin.
Jen moaned complainingly, and wrapped her legs around my neck, using
her heels to pull me against her.

  I kissed the still-sealed lips of her cunt, and slid my tongue along
the crease between them.  I nuzzled her, torn between a desire to
tease, and a desire to open her and touch her soft inner flesh.  I
decided, and pushed my tongue through the folds of her skin.  I kissed
and pulled at her with my lips, licking the depths of her crease and
plying at her with my fingers and tongue.

  Jen always took a while to warm up, but I had more than enough
patience.  I stroked and lapped at her endlessly, leaving no part of
her untouched, until her moans finally turned from being just a polite
recognition of my efforts into a genuine plea for release.  The
familiar scent of her body rose in my nostrils, as her lips slowly
pouted open and her arousal became something that was hot, and musky,
and wet.

  She began to writhe her hips under me, rubbing her wet pubic hair on
my face, and pushing her engorged lips against my mouth.  I slid a
finger into her vagina, then another, and began to rub the inside of
her as well.  My face and hands, and the insides of her thighs were
slick with the evidence of her arousal.

  She wound her fingers into my hair, trying to pull me more
intimately against her, softly repeating my name over and over, with
small moans of pleasure.  We found an almost coital rhythm, as I used
my fingers and tongue ever more roughly, trying to push her towards a
climax.  She became incoherent, crying out "yes, yes" repeatedly as
she stroked my hair with her hands.

  Finally, I felt the trembling in her legs and torso reach a
crescendo.  I all but attacked her then with my fingers and tongue,
stroking her vigorously as she thrashed and bucked her hips, and her
cries turned into a half-suppressed scream.  I continued to work at
her slick flesh as hard as I could, until my tongue gave out.  Then I
masturbated her with my fingers, until she finally went limp under me,
exhausted and gasping for breath.

  I wiped my face in the sheets, and crawled out from under the
comforter.  I lay beside her, and looked at her face in the half dark.

  Jen looked back for a moment, then moved up next to me and kissed me.
Her skin had a sweet smelling sheen of sweat on it.  She ran her hand
sensuously over my belly.  "So," she said.  "Do you want to be on top
or underneath?" Then she ran her tongue along the edge of my shoulder,
watching me out of the corner of her eye.  "Or should I suck you?"

  She slid her hand under my shorts.  I couldn't help feeling a
little amused at her look of puzzled disappointment.

  "Sorry, hon," I apologized.  "I'm still half plastered.  I'll never
make it past half-mast." I grinned -- a little sheepishly -- as I
added, "Or even if I did, I'd never manage to get off."

  She gave me a cross look.  "Oh, yes you will, you sot."

  It turned out, she was right on both counts.

+++

  The next day, we were more at ease with each other than we had been
for the last couple months.  We had been up half the night making
love, and we were feeling sleepy and languorous.  We stayed in bed
all morning, just chatting and laughing quietly.  Neither of us
wanted to break the mood by bringing up the subject of our fight
the day before.

  Finally, I asked her, "So, what do you think of our chances?  I
mean, in the long run?"  She shook her head, as if she wanted to
bury her head in the pillow.  "I don't know!  I just don't know."

  It was arduous to discuss it, because neither of us really wanted
to.  But finally, we decided that I wouldn't move out after all.
I would try not to carry the baggage from work home with me, and she
would try not to ruffle me when I was obviously in a short temper.

  We both knew it was a risky compromise, but somehow our fight had
served to focus us on just what was wrong between us, and we decided
to give it another try.

  It worked out pretty well, actually.  I wasn't naturally an angry
person, and having it all out in the open made me feel a lot better.
The problems at work seemed to just roll off my shoulders; they
weren't really my personal problems, and that perspective seemed to
really set me free from their reign of terror over me.

  By the following June, our chief engineer recommended me for promotion
to project leader, and I got the job in July.  The responsibility was
greater, but I felt almost cocky, and capable of anything.  I was still
the lucky charm of the company softball team, too, and there were times
when I thought that Jerry, the general manager, was going to adopt me.

  Jen and I carried on with almost frightening ease.  We had a near
panic fit once, when she thought she had missed her period, but it
turned out to be a false alarm.  It got us to thinking a lot more
seriously, though.

  In late July, a little over a year after we met, we surprised
everyone -- or maybe no one -- by announcing our engagement.  I felt
like I had  never been happier.

+++

  When school opened in the fall, I went with a couple of people from
my project team to assist in the company's recruitment booth at the job
fair.  Jerry said that it was no good sending just personnel people
there; the graduating engineers at the fair would want to talk to
somebody who actually worked in the field.

  So, there we were, handing out brochures and talking to people
about how it was hard-but-rewarding to work with us, and all that
spiel.  I fetched another batch of brochures out of the van, and came
back to the booth.  I was getting out some papers which extolled the
virtues of our company health plan, when I looked up into the face
of Lisa Bradley.

  My heart stopped in my chest.

  "Lisa." I managed to say, when I finally found my tongue.

  "Sam."

  She looked beautiful.  More so than ever, despite some lines in her
face that suggested old worries, gone but not forgotten.  Her hair
was done up in a professional looking style.  I was thankful for that,
because if it had bounced, or if she had flipped it out of her eyes,
I know I would have broken down in tears.

  "So, how have you been?" she asked.

  I didn't know where to begin.

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