By Slowandeasy47 - Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

I had just left school at the age of nineteen and had a whole summer before starting uni in October. I was off to France for a month and in the 60s that was a big adventure, I couldn’t wait. Having been cloistered in a boys boarding school for the last five years I was now off to explore the world, well northern France at least.

We had relatives there and I was going to spend my first month in a chateau just outside Amiens. Chateau sounds very grand and thanks to TV, if not schoolboy French, it doesn’t mean castle. It in fact means a gentleman’s residence, substantial for sure, but no portcullis or draw bridge.

I had never met Tante Marise, nor stayed in a chateau, draw bridge or no draw bridge. France was a very formal place in the 60’s, actually it still is, so Aunt Marise was always addressed as Tante, or Tante Marise: never, ever simply as Marise, way too sloppy for the linguistically pedantic French. Although, interestingly enough, we did use the familiar tu, rather than the more formal vous form. One of those interesting vagaries of Roman languages.

Actually Tante Marise now lived in one wing of the chateau as the place was enormous and, even in the 60’s, quite unmanageable for a single family, so it had been divided into three, still substantial, homes.

The building was massively imposing. A classic Somme chateau with a hugely impressive double staircase to the centre section and two wings. Tante Marise lived in one of the wings and the rest had been sold off, but the land, an apple orchard, had remained in the family, largely for the private production of Calvados, which is the French word for brandy.

As I recall, in those days, you were allowed to make a certain amount of Calvados without a permit, as long as it was for private consumption, but definitely not for sale. My late lamented uncle Cyril had applied a certain French flexibility to the rules and there were stashes of this magic potion all over the farm.

The interest of the authorities had been distracted by his throwing of lavish boozing sessions with the local constables. Alas Uncle Maurice had passed away and I surmised that my board and lodging was something of a quid pro quo for helping with the harvest. I was only nineteen, so hard work didn’t worry me and besides they had one of those magnificent 60s French bicycles I could use in my spare time.

It was a Solex bicycle or something similar. It had a simple motor that you lowered with a lever onto the front tyre and no longer had to pedal. I could use it to go to the village or wherever I liked. It would never have crossed my mind to borrow the car any more than it would have crossed hers to offer it. That was not the way things happened then.

The great day came and the details of how I got to Tante Marise’s chateau are lost to the mists of time but arrive I did. My first introduction to her was of her grasping me by the shoulders, pulling me towards her and planting several kisses on each cheek, an uncommon greeting in England at the time, but very pleasant.

She was petite, with short dark hair and very square glasses. She was also younger than I expected. I never knew her age but I calculated it to be late thirties and I remember being surprised at how neat and trim her figure was, but most of all, how obvious her breasts were. They had actually contacted my chest during her enthusiastic greeting, which had been a delight.

Cyril & Marise had never had children and always enjoyed the visits from their nephews and nieces. Why it had taken so long for the English side of the family to visit is uncertain, but the recent visit was probably prompted by my impending university course studying French literature

I settled in and tried speaking French, probably with mixed success. Tante Marise herself was French, spoke pretty good English, but with that delightfully sexy French accent made famous many years later by the TV programme ‘Allo 'Allo.

However, part of the reason for my stay was to get my conversational French fluent, so she only allowed us to speak English after supper and, as no-one else on the farm spoke English, it was going to be a valuable experience.

It was a typically hot summer and Tante Marise liked to wear very light clothing, so my young eyes could hardly avert my gaze from her very obvious breasts. They were made all the more noticeable because of her habit of not wearing a bra.

This was a completely new trend at that time and usually only observed on the Riviera. Not so with Tante Marise, whenever she bent over in the orchards or the kitchen, her pendulous breasts undulated in the most delightful fashion and, I have to confess, featured heavily in my nocturnal fantasies.

Occasionally the farm foreman would come to supper and, after finishing off their meal with a glass of calvados, they would head to the 'Bureau’ to discuss business. Antoine was a giant of a man with huge hands, a great shock of white hair and a magnificent moustache, the kind you only ever see now in caricatures of French moustaches.

On these occasions I was left alone in the parlor to watch TV. French TV back in those days was much more risqué than its English equivalent and I was often treated to pictures of naked ladies, admittedly usually a rear view, but totally naked all the same.

How did the actor who was facing her cope with the pleasant distraction? He must have seen everything! And everything was beyond my wildest dreams. We must remember that this was the sixties, no internet and certainly no porn or even explicit magazines. I really can’t remember what we called female genitalia back then but it probably wasn’t as nice as my newly acquired French word, foufoune, or pussie; so I will use that.

One evening, when Tante Marise and Antoine were in the 'Bureau’ discussing business, I got so worked up by a really sexy French film, featuring a totally naked couple, that I made my way to my room to relieve the tension that the characters on screen had induced in my teenage penis or 'ma bitte’, which means ‘my dick’, as I had heard the actors calling it.

The route to my room took me past the 'Bureau’ and whatever they were discussing, it had little or nothing to do with the running of the farm.

Remember, I was only nineteen and had been at a boys’ boarding school for the last five years. I had no knowledge of sex whatsoever, except the purely mechanical process from biology lessons. The penis enters the vagina, semen flows, fertilisation takes place, et voilá, reproduction! The detail of what sex might actually be like was still a mystery and, I imagined, still several years in the future. The world was a much more naive place back then: much more.

I had never even seen a picture of a naked woman, let alone seen a real one, and my knowledge of breasts was limited to pictures in Health & Efficiency magazine, which was popular at the time.

Now, for the first time ever in my young life, I was hearing sounds that I only thought I understood. Tante Marise was using French words I hadn’t learned yet and so was Antoine! Their breathless exchanges along with the rhythmic squeaking sounds of the 'Bureau’s day couch were seriously erotic. Was this what fucking sounded like in real life? Was Antoine actually fucking Tante Marise? My, already eager, cock certainly thought so.

Just the other side of the door I could imagine Tante Marise, blouse open, those magnificent tits on display, lying back on the day couch with her legs spread wide, welcoming Antoine’s cock in her foufoune! Antoine for his part, I imagined, was clasping her naked buttocks in his giant hands as he thrust into her with rapidly mounting excitement. Fuck this was sexy!

I stayed as long as I dared, getting more and more excited with this unexpected introduction to the magic sounds of copulation. I could hear their breathing becoming more rapid, their words of encouragement getting louder, the squeaking rhythm accelerating and yes: I came in my pants!

I had hardly touched my cock but the sounds of two people actually fucking only a few feet away, combined with my boyish imagination, was more than I could stand.

I hurried to my room to inspect the damage. Wow, what a lot of cum! It had already soaked through from my pants and there was a large wet patch on the front of my trousers. What to do? I didn’t normally go to bed this early and I certainly could not go back to the parlor in these trousers.

I decided that getting into my pyjamas and going back down would be the best course of action, but first I put on clean under pants to keep my cock firmly locked up.

Back in the TV room Tante Marise reappeared after I heard her show Antoine out with a cheery,

“À la prochaine.” Or, until next time.

What? There was going to be a next time? Were they going to do it again? Anyway, she sat down beside me, made some comment about my getting ready for bed early and we watched the TV. I could not stop my mind from wandering.

She didn’t look any different! But she’d just been fucking! How could this be? She had just clearly enjoyed having Antoine thrusting between her thighs, an experience that I could only imagine, and here she sat as if nothing had happened. In fact, she seemed quite relaxed and serene, even.

I am not sure what I expected, but certainly not this degree of blasé normality. It was just as well that I had pants on under my PJs because, try as I might, my mind kept wandering back to the scene I had just overheard. My first real encounter with sex. OK so I only overheard them having sex, but the memory was enough to give me another erection: oh the power of recovery of the teenager! As soon as possible I made my excuses and went to my room.

I took off my PJs and pants and lay down on my back, stark naked, with my second erection of the evening. I felt the breeze from the open window playing on my naked body and, as the air wafted over my cock, and armed with a hanky, I set about re-playing the scene over and over in my mind.

Her naked breasts, what were they like to touch? Her foufoune, what did it look like? Antoine’s hands on her bum as he thrust into her, what did that feel like? For him? For her? So many questions, so many vivid thoughts and then, as I continued to bring myself to orgasm, as slowly as possible, so as to prolong the enjoyment, the sensations started again and I knew I was about to cum. A few more strokes and I came, not as much as earlier, but a thoroughly good, satisfying, cum none the less.

I cannot remember how often that memory played out in my mind over the coming days, but it was not infrequent! I could hardly wait until the following week, when I hoped there would be a repeat performance. For some reason the thought of Antoine’s massive hands clutching her pert little bottom still produces a stirring all these years later.

The harvest continued in the blazing summer sun and we always returned to the chateau hot and sweaty.

At the end of the corridor was the bathroom, which contained a magnificent, if somewhat antiquated, shower. Not one of those modern contraptions but something with more taps and valves than a First World War Submarine. It may have been antiquated but it was fantastically efficient. There were four vertical spray bars, with their independent controls and a drench overhead that produced a virtual tsunami.

It was great for cooling off after a day in the orchards, turn the whole contraption on cold and walk in. COLD, yes: Freezing? Nearly: but enormously refreshing and, much to my surprise, nearly always produced an erection which, as a teenager, I freely confess, I almost never wasted when I got back to my room.

The day’s work done, and getting ready for supper, I headed for my room, stripped off and wound a towel around my waist. What happened next changed my life, quite literally. I was half way along the corridor when the bathroom door opened. There, silhouetted in the doorway, was the totally naked form of Tante Marise.

The incident, although it lasted only a few seconds, stays with me yet. Unfortunately the bathroom window was right behind the door, so a silhouette was nearly all I saw, but there was enough detail to see that girls have hair 'down there.’ Not to mention that naked, unfettered, breasts have a motion all their own.

Taken by surprise, I turned politely to avert my gaze and Tante Marise, retreated into the bathroom, only to emerge a few seconds later, modestly wrapped in a large towel. We crossed in the corridor and she muttered.

“Désolé.”

Désolé! Why was she sorry for one of the most exciting moments of my young life. My embarrassment was only compounded buy my automatic response.

“De rien!” It’s nothing!

Nothing! I had just seen my first full frontal naked female and said that it was nothing! I had been so embarrassed, I hadn’t had time to think, so I scurried into the bathroom, turned on all elements of the shower to full cold, dived in and set to work on the erection that the combined effects of the cold water and the image of a totally naked Tante Marise had produced.

We overcame our embarrassment at supper by ignoring the incident and settled down to watch TV afterwards.

Antoine had not reappeared and over a week had passed. What a disappointment! I was not going to be treated to episode two of 'Tante Marise enjoys a noisy shag.’ Oh well, the flash of her naked body had made up for it and surely one orgasm an evening should be enough for any teenager, or maybe just one more when I get back upstairs?

This particular night produced another film in the series that had so affected me the previous week. More French erotica! But this time sitting next to Tante Marise, which made my excitement much harder to conceal.

As the plot developed it was quite clear that our heroine was about to seduce her co-star. Their clothes had been shed and the obligatory rear view of a naked woman advancing on her lucky prey, filled the screen. They were clearly just about to fuck.

This was getting difficult to deal with. I had not long ago seen Tante Marise in just such a state, but from the front. The whole thing, hair and all! But sitting next to her, watching this level of sexual activity had caused a predictable response from my young 'bitte’. It is very easy to forget how little it takes to provoke an erection in the sexually inexperienced.

Just as the sex act was about to take place, Tante Marise placed her hand on my knee, leaned forwards, turned and looked into my eyes with a beguiling smile and said.

“ Un peu racé, non?” A little racy? This was torrid beyond my wildest dreams. Then she stunned me by taking my hand and placing it on her covered breast. Not another word was spoken, she just lifted my hand and put it there. OK she had on a loose dress, but no bra. My first experience of an adult female breast. I probably made a mess of it, but it was so exciting, warm, soft and pliable with that little hard bud on the end.

What is happening? I would like to say that I played expertly with it, but that would not be true. In the actual event I summoned up all my courage and slid my hand in through the opening at the front of her dress. I touched a naked breast for the first time, and lightly ran my open palm over her nipple. It is hard to imagine now, after a lifetime of sexual activity, how exciting this was. Tante Marise, meanwhile slid her hand from my knee up towards my groin.

I do not know if I was normal or not, but stories of boys first time sexual encounters lasting for ages, or even minutes, just do not ring true to me. I am fondling my first breast and Tante Marise is sliding her hand up my fully clothed thigh. It got as far as my crotch, only just lightly brushed over my cock: the tension was unbearable. I came! She must have sensed the spasm of my orgasm as she leaned forward, kissed me on the forehead and said.

“I think it is time you to go to your room.”

The next morning at breakfast I just didn’t know where to look. I had stroked Tante Marise’s naked breasts the previous evening and had orgasmed in front of her. She was totally unabashed about the incident and even teased me by asking,

“So you had the pleasant dreams, no?”

The harvest progressed in the incessant heat. Showers were taken after the hot sweaty work, but the vision of a naked Tante Marise was never repeated. More TV programmes were watched, seldom as racy as that fateful night, but some were pretty hot.

By now we had reached a comfortable arrangement. If the film got raunchy she would take my hand and place it on her breast while allowing her hand to find its way to my crotch and I had mustered enough self control not to ejaculate on the spot. To be honest, usually by bringing myself off before going to the parlor to watch TV.

On my final evening, during a film, while I was fondling her breast and getting more and more excited, she completely threw me by asking directly.

“How is it that you like to make the masturbations?” The French language can be a little direct sometimes.

After the usual blustering and denials, she chided me by telling me that it was 'healthy to make the masturbations.’ Her openness on matters sexual left me aghast.

I eventually admitted that I did it lying on my back on my bed, with a hanky to make sure I didn’t leave a mark on the bedding.

My admission was met with one word, “Viens, which means come.”

She took my hand and stood up. I had to idea where this was leading but I had high hopes and so did my erection. We passed the Bureau, and climbed the stairs, we went past her room and along the corridor past mine, all the way to the bathroom at the end.

She opened the door and ushered me ahead of her, allowing the door to close behind us. She set the knobs and levers of the WWI Submarine which sprang into life, at which point she stood right in front of me, slid the straps of her dress over her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Tante Marise dressed only in panties!

Dressed only in panties, but not for long. She looked up at me with that wonderful smile and lowered them to the floor. I couldn’t help staring at the luxuriant dark triangle between her legs. Triangle, breasts, triangle, face, triangle! My eyes went berserk.

“Viens, viens. Clothes off!”

I struggled to get my clothes off with any degree of finesse, and getting my pants off, over my raging erection, while under the direct gaze of Tante Marise felt, as the French say, bizarre. Then there I was naked, standing beside my first totally naked female, who was also the first person ever to see my penis erect and erect it certainly was, the tip was all but touching my navel.

“This is special.” She said, as she took me by the hand and lead me into the steaming torrent. Water cascaded everywhere as she directed a soaping operation. We soaped each other under her expert instructions. I soaped her back and felt the glorious sensation of my hands flowing over her buttocks. She returned the pleasure. I never realized how sexy it felt when your buttocks got a soapy wash.

I could hardly wait to get to her breasts, they felt completely different with the water and soap flowing freely. Her nipples felt larger and definitely harder. She also allowed my hand to wander into the luxuriant triangle between her legs.

I really had only the vaguest idea of what I would find there. Biology books are not that informative, but the biggest surprise was to find that my finger slipped easily into her foufoune, which was unexpectedly slippery and welcoming.

I was extremely careful not to touch my cock and desperately hoped she would not touch it either, or I would cum on the spot. I just wanted this to go on for as long as possible.

It could not last for ever though, and eventually she maneuvered behind me with a hand full of soap, rubbed it gently over my chest and stomach getting tantalizingly lower with each pass. She pressed up against me and I felt the roughness of her mysterious dark triangle against my thigh. She stood on tip toes and breathed into my ear.

“Now you relax.” Her hand, full of soap, gently surrounded my cock and pulled the foreskin back with tantalizing slowness. This was not going to last for long, the build up had been too much. Try as I might, there was no stopping that primal sensation.

As she continued her expert manipulations, the sensation started low in my legs and climbed up the inside of my thighs. I had only had this feeling rarely but I knew it was soon to end in a sensational orgasm and this time it was no different.

My cock started pulsating in her hand as my young muscles squirted cum violently into the shower.

“Boom, boom, boom!” She exclaimed with each new ejaculation. “That is how to make the masturbations, no?” And kissed me on the back of the neck.

“Now you soap me the bum very slowly.” I did what I was told but, standing behind I couldn’t resist a breast as well. As I soaped away she seemed to take rather a long time and a great deal of care soaping her mysterious dark triangle. After a few minutes she gave a little shudder that I did not understand at the time and we left the shower together.

As I lay naked on my bed that night I noticed how brown my legs and chest were compared to my midriff and suddenly realised that Tante Marise was nearly the same colour all over: no contrasting white bits! The thought of what had just happened and her sunbathing in the nude provided the fuel for the final 'masturbations’ of the family part of my summer holiday.

The next day I departed for the south coast, and Barcelona, to further my informal studies.

By Slowandeasy47 for Literotica.

Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

Karen sighed, "Might as well. Let's go kill the libido of an entire civilization, Holland."

Holland

"Are

"Um;

"Hi Karen;” several crew members responded unanimously before Captain Hemsworth cut them off with a gesture.

"Um;

"Ellis?" Hemsworth asked.

Ellis

"It's

Captain

"Cobb

Holland

"What

"Oh, um; they were kind of uncomfortable, and they made it hard to hear what she was remembering, and;"

"You

"Okay,

"What

"Um; I don't know; we just talked and remembered; you know, she's really nice, if you get to;"

"Dammit,

Lieutenant

"Welcome,

"Excuse me?" Captain Hemsworth said, lifting his face from the floor.

"I

"Boring

"Well,

"Is

"Well,

"I don't believe this;” Hemsworth said, his eyes bulging, nostrils flaring. "We've sacrificed our lives for nothing???"

"Oh, I see where this is going;” Karen said to Holland, who seemed to be trying to assume a duck-and-cover position.

"How could you do this to us???" Hemsworth yelled.

"Use the diaphragm for projection, baby; you can do it;” Karen encouraged.

"I

Karen

Upon

"What?

"It's okay; it happens," Travis said, carefully.

"It

"Yeah, that should be no problem," Travis said, taking the money she offered. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Karen nodded, "I'm fine. I've just got some things to do. You've got a sweet heart, honey. Keep listening to it."

Karen

"What do you want, Karen?" Hailey's terse voice came through the doorbell.

"Oh;

"What do you want?" Hailey repeated.

"Um; I wanted to talk with you;"

"The

"You're

Karen

As

Karen

The

The

"Your

"Calvin

"Bernie

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Karen's

"I'm on opiates, baby. Bring it on;” Dana said, a smile moving across her face.

Karen's

Upon

"Raising kids; kneading dough; finding random women’s' panties when I changed sheets on the bed," Karen said, ruefully.

"Should've jumped Dean while you had the chance;” Dana murmured.

Karen bit her lips and closed her eyes. "Um; how; how is he?"

Dana

"Yes, ma'am," Karen said, blinking back tears and starting into "Great Balls of Fire."

The

She

"Country

Karen

She

She

"BUSTER,

A

"Well, I'll be damned;” Dean murmured, looking at the still-cowed Buster in wonder.

"Girl

"Bernese

"Judith's

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"Judith,

"Hello,

"She;

"That girl always did like winding you up," Dean laughed, lifting her up in his arms and carrying her into the house.

After

His

Dean climbed off her and shucked his jeans quickly, his erection bouncing out as he stripped off his underwear.

"Oh;

Dean

Before

Dean

"Kegels;

Dean

"Who says I'll be here in the morning?" Karen said, coyly.

"I

"Excuse me, but I have grandbabies, mister!" Karen said, "there's no way you or even my ex-husband are keeping me from them."

Dean

"I

"Nana

They

As

"Couple

"Magical

Dean

Karen

She

Karen

"What

Karen's

"How is that possible?" he murmured, looking down at her again with amazement.

"I; still remember my life and everything; I remember everything;" Karen began.

"Yeah,

"But

"Rewinders;”

"Zendaya," Karen corrected him.

"Right, Zendaya; wait," Dean said, turning her to face him, "Kare how did ‘you ‘; know her name?" he asked.

Karen blinked in surprise. "I; I just knew. Dean, how did I know that?" she asked.

"Do you; do you suppose we'll get old again if we take them off?" Dean asked, twisting the ring around his finger curiously.

Karen

Dean

Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

I

"I;”

"How

Karen

Cal

When

Castor,

Cal's

Everything

"What's there?" Holland asked, craning his neck to try to see what she was yelling about.

"Cal,

"His face appears still to be attached, to me;” Holland said, doubtfully.

"It's

"What happened?" Holland asked.

Karen

"Oh; was that bad?" Holland asked.

"No,

"Sometimes I wish our crew would see that I was worth something more;” Holland said, ruefully.

"Yeah;

Karen

"Hey;

"What

"I; uh; I played at the club tonight. Castor Graham was the opening act and he asked me to come up for the encore, so I did."

"You

"I

"God, I wish I'd been there. I'm so proud of you! What did Cal and the entourage say?"

"Um;

"Wait,

"I;

"Karen;

"Well,

"Oh,

"It's probably just a misunderstand;"

"And believe me, I'm sure he'll come back with some half-assed explanation, because that's what they all do;"

"And he tells me all the time that he;"

"Yeah.

"Cal isn't; it's probably just; something;” Karen whispered, biting her lips closed.

Dana

Holland jumped up and pointed excitedly at Dana. "She's right! When I met the Zendayans, my tongue swelled up and;"

"Are you listening to my story at all, or are you just fantasizing about pretty girls?" Karen huffed.

"Um; both?" Holland replied, smirking. "I mean, you and Dana were really pretty; and there's just one bed here, and;"

Karen shot him an exasperated look and he shrank back behind the bulkhead. "Anyway;” she said.

The

"Um;

Dana grunted and turned over, away from Karen. "Go do it for me; just say you're me again," Dana grumbled into her pillow.

Karen

The

"Thanks.

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"Oh; um, sorry," Karen said, flushing red as she glanced over at Dean's face. "I didn't mean to; um, I'll just go;"

"Lock the doors, and get us out of the city, Dean. She's coming with us," Dana ordered. "She's on asshole detox!"

Karen

"She

"Because She's Not A Drunk College Kid, Idiot!" Dana howled, holding her head in pain.

Dean smirked and started humming "Country Roads" to himself.

"I hate you so much;” Dana growled, pulling the bag of clothes over her head again. Dean only laughed.

After

Dean

Karen

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"Hm. Sounds like a story," he said.

Karen

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"Yeah.

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Dana

Dean

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"What are we looking for?" Karen asked.

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"She's

They

"Set;” Dana followed.

"Go!"

"It's a bear!" Karen yelled.

"Out!

Karen ran to the windows facing the clearing. "It's on top of him! It's trampling him!" she yelled.

Dana

A

"Nana,

Karen

Nana

"Oh,

"Well,

Dana

"Oh; okay," Karen said, wishing they could stay in the small, warm house in the hills instead.

While

"Caucasian

Nana

"Nah;

"Not

"You're

Boomer,

"Is

"If

That

"I can't drink all these;” Karen said, looking over the table filled with glasses with bewilderment.

"God,

"And

"Just for that, you have to do 10 pushups instead of taking a drink," Dana snorted. "I'll go first. Okay; never have I ever;”

"This could take a while;” Dean murmured to Karen, who giggled quietly.

Dana shot him a nasty look. "Never have I ever made out with Laura Drivers behind the activity bus after school!" she yelled.

Dean

Several

Dean

Surprisingly,

The

"All

Karen

Dean sat back down on the bench with a bounce and steadied Karen as she wobbled next to him. "Sorry about that," he said.

"No,

The

"Never

Karen

Dean

"She's

Karen

"No;

"Oh,

She

Karen frowned. "But then, I wouldn't have a home; a family;” she said, confused.

Dean

Karen

"You'll

Everything

"Did

"It

"I don't understand. How did you become The Karen if you married Dean?" Holland asked.

"I

"Disappearing didn't work?" Holland asked.

"I never got the chance to see. After the wedding, that weekend; I was pregnant," Karen whispered.

"What? Why did you make a baby with Cal when you loved Dean?" Holland yelled, outraged.

"I

"And then you destroyed him with your Karen powers?" Holland asked, sitting up.

Karen

"I'm

"Ensign

"Aye, sir!" Holland answered. Then, turning to Karen, "Are you ready?" he asked.

To be continued in part 3. Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by BBrixton, in 5 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

"Can

"No way, no fucking way I ain't risking my life like that." 

Figures. "Can you get a message out to the Guild again?"

"May fuck! Fuck you're tight; oh; Maybe. What should it say?"

"That; ah! That they're using Neural Climax Stimulators; NCS. It's Guild technology. And tell them we're both okay for now."

 Glail nodded and rammed his cock into my cunt deeper, letting out a deep, guttural groan.

"Umm; fuck; okay. Anything else?"

"No; oh;” I squealed. "Anything you can, oh; can tell me?"

"Actually there is." He said between deep breaths. "There's a local club, mostly rich kids. They have this; tradition."

"What tradition?"

"They

Almost by instinct I flexed my pelvic muscles around him. I squeezed his cock inside my cunt and his whole body tensed up.

His

Glail stayed on top of me for a moment, catching his breath.

The Slut with the highest total score; I

"Nice

"Please

"Come on, let's see if there are any more customers waiting for you." He said and I hurriedly got dressed.

"You

I glanced over at the screen and to my horror watched the latest stats for us.

My

If Elosia noticed anything off, she didn't show it. Glail grinned and looked bashful.

"So? Her pussy any good?" Plitrick asked. Glail glanced at me and raised his hand in a so-so motion.

"I've had better, but she's alright."

Inwardly

The

So

By the time lunch time rolled around my jaw was killing me, but when I looked at the displays it wasn't much encouragement:

Cocksleeve

W Y F A score: 29%

Pussy score: 9

Ass score: Not Available

Mouth score: 7.8

Total Score: 8.4

Cocks served: 13

I compared mine to Elosia's:

Semenface

W Y F A score: 40%

Pussy score: 7

Ass score: Not Available

Mouth score: 8.4

Total Score: 7.7

Cocks served: 10

The

"Okay

I got up, my knees and jaw were both quite sore.

"That

"You

"I

I exchanged awkward glances with Elosia but we smiled and assured her we were just trying to do our best and contribute.

CB

Elosia's eyes went wide and she immediately looked to the displays then back to me. "Do you know what score they go by?"

 I told her I didn't.

She

"El, no!" I said as quietly as I could; and explained I should be the one to do it, to which she immediately rebelled.

"After what you did yesterday, it's only fair that I take this one." She said

I retorted that I didn't want her to 'take' anything for me.

She, predictably replied that the feeling was mutual.

We

We

"How's that?" Elosia asked.

"Well the morning are all; you know; rough people. In the afternoon they usually bring in, well, erm; nicer people."

"'Nicer people'?" I asked.

"You

 "Line

"All

"The usual, Mister Felling?" she cooed.

Felling replied; “Yes.” and they disappeared towards CB's room.

Another man entered, a confident but friendly smile on his face and he nodded at Plitrick.

"Semenface?" he enquired and Plitrick pointed at Elosia.

"The skinny one, director."

"Wonderful,

"I have so very much been looking forward to this. To your chambers?" Elosia curtsied and escorted him away.

Finally

"Lady

"This is the new Cocksleeve?" she asked, agasp.

Plitrick confirmed that yes it was.

Carasina shook her head and seemed mortally disappointed but motioned for the two men to follow.

"Come

"Well, come along!"

"Crude. Very crude. Inelegant. But you'll have to do." She sat down; the room had two armchairs that faced the bed.

"I

‘Two boys as big as houses and they seem nervous’. I thought, but then had another thought; ‘But I've never been to a brothel where my mom went with me;’

"They

"Well,

"Eugh;

"Up

Ramba

Focusing

"No

It took me a little while to process what happened next.

Carasina,

"Mother!" Ramba moaned. "You promised you'd let her do it!"

"I know honey I just, umm, I just need to ‘smack’; show

Incest

To

I

Well,

"I

And

"I

I

I

"Mom

"Well,

Gently,

"What do you boys want?" I asked and they looked at each other.

"Mother; mother never;” Ramba started.

"She always makes us finish on our own." Dando filled in.

Of course. I thought, feeling my cum-filled stomach grumble again.

"Would you like to feel a girl swallow your cum?" I asked and they both nodded eagerly.

I

"Hmm; I'm lucky to get to; umm; be the first to swallow your load, Ramba." I said between sucking.

I

He

Behind me Dando moved.

"Is it my go now?" he said and then when I looked at him he raised both eyebrows. "Please?" he added.

I

Dando

This

I

"Oh

"Don't tell me you made that boy cum already?"

"I, yes I did, ma'am, should I not?"

"Mom she was great, she”

"Quiet!

Her

"I;

She

"Get back to work! Just don't spoil it for him like you did with Ramba!"

"Mom, she didn't”

"Hush,

Lady Carasina instantly shot up and got to her feet.

"Right,

"This,

"But

Dando

"Ah!"

"No! I do not condone that sort of behavior!" Dando looked disappointed but I soon took his mind off it.

I rode that boy as well as I knew how; and I know how

Soon

"Good

"Well I think he's ready again now." She said, wiping her mouth delicately. "Get to it."

So

"Right,

Lady

Cocksleeve

W Y F A score: 44%

Pussy score: 9.3

Ass score: NOT AVAILABLE

Mouth score: 8

Total Score: 8.6

Cocks served: 15

And Elosia's:

Semenface

W Y F A score: 45%

Pussy score: 7

Ass score: NOT AVAILABLE

Mouth score: 8.5

Total Score: 7.8

Cocks served: 11

Fuck! I

Plitrick caught me looking and grinned.

"Sorry

"Fucking hell!" Elosia whispered to me later, as we were exchanging stories. "That's; well, that's new."

"That's

"Still, if those boys come back and they like you; I mean, if their mom is some kind of big-shot around here;”

"They might be useful to us, yeah." I said. Something that had occurred to me after gathering my thoughts earlier.

We both glanced almost subconsciously at the displays.

Elosia's

"I

"Whatever

Many

Our

We were silent for a while. Somewhere further inside the sanctum CB whistled to herself.

"Would you like to be intimate later?" I asked.

"No, but I will be if you have a need of it." She replied.

 I considered it for a moment, examining my frame of mind.

"No. No, I asked for your sake."

"I was going to ask for your sake, too." She said with a kind smile.

Later,

Our

In

It

Finally

Outside

Then my door made the tiniest whisper of a noise as someone gently, gently opened it.

So it's me. I

Quietly,

"Get

"Hello,

"We're

"No

"Stay

"My

"Please! Please stop!" I said, faking tears which Prockas only laughed at.

"Shut

"Hey come on man, my turn!"

"Shut

"Get

Prockas

Finally

"I

I

I drifted off to sleep, far from relaxed but dead tired.

Based on a post by BBrixton, in 5 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

On the starship Onan, the Priamites dubiously watched the screen display the creature. Dr. Fehr's algorithm had brought them trekking across the galaxy to a smallish, blue planet around an unimpressive star. While there was no denying the power emitted by the angry, festering organic matter before them, the thought of containing it and bringing it back to Priam was daunting. Still, the fate of their world hung upon the success of their mission.

"Do we have; uh; audio yet, Lieutenant Cavill?" Captain Hemsworth said, pausing briefly to joylessly ejaculate into his cumsuit, which quickly reclaimed the essence he emitted and channeled it into one of the suit's containment pouches to be resorbed as nourishment.

Ever since the people of Eros had unleashed their horrific weapon on them, the Priamites orgasmed almost constantly. The Eros Curse, which seemed like a gift at first, became a tool of enslavement and oppression as the great Priam civilization devolved into listless people who passed the time sitting and staring at nothing in particular. Even special holidays were simply spent gathered in each other’s' houses, grunting intermittently. The children of Priam, spared by the curse of Eros by living in growth pods, were never exposed to the disease or its effects until the seemingly arbitrary age of 18, so at least there was no trouble with the censors. The demands of orgasming so frequently took its toll on the Priamite's bodies. Dehydration, muscle spasms, and fatigue were common. The effects on the mind were worse. It wasn't until the invention of the cumsuit, which not only reclaimed the fluid loss and prevented dehydration, but also reduced arousing sensations until the wearer was nearly numb, that it was possible for them to journey out into the stars in search of a cure.

Guided by the ancient journals of the revered Dr. Fehr, the Priamites had come to a small planet where it was foretold that there was a force of great and terrible power. It was hoped that this force could be used to break free of the cruel Eros Curse, but time was running out. Even wearing the cumsuits, the crew of the Onan, who were the most stoic, intellectual and sexless men of Priam, felt themselves progressively weakening to the Curse. It was only a matter of time until they lost all sense of duty and simply went adrift through the universe.

"No audio yet, Captain. The resonant frequency is so shrill that if we don't modulate the pitch; uh;” Lieutenant Cavill replied, closing his eyes and shaking as he orgasmed, then collapsed and stared blankly at the control panels as he recovered.

Another crewman took over at the panel, "Captain, I can give you audio, but only for a short time. Even on their planet, they; they; oh; oh fuck;” the replacement said, stiffening as he spurted inside his suit, then shook his head to clear it and looked to their leader for orders. Captain Hemsworth braced himself in his chair and nodded for him to activate audio.

A horrendous braying screech filled the bridge, “ No Idea Why You People Can't Even Take An Order Right! I Ordered The Cobb Salad With Extra Avocado! I Don't Care If It's Not On There Or Not! Fix The Damn Menu! I Have Been Coming Here For Over 15 Years And I Know For A Fact That You People Had Cobb Salad On There Two Years Ago When You Were Called Baker's Pie;"

Another voice interjected, soft and conciliatory, "Oh, yes, ma'am; I see the confusion. The Baker's Pie that was here went out of business. This restaurant is Snooker's, now, so we don't have the same menu, but our club salad is very similar to;"

"Are You Actually Interrupting Me? Get. Me. A. Cobb. Salad. Extra Avocado! Do You Understand? Extra Avocado! Mucho Amortado! Comprendo Estupido?"

Even in that short interlude, most of the Onan's bridge crew had begun bleeding from their ears and collapsing onto the deck. Captain Hemsworth, a man of rare tolerance and stamina, struggled past their unconscious bodies to the control panel and lowered the volume until it was barely audible. "Computer, disburse caffeline into bridge life support systems, 15 parts per million," he mumbled, leaning on the control panel for support as the strong stimulant hissed into the room. He didn't like to use the drug, because the heightened energy it gave often led to periods of prolonged involuntary masturbation, but he couldn't afford to waste time for the crewmen to awaken naturally. Not when conditions were so dire on Priam.

Lieutenant Cavill groaned and rose weakly, climbing back into his console chair and checking the readings. "What happened, Captain? Our scans showed a primitive civilization on the planet without any meaningful defenses. What was that? Some kind of weapon?" he asked.

Captain Hemsworth did a double-take at the crewman in wonder, but he said nothing. All around him, he watched the rest of the crew slowly getting to their feet and going back to their positions. All the men were alert, aware, and focused on their duties. Several of them were talking to each other; in full uninterrupted sentences. No one drooled, no one's eyes rolled back; not one of them stared off into space, as if dully re-living the curse that had infected their brains. He, himself, had not even felt the urge to sexually relieve himself once, even with the high levels of caffeline in the air. Indeed, he had not felt anything below the waist; not since he heard that voice. He doubted whether he would have the urge to orgasm ever again. They had finally done it.

"That was no weapon, Cavill; it is what we came here to find. It's the cure that Dr. Fehr told us was here all along. Contact High Command and tell them; tell them we found it. Tell them we have found; The Karen.

After straightening out the incompetent waiter on her order, Karen Carmichael excused herself from her prayer group's table and walked to the restrooms, incensed. What kind of man actually cries when taking an order for a salad? Probably gay; or whatever kids were calling themselves these days. Was there such a thing as "gay" anymore, when people "identified" themselves as whatever the hell occurred to them? What was the point of picking a sexuality when people didn't even have a species anymore?

Of course, Travis the Waiter had to play the victim about it, too, making the entire restaurant gawk over at their table like they were monsters. He probably knew they were a nice church group and went out of his way to make trouble. Sure, they all scream for "tolerance," but their types couldn't wait to attack nice people of faith like her who showed the world what it was to be decent and pure of heart. Well, he could just kiss his tip money goodbye! Tipping had gotten ridiculous anyway; a generation of whiny babies feeling entitled to extra money just for doing their jobs. ‘If ‘; they did their jobs. She couldn't even get a salad; and, by God, if the Manager didn't make things right, her Yelp review on this place would burn a hole through people's screens!

Karen pushed on the door to the restroom tightly clutching her can of pepper spray, because sexual predators were always trying to rape women like her in public restrooms, and she nearly screamed when the door opened. Wet paper towels were everywhere. The garbage bin was overflowing, and some slob had splashed water all over the sink area! Now, she'd have to make the Manager take care of this, too! More drama, when she just wanted to have a nice lunch with her friends. And, of course, the Manager would just try to ‘handle ‘; her; as if she was some unreasonable bitch just for wanting to use a facility that wasn't absolutely disgusting! Then looking near her, but not at her, the Manager would apologize in that fake-nice voice and offer to comp her meal; offering her even more of what was bad in the first place. Managers and their fake apologies. They weren't sorry. The soulless jerks never meant it. They just wanted her to go away; acting like she was a scamming thief instead of someone who just wanted to be treated decently.

She settled on the toilet and tried to calm herself. Lately, half the time she wanted to cry, or scream, or tear out her hair; but it wouldn't matter. Nothing would change. Everything changed around her, though. Menus; her children; hairstyles; prices; everything changed. It felt like everything had just left her behind. She looked everywhere for the things she used to love, but she couldn't find them anymore; and if she did find them, they weren't the same as they once were. Nothing made her feel her joy like she used to. That was it. Maybe she was done; that her turn at having any real joy was over. Now, the only time anyone tried to make her happy, or even looked at her, was when she screamed at them.

Karen opened her eyes to a rattling sound at the door of her long, handicapped-bathroom stall. "Occupied!" she called out. To her dismay, the dial holding the sliding bolt turned all by itself and the door unlocked. "Hey! Get out!" she yelled, grabbing her pepper spray and holding it in front of her while she tried to stand and pull up her yoga pants.

"Nice human; good human;” a vaguely disembodied male voice said as a dark, hooded figure in a bizarre form-fitting spacesuit stepped into her stall holding what looked like a staff with a flexible loop affixed to the end of it. It slowly stepped toward her, as cautiously as one might approach a spooked animal. "Human want a nice piece of kale? Yes you do! Yes you do! Who's a good human?" it asked, holding out a curly dark green leaf to her and shaking it temptingly.

"What the hell?" she yelled, fumbling with the pepper spray can and trying to figure out how to make it work, just as the loop at the end of the staff went down over her head and around her neck, cinching tight.

Karen choked, clutching at the loop with one hand, trying to loosen it so she could breathe, and with the other she emptied the can of pepper spray into the hooded face of her attacker. She struggled wildly, but the staff with the loop effectively controlled her and prevented her from landing any punches or kicks on her attacker. As darkness started creeping in on her vision, the last thing she saw was the figure deeply inhale the cloud of pepper spray and hold its breath, then say in a choked voice, "Ready for transport, sir; and man, they've got some good shit down here;”

The forgotten leaf of kale fell down next to where Karen's cheek was pressed against the filthy bathroom floor, and with what she feared was her dying breath she choked out, "I want; to see; the; Manager;”

"I used kale, Sir. Worked like a charm. It's one of the most nutritionally dense materials on the planet, so naturally, it was irresistible," a larger Priamite said to Captain Hemsworth, as he stripped out of his protective suit in a small enclave, bathed in an undulating light.

Captain Hemsworth nodded. "Good work, Commander Momoa. Decontaminate for a full four cycles and I want protective measures in place for all personnel. God knows what this thing is capable of when it wakes."

Karen heard garbled voices nearby, but kept her eyes closed and tried to steady her breathing. What had happened? The air smelled odd; almost crackling with ozone and energy, like a storm coming. The ambient sounds of the room told her she was not in Snookers anymore. Probably human traffickers. She saw a whole show about it. The bastards kidnapped her and were going to sell her into sexual slavery; except that she wasn't a teenager. She was 51 years old. Nobody would pay for sex with her, much less risk a felony conviction for it. Any ransom demands sent to her husband were going to have disappointing results, as well. So, what was going on? Why was she here? The kids were in college and wouldn't even notice she was gone until Christmas came. Her friends; her passive-aggressive competitors, if she was being honest; they'd just assume she left in a huff and stiffed them on the lunch check. The cold, hard truth was: nobody cared about her anymore and she knew it. That meant, if she was going to get out of this, she would have to do it herself. Her cheek hurt where it had hit that disgusting bathroom floor and she reached her hand up to touch it. The voices yelped in alarm and Karen opened her eyes to see two figures backing away from the enclosure she was imprisoned in.

"Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my purse?" she yelled, pushing herself to her feet. She walked toward them, crossing her arms and glaring. "I want whoever is in charge over here right now! I mean it!" she yelled, pointing as she walked toward them. One of the figures screamed, clutched at his ears and doubled over, staggering around the room dramatically. The other, larger one she recognized from the restaurant bathroom was in some tanning-booth-looking-thing, half naked and gorgeous in a likely-sexual-predator kind of way. Rather than flailing around the room, he seemed to have gone into a catatonic trance. God, people were useless. "You! Himbo!" she shouted, pointing at him. "Where is my purse? Did you even think to get it when you kidnapped me, or am I going to miss my Ozempic shot? I hope to God you assholes have good lawyers!"

The beefy kidnapper in the tanning booth wobbled, then vomited loudly. Karen snorted as he slid down to the floor, unconscious. Pathetic. The smaller figure dove toward a panel on the wall next to her enclosure and pressed a few buttons and she heard the ambient noise of her room change, like it was encased, somehow.

"I've muted it. It's become even stronger than before;” Captain Hemsworth gasped, helping Commander Momoa to his feet again.

"How are we going to get it back to Priam? We could choke it out again every time it awakens; give the privilege out as a reward to the crew?" Commander Momoa suggested eagerly.

"No," Captain Hemsworth said, coming closer to the force field separating him from the angry Karen still yelling and pointing from inside the enclosure. "The cumulative effects of throttling it constantly might affect its functioning. We need The Karen at full power if we are to rescue Priam. We need to keep it conscious. We must feed it, provide it breathing gasses, and keep it clean; it appears to be constantly decaying. That reminds me ; cleaning duty goes to Ensign Holland. He's still on my shit list after the incident with the Zendayans."

"Aye, sir."

Captain Hemsworth cleared his throat and pressed another button on the side panel. "Hail Karen, bringer of blessed flaccidity, destroyer of abhorrent lust, and banisher of all erotic thought. We are men of the planet Priam. We mean you no harm. We come to you seeking aid, and we come in peace. Actually, until we found you, we would come almost constantly. It was disgusting. Everything was sticky. You see, our enemies from Eros sent us the most perfect pornographic images disguised in an innocent-looking email attachment. Once they were seen, they could not be unseen. They were burned into our brains, cursing us with perpetual arousal. The first wave of Priamites were taken by surprise once they activated the link. The next wave fell victim when the first wave posted the link on their social media because it was just so unbelievably; anyway, after the rest of our population fell out of curiosity or boredom, our civilization was nearly destroyed. We have been searching the stars for a cure, but to no avail. Then, just as all hope seemed lost, we found you; we heard your voice; and our loins finally withered. You are now a guest on my ship, The Onan, en route to my homeworld Priam. There, we will deliver your noxious, strident sounds to everyone, freeing them from their intransigent arousal. Then, after we are assured that all have been cured, we shall return you to your home."

At this, Karen made an unpleasant face and began breathing on the clear wall of her enclosure, fogging it. Then, she quickly wrote a short message. "What does it mean?" Commander Momoa said, squinting at the squiggling lines she had made.

At this, the computer made a chirp and began speaking, "The message, from the American dialect of the language English translates to: Why didn't you just make a recording?"

Captain Hemsworth's shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes with a sigh. Commander Momoa's eyes went wide and he clapped his hand over his face in exasperation. "Fuck;” Momoa said in realization. "A recording;”

"Dammit. We didn't have to take her at all, did we?" Captain Hemsworth groaned.

Karen glared at them and wrote another word on the wall. As certain as Captain Hemsworth was that he did not need or want the translation, the computer was already on the job. "'Dumbasses,'" the computer cheerfully intoned, "a colloquial phrase, plural of the insult 'dumbass,' meaning 'a foolish or stupid person.'"

"End translation. Yes, Karen, if we had thought to record your voice instead of kidnapping you, this might have been a much shorter story, and considerably less inconvenient, but as it is, we are closer to Priam than Earth at this point, and our course is set. We will bring you to Priam and then return you home. Perhaps kidnapping you was not the most well-considered solution, but I defy you to think clearly after constantly watching porn for eons and let me know if you do any better."

Great; as if getting old wasn't insult enough, I've actually become an intergalactic sexual repellent, Karen thought to herself as she paced around her cell. A lifetime of trying to do things right, and this is what it gets me. She wasn't so surprised that there were aliens in the universe, or that they had somehow weaponized porn, but that with all their advancements they were still so stupid!

Sighing, she closed her eyes and listened to the ambient sounds of her cell. Life had been so noisy, the last 30 years. Everyone needing her, pulling on her for one thing or another. No peace. Lately though, with the kids gone and Cal; otherwise occupied; life had gone silent. The silence that she had wished for held no peace when it finally came. It just reverberated with the memory of things that had left her behind, making her anxious to fill the emptiness with noise. Nothing came to lure her mind away from the silence, no pleasurable temptations; her duties were done and it felt wrong to do, or even think about, anything else. My god, she had been kidnapped, was flying through the galaxy, and was surrounded by beefcake aliens and she was still thinking about that stupid loose tile in the master bathroom; she needed to get it fixed before the house was sold.

A slight sound outside her cell drew her attention. "Who's there?" Karen asked, softly, opening her eyes.

A wide-eyed figure peered around the edge of her cell, moving with cautious curiosity. It seemed younger than the other ones. It moved with a sense of barely-restrained eagerness, adorable and earnest. It also held a curved sort of wand in its hand.

"Honey, if you're here to anally probe me, I'll pass. I already had a colonoscopy this year, I'll have them send you the records;” she murmured, not expecting an answer.

After a pause as the figure listened to the translation, its large eyes got even wider. "Is that how you poop?" he asked.

"What?" she asked, looking more closely at the young alien.

"I'm supposed to clean your cell when you poop; but you haven't pooped yet; wait, do colonoscopies make you poop?" it asked, scandalized.

Karen closed her eyes and shook her head, "No. Colonoscopies put a small camera up your ass so that we can pay a doctor to do what we were afraid aliens like you would do to us if we got drunk in cornfields too much. They don't make us poop. In fact; well, never mind;” she trailed off, embarrassed.

She still had vivid memories of her first colonoscopy earlier in the year, drinking gallons of preparatory laxatives, and the resulting quality time with her phone on the toilet. It was an odd experience; not awful, but not one that she could talk to anyone about. Her friends only talked about their kids and their successes, or whose husband cheated on them with some young thing, viciously salivating over their friends' misery with barely concealed glee. Forget about talking through her fears about it with Cal; that wasn't something he was interested in. Not anymore.

After the procedure, she had been scared and disoriented from the sedation. For whatever reason, Cal hadn't shown up to give her a ride home. The stupid clinic wouldn't let her leave until someone could drive her home and take care of her. She just sat there getting more and more anxious. Eventually, she called an Uber and begged Xabiib the driver to pretend to be her neighbor; or just someone who cared about her. She spent the ride home trying to say his name correctly while he chuckled and repeated it for her. It was so horrifyingly embarrassing. It's one thing to have no one care about you, but another thing to have the whole world know about it when you were helpless and confused.

Tears had rolled down her cheeks and she absently wiped them off with her hand. The young alien sat up and craned his head to look at the liquid on her hand. Karen snorted, "At ease, Holland. It's not poop. You're not getting anything out of me unless you have some heavy-duty magnesium supplements or yogurt."

Holland's eyes went wide, "Are humans telepathic???" he gasped. "How did you know my name? Wow, that's so cool! Do it again! What am I thinking about now?"

Karen suppressed a smile. Closing her eyes, she pressed her fingers to her temples and swayed from side to side, mysteriously. "I see something; something in the mist; something about; could it be; no, it makes no sense. Is it; a Zen; Zendayan? Does that make any sense to you?" she asked.

Holland dropped his curved instrument in shock. "Yes! Yes! We just met them! We negotiated with them for supplies! I was there to carry stuff and; and;” he paused, shrinking in on himself a bit. "They are so beautiful. The Zendayans? So beautiful; and super nice; and just; like wow; I was supposed to just stand there until they were done with the talking and bowing and stuff, but they were just like so beautiful."

"Well, what happened?" Karen asked.

"Captain introduced me and I bowed to them. I was feeling dizzy because, you know, their beautifulness just keeps radiating off them. Then; then; the most beautiful of them; she smiled." Holland stared at nothing, immersed in the memory, then wobbled, tipped over, and lay on the floor staring at the ceiling.

Karen bit her lips in amusement. "I see. What did you do then?"

"I; I; I started talking and then I just couldn't stop because I was just trying to say how beautiful she was and how it just made my mind explode when she smiled and then I might have peed on the floor."

"Oh dear," Karen said, cringing in sympathy. "We don't always put forward the face we want to when we are in our feelings, do we?" she said, quietly.

"Yeah; I've been cleaning poop ever since;” Holland sighed. After a while he sat back up, picked up the curved instrument and began twirling it in his hands. "So, like; what about you? Have you always made horrible noises?" he asked.

Karen huffed, but then she saw the oblivious earnestness in Holland's face and sighed. "No; I wasn't always; like this. In fact, until about 30 years ago, I made beautiful noises. I was a pianist," she said.

"But, wait, they said you were a female;” Holland said, confused.

"Pee, an, ist," Karen repeated slowly. "I played the piano. It's an instrument; I was a musician. I was a student at Juilliard. It's a school on Earth; it was like a dream to even get in. I was on a scholarship, living in this shoddy apartment with my roommate Dana;” she trailed off, thinking about those days when everything seemed possible.

"Wait! Are you remembering?" Holland asked, breaking her reverie. "Can I remember it, too? Nobody wants to remember with me ever since the Zendayans, so I'm just left with my own memories and it gets so boring."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, it's kinda like; um; let me just show you. Computer, scan The Karen and project her memories," Holland ordered. A humming noise filled the room and a beam of light shot out of the wall and passed over her several times. Suddenly, her cell transformed into her shoddy apartment in Newark, New Jersey.

"Oh my gosh; it's just like it," Karen gasped looking around.

"Humans dream of getting into this?" Holland said, scrutinizing a cockroach scurrying along the floor.

"No, silly. This was our apartment across the river. We lived here when we weren't at school. Dana and I moved off campus in our second year. We took jobs on the side through an agency. That was when;” she sat down and a phone in the apartment's bedroom began ringing.

A long, pale arm reached out of a pile of blankets on the bed and grabbed the phone. "Hullo?" Dana mumbled. A voice on the phone sounded irate. "Yeah, I'm almost there," she said and hung up.

"You're not almost anywhere," Karen said, walking out of the bathroom in a towel.

"Late night at the bar. God, I'm wretched. Kare, baby, can you go do it for me?"

Karen watched her younger self shrink back. "I; I; I'm a; I just do studio work, Day. You know that. I record, I don't p-perform."

"It's just Phantom, for God's sake. You play it better than I do in your sleep. Just go, play for the rich farts and bring back some rent money. My dress is ready. Just put your hair up and go," Dana ordered, then pulled the covers back over her head.

Karen looked at the low-cut black dress and swallowed. With another glance at the bed, she did as she was told, took the hanger, and went back into the bathroom. Minutes later, she came back out with her long red hair wound up into a French twist. She was shocked by the amount of pale skin showing on her décolletage and grabbed a scarf to cover it before running out the door.

A train and subway ride later, she opened the doors to the event room and cringed in horror. As she walked through the gorgeous, historic mansion, she spotted numerous rooms with appropriate acoustics for a concert, but she was led to a rooftop greenhouse, decked out in sparkling lights. While it was fantastically beautiful, with starlight surrounding the room, Karen could immediately hear the dissonant reverberations of at least five loose panes of glass. They were going to have a tenor singing in this? Just standing in the space with her eyes closed was enough to raise the hair on her neck. She knew she was too sensitive. People had always told her that she was too sensitive, that she cared too much about too many things; things nobody cared about. Still, as she spotted the end of a caulking gun near the window; she just couldn't help herself.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a man's voice boomed behind her as she smoothed a bead of clear silicon into place with her finger, stabilizing yet another pane. She wobbled and grabbed the stepstool beneath her, nearly dropping the caulking gun. Strong hands clasped her waist and remained there until she stepped down to the floor.

Turning, she opened her mouth to explain herself, but upon seeing him, words failed her. "I; I'm the; I penis; I play;” she fumbled.

"And, what, you're moonlighting as a glazier?" he asked, his sharp eyes taking in the scene of her crime.

"It's the; the sound is; I just fixed a few panes so they wouldn't rattle with the; music. They vibrate in the upper ranges and I stabilized them so that;"

"No one told you to do that; shit," he cursed, looking over her again, his eyes lingering on her hair. "You're the pianist?" he confirmed.

Karen nodded.

"You're the pianist; Dana Stevens?" he said, more skeptically.

Karen felt the hot blood rushing to her cheeks. She had gotten past security with Dana's ID because they looked a lot alike, but she certainly didn't have the confidence or guile to keep the lie up under scrutiny. "I'm;"

At that moment, the doors to the solarium were flung open and in walked Sir Andrew Floyd Lawford, the biggest peacock that ever strutted on a Broadway stage. His career had spanned decades, and his name was synonymous with stage glory. Stunned, Karen choked as the man interrogating her yanked the scarf off her neck and wrapped it around her head. "Cover it up before he flips out," he hissed.

"Calvin! So good to see you again. I hope your parents are well?" Lawford boomed, melodiously.

As Calvin answered, Karen tried to quickly style the scarf around her head and face, unsure of what she was supposed to be covering up, as he kept her hidden behind his broad back.

"And what are you hiding behind you, there? I've never known a man with such a luscious bevy of beauties as;"

"Actually, this is your pianist, Dana Stevens," Calvin answered, pulling her out from behind his back.

Lawford inhaled, staring at Karen. "Enchantée, my dear," he said, bowing low over her hand to kiss it.

"Uh; I; I'm not;"

"Actually, Dana would love to stay and chat," Calvin said, emphasizing Karen's fake name and squeezing her arm, "but the guests will be arriving soon and she needs to go take her place side stage, Andrew. We'll have you enter from the opposite side after the introduction, as usual. Come along, now; Dana," he said, taking her arm and pulling her off to a dark space near the piano.

Once they were alone, Calvin turned her to face him. "Look," he said, tilting his head down to see her eyes which were almost magnetically seeking the floor, "We both know you're not Dana. What I need to know is - can you really play or do I need to fire my security team? Tell me now, because if you can't; if you're just some fangirl that wanted to get a look at Lawford, I'll go play that shit myself and they'll cut me some slack because I'm me. If you go out there and fuck it up, they won't cut you anything and Page Six will have a field day ridiculing my parents. We'll sort the rest out later but tell me now ; can you play?" he asked.

Karen nodded, not meeting his eyes, rather focusing on his belt that probably cost him more than a month's worth of her rent.

Calvin tipped her chin up with his hand so that she faced him. He held her there until she forced herself to meet his eyes. A moment of swimming disorientation surrounded her, and she felt swallowed up by something she didn't understand. In his eyes she floated, weightless, pulled along in an overwhelming current toward an unknown destination. "Try that again," he said quietly, his eyes flickering over her face, lingering on her lips.

"I; can. I promise. I won't disappoint you," she whispered.

Karen closed her eyes and the two vanished, along with the greenhouse around them. Holland scrambled up from the floor and pressed against the clear wall of Karen's cell. "Wait! What happened?"

Karen sighed and ran her hand through her short, highlighted blonde hair, ruefully. "I didn't disappoint him. I would have walked through fire rather than disappoint him; and I didn't. I played Phantom like it had never been played. I might not have been a performer, but I was one that night. Passion, flair; and with the greenhouse panes fixed, it had never sounded better."

"Sir Andrew Floyd Lawford must have been thrilled," Holland said, sitting forward eagerly.

"Not exactly. The problem was, I seldom played with my hair pinned up; and while I was playing, I felt the scarf come loose. It fell down and almost covered my eyes. Well, Dana wasn't kidding when she said I could play Phantom in my sleep. Being blinded by my scarf didn't affect my playing. During a few measures of rests, I quickly snatched it off my head, threw it to the floor, and continued. Unfortunately, when I did that, my French twist also came loose and my hair went tumbling down my shoulders like a vivid red waterfall;” Karen said, covering her cheeks and shaking her head.

"What happened? Did Sir Andrew Floyd Lawford flip out?" Holland asked, transfixed.

"I didn't find out what really happened until the next day," Karen said, closing her eyes. The room transformed back into the Newark apartment. Young Karen leaned over the bathtub, hand-washing the dress she had performed in. The door buzzed and she pushed a few strands of hair out of her face and back up into the messy bun atop her head, as she padded barefoot to the intercom. "Um, hello?" she answered.

"Delivery for 314," the voice announced. Frowning in confusion, Karen buzzed them up and waited by the door to the apartment.

Karen looked through the peep hole to see a box obscuring the face of the delivery man and called "Can you leave it by the door, please?" she asked, wiping her wet hands on her ripped sweatpants.

"I'll need a signature."

"Oh, um; okay," Karen said, opening the door a crack.

The box lowered and to her horror and embarrassment, Calvin Carmichael's handsome face appeared behind it. "You left something at my house, last night."

"Oh;” Karen said, self-consciously pulling her wet tank top away from her pale skin. She didn't remember leaving anything at the Carmichael mansion. Of course, she didn't remember much of anything, except disappearing quickly after the concert when Lawford pulled her away from the audience and began screaming at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just; in a hurry."

"In a hurry to get away from the man loudly calling you a 'ham-fisted Whore of Babylon,' you mean?" Calvin asked, casually walking into the apartment and looking around.

"Um, yes. That. I'm sorry. I didn't know; I still don't understand. I played my best, but;"

"Oh, your playing was fine. Exquisite, even. Unfortunately, you transformed into his viperous ex-wife in the middle of the performance," Calvin finished, holding back a grin.

Karen stared at the floor, remembering. Her eyes went wide as she reached up to cover her hair with her hands, "Oh no;” she gasped.

"Yes; while Sarah Brighton Lawford was an unforgettable beauty of the stage, the two of them met a rather tumultuous end. Not exactly one of those civilized London divorces you hear about," Calvin mused, looking over a shelf with a few of Karen's treasured mementos from home. "That, and it didn't help when you stabilized those loose panes, because people could actually hear how thin his upper range had become. My parents have been moving his concerts around the house for years trying to hide it. He vowed he would never set foot in our home again. He may even retire."

Karen sat down on her twin bed and covered her face in her hands. Calvin walked closer and looked down at her in confusion. "Are you crying?" he asked.

"Is; is he going to be okay? He's brilliant; he ‘made ‘; that role, that whole musical, he made it what it was! Sir Lawford supports himself by singing. What if he;" Karen said, sniffling through her hands.

"You realize, Lawford actually tried to have you arrested, right? He was about to call your agency to get you blacklisted before I informed him that Dana Stevens wasn't really your name and that he could get himself sued," Calvin said, looking down at her bemusedly. "By the way, what is your name? I came by to ask Dana about you; and then I recognized your voice through the intercom," he said, reaching down to toy with a loose red curl near her neck.

"Karen; Dana calls me 'Kare;'" she said, lifting her face from her hands and shivering when his fingers brushed along her collar bone.

"Well, Kare, here you go," he said, handing her the orange box he was holding, and sitting down next to her. "Open it."

Karen lifted the lid of the box and the light tissue paper to see a stunning scarf, richly colored and obviously expensive. "Oh wow.; um; but, this isn't my scarf. Someone else must have left;"

Calvin smirked, "It's not your scarf. Your scarf disappeared when people rushed the stage afterward. This scarf is Hermès."

"Shouldn't we get it back to her, then? It's so gorgeous, she's sure to miss it," Karen whispered, her long, slender fingers hovering over the rich silk, afraid to touch it.

Calvin opened his mouth, then closed it with a smile, shaking his head. "Are you for real?" he chuckled, stroking her cheek with his fingers until she looked at him. "Hermès isn't a person. It's a gift. It's for you. I thought this would go better with your dress."

Karen bit her lips and looked down at the floor, still shivering each time he touched her. "Thank you. It's beautiful. But it; it was Dana's dress. I don't have one; I never really needed one; I don't perform," she confessed, quietly.

"Hmm, no dress, huh?" he asked, lowering his lips impossibly close to hers. "Well now; we can't have that, can we?" Holding her chin, he leaned in, and covered her mouth with his warm lips.

The cell on the ship returned as Karen looked down and shook her head. Holland sat up, excitedly. "He provided for you! He provided for you and initiated the mating lip dance!"

"He did; and I was so young; and stupid. I didn't know anything. I thought it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me; and it was only the beginning. There was nothing so intoxicating as being the one thing that Calvin Carmichael wanted," Karen said.

The cell dissolved into a nightclub where a group drank around a table in a loft area above a dance floor. Calvin pulled Karen closer against him on his lap, his hand sliding up her thigh. "Happy birthday, Red. I can finally take you out for a drink, legally," he murmured in her ear.

Karen smiled at him, bashfully smoothing down the dress where his roaming hand had exposed her legs too much for her modesty. "These places always let me in when I'm with you, anyway, Cal. Was it really so hard to wait?" she asked.

"It's hard for me to wait for anything with you; for everything. I told you I wanted to wait and do things right with you, because you're nothing like all those other girls who tried everything to get with me, but when you look like you do tonight; you make it so hard. I want you, Red. I need to make you mine; mine forever. I've never felt like this before; I know never will again. Marry me."

To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected.

"So,

"Oh,

Livia

"They

"Nah,

"I'll bet Salvia's bragging to everyone who'll listen about her fairy-tale wedding and big stone house - at eighteen!"

Mason shrugged, looking stormy. "She keeps asking me when we can have our first baby boy. A baby? I'm not ready for a baby. I could go another decade before I would even think about having kids. I'll be nineteen when we get married, for gods' sake."

"Nineteen?"

"I barely missed the cutoff for the last age group, so I think I'm probably the oldest in ours."

A

"Mason?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you still intend to marry her?"

He

The

"What do you mean?"

"What are you we going to do? I mean, you're supposed to get married in a month, to Salvia,

"We

"There's nowhere to run," Livia murmured.

"Then, I suppose, this is our only option."

"What is?"

"This. Meetings, like this."

"What, you mean you want to keep meeting me in secret like this?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Won't

"Probably

Livia

"Hmm,

"But

"Gods,

"Can't it?"

"Maybe

Hearing

"It's

"It's not bad."

"Is bad enough."

"But

"Well, you've been alone with me for hours now. Have you seen any signs that I'm going to be a danger to you?"

She giggled, then settled into seriousness. "No, I don't think you would hurt me."

He

Livia

Dawn

With

There

Mason,

His

Combing

Electricity

Livia whispered, "I do, after all."

"Do what?"

"Love you."

Mason

His

Mason's

"Mason?"

His

"Mason," she said again, more forcefully this time, and his eyes met hers.

"Yes?"

She

"Only

"I, " She observed the tenderness with which he was stroking her thigh, and melted a bit. "Yes. Please."

Mason

Livia

As

"Mason,

"What? What do you need?"

"I

Picking

Slowly,

"Is this what you want?" Mason asked. With his mouth on her throat as it was, she felt more than heard his words.

She nodded, eyes closed. "Yes."

There

"It's perfect," she said, marveling at the fit of him in her. They were made for each other.

For

"I'm

"And I'm yours. Take me, Mason."

And he did.

Eventually

Just

Livia

Just a little ways now, she

At

He

"Mason?"

"You came," he said brokenly. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"What?"

Rustling

Livia's

And

"You

"Livia did not take it upon herself," Mason interjected. "I convinced her. I persuaded her to meet me there."

"Regardless, she took part in the breaking."

"No,

"Did you ever stop to consider your matched pair? Salvia?"

"Salvia and I were never compatible. Never. You must have made a mistake;”

"We do not make mistakes! We are the Matching Council. We know what is best for the community, and it's self-important children like you that sow dissension."

"You made at least one mistake, didn't you? Or did you forget so easily that you left Livia without a match?"

"Her

"Unfortunate? Unfortunate? You

"Enough!

"Wait,

"Whether

"Then give them to me. All of them."

"Excuse me?"

"This is completely my fault; I want the complete punishment."

"Young man;”

"Please."

A long pause from all of council members for thought, and then, "Very well."

They

I promised I would never let anything hurt you, Livia, he thought. Gods, I'm doing my best.

"You're free to go," the elder said blandly as he released Livia. She stared unbelievingly at her unbound hands.

"Where's Mason?"

"The convicted young man awaits his punishment, to be dealt within the hour."

"His punishment? What about mine? I was there in the clearing as surely as he was, "

"Your punishment is to witness his flogging. We believe no other discipline will be necessary, in your case."

Livia's

He said nothing, just dropped his eyes and led her out of the cell.

The

Livia

When

His

"State

"I found love outside of my match," Mason said clearly.

A

"Let

Panting, Mason spoke again. "I fell desperately in love with the perfect woman for me - and it was not the girl that I was paired with."

Crack "Enough! You pollute the minds of our community with your fabrications."

"Admit it, you were wrong, Crack, ah!"

"This boy coerced;”

"I loved;”

Crack!

 a young woman of our community;”

 the beautiful Livia;”

Crack!

 with empty promises!"

 with all my heart!"

Crack!

"He wants to destroy our society;”

"I just want to be with her;”

Crack!

"He broke faith with another;”

"I never loved Salvia!"

Crack!

 and destroyed her happiness!"

"The Council made a mistake!"

The

"That's eight," the eldest Councilor said at length, waving for the man with the whip to continue.

The

Council

They

"What now?" asked the second-youngest of the elders, barely old enough to be called an 'elder' at all.

"He

"And

"What

The

Salvia

Now,

Livia

She

It

Her

Her

"I

There

Livia

She

Taking

Offering

She knocked quietly on his door, and when he didn't move, whispered, "Mason!"

He raised his head slightly, his eyes straining to see over his lacerated shoulder; they widened when he recognized Livia.

"Livia? What are you doing here?" he mumbled. He sounded like his mouth was stuffed full of cotton.

"I had to see you, before they sent you away. Can you come up to the window?"

"I

"Hold

Kneeling

"Oh, Mason," she breathed.

"Is

"Escape?" Livia repeated, her eyes curious. "Why would you escape? You're just going home, aren't you?"

"Yes, " Mason said, watching her with cautious eyes, wondering how much she knew.

"Well, they'll be nicer to you in Micrague, won't they? I mean, you're one of their own, "

He sighed infinitesimally and forced a smile for her benefit. "Yeah, they'll go easier on me, I'm sure."

Her

"What?"

He

"What happened to him?" she whispered.

"He was, put to death. The girl killed herself a week later."

Livia

"What?"

"Can

"Livia,

"I don't want to be protected, Mason! I want to get you out of here!"

She

"Livia, I hear something." Both of their heads swiveled toward the doorway just in time to see someone appear, framed by it.

The

"Miss Russing? What do you think you're doing?" he said at length.

"I

"I,

"But

"Ah, yes, but, you see, you fell in love with the, uh, the wrong person."

"The

"I,

"I'm

The

"He

And

It

For

Livia's

"I knew you would try to run. I knew it," Salvia repeated, anger licking like flames at her words.

"What else would you have us do?" Livia demanded.

"Stay here, of course! Well, not you," she said to Livia. "I wouldn't mind if you ran off into the forest, but Mason is mine. Now that he's been thoroughly chastened, he should be returned to me."

"Salvia," Mason said wearily, "you would not have me either way. If I do not escape now, they will send me to Micrague."

"Fine, I'll go with you. We should be getting married soon anyway."

"They

Salvia's eyes widened; this must be news to her. "Killed?"

"Yes,

Salvia just stared at him, aghast.

"I, never wanted you dead, " she said at last. "I just wanted them to stop you, "

"Whatever your intentions, Sal, they will have

She looked torn, confused; her eyes were shiny with impending tears. "But that's not right, "

"Salvia," he said seriously, setting his hands on either side of her face, "there is nothing in this world that could be more right."

She shook her head, breaking away from his hands. "No, no, you broke our match, you broke everything."

"I'm

Salvia's eyes blazed toward Livia and then dropped to the diamond droplet-studded grass. "Why her?"

"I can't explain," Mason said, shrugging. "There's no explanation for love."

There were distant male voices in the trees now, coming closer. Mason's eyes bored into Salvia's, begging her to understand.

"Do you want me to die?" he asked quietly.

Eyes

Mason kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, thank you," he whispered.

As

Watching his retreating back, she said, too quietly for him to hear, "I already did."

"That

"I don't," Mason said. "I'm glad that Salvia and that elder both found us. Because of them, it was all worth it, even the punishment."

Livia was stunned enough to come to a complete halt. "How do you figure?"

"Now

And

Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected.

Girls spend their entire lives looking forward to the fateful Matching Day - and whether or not they will admit it, boys, too, have at least a healthy curiosity. It's so reassuring, knowing that in your eighteenth year, you and your age-mates will be paired off, brought together with another from their own community or a surrounding one that match them perfectly. No song-and-dance dating rituals, like the ones in the books Livia liked to read, no old maids, no riotous bachelors; just simple, comforting compatibility.

"Have you heard?" The hushed, conspiratorial tones issued from the pink-lacquered lips of Livia's best friend, Mara.

"What?" Livia's low-pitched voice always made her sound disinterested, but she paid close attention to Mara when her friend sounded this urgent.

"There was a big accident over in Micrague. One guy died!"

"Oh, that's terrible," Livia murmured, letting her eyelashes drop and rise again to half-mast in a brief show of empathy. It was all she had time for, as Mara leaned suddenly, ever more urgently forward, gripping Livia's arm in both hands.

"That's not the worst thing," she rolled on. "The guy who was killed? He just turned eighteen. That makes the numbers for tomorrow's Matching uneven!"

Two full breaths, painful to the impatient Mara, passed before Livia spoke in response. "So, what, someone won't be paired? A girl will be left without her match?"

"Whoever matched with him will have no pair on Matching Day," Mara proclaimed ominously. Her eyes were wide and glittering with morbid excitement.

"What do they do about that?" It was unheard of, as far as Livia knew; there were always even numbers, always a perfect match for everyone.

Mara gave an exaggerated shrug. "Maybe she'll never be matched."

Livia was surprised into laughter. "They can't leave her without a match forever," she said with certainty. "Maybe they'll search out another community for someone that fits even better than that poor boy who died."

Her reassuring confidence sent Mara, humming, away to terrify someone else with proclamations of an eternity alone for some poor girl. The thought nagged at Livia for the rest of the afternoon, though. What if he was matched with me?

"Verin Massada," the stern voice called from the central platform, and a stick-thin brunette drifted toward the three steps that lifted her above the circle of impatient teenagers.

"Philip Pressia." The broad-shouldered redhead that stepped up to take Verin's hand smirked and bowed at the polite smattering of applause that ushered the happy new couple off the stage. Livia smiled approvingly; Verin needed a little more humor in her life.

Livia watched each girl she'd grown up with walk back into the circle, shyly clutching the hand of her new mate, and twisted her skirt nervously in her fingers. It seemed forever before the 'R's were called, and the wad of boys brought in from all the different communities steadily shrank. She met the clear grey eyes of one of the remaining boys as Clanley Ritchell was met by a generic-looking, dark-haired boy, and she thought fleetingly, I hope I'm matched with him. He seemed to be thinking the same thing; his face fell a little when he was called up to greet a willowy blond on the dais.

"Danica Soress," the voice demanded, and Livia stood a little straighter with a sharp intake of breath. Had she been skipped?

All the vague, incoherent fears that had accompanied Mara's morbid pronouncement coursed through Livia, charged with shame as some girls recognized the omission and turned to look at her with expressions of varying pity. Livia felt on the edge of tears.

She saw the blond - that wretched Salvia - pull the grey-eyed boy down to whisper cruelly in his ear and point in Livia's direction, and she contemplated melting into the dirt.

With the blood roaring loudly in her ears, she heard no other names called, and stared fixedly at a nondescript blade of grass in front of her to avoid the glances that were flickering toward her. How can this be? she thought frantically. How can I not have a match?

"Livia, what's going on?" Mara's face held ghoulish curiosity with only an edge of concern for her friend, and Livia couldn't deal with her. She turned without a word and marched to the fountain a good distance away from the platform. People were breaking off now, finding secluded spots to get to know this person with whom they'd be partnered forever. Livia, wrapping her arms tightly around her gut, had never felt so alone.

How could she have lost a lifetime of companionship without ever tasting it? It was too, too cruel. What right did that boy have to take away everything in one fell swoop? How could he die? She wanted to shake her fist at the heavens, demand an explanation, but she just trailed her fingers through the rippling water in the fountain basin, swallowing hard against the wave of emotions that threatened to show itself grotesquely in her features.

"His name was Bracken, if that helps," said a voice behind her, and she jumped, throwing water onto her dress. She turned to see that grey-eyed boy approaching, and she prepared herself for the humiliation she was sure to experience at his hands; he had, after all, been matched like everyone else, and she was alone - possibly forever.

He did not mock her, though; his eyes held the soft, cautious understanding of someone who pitied another, but was not sure whether that person desired sympathy or not. When she said nothing, he shrugged self-consciously. "Sorry, I realize you might not have wanted to know. I just, he was my best friend. I thought if you did want to know about him, I'd at least let you know who you could ask."

A flood of gratitude made it temporarily impossible for her to speak, and then she forced a smile. "I think I'd like to know," she said hesitantly. She wasn't sure; would it be better to know nothing about what she'd never have, or to at least have pleasant thoughts about what could've been? "Can I ask you something now?"

"Absolutely."

"Would I have liked him?"

The boy nodded. "I think so. He was quiet at first, it took a while to get to know him. But once you did, there was no one you trusted more." He added, with the hesitation of an afterthought but the seriousness of something he'd intended to say all along, "Seeing you here, there's no doubt that he would have liked you."

He gave Livia one last smile and lay his hand over hers for a moment, ignoring the water droplets that sat on it like dew. For a warm second, she felt a rush of what it might have been like to have someone get to know her intimately over a lifetime, to love and understand her and for her to love back, and then the grey-eyed boy was walking with wide strides back to Salvia, and nothing but a hollow sadness remained beneath her breastbone.

Livia hated them. All of them.

The girls with their softly rolling curls, teased and coached for hours in order to look casually delicate when the boys, their shirts tucked in and their shoes shined, arrived at their doorsteps carrying one or two or twenty flowers in one hand and a shining invitation in the other. They walked with springing steps the short distance to the gathering hall in the center of town, hand in hand or arm in arm, and Livia wanted to throw rocks at the whole lot of them.

She had been invited, sort of, to join in on the festivities. The community officials, not sure what to do with the first single person over eighteen in a century, had hesitantly allowed for her participation in all the new couples' activities; so far, she had partaken in none of them.

Desperately, she wanted to be a part of the revelry, but she could not force herself to walk into the rooms full of happy girls and their happy boys, and have nothing herself. Her mother, unable to comfort her, had begged her to go to the dance. It was the last night before all the boys would be returning to their own communities, taking their matches with them. It was the last night she would seek Mara, who had paired with a boy from Onek.

And she'd tried: she'd gotten dressed, piled her hair up on top of her head and pulled her elbow-length gloves on, but nothing could motivate her to step outside her house as streams of giggling lovebirds trickled by on the way to the hall.

"Go, Livia," her mother said, coming up behind her with a basket of laundry on her hip. "You should at least go long enough to say goodbye to Mara."

"I can't, Mama. Think of how they'll look at me!"

Her mother bent Livia's head down to kiss her on the forehead. "It's not your fault, Neinei, and they know that. They feel bad for you. They all want to see you. The world didn't end when that poor boy died."

"Bracken," Livia said defiantly. Her mother had refused to say his name, insisting that it was better for Livia to know nothing about what she had lost.

Patting her daughter's shoulder, she adjusted her basket and turned to leave. "Go."

Livia had retreated around the side of the gathering hall, standing just outside the golden pool of light that poured like honey from the windows. Sobs caught in her throat and were choked down, unvoiced, as she watched Mara and Verin and Danica and dozens of others receive chaste pecks from shy boys as they spun by in their brightly-colored dresses, waving fluted, bubbling glasses and laughing with abandon.

And there, the grey-eyed boy, Bracken's best friend, was seated quietly with his hands folded in his lap, listening politely to an enthusiastic rendition of some trivial event or another by Salvia. It was always easy to tell when she was excited about something, as her arms pinwheeled and hands fluttered with no thought to how the gestures went along with the story.

He glanced up, and his eyes met, for a moment, Livia's. He looked surprised to see her there, and then a bit sad, and then his gaze drifted back to Salvia, who had grabbed his knee in her earnestness.

This infinitesimal rejection, the refusal to even meet her eyes for more than a moment, pushed Livia over the edge. Tears, burning like acid, washed over her face, and she stumbled away from the window, crying with pitiful lack of restraint.

She staggered into the sparse forest, the trees providing scattered shelter from curious eyes, if any should choose to drift away from the golden party, and the darkness of the night fit her mood, a strangely soothing thought.

"Are you alright?" For the second time, the grey-eyed boy's voice jolted her out of her own misery. She would not face him; not now, when her eyes were puffy and irritated, her nose red and her face streaked with dirty tear tracks. He would see her and compare her to Salvia, and she would fall short; she could not handle right now seeing him weigh her that way and find her lacking.

His hand on her back was another surprise, and then both his hands weighing down on her shoulders as he stepped closer behind her. "Hey," he said gently. "Everything will turn out fine. Maybe, maybe you'll find someone better than Bracken could have been for you."

She forgot her resolution not to face him then, turning toward him with her eyes narrowed to angry slits. "How could I, when everyone is paired already? Besides, I had my chance - he just managed to get himself killed before I could even meet him!" The words came out much harsher than she intended, and the young man in front of her actually took a step back from her ferocity, hunching like she'd landed a blow to his gut. "I'm sorry," she said immediately, automatically. "I shouldn't have said that. He was your friend, "

"It's alright," he said, giving her a ghost of a smile and waving his hand with a nonchalance that didn't show in his eyes. He had that gentle look of quiet appreciation of life that came to some people who lost loved ones, but knew that lost friend would be offended if they did not continue to smile. "I know it's probably really hard on you, seeing everyone so, happy." He trailed off, not looking happy in the least.

"Speaking of happy people, shouldn't you be in there with Salvia?"

His face took on the contemplative expression of someone deciding how to phrase something delicately. "Salvia, she's not quite what I expected to find, on my Matching Day. She's, "

"Lively?" Livia suggested. "Brazen? Exuberant?"

 obnoxious," the grey-eyed boy said decisively. "I don't like her at all."

Livia smirked. "Well, you have to like her. She's your match. You love her."

He shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "I don't."

"But she's your perfect match," Livia insisted.

"But what if she's not?"

Livia heard her heart beat twice before she asked, "What?"

"What if Salvia is not the perfect girl for me? What if the girl that I would love more than anyone else in the world couldn't be matched with me because, there was someone else our age who she would like a little bit better?"

"That doesn't even make sense," Livia said, shaking her head. "The matches have always been perfect: even numbers, complete compatibility;”

"But this time they messed up, right? I mean, you should know. You're the person who's affected more than anyone else."

"Well, yes, but;”

"So why isn't it possible that they aren't right on everything else? What if they didn't match this girl with me because she would love this other guy more?"

"Well, so, maybe they did. But if you would love her so much, surely you would want to see her happy, with the man she was meant to be with, right?"

"Yes," he said, very seriously. "I would want to see her happy."

"Then you should leave her in peace with the person she was matched with, and focus on learning to love the girl you were paired with."

The interminable silence stretched between them as the grey-eyed boy stared down at the leafy ground and Livia watched the way his hair blew across his forehead in the breeze. At last he said, "What if she wasn't matched with anyone?"

Livia's heart sped up, beating double time as she realized what he'd been saying all along, what she'd been too dim to put together until he'd spelled it out. "But you are matched," she said numbly. "Salvia has you."

He leaned dangerously far forward, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered into it, "I don't want Salvia."

Livia shrank back, confused. These were dangerous words he uttered, dangerous thoughts. People were matched with the people they were meant to be with. How could there be any other way? They couldn't be wrong; there'd been no divorce, no infidelity, no broken hearts in the decades people had been paired this way. Surely it was the right way. It had to be.

"I don't even know your name," Livia said resolutely, as though that settled the matter and proved him wrong. She pushed against his chest to force him back, feeling the blazing heat of his heart under her palm.

"It's Mason," he said quietly, and his words had the sound of discussion-ending power to them too. Livia was conscious of the fact that she had not moved her hand from his chest; her fingers curled slightly, enjoying the silky feeling of his shirt over his skin, and the warmth that radiated from his flesh.

"Go back to Salvia, Mason," she whispered. She realized she was shaking from head to toe, and not from cold. Here was everything she had ever wanted, everything she had imagined when she thought of her Matching Day, but he was not hers. "Please, go back to the party."

With a sigh, Mason touched her cheek briefly, the lightest of butterfly wing contacts, and then he turned and vanished into the night, not toward the party, but deeper into the forest. Livia stood for a long time without moving, her mind racing and her heart pounding like a runner's feet, and then she walked, slowly, directly away from Mason.

"You didn't come to the party last night," Mara said, breaking the silence that stood like frosted glass between her and Livia.

"No." Livia had gotten no sleep the night before; lying in bed, replaying continually the frightening moments with Mason, her heart had never slowed.

"Well, I just wanted to say goodbye, " Mara twisted her hands for a moment before wrapping Livia up in a warm and desperate hug. "I'm sorry, Lenny. I'm going to miss you so much."

The tension between them melted, and Livia returned the hug tightly, sighing. "It's hard to believe I'll never see any of you again - all the girls I've known all my life! Except for Maize and Crista, they're the only ones who matched with boys from here, right? And I don't really even know them."

"Well, you'll see Salvia too, for a little while."

Breathe in. Breathe out. "Why's that?"

"Oh, that fellow she paired with - Mason, isn't it? - his parents have some sort of huge wedding ceremony planned, and they've got a house mostly built for the two of them. They told him to stay here a while, get to know his partner's family for a bit, let her spend some more time with them, and then head back once the house and all the plans were done."

Wedding were an extravagance, a luxury that most people went without, especially if they didn't have the means to make it a massive event. The fact that Mason's family was going to such lengths meant they must be well off indeed.

"So Mason, and Salvia, will be around for a while?"

"Yeah, at least a month, I'd say."

A buzzing numbness in her extremities made it difficult for Livia to respond. She had thought Mason would be gone today, that she'd never have to see him and Salvia together again. But they would be here for a month,

"Speak of the devil," Mara said cheerfully, skipping over to greet Salvia as she pranced up the path with Mason's hand gripped in her own vice-like claw. The dark circles under his eyes said that he, too, had had a night with little sleep.

"Good morning, Mara, Livia," he said politely, giving each of them a little nod. His eyes lingered on Livia, though, and she found herself blushing and rushing to hug Mara goodbye again and begging for many letters describing life in Onek in great detail.

But then Mara left, and Salvia, Mason and Livia were left standing in an awkwardly isosceles triangle. "So, " Livia said at length, rocking back and forth in her slippers. "How was the party last night?"

Salvia's face split into a smug smile, and her eyes flickered over Mason possessively. "It was great fun, of course. Although I preferred what happened afterward." Her voice held a torte of suggestive layers, and Livia felt a little sick as she pictured Mason cornering a coy Salvia, taking out his frustration at Livia's denial in an aggressive, passionate,

"For heaven's sake, Sal," Mason said, sounding irritated, "I wish you would stop talking like that. You know nothing happened after the dance. All I did was walk you home!"

Salvia flushed brilliant crimson, her smile sliding off as if greased. "Mason!" she hissed, but he rolled on, unperturbed.

"And what are you trying to prove to Livia, anyway? It's not like you can have some sick competition going with her, like you do with Danica and that twit she paired."

Livia thought, for a moment, that Salvia was going to slap him, but instead she stormed away, her face schooling itself into a grin again as she spotted Verin coming up the way with her redheaded match, who was carrying a good chunk of her possessions on his back.

"If she tells one more person what a great time she had 'after the party,' I swear, " Mason muttered, just loud enough for Livia to hear. She suppressed a giggle; it wasn't that she wished ill on Salvia, really, but it was nice to see the girl taken down a peg or two, especially by Mason.

"Have you thought at all about what I said last night?" Mason asked quietly.

Livia tried to look less haggard as she answered, "We settled it, didn't we? You belong to Salvia."

Mason grunted, looking insufferably unhappy. "I'm meant to be with you, I think," he said abruptly.

"How could you possibly know? How could anyone possibly know they were meant for someone without knowing anything about them?"

"Ha!" Mason said triumphantly. "That's what everyone's doing anyway, isn't it? Aren't they all just assuming that they're meant to be together without knowing anything about each other, just because the community leaders say they are?"

"Mason, stop," Livia said firmly, shaking her head. "Don't you realize that this is what our society is built on? I think you're just being lazy, not even trying to get to know Salvia."

"Have you met her?" Mason's strained question revealed his frustration. "She's, she's awful! She parades me around like a - gods, like a show dog - and constantly makes these ridiculously shady comments about our 'evening activities,' as she likes to call them ,  the girl's determined to get me decapitated by her war axe of a father!"

"You know, it's not unheard of for matches to, "

Mason's scowl made her trail off. "Don't even suggest it. We are going to have an actual wedding, after all," he said sulkily. "You'd think she could at least wait that long."

Livia giggled at the absurdity of it. "You are concerned about her impatience for;”

 She's got a running bet with several other girls about how quickly she can tempt me! They're all competing, like it's some sort of game or something. Well, she's figured out by now that I'm more tempted to run like hell back to Micrague than, " He didn't need to finish the sentence.

"Then why haven't you?" Livia asked quietly.

"Because there is a girl here in Treston that does tempt me," he said, sliding a little closer to her without appearing to move at all. Livia's eyes darted back toward Salvia, but the girl was obliviously half-shouting in her eagerness to say goodbye to all the girls who would be leaving.

"Mason, "

"Meet me tonight, Livia."

"What?!"

"Please, Livia."

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"It's just, it's not done! It's not right."

"It's also not right to leave a dazzlingly beautiful, possibly perfect girl alone for life, but they've done that, haven't they?"

"Mason!" Salvia's brutally nasal voice broke into the steadily intensifying argument with the delicacy of a hammer, and she swooped in between Mason and Livia with calculated accuracy. "Come on, we've got brunch with Tevia and Bryce this morning before they leave, or don't you remember? Goodbye, Livia."

As he was steered away, Mason shot one last pleading look at Livia, who shook her head slightly. She could not meet him, not tonight, not ever. He was not hers; she told herself that repeatedly, never letting the words slip from her mind. If she did, even for a minute, and she allowed herself to believe that he could fill the void that Bracken had left, she would find herself drawn to him, wherever he was. She hoped the repetition of that thought would be enough.

"Gimme nuther un, Sally," Livia slurred, grabbing the glass away from Salvia, who was chatting with the other girls who had not left that morning and trying to pretend that Livia was not there.

"Get your own!" Salvia objected, jerking the glass back hard enough to slosh it on her dress. She and the other girls laughed uproariously, as though this was the best joke in the world.

Livia was not as drunk as they all believed she was, but she made a good show of it; she had found that, when people believed she was totally inebriated, they tended to speak as though she was not there. She could sit apart from the group and observe the social undercurrents beneath the surface of this small fireside gathering.

The boys were seated largely separate from the girls, who whispered theatrically everything they did not shout, and who screamed with laughter at every other word or so. Livia watched the way Maize's blond boy hovered just behind her, talking to the guys but turned a little to the side so that he would immediately know if she needed anything; he was already besotted. The other boys kept a watchful eye over the group of girls, but seemed more intimidated by the giggling gaggle than enamored of them.

Mason sat at the back of the group of guys, shrouded in flickering shadows, as far from Salvia as he could get. He had been nursing the same drink since the party had begun, and had drunk maybe two sips, as far as Livia knew, so he was certainly the least impaired of all of them.

She stood and pretended to stagger, actually tripping in the process; she would have tumbled headlong into the fire had it not been for a fortuitous snag of her wrist by Maize's blond.

"Thanks," she mumbled. She poured herself another tall glass of whatever Crista had brought and threw back a burning mouthful of it.

"Hey, leave some for the rest of us, Lenaninny," Salvia drawled, smirking. "That's for celebration; don't take it all up with your pity party."

"Shut it, Salvia," Livia muttered, taking another drink.

"I've got as much right to talk as you do! Maybe more, since I can actually contribute to society. What can you do? Matchless, childless, hell, maybe they'll give you a pet so you don't suicide."

"That's enough," Livia said with a little more heat, her generally slow anger bubbling up hotly in response to the burn of Salvia's words.

"Tell us, what's it like to be without a match?" Salvia continued cruelly. "To know that you'll be totally alone for all eternity?"

"Probably about what it feels like to know you'll be ugly and obnoxious for all eternity," Livia replied nastily, her anger peaking.

"That's pretty funny, coming from someone so unattractive that a guy actually killed himself so that he wouldn't have to be paired with her," Salvia retorted, sloshing her drink over both of the other girls with the intensity of her gestures.

"And you think Mason is so thrilled to be your match?" Livia cried. "He'd rather;”

 Hey! Calm down, both of you." Mason stepped between the two of them, hands raised in case the argument came to physical blows, which it might have, if Livia had finished her sentence. "Why the hostility all of the sudden?"

"She started it," Salvia said poutily, and Mason shook his head.

"No, she didn't. Regardless, I'm finishing it. Somebody should take Livia home."

"Let her take herself home," Salvia hissed. "Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll impale herself on a tree branch or something."

"Salvia, come on, break up the party. I'll walk you home," Mason said patiently.

"No!" she whined. "I'm having fun. You just sit back down and have yourself another drink. You're clearly not having a good enough time."

Stone-faced, Mason watched her flounce back to the fireside, flanked by Maize and Crista, and then he turned to Livia. "You want to go home?" he asked brusquely. She nodded, consenting to being led along the tree line back toward her house. How he knew where she lived, she had no idea.

When they were out of sight of the fire, Mason took her hand, and she responded with a faint smile, letting his warm fingers be a talisman against the cold night. "Livia, " he began, but he seemed to rethink speaking as they took a few more steps side by side.

"What?" she asked, and it was a long time before he answered with a question of his own.

"What is it that you don't like about me?"

"What?" she repeated.

"Why don't you like the idea of being with me?"

"Who said I don't?"

"Well, you say you can't possibly be with me because I'm Salvia's match, but it can't just be Salvia, can it? I mean, it's not like the two of you are the greatest friends, based on that show back there."

"You're, not mine," she said, repeating that mantra that had run like a hamster in a wheel through her mind all day long.

"But I want to be."

Livia shook her head slowly, deliberately. She didn't even realize she had stopped in the middle of the forest, still clinging to his hand like a drowning person to a floating bit of flotsam. "You can't. They won't let you."

"Who won't let me? Who's to say that I can't love any woman I want? Who on this earth has the right to tell me I can't be with you?"

"Well, they do," Livia replied vaguely, trying to concentrate on his words as he spoke too fast.

Mason shook his head in fierce denial of the indistinct statement. "No. The only person who has the right to govern who I fall for is me, and I pick you."

"Gods, Mason, do you even know what you're saying?"

"I know what I want, and I know what I don't want. I don't care about society's norms or whatever it is that makes you so scared."

"I'm not scared."

"Then what are you?"

"I respect the system."

"The system has destroyed your life, Livia."

"What's better, then? Chaos?"

"What's better is being able to choose. I would never, never have chosen Salvia. In a thousand lifetimes. But you?"

"Why me, Mason?"

"Because you're different! You're not just beautiful and sweet and quiet; you watch people, you notice things. You see the world a little differently than everyone else. You're above the pettiness of girls like Salvia."

"Obviously not, I just let her get to me."

"Yeah, well, you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk!"

"Gods, Livia, of course you are. I saw you staggering around back there."

"I am not," she maintained. Truly, she was barely buzzed, but Mason didn't seem to believe her. She wondered if he would try to take advantage of her apparently inebriated state, and decided he would not.

"Would you be angry if I kissed you?" Or perhaps he would.

"Would you kiss me if I didn't want you to?" she countered.

"Do you really not want me to?"

"You're Salvia's," Livia said stubbornly, running those words through her mind again: He's not yours.

"Livia, for once, could you think with your heart and not with your head? What do you want?"

"Mason, "

"What do you want?" he insisted.

She stared at him for a moment before sighing in defeat. "You," she muttered.

His smile was triumphant. "Then I'm yours."

"Salvia will never let you go that easily."

"What Salvia doesn't know can't hurt her."

"Mason, no! People would find out. Salvia would find out, and I don't know what the consequences would be for breaking a match, but I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty."

"Then we'll get out of here! Come on, we'll leave tonight. Let's go somewhere where they've never heard of Matching Days. We'll find a place where people pick their own people to love and we'll settle there."

"I can't leave, Mason. This is my home! And besides, do you even know if such a place exists? We could run through the wilderness for the rest of our lives and never find anything like that. We could die looking for it."

"Then we'll stay," Mason said with a sigh. He studied Livia seriously for several long minutes, his face serious. With a quick dart forward, he pressed his warm lips against hers, surprising her into a gasp with the suddenness of the contact. When she didn't immediately push him away, he stepped closer, running his hands down her arms from shoulder to wrist.

She shivered and pulled back, her eyes wide. I can't kiss him, she thought frantically. It goes against everything, he's not mine, he's not mine, he's not,

His leaned forward again, catching her lips with his, and her train of thought was completely derailed. She was startled to find her own arms wrapping around his neck, drawing her closer to his warm body. His hands found her waist and lifted her so that she was standing tiptoe on his feet, putting her mouth level with his.

It was him that broke away the second time, with a rueful grin. "Ah, " he groaned. "You're drunk, "

She shook her head. "I'm not, I promise."

He eyed her doubtfully. "Regardless, I should take you home," he sighed. "Salvia's probably wondering where I've wandered off to."

"You're going back to her?" It shouldn't have bother Livia, but after that kiss, the boundary lines had shifted, somehow; she felt she should have sole ownership of those lips.

"For a while," he said, his smile seeming to suggest that he understood her thoughts. "Will you meet me tomorrow night? Here?"

Livia contemplated it for two fractions of a second, and then her heart spoke for her. "Yes." She felt like that one kiss had been a crucial moment, setting her feet on a path from which she could not stray. She had to meet him; fate demanded it.

He walked her briskly to her back door and kissed her sweetly on the forehead in farewell before turning to jog back to the fireside gathering.

"Wait, Mason?" Livia called when he was almost out of hearing range. He turned and cocked his head to the side questioningly. "Don't kiss her like that, okay?"

His face split into a pleasant grin. "Only you," he assured her, and then he melted into the darkness like the dream he was.

One more step, Livia told herself, Just one more step. He'll be on the other side of those trees. No one followed you, Livia. No one knows you're meeting him. You can't be caught. Just take one more step,

She took a step, and then another, forcing herself across the strip of scant foliage and sliding as quickly as she could back into the blessed anonymity of denser trees. Her heart, once speeding like a runner's, was now making sick, wet thumps in her chest; she was afraid she might be having a heart attack. Fear made every limb shake uncontrollably, and each breath quiver in her chest. Gods, I should not have come, she thought frantically.

And then she saw him. He was looking up at the stars, his grey eyes luminous with their light, his hands shoved in his pockets as he took one deep, calm breath after another. Why wasn't he as nervous as she was?

She shifted, and a twig snapped, bringing Mason's eyes down to earth. Perhaps he had been nervous after all, because when he picked out her face among the leaves, he let out a momentary sigh, his mouth sliding into a smile of relief.

"You came," he breathed, extending a hand toward her, beckoning for her to come out of the trees. Livia nodded, glancing in every direction at once as she slipped out of hiding cautiously. "I was afraid you wouldn't." He took her hand when she was close enough. "Are you alright?"

She was panting with the effort not to run. What if someone came upon them? What if they were discovered, here, together? It had been bad enough when she thought she might be caught sneaking out of her window in the middle of the night, dressed like it was daytime, or skulking through the woods on her own; if they saw her with Sylvia's match, !

"Hey," he said gently, kissing her softly on the forehead. "It's alright, I promise. No one will find us. No one will ever know anything about this."

"How can you know that?"

"Whatever happens, Livia, I promise you'll be safe. I won't let anything happen to you." She wanted to laugh at the words, at the hollow promise that he could not hope to keep, but he enfolded her in warm, unyieldingly strong arms, and she felt safer than she had all night.

He tried to comfort her, kissing her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, but she still stood stiffly in his arms, trembling all over.

"Here, come here," Mason murmured, sitting down on the leafy ground and pulling her down next to him. He tucked her against his side, wrapping an arm around her waist and shifting his shoulder so that she could comfortably lay her head on it, if she chose to; she did.

"Why did you ask me to meet you here, Mason?" she whispered.

"I've told you, I think we're meant to be together. And I wanted to be able to talk to you without, you know, the entire community looking sideways at us. Or Salvia's interruptions."

"So you just wanted to talk?" Livia's mind flickered back to that fate-altering kiss the night before, the experience that had made her jittery all day, wondering what another nightfall would bring.

Mason laughed quietly. "As reluctant as you were to meet me here at all, I figured I wouldn't push my luck," he said, flicking a mischievous grin down at her.

"A kiss might not be totally out of the question," Livia said after a pause.

"Your wish is my command."

To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Based on a post by secret sexy writer. Listen to the Podcast at Connected.

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"You'd better not, or I'm pushing you into the pond this time!"

We

And soon, I lost all thought completely, as Alex Newberry brought me to the edge.

Over and over again.

Based on a post by secret sexy writer, for Literotica.

by Pearce_R_Daly. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

Cape Cod in late August is quite beautiful. The world has settled into summer, everything slows down, in the mind the knowledge of the coming end of the season is muted. One’s body adjusts to the temperatures and the sun’s bathing rays leave a feeling of being embraced by the season; wholesomely healthy. After a day’s play, the sun settles to a warm evening, a glass of wine, and perhaps a bit of nakedness…unless you are alone.

I had not planned to visit the Cape by myself; however, life often takes turns we can’t predict, nor control. Julie and I had been together for two years, seemingly fine, then she told me she had become interested in someone else. As hard as that was to take, when I found out who it was I was devastated…my brother Rich. I probably should have noticed how they would joke, pull pranks together and just enjoy each other’s company. I had no idea this was going on or how long. Maybe it is true that the spouse is always the last to know.

Since the house was already booked, I said; “fuck it”, and headed out for a few days of adventure. I brought enough to keep myself entertained, not looking to drown my sorrows in a bar. I was determined not to carry a banner for my own ‘pity committee’.

In this area known for fun and sun, I had prepared myself for a quiet time of reading and self- reflection. I found a bit of calmness here and thought maybe I should explore. The smell and feel of the ocean air opens one’s other senses as nothing else can.

One evening I headed up to the National Seashore to walk and found myself on a quiet, isolated piece of beach. No one was in sight of where I was…except a solitary women seated, silhouetted against the cresting sea. As I was nearing her, I notice her brown, flowing hair cascading to the mid of her naked back. I cleared my throat as a subtle notice of my presence, she turned and noticed me.

I said hello and asked how she was this evening she smiled and responded that she was quite well. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, arms holding them. It was then that I realized she was totally naked.

We exchanged, what was for me, a slightly uncomfortable conversation. She said her name was Terry and she was visiting friends and just needed to walk out here to clear her head. I told her my name was Vic. She smiled as she looked me up and down. As the conversation continued, she suggested that maybe, if I shed my clothing, we would feel more comfortable; on the same level so to speak. All that I could see of her was hot and as I tried to be non-nonchalant in removing my clothes, my cock springing from my boxers gave me away.

Terry sprang to her feet, running to the water, telling me to catch her if I can. There was no way that I wasn’t going to catch her. And there was no way she was going let me not catch her.

We both tumbled into the water, the cool feel of the Atlantic pulling the heat from extremities…but certainly not everywhere. Our lips met in a deep embrace, my cock hardening against her smooth, flat belly, her hard nipples pressed into my chest. My hands pressed down Terry’s back, caressing the smooth roundness of her ass checks, pulling her to me more. We didn’t know each other, but we both wanted this, needed this and were not about to let the opportunity escape.

Terry clasped my hand, pulling me up the beach to a spot where her clothing and a blanket were piled. She pushed me onto my back and proceeded to take my aching cock into her mouth. Her tongue traced the head and then down and up my shaft, teasing the slit at the tip. She slid her lips over the head twisting and sucking while stroking below. I had to stop her before exploding in her mouth…her lips pulling from my dick with a pop.

Now it was my turn to taste her, even after being in the water, her scent was intoxicating. I licked and kissed around her mounds, finally parting her lips and finding my way to paradise. Terry lifted her hips, grinding and gyrating her hot, wet pussy harder in my face. My tongue working circles around her clit, she grabbed my hair, held me to her glistening pearl, she pressed harder to my face, her orgasm building from deep within. I pulled back quickly to catch a breath, only to be yanked back to her snatch. She was not about to be denied, and she was not, as she shuttered and moaned loudly. As her breath relaxed she let go of my hair, releasing me to pull back and look into her eyes… and a look that said she wanted more.

As I laid back on the blanket, Terry straddled me, slipping my cock into her drenched, dripping pussy. She was rocking herself on me, her exquisite tunnel engulfing all of me, clenching, almost milking me. I noticed another couple approaching, but there was no stopping now. As they passed, they smiled, not saying a word. I could have sworn the women said to her partner that was so hot, she really need to fuck…and soon.

I could feel the pressure building from my balls, I couldn’t hold back for much longer. Terry moaned loudly, she was coming again, which pushed me over the edge, spurt after spurt of cum mixing with her fluids.

We kissed, as she lay on top of me; two strangers, yet in some way, no longer strangers. One could feel the evening chill coming on, so we both headed back into the water to rinse off. Any thoughts of discomfort of each other long passed. Suddenly, the feelings of betrayal seem more distant.

As we walked back up the beach, we paused, me looking into Terry’s soft brown eyes, a connection that I didn’t…or couldn’t understand. A deep kiss brought a realization that such understanding was unnecessary.

We dressed and walked back to the parking lot. As we arrived, Terry said she came to the Cape after breaking from a relationship. I explained that I had a similar situation and was also processing it as best as I could. We both agreed we were glad this evening happened…and we would meet here tomorrow evening around the same time. A warm embrace, a deep kiss, we said good bye and good night. We got into our cars driving away…looking to tomorrow.

After a great night sleep, I awoke looking forward to tonight. I could not seem to stay focused on anything all day so I went from reading to walking to watching TV; yet the day still seemed to drag. Finally, the evening arrived and it was time to head up to the Seashore…and meet up on the beach we were at last night.

I arrived at the parking lot and noticed only one car there… Terry’s. I also noticed the marker plate frame had the emblem of the same dealership as my car. Maybe we actually live near each other. That was a question for later.

As I neared the spot where we had met last night, I spied the beautiful lady, completely nude. She saw me approach, she leaned back on her elbows on the blanket, one knee in the air, which gave me full view of her wonderful attributes. She smiled and said that I was a bit overdressed and should really consider doing something about it fast. I didn’t need to be told twice, shedding all before I got to her blanket. I knelt down and kissed those sweet lips, picked her up and carried her into the ocean.

The water felt amazing as I let her down, holding her, the waves pressing us together with each swell. My hardness pressed to her belly, her stiff nipples poking my chest, we could remain this way forever in my mind. Her gaze was melting me inside…and inside her is where I knew I needed to be.

I picked Terry up and carried her back to the blanket, both of us breathing hard, not from the effort, but from what was to come. As I kissed her lips, she grabbed my cock, lubricating it with my precum, softly, slowly, stroking the length. I kissed down her neck, slightly nibbling and sucking gently her tits, tongue lapping, sucking and finally biting and pulling her sweet, brown nipples drawing a soft moans from her.

My fingers played up her slit, parting her folds and she worked her hand up and down my cock, a slight twist each time she just touch the head, as my fingers circled, then flicked her clit, she pressing to my hand in excitement.

Terry and I were at the point where we needed to stop or else we would come at each other’s hand. I grabbed her, forcing her onto her hands and knees as I approached her from the back, rubbing my dick up and down he slit. Her cunt was moist and mixed with the dripping precum from my dickhead. She was moaning loudly. I also heard other moaning and looking to the right, noticing the couple we saw last night, fucking away on a blanket nearby. This ramped up our excitement even more.

I pressed my cock into Terry’s folds, she pressing back on my engorgement, taking me deeper inside her with each thrust, my hand manipulated her clit, first circling, then rapidly stroking at that pearl. She pushed back, stopping, a deep, low groan and hissing as her orgasm over took her. I paused, held in tight, not moving giving her a moment undisturbed.

Suddenly, she slammed back on me, grinding and gyrating, squeezing my cock with her internal muscles, milking me. I could feel cum building from a depth long forgotten. I groaned and growled, cum rising up my cock. She was moaning, squirting and covering my cock with her wetness.

I withdrew from her drenched pussy, stroking a very few times covering her ass and cunt with each spurt, finally collapsing across her back…as her knees and arms gave way.

I lay over Terry for a while, both of us watching the other couple as they finished their love making. They were just too hot to ignore…not to mention loud. As they recovered, they looked at us, smiling. We all gave each other a thumbs-up…and no words exchanged.

The twilight of the day was settling upon us, so we took each other’s hands, walking to the water for our final rinse. As we walked, we noticed the other couple not far behind us, heading into the surf to do the same. At this point, they introduced themselves as Francois and Natasha, Canadians from Montreal. This explains the exclamations of “Ah, qui” that we kept hearing them say during their passion. All four of us naked, but none of us cared. After some small talk, we bid our Adieu and went to dress and head back to our cars…and tomorrow, back to our daily lives.

Walking back to the parking lot, I told Terry that it looks like we got our cars from the same dealership. She smiled as she told me that she lived only a half mile from me. I asked her last name to which she answered; “Stone”. She asked mine and I said; “Sarken” and we are the only family by that name in the area.

I noticed Terry’s face was ashen, asking her if she was ok. She then shared that the reason she was here, that she had recently broken up when she caught her boyfriend cheating …and his last name was Sarken…Rich Sarken. She had caught him entering a hotel with another woman.

My heart sunk, not knowing what to do. So, I went with the truth. I had planned to come here with my wife until I found out she was in a long term affair…with my brother. And yes, my brother’s name is Rich Sarken. Not sure what to do or say we held each other’s hand tightly and quietly. This went on for several minutes until I started to snicker. Terry smiled and asked what I found so funny.

Hoping she wouldn’t find me completely crude, I said this is kind of like an unknowing revenge fuck. She stared at me with the most serious look on her face…then burst out laughing. I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my cheek, as was Terry. When we calmed down, I pulled her to me, kissing her, tongue fucking each other’s mouths. As shitty as this time at the Cape had started, it is magic had brought our visit to this end. Tonight, I was not to sleep alone, this beautiful lady would spend the night with me.

As autumn has come, back here in our town, Terry and I are together. My divorce is in process, nothing contested. The distance from my brother is quite evident. He nor my wife know that I am in a relationship or with whom.

A lone naked woman on the beach, who shared a moment of freedom with me, when we both most needed it. No one knows what or why things draw people together…but for this I am most grateful.

In the end , vengeance can be sweet, I wish my brother no ill will, but he really needs to squirm…wondering if, or when Terry will tell Julie that he was also fucking around on her.

My mother called today, asking if I could put things behind me enough to come for Thanksgiving dinner. She didn’t want me to be too uncomfortable. I said it would not be me that will be uncomfortable…and that I have someone I would like to accompany me, someone who has a special place now in my life. She was thrilled at the prospect. Terry said she is more than up for it!

Holidays can bring out the best and the worst in folks sometimes, and at the least, some drama. And I for one can hardly wait to see the look on my brother’s face come Thanksgiving. Vengeance will be sweeter than the whip cream on the pumpkin pie!!

And speaking of dessert, where is Terry… I would love eat something a little sweet right now!

Pearce_R_Daly