This picks up where Hartstein ends , it’s a year later, and Paul is working with the editors on the finalization of his novel. Carol is no longer the leading editor working with Paul and it seemed that each day brought someone new into play as the many details of finalizing a novel before publication begin to overwhelm him. But he was buoyed by the fact that he now had a publication date and his world was spinning faster and faster with each passing day.

The work and its many ramifications compelled Paul Hartstein to move to the city where he wound up sharing an apartment with Miles David, a teammate of Paul’s at Connecticut, who had a brief stint with the New York Football Giants and was currently a sportscaster with one of New York City’s television stations.

In the spare time Paul had available, he hung with Miles and his girlfriend, Jade whom Paul considered a sexual minx, but managed to keep his hands and other body parts off of.

Others in their circle of friends included: Reece Moreland, who owned a printing business. Toni Sporano--worked in a boutique. Nadine Hartman--photographer’s assistant. Joey Mangum—Television advertising sales. Drew Patterson--Unemployed actor, and Callie Monahan--Researcher.

Please Don’t Tell was a smallish but dark and cozy cocktail lounge on St. Mark’s Place which Paul accessed by walking through a telephone booth in the adjacent Crif Dogs establishment next door. He never failed to be amused by this corny ploy, but had to admit it was a near perfect hide-away in a city that had a million and one ways of garnering one’s interest.

He stood just inside the entrance until his eyes adjusted to the darkness then spotted Miles and Jade off to his left. He waved to them and asked a passing waiter to bring him a chair, which was the bar’s policy, i.e., fitting three or four at a table for two.

“Jade, Miles ... how’s it going?” he said for openers.

“Hi Paul, we’re good, and you?” Jade replied wide a wide-mouthed smile.

Paul often imagined her mouth around his dick when masturbating, but had never made a move on her partly out of respect for his roomie, and partly because she never gave him reason to think she’d be receptive to any overtures on his part.

“Better than I deserve,” he responded good naturedly, as another couple sat down at a nearby table. It took a second or two before he recognized them.

“Reece?” Paul asked. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

“Us? We live like three blocks away. Have you finished massaging your novel? I mean, no one’s contacted me about the printing, (Reece owned the printing company that would be running copies of Paul’s first novel when it was deemed ready to go to press.) or any of that bullshit.”

Jade smiled knowingly at Reece’s date, who she did not know. Miles nodded sagely at the other man but said nothing.

Paul brought Reece up to date on his book’s publication status, and then signaled a waitress over to bring them all a round of drinks. Reece introduced his companion, a petite brunette with beguiling doe-like eyes, smallish breasts and lovely legs, as Toni the Wop.”

“Come on, Reece, that’s a little gross. You don’t need to get nasty here,” Paul said.

Toni, the center of attention that moment, sat staring at the table and waving her hands over the scarred wood very slowly. Her eyes were glazed over, but there was a faint smile on her face as if she knew a secret no one else at the table did.

She looked up at everyone and grinned. “My last name’s Sporano, not Soprano, but Sporano. Reece thinks I’m related to a fictional character on HBO. I can’t convince him otherwise, or at least he refuses to accept it, preferring the fictional me to the real me.”

“Hey, no wait a minute. The real you gives great head, the fictional one no so much,” Reece said too much laughter from the others at the table, including Toni.

“We’re like totally high,” Toni said and laughed.

“Yeah, we’re like burning off our buzz, and then we’ll go home and fuck like rabbit’s,” Reece added.

The drinks came and everyone stopped talking for a minute, then Jade spoke up. There was mischief in her sparkling eyes as she teasingly goaded Miles to regale the others with his mother—daughter story.

“You think?” he said.

“Oh yeah ... they’ll love it. It’s so you, baby!”

That settled matters on the subject and Miles began his story.

“I was exactly in the middle, equally too old for one and too young for the other and when we were out in public we felt almost like family.”

“Did you act like family?” Reece inquired lewdly.

“Naw,” Miles answered. “The three of us laughed too loudly and drank too much.”

“Wait,” Paul said, obviously interested in this turn of events and seeing story potential in it. “Which one did you start with first?”

“That’s complicated,” Miles answered. But of course that wasn’t true at all. The only complication was explaining the truth without giving anything away. They might be friends, but when it came to that story, they only needed to hear so much.

“Anyway, we wound up back at their place, there was some groping in the vestibule with both of them, and I do recall swapping spit with the daughter there as well and that led to a shower that left us struggling to stand. But a little while after that the mother was squeezing my dick as we tried out some torrid kisses while the daughter was drying her hair.

“And so it went, week after week, for several months, making it with both of them, sneaking, quietly hiding, and telling outright lies, I still had no idea if the one knew about the other. When the end came it was simpler, but no less ambiguous. The daughter got a boyfriend, the mother a girlfriend and our secret meetings dissolved to occasional emails.

“Never a word, and never an honest moment.”

“Come on, you have to give us more than that,” Toni said breathlessly, pushing a shot of tequila towards him. Paul thought she was highly aroused by the story and filed that away for future reference.

Miles laughed and glanced down at his phone, pretending to be busy as he opened and read the text once more. Mom and I are single again. When are you coming back?

Reece looked questioningly at his partner, Toni, who nodded affirmatively. “Um, hey you guys, we ... umm, we’re having a little get together at our place...”

“It’s gonna be a great fucking party, guys,” Toni added, “and we’d love for you to come. We moved in last month and it’s a totally killer pad. We have three bedrooms and a huge living room on the second floor over on 12th Street. Tomorrow at say nineish?”

And that was that.

The following night Paul found Reece’s new apartment awesome. It was full of furniture, real furniture not the pseudo junk most twenty-something’s had, and there was real art on the walls, and beds with actual frames. It was the first full blown party Paul had been too since his college days--dozens of people were lounging around with drinks in their hands, and music was blaring from giant speakers set up in all four corners of the huge open room that looked out onto a slice of Abingdon Square.

Toni spotted Paul almost as soon as he walked into the apartment and gave him a big hug, making sure to rub her breasts against his chest long enough for him to appreciate their fullness.

“No date, Paul?”

“No, I thought that...”

“Well we have an abundance of gorgeous women here. Look around, find one that’s stag and do your best to impress. Have a seat over there,” she pointed to a group of three girls sitting on the floor around a fourth who was camped in the middle seated on a hassock.

“But get yourself a drink first. See the bar over there?” Toni pointed again, this time to the far side of the room near an archway that led to another room, most likely a bedroom.

He made his way across the room and a cute girl in cargo pants and a tank top handed him a gin and tonic. Paul figured that Reece was probably making good money to throw a bash like this and that was just fine with him. After months of cheap beer and he was perfectly happy with a party that had real glasses and a table with more than three legs.

Drink in hand, Paul meandered over to where the four girls were and found that another guy had gotten there first. He had long hair and seemed to be covered with tattoos. Paul winced mentally, but realized that at a party like this there were more women than men and in this case he was certain there was room for another male, especially since he appeared to be in far better shape than the tattooed man now looking at him.

All four of the girls were attractive. Three of them wore short dresses, designed to show off their legs; the fourth had auburn colored hair and wore a pair of skin-tight yoga pants and might as well have been nude as far as Paul was concerned, for when she pivoted around on the hassock to meet his eyes, he noted the prominent camel-toe before raising his eyes enough to take in her breasts and face.

“Hi, I’m Paul, a friend of Reece and Toni.”

Since he was still looking at her, the girl in the yogi-pants introduced herself: “Hi to you too. I’m Marti, and this is Callie,” she pointed at a lithe dirty blonde with jiggly breasts and no bra, who giggled by way of acknowledging him. “And Gina,” a dark haired Italian beauty with large breasts and lovely legs, who smiled at him and said: “A pleasure I’m sure.”

“And last, but not least is Nadine.” Paul noted that Nadine was the most attractive of the group, a blonde with a nice figure who waved a big engagement ring on her finger at him by way of greeting.

“Yeah, and I’m Damon,” the tattooed man said as he handed Paul a huge bong from which he took a small hit before passing it back around and settling into a spot on the floor from which he had a good view of Marti’s camel-toe.

“We’re discussing bondage and the like,” Callie said as the others all looked at him expectantly, and Paul realized he had sat down in the middle of a conversation.

“Bondage?” Paul said, repeating the blonde.

“Yeah,” said Marti, “We’re curious, you know? Like if you’ve tried it, how did it go? Like what did you do and stuff like that.”

Paul watched the other girls in the group laugh or look down.

Damon spoke up, “That’s just Marti teasing Callie, ‘cause she claims her boyfriend, Drew is ... what is it she said, Marti?”

Marti laughed and replied: “Adventurous in bed, you now? So what do you think?”

Her eyes were challenging him when he met them.

“I think I’m smart enough to stay out of this conversation,” Paul replied, to derisive tittering from the women seated near him.

“Well that’s the nice, safe, boring answer,” Callie chided. “So you’re not going to tell us what you think?”

Paul decided to take the bait and said so. “You’re talking bondage, but I’m wondering if you really know anything about it. You know, from having practiced it.”

“We’re asking you for your opinion. You’re trying to turn the tables on us,” Marti snapped back at him.

“All right,” Paul said with a smile, “I think it depends on the woman. Some would never do it, some put up with it for their partner, and some are really into it.”

This evoked a soft but prolonged ‘Ohhhh, ‘ from the girls. Then Nadine, the blonde with the big engagement ring said with dripping sarcasm, “And I suppose you have the magic touch to make them enjoy it?”

Paul bristled at that and replied frostily, “Hey, they’ve surveyed plenty of women about this, like everything else. So what I’m saying is backed up by that.”

“But what about you?” Callie asked with arched eyebrows.

“When did this become a discussion of my sex life?”

“Hello?” Marti chirped. “Is there any red blood in there? You’ve got a group of women talking about sex with you, and you’re backing down?

“Okay,” Paul said raising his voice for the first time. “I know they can enjoy it from firsthand experience, all right?”

“An honest answer!” Callie yelled triumphantly as she twisted her torso and unintentionally put her camel-toe directly in Paul’s line of vision.

“I’m not going to kiss and tell, but I know at least two women that had extremely powerful, orgasms that way.”

“And you’re so sure about that? I mean that they wanted it?” Marti again.

“When you’re asked to allow them to bind your wrists to the bed while they enjoy themselves with your body--yes, they wanted it.”

“But that’s not saying anything about them, or she ... I’m not clear if this was just a multiple time thing or if two women were there just one time,” Callie said as she rubbed her left wrist with her right hand.

“Let me make it clear then,” Paul said. “After they had their fun with me, I got to tie them up--one at a time then the unencumbered lady and I pleasured the bound one, tormenting her in various ways, but culminating in a mind-boggling orgasm in each instance.

Everyone was staring at him. Paul wasn’t sure if they thought he was bullshitting them or if he’d ventured into some kind of forbidden territory. Damon, the tattooed guy, looked like he wanted to call Paul out as a liar, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it since all the girls were hanging on his every word.

“That was fairly recent, back in college there was a girl who--we’d already shared bed several times--wanted me to tie her up.”

“She wanted you too...” Marti said, but didn’t finish the sentence.

“Tie her up--to the bed posts,” Paul said, finishing the sentence for her.

“What did you tie her up with?” Damon asked.

“What do you think, Damon?” “It wasn’t professional or anything. I mean we usually used a scarf or a tie or something. Occasionally my belt, I guess. How did this come up?” Paul asked.

“Wait, you tied your girlfriend up with a belt? Then what did you do?” This from Gina, the dark haired Italian with large breasts spoke up for the first time. She had shifted position and was so close to Paul that he wasn’t sure if she was going to continue talking or try to kiss him.

“You know...” he said, nodding his head delaying conversation until he knew what she was going to do.

He found out soon enough.

“What does that mean?” Gina asked. “‘You know?’ I don’t know! You tied her up, and then what?”

He realized that she was most probably near-sighted, or not wearing her contacts. He decided to be direct and spoke frankly. “It means that we fucked! Oh, there would be a slight struggle as she tried to fight me off--that was part of her thing--I mean her rape fantasy. But we fucked until we both finished and then I untied her and we’d take a shower, and then fuck again like normal people.”

“I used to sit on this guy’s face.”

All eyes turned to the girl next to Gina. It was Joey Mangum’s date, a good-looking blonde named Nadine. She had blurted it out so quickly Paul almost wasn’t sure he’d heard it, but from the surprised look on everyone’s faces she obviously had. Then she turned such a bright red it was almost shocking.

“He begged me for it. I didn’t tie him up or anything, but he would lie on the bed and I’d just sit on him. Sometime we did it for like an hour.” She looked down at the floor, fingers tugging on the hem of her dress. “And he would...” she made a gesture with two fingers and her tongue. Her expression seemed to move into something closer to fond reminiscing.

“Was this before or after actual sex?” Marti asked. “I mean was he like, going to town after you two already did it?”

Paul breathed a sigh of relief. He was no longer the center of attention, and it seemed all the women were aroused or becoming aroused by Nadine’s frank admission. He glanced at Damon and noted the protrusion in his slacks and had to smile. It was as if magic excelsior had been spilled into everyone’s drink making them all horny.

He was abruptly brought back to the present on hearing Nadine talking again.

“No! There was no sex. I mean, that was kind of sex, but he didn’t want anything else. It was all that we ever did. I’d go over to his place and he’d just lie down on the bed or the floor. Sometimes I wouldn’t even take my clothes off. I’d just lift up my skirt and kneel over him. He would start to whimper when I got close, and then he’d just lick me until I came or got bored.”

“He didn’t want to do you in the ass? Men always think women want that, and they never do,” Callie offered.

“No, he never penetrated me at all. He never mentioned anal--for that matter he never mentioned vaginal either.

“He was happy to lick me. Once I wanted to see how long he would go, and it lasted for nearly two hours. I came like six times, but it was me that called it off. I finally rolled over and lay there next to him. I remember asking if he wanted to fuck me that time, but he just smiled and said as long as he was making me happy, he was happy. It was sweet even if it was super weird.”

“And you broke up with him?” Damon asked, while Paul was thinking the same thing.

“Well there are times when a girl needs a nice dick inside her,” Nadine said plaintively.

Her words appeared to rip similar admissions from the other girls present.

Marti --”I totally need to get laid.”

Gina --”Seriously. I haven’t had sex in like a month.”

Callie--”It’s been weeks for me.”

“How ‘bout you, Paul? When was the last time you got laid?” Marti, as usual was direct.

“You really want to know?” he replied.

“Wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” she answered.

“About ten last night,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What! You’re shitting me!” she bleated, and then confessed, “No--no you’re not. Fuck! Double fuck! I’m going into the other room to see if any cute guys have showed up. This is bullshit.”

She got up and left as Damon adjusted his ‘package’ and stood up intent on following Marti to the other room.

The other girls remained seated around Paul, apparently expecting that more juicy secrets would be divulged. They talked, shared a joint or two and sipped drinks for a while, laughing about nothing in particular, and the party got louder, quieter, drunker, higher, and more desperate.

An hour or so later Paul got up and left the girls and saw Marti making out with a guy in the kitchen. He rejoined the group just as Damon reappeared to ask Gina if she wanted to join him for a smoke on the fire escape, and that left Paul with Callie and Nadine.

As far as Paul could recall, both Callie and Nadine had arrived with dates which didn’t leave him much leeway in getting laid by either one of them.

Callie ended the brief silence by asking: “Did you really tie that girl up?”

“Yeah,” Paul nodded.

“And she struggled and kicked as you tore off her clothes?”

“Not the first time, but after that ... yes.”

Nadine made a soft sound and moved closer to him. Callie winked at him--twice actually to ensure he noticed.

Paul winked back and let his hand brush Nadine’s bare leg, but rather than move it away she left it in place. Her other foot was pulled up beneath her, but this one was almost on his lap, and then with a subtle, but swift movement, she placed his hand on the inside of her thigh and stared into his eyes until he resumed talking.

“One time she told me to grab her in the hallway. She said she didn’t even want to know it was me when I pulled her into my room. I was scared someone would see us, but it didn’t matter at that point. I always did whatever she asked, and there was no way I was going to back out. I waited until she was almost at my door before I grabbed her.”

Nadine moved his hand further up her thigh until Paul’s fingers were just where she wanted them. He looked at her in surprise when she pressed his hand against her wet pussy--no undies--and closed her legs around him, holding him in place.

“Cozy, huh?” Callie snickered, and began lightly rubbed her fingers over her camel-toe.

Paul froze, wondering how far he was going to be allowed to go.

“Keep going,” Nadine whispered.

“Umm, you mean the story?”

“Of course, darling. I love listening to your voice. Don’t you, Callie?”

“Mmmm, oh yes, yes I do.”

“Okay, I umm, threw her on the bed and locked the door behind me, but she was up by the time I turned around. She screamed at me and asked me what the fuck I wanted with her, but I had her back on the bed a second later with my belt around her wrists. I tied it to the headboard and knelt over her, holding her legs still as I tore her shirt off. She struggled and tried to kick, but I pulled off her jeans, and then finally ripped her panties off with my bare hands.”