Perhaps it’s Better this Way

	I first met the woman with whom I was later to spend a great deal of time at a conference of our company’s mid-level executives. I had seen her several times before but had no idea that she was an executive. She had always dressed  rather simply but in good taste, unlike some other “secretaries,” as I at first thought she was.
	Her name was Alyson Catterall, as I learned while we chatted during one of the breaks interspersed in the all-day conference. She was in Personnel, and I learned afterwards that she’d had an impressive record in basic research before she was promoted to a higher staff position in what appeared to me to be an incongruous department for a person with her abilities.. The person who told me about her was of the opinion that she was going far, and seemed to be a bit enamored of her. Several others with whom I casually spoke of her, men and women...all seemed to regard her with great respect, although no fondness—what can I call it?—a sort of reverent jealousy?
	Over the next few months...I had little to do with Personnel, being deep in R&D...I thought about Ms  Catterall rather more than our casual acquaintance seemed to justify. Three or four times I dreamed of her, and I always awoke with a throbbing erection, although I could recall no erotic content to any of the dreams. Rather I seemed to see her always fully dressed, an object of desire, true, but not of the same intense sexual desire with which I had always regarded attractive women in my lifetime. 
	Alyson seemed to be on some sort of pinnacle, well above me, but, I was convinced, certainly attainable if I did...what?...I did not know.
	Now, although Alyson was strangely attractive, I could not say that she was beautiful. Just the same, she had a certain élan which made her the center of interest wherever she happened to be. She was about five foot six tall, a rather reasonable 35" bust, a narrow waist, slim hips, long legs...at least she gave that appearance.
	Her hair was a ruddy brown, not quite auburn, which she wore to her shoulders in a casual wave which never seemed to be mussed. I thought her eyes were deep blue, maybe green or hazel; I was never sure, later.
	In June of the year in which I met Alyson I won a relatively modest amount in the state lottery, yet an amount which made it possible for me to “retire” in some comfort for the rest of my days. I made no such decision at once, I assure you, but remained more or less content with my position in Research. I was well set after the various taxes had been paid and I did purchase a comfortable small home well out in the country, carefully away from any large forest areas but close to the commuter rail line, a new, not very flashy medium sized car and a few appurtenances which I had always wanted but never felt that I could afford. For convenience I continued to use the rapid transit system to commute, rather than pay $25.00 a day for parking.
	Perhaps three weeks after all the hoopla over my winning this lottery had died down, I got a call at the lab from...of all people...Alyson.
	I was a mite suspicious of a possible “gold digger” motive at first, but she made no mention of that, rather her question...her information...concerned a course which she said I could take at company expense on a certain aspect of our R&D in which I was very interested. I asked the normal questions: Take my own car? Travel expense reimbursed? Per diem? She answered all with no hesitation, but at the end she said,
	“Mr Newnan...d’you mind if I call you Bob?... please call me Alyson. There is another course being given by the same institution at the same time as yours. My boss thinks I should take it. If you intend to drive...and that is what you indicated...would I incommode you if I asked to ride with you there and back?”  
	I was a bit flattered and I hardly hesitated to assent. The trip would take two days one way (the company did not like us R&D people to fly), so she had allowed me sufficient travel time and I intended to stop over at a hotel I knew well. I mentioned this to her and she said something that quite astounded me.
	“In that case, Bob, we won’t need two rooms, I’ll bunk in with you...all right?” That shook me up, I can tell you. It also began to get my hopes and other things up.
	“Why...if you don’t mind, Alyson, why should I?”
	“I don’t mind, Bob. You needn’t worry about me, I can quite take care of myself. Make sure that’s twin beds, eh?”
	“Sure. O K, see you Tuesday, ten o’clock in the ‘wedding cake.’ I’ll garage my car there.” We called the many floored parking facility next door that, originally a joke, then a designation. 
	We met as planned. I’d had a busy morning already, and I could tell that Alyson was as glad as I to be leaving the city. We hit the Interstate quickly, there being  little...well, comparatively little...traffic at 10:30  on a work-day. By late lunchtime, about 3:00, we had covered about 265 miles and we were both ravenous. I pulled off the interstate into a truck stop I remembered as being clean and serving good, plain food. Alyson seemed to enjoy that, as well as the beer apiece...draft, too...that I’d ordered.
	“I was wondering if you liked beer. I don’t know why I thought you did.” I grinned at her, very satisfied with the lunch...and with my proximity to Alyson.
	“Yes, I like beer a lot. This is a good brew.  Think it’s odd for a girl, do you?” she answered. 
	“You’re not an ‘odd” girl, Alyson, but you are a bit out of the ordinary....a good bit, if you don’t  mind my saying so.”
	“Yes, I am a great deal out of the ordinary, Bob. You  may discover that...sometime.” She smiled and rose, ready to go. 
	I suggested the restrooms, and she grinned and said, 
	“Yep. I assume they’re as clean as the food was good?”
	“Certainly the men’s room is.”
	“O K, meet you at the car.”
	We seemed to hit a spot of luck that afternoon and early evening, for we made a bit more than 200 miles before we reached our night’s stopping place, the Hotel Curzon, at about 7:30. We had a drink and a light supper and went to our room.
	“You first, Alyson?” I offered, tentatively.
	“Thanks. D’you mind if I take the bed closest to the door?”
	“No,” I grinned, but I wondered why.
	Normally I’d be sleeping in my skivvies, but since I had known I’d have Alyson with me I’d brought along a pair of light weight pajamas, short sleeves and short bottoms.
	I was sitting in just my trousers and underwear on the bed next the window looking down at the street when Alyson opened the bathroom door and came back into the room. I turned and saw that she was in a semi-transparent shortie nightgown that barely covered her upper thighs. The light from the bathroom — I had turned off all but one dim light in the bedroom — outlined her gorgeous body as though she were wearing nothing at all. I could see that her pubes were shaved bare!
	“Good...God, Alyson!” I said, extremely startled and already rigid. I was too startled to realise that I had risen...in shock, I suppose...and my erection poked forward in my trousers like a tent pole.
	“Well...didn’t you think I was expecting this, Bob?” her voice was teasing, her gaze quite calm. She had not looked at my erection, as far as I could tell.  
	“But...but...I hadn’t thought you were...I don’t understand....”
	“Yes, you do, Bob. We’re here together, well rid of the company’s rules and regulations, we have nine days alone, with nothing to do but get better acquainted.”
	“But...we have courses to attend...they’ll note our absence and report....”
	“No, there will be no report, Bob. The courses were to be given, true. They were canceled just before we left, too few signed up, and I’m the only one in the company who knows, Bob.” She laughed. 
	“And no one else will ever find out, you see, for I fixed that very carefully. We don’t even work for that company any more, Bob. As a matter of fact, we aren’t even...no, not yet. Nobody will miss us. You...work for another boss...me!” 
	That statement, with the odd hesitation,  dumbfounded me for a moment. I had no idea what to say...Eleven hard working years down the drain? My 401k? How dare you? Who are you to...?
	No, none of that came from my mouth. 
	Alyson murmured, “You’d be the better for a shower, Bobby. Get good and clean, hear?” 
	I went at once to the bathroom, my penis erect and throbbing, but I managed to finish undressing and ran the water good and warm. There was a bar of soap in the trough and a loofah, so I made considerable use of both to get myself as clean as I could. I think as I dried myself I squeaked a bit. My erection had softened.
	Alyson had obviously heard me shut off the water...she allowed me about five minutes’ drying time until she called softly,
	“Don’t bother with pajamas or anything, Bob. Just come on out as soon as you’re dry.”
	I came out, my penis beginning to rise again and she said, smiling,
	“Lie on the bed, Bobby. I’ll rub your back with this lotion. It’ll help relax you and will make you feel wonderful.”
	Well, she slathered what felt like a huge gob of cool stuff on to my back and began to massage it into my skin. I could smell something slightly familiar and at the same time very odd, and I noticed that her hands were rocking me slightly so that my penis was rubbed ever so lightly against the smooth coverlet of the bed. That simply made me harder and more and more horny, but I could not roll over while she massaged more of the stuff into my shoulders, back, butt and the backs of my legs. It did feel good, she was right about that.
	Her hand, as I rolled onto one side in response to her massaging, suddenly slid across my belly and touched my penis. I felt as though she had taken me to paradise as she murmured into my ear,
	“Roll over, Bobby. I’ll rub your front, now.”
	When I rolled, my penis sprang free and stood erect, longer and thicker than I remembered it. I could not move more than from side to side as she poured more of whatever goop she was using onto my chest, belly and legs and began to massage all across my front. Normally that would have had me, ticklish soul that I am, kicking and screaming at her to quit, but I said nothing — it felt so good — as she continued to rub and stroke me. Every now and then she’d touch my penis and it would jerk and stiffen even more. I felt as though I was going to climax if she were to touch me again, yet I awaited each touch. I could do nothing whatever under her hands. My chest began to itch a little bit, there was a feeling of swelling and a kind of stretching, but it was a pleasant feeling and I lay there half asleep and quite content.
	“D’you like this, Bobby?” her smooth, oh so smooth voice asked.
	“Ye-es, Alyson, yes.” That seemed to be all I could think, all I wanted to say — “yes.”
	“Good. Your body is ready and I am ready, Rob. Now we’ll make long, slow love, Robby, in the ways I direct.”
	My mind and my body were certainly all for that. I could feel my penis jerk and stiffen each moment although she had not touched me again since she had asked me if I liked what she was doing.
	I could not tell then, and I could not tell you now, if she actually spoke aloud to me or whether she used some kind of telepathy. Whatever, my mind and my body received commands or impulses to do thus and so, and my body did thus and so. I know that I kissed her mouth with great desire, slid my tongue in and wrestled with hers, experiencing more and more anticipation and lust as I did so. I kissed her neck fervently. My mouth slid down to her perfect breast, which I encompassed and sucked lightly and then harder with my tongue moving lasciviously over her burgeoning nipple until I felt as though my mother were feeding me. Indeed, I vaguely remember some fluid entering my mouth but I had by then begun to slide slowly down her body, my mouth imprinting kisses and little suction marks on her soft skin as I went. I reached and explored her navel. It tasted wonderful, like some exotic fruit, changing slowly as  I sucked and swallowed to tingling mint which seemed to refresh me as I pursued my goal, the juncture of her thighs and her lowest belly. 
	While I kissed and sucked my way down Alyson’s exquisite body, she — something, certainly — was massaging, stroking, touching me all over my body, one second stroking my sack and penis, another second my back, the next my front — how? I was pressed tightly against Alyson, I thought — sometimes making me jerk with sexual pleasure, sometimes calming me after such an involuntary start.... 
	The odor of Alyson was beckoning, sweet, salty, intensely warm and invitingly female as I neared her crotch with my seeking mouth and tongue. Above, she uttered small moans and sighs as her hands stroked my hair and head, while something still titillated my body as before. I thought I felt my penis throb more than once inside me and that I had begun to ejaculate, although my balls were drawing into my belly from the sexual tension under which I happily labored. My mouth connected with that fold of flesh which gathers at the top when a woman’s thighs are fairly tightly held together, but Alyson immediately relaxed the tension and my mouth slid easily sideways across her smooth, hairless labia and my tongue slipped between those exquisite lips and initially tasted that which I had spent such a delightful time attaining.
	The fluids which awaited me laved my seeking tongue, and I heard Alyson’s long-drawn sigh and moan of appreciation as I slipped my tongue farther into her slippery vagina. I felt the tiny, rigid  knob just above my tongue tip, and placing my fingers softly on her labia I drew them slightly apart and upward to more fully expose the epicenter of her sexual being.
	Alyson’s legs tightened around my neck and she squeezed and relaxed them as she humped her mound at my face, never coming close to hurting me, but causing her mound and her exposed clitoris to swell into my appreciative mouth, which covered the entire root of her desires.
	“Ooh, Robby, you are so rough!” she murmured above me.
	I took my face from between her legs, dampness streaming down my chin, and asked,
	“How am I rough? I’m trying to be as gentle as I know how.” My voice sounded strange.
	“Your beard, Robby. We’ll do something about that later. Please...please, lover, keep doing that for now.”  
	I was wildly encouraged by that “please, lover” bit and re-applied myself to my suckling with increased pleasure. I could feel my own genitals beginning to tighten and knew that if I could hold off for a moment or two I would have Alyson in ecstasy.
	Sure enough, in a moment she began to thrash and twist above me, her thighs clamping harder on my ears while I increased the rhythm of my licking, concentrating on her clitoris until she groaned and spasmed wildly, her fluid coating my tongue, my lips and most of my face, not to mention two of my fingers.
	I had not realised that I’d had those two digits inside her, but that must have assisted her orgasm, for she was sobbing “Robby,” over and over, as her spasms grew less intense and she seemed to be settling down. 
	Suddenly I must have hit another special spot, for she spasmed again and new essence coated my expectant face. I licked and swallowed it with gusto, the taste causing me to think that my penis exploded at that instant. As it was, I rolled over exhausted, and Alyson kissed me on my mouth, the taste like some exotic fruit which made me dizzy for a second.
	“Liked that, did you, Robby?” For the first time I noticed without rancour that she was calling me by my “baby” name, one that I had not heard for many years and then only from my mother when she was being tender with me.
	“Yes, Alyson, I...loved it.”
	“You are good at cunnilingus, Robby. I think you will get better as soon as we take care of that remnant of beard . I’m sure of it.”
	Thoroughly confused, I answered muzzily, “Oh, I wou’ like tha’, Awyson, anythin’ tha’ll p’ease you as much ’s jus’ now.”
	“Why, Robby! What happened ‘just now?’”  She sounded truly astonished.
	I thought we’d been lying down, but we were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, our arms around each other’s waists. I could feel that my waist was small and firm. 
	“Didn’t we...I mean...you said that I was very good at...what was I very good at, Alyson?”
	“You’ll just be better, Robby, don’t worry your head about it. Now, let’s take a shower, we’re hot and sweaty from all that hard work.”
	Well, I thought I remembered doing something that took a lot of energy and was maybe “sweaty,” I felt momentarily exhausted, knowing that I had lost an indefinite something, so a shower certainly sounded good to me. 
	While we were in the shower I washed Alyson’s back and front with no lust in my mind as she did the same for me. I felt just the pleasant brush of the washcloth over my refreshed and curvaceous body, and the thrill in my body as she washed my breasts. We patted each other dry and Alyson remarked,
	“I suppose we’d better get something to eat, eh?” and I agreed. 
	The meal was excellent, well prepared and wonderfully cooked, yet when we had finished I could remember only the French toast and coffee.
	“You know, Roberta,” she said quietly as we walked to the elevator, “I think we’ll have a week...or more...of enjoying each other with considerable pleasure.”
	“I’m sure we will, Alyson.” I was not particularly excited, nor sure of what she meant by the words, and asked casually,
	“When do I start work on the project, Alyson?” I must have been excited, for my voice again sounded a good bit higher pitched to my ears.
	“Oh, the main project has begun, but your particular part of it begins when we get to the room, Robbie. You don’t mind if I use your nickname, do you?”
	“No, no, I was surprised when you were so formal after...the...meal.” Now I could not remember what meal it was. “Good lord, Aly, we’ve been close friends for a long time...since high school, isn’t it?”
	“Fellow cheerleaders, ever since JV squad,, Robby. You made Tim Owings before I did, but I got him away from you before we found ourselves again, right?”
	Although I nodded acquiescence, I wondered dimly why we’d had to discover anything “again” and for a moment or two I tried to figure out why I had “made”  a boy in high school. As I now recalled, Alyson and I had admitted our mutual attraction to each other while we were eighth graders, and although we had later gone to the Senior Prom and other school dances with boys, gays if we knew one, that was for appearance sake...there had been no tolerance for same sex lovers in that school and the “boys” had been as happy as we. 	But...I couldn’t really remember any “Tim Owings.”
	I noticed a change as we walked into our room...what was so different about it?  It did not seem to be on the same floor as that we had left before...breakfast, was that the meal we’d just eaten? I started to mention the double bed to Alyson, but then decided my worry was just caused by a memory lapse. My breasts seemed slightly heavier, and I had an insistent tickle between my legs. 
	For just an instant then I felt as though I were two people...one, as if in a dream I was a male engineer supposed to be attending some conference that I could not quite recall...the other, walking alongside my girlfriend, the person I knew I was, Roberta Newnan, very much in love with Alyson Catterall since eighth grade, close friends and lovers since high school.
	I recalled our college days—where had that been?— the fun we’d had as roommates, studying together, comparing notes on the professors who’d tried to put the make on us and laughing at anything so silly,  making long slow love on week-ends, hiking all over the countryside—what countryside? We’d gone to university in a big city, hadn’t we..?—exploring everything, including  each other. 
	Slowly, but more and more clearly, I was remembering the day that we “came out” to her parents, and the shock and then acceptance from my mother, a widow and my only living relative. I had worked my way through to a degree in...what? I had a vagrant memory that Mom and Dad (!) had supported me through to graduation with a degree...in engineering? 
	Could not have been like that, my mind was telling me. Now I remembered Doctor Finneman, the chairman of the economics department, when she congratulated me and Alyson on our GPAs, first and second highest in the entire college, each of us summa cum laude. But that had been at a city university, surely?
	I started to ask my lover, but something kept me from completing any more thoughts concerning my past. What did it matter? Alyson, I intuited, did not want me disturbed with such thoughts, so I was not. All I wanted now was to be between her legs with my tongue tasting that nectar as it slowly coated my tongue and face, her rigid clitoris tickling my upper lip as I suckled at the person who gave me sustenance, love and direction.
	Alyson lay naked, sprawled across the queen bed—had there not been twin beds before? When was that?— and beckoned me. Oh! she was  so alluring! As  I placed my knees each side of her head, bowing my head slowly to her exiting scent and waiting labia, my busy fingers preparing the way for her, I mentally felt the pleasant touch of her lips and tongue soon to be caressing my labia and our slow and loving progress toward mutual climax. 
	For a second, a flash of disorientation—is this me? — which quickly passed...no matter, I no longer felt any regret for anything. It was better that way.