Chapter 11

There are situations in a man's life when time gets all fucked up. The first time that happened to me was in the very first football game I was a starter in. I was a normally second stringer and was used to sitting on the bench. Then the guy who played end got hurt, just before an away game, and suddenly I was out in front of all those people and the team was depending on me. I don't remember there being any time during that game. I was either playing or standing on the sidelines watching the defense. I was aware of dozens of things—sounds, movement, the feel of the ball under my fingers, where the defenders were—but there was no time involved.

It was the same the first time I got into a gun fight. There was no time then either. All I could focus on was surviving, and that involved figuring out where the enemy was, or was going to be, how many rounds I had left, both in my gun and in my extra magazines, and what there was to take cover behind that might stop the bullets being fired at me. Time didn't resume until I knew he was down and I was safe.

The first time I jumped out of an airplane was like that, too. They had outfitted me with this thing that popped my chute automatically if I got below a certain altitude, which was good, because I wasn't paying ANY attention to time, as I concentrated on seeing the Earth down there and feeling the wind that meant I was hurtling toward that Earth. I was aware of my body position and the huge effect that tiny changes in my movements made, but I had no room left in my mind to think about time.

And this turned out to be very similar to all of those things. Not that I was a virgin or anything. I'd been with my share of women. But it had never been like this. Again, I was aware of dozens of things that were going on. I saw things, felt things—both physically and emotionally—and did things, but how long it all took ... I have no idea.

I felt the leather of those skates as I unlaced them. I felt the astonishing friction-free movement of the wheels as I pulled the skates off. I heard the thump as they hit the floor. I heard the rustle of her jeans as I pulled them off her legs. I saw her impatiently push her tiger-striped panties down, revealing loins that had no hint of hair. I heard the bed springs react as her heels hit the mattress, and saw the muscles in her thighs flex as she lifted her butt off the bed, spreading her knees. I saw her hand cover what my eyes were then glued to and one finger disappear between flushed red lips.

Then the finger came out and, in concert with another, they spread those lips wide, her hips still arched up off the bed, and I knew she was showing me how empty she was and how much she wished she wasn't.

I have no recollection of removing my own pants. None. I have no idea how it happened, except that it had to have been my own doing, because she didn't move, other than to pump her loins at me.

Usually, the first time a man and woman do something like this together, there is some amount of hesitancy. They aren't quite sure how to proceed, because neither is sure what the other is going to do. There is most often some fumbling as they work through that initial hesitancy and nervousness, until nature, or lust, or passion finally takes over and drives the train from that point on.

But with Ronnie and me, that night, there was no hesitancy at all. The first thing I filled her with was my tongue, because I HAD to taste her.

She tasted like peaches.

I breathed her in, and my heart soared at the sounds she made. I decided I could do this for hours and be completely happy. Her orgasms were announced not by longwinded wails or theatrical screams. Rather she just got to a point where she sounded extra happy for thirty seconds and then went back to her encouraging, delighted little yips and moans.

After hearing her do that a few times, I remembered what she'd said about her breasts and moved up to taste them, too. They tasted like pussy, and I almost laughed out loud. I had spent enough time on them that they started tasting like breasts, when she pulled me up so I could taste her lips again.

I have no idea if I accidentally moved into her or if she found me and pulled me in, but suddenly her lips were sucking my tongue and her pussy was sucking my prick. Somehow she must have gotten chipotle sauce inside her, because she felt as hot as fire. Moving in her, and feeling her response through her lips, was the most wonderful thing I'd ever felt in my life. It was like I WAS a virgin. It had never felt like this before.

Making love with Ronnie Powers was a little like two women mud wrestling, except there wasn't any mud and I wasn't a woman. But we twisted and rolled and writhed, making sounds like we were killing each other. Sometimes I was on top of her, and sometimes she was on top of me. At one point, our movements were so violent that I came out of her. Her moan of disappointment would have curdled the milk in a cow's udder and I was frantic to get back in her. As I slid back into her, she said the first words she'd said since asking me if I was going to take her skates off.

"Ohhh yesssss," she moaned.

I think the reason making love with Ronnie was so different than anything I had ever experienced before was because there WAS no hesitation, no fumbling, no sign of any kind that there was anything else in the world that was worth doing. And I'm talking about both of us. She wanted this as desperately as I did, and that acceptance made it something that was just perfectly right.

As I said, time had no part of this. I wasn't counting minutes. I wasn't even counting her orgasms. I don't know how far apart they were or how many there were. All I know is that I wanted to give her just one more. And when that happened, I wanted to give her just one more after that.

My body betrayed me. There came a time that my prick said, "OK. My turn!"

I remember thinking, "Nooooo, not yet! I'm not done here!"

My balls responded with "Oh yes you are, bubba," and they did their thing, and instinct took over and I went deeply into her and held myself still, while muscles deep in my groin caused soothing streaks of semen to jet into her. She made a sound like "mmmmmmmmm" that told me all that semen was welcome to come and live in her forever.

I knew I was going to die then. You just couldn't feel that good and live through it. And, to be brutally honest, I was ready to die then. What I mean is that it was the best that I'd ever felt and, in my opinion, probably the best I ever COULD feel. The pinnacle of life had been reached. The mountain had been summited. There was nowhere to go but down, now, and going down after being that high could only be something akin to death.

Then her hands grabbed my face and she kissed me four or five times and said, "I really missed this, Bob. I'm so glad this happened."

And suddenly I didn't want to die anymore.

By morning, my verve for life had dimmed just a little. That girl just plum wore me out. I felt like a new boot that had been broken in by being soaked in water and then walked dry. In fact, while I should be ashamed to admit it, I was actually glad when she said, "We have to get going. I told Julia we'd be back by ten."

Luckily, when we left Bourbon, we only had another twenty miles of construction and from then on it was smooth sailing.

The atmosphere in the car was completely different, of course. She held those skates on her lap and hummed. I know that sounds exactly the same as what I described before, but it wasn't. Now that hum, which had sounded happy before, sounded both happy and somehow satisfied at the same time. She reached over every once in a while and touched me. She didn't grope between my legs or anything like that. She just touched my thigh, or my arm, and once she stroked my hair back into place. It was completely innocent.

Which was why I was actually embarrassed when I got another hardon as we got into the morning Chicago traffic.

She giggled, looking at my lap. Then her face got thoughtful.

"Bob?" she said.

"What?" I was embarrassed that my pants made me so transparent.

"I want you to know I don't do this very often."

"I should hope not," I said, thinking she was referring to hiring a private eye to do something that shouldn't have to be done in the first place and getting him all banged up in the process.

"So you don't approve," she said. Her voice sounded tense. "I suppose you think I'm a slut."

"What?" I looked at her like she was crazy.

"You think that because I slept with you last night that I'm a slut."

"Are you insane?" I asked. In my own defense, my lack of tact was a product of being confused.

"I don't do that very often," she said. "I'm not a slut, Bob."

"Hang on there," I said. "I never said you were a slut. I don't think you're a slut. How did we get on this subject again?"

"I said I don't hop into bed very often with a man I don't know all that well, and you said I was a slut for doing it."

"I did NOT say you were a slut!" I gasped. "I thought you were talking about hiring a private detective and getting him half killed! Ronnie, I do NOT think you're a slut. Last night was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me!"

"Well, good then," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way."

She went back to humming and looking out the window. I felt like banging my head against the steering wheel. One minute this woman was making me feel like the king of the world, and the next minute she had me defending myself from horrible things I never even said!

Then we were where she'd directed me to drive to and she was leaning over to kiss me, her head turned sideways.

"I'll see you later," she said. "Call me."

Just like that she was out of the car and running. Somehow she was able to run and turn her upper body backwards to wave at me one last time before she went through a door and disappeared.

I went home, went to bed, and slept for nine hours.

Then I got up and went to the office, despite the fact that for everybody else, the day was done and it was time to head home. I spent some time going over my open cases, planning on how to get them all caught up or finished, now that I wasn't spending major amounts of time on Ronnie's case.

The phone rang, which was odd, since it was after five. I picked it up.

"You were supposed to call me," she complained.

"I needed to get some sleep," I said.

"Are you well rested?"

"I am."

"Good, because I'm fixing you supper tonight, and I'd like you to come eat it."

"I thought you didn't cook," I said.

"I don't," she said agreeably, "which is why this is a particularly astonishing situation."

"I AM hungry," I admitted.

"Good!" she chirped. "And there's somebody I want you to meet."

"OK," I said. "Who?" I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. As soon as I understood that I was being invited over, I had fantasies about being worn out again. Men are idiots that way. Now I was going to have to behave myself, because there would be someone else there.

Her voice came back somewhat guarded. "He's kind of the other man in my life right now," she said.

Disappointment turned to tragedy. She was breaking it off. What she was doing was giving me a last meal before things ended. I couldn't believe this woman could be that cruel.

"It's not what you think," she said. "I can explain it when you get here. Please come?"

For what she had already given me, I owed her. I wanted to sulk, but didn't.

"OK," I said.

She gave me her address, which was new information. She'd never talked about where she lived or who she lived with. I assumed the person I would be meeting was a roommate, who she was involved with or something. I knew my job was to bow out gracefully. I told myself she was out of my class anyway. She was too young for me, too. I thought of a dozen reasons why it was a good thing she was letting me down gracefully. It never occurred to me that it might be family. I knew her father was gone, and she'd never mentioned a brother. If she'd said it was family, I still might not have wanted to go. I'd had enough of her family to last me for a while.

My first clue was when I knocked and there was the sound of small feet, running rapidly, and a young voice yelling, "I GOT IT MOMMY!" That was followed by a screamed "WAIT!" and a quieter "You know to look first, baby."

I saw the light coming through the peep hole go dark, and put on a smile. I never remember that when you look like Grizzly Adams, a smile doesn't necessarily engender calm feelings of safety in the viewer.

It was quiet for a long time, until I heard her voice call out, "Well, who is it?"

"I don't know," said the young voice. "But you were right, Mommy. I'm glad I didn't just open the door."

I heard more sounds of movement and the peephole lit up again, only to go dim once more. The door opened and she blushed.

"Sorry," she said. A little boy had backed up and was staring at me. He looked poised for flight.

"You told him exactly the right thing," I said. I looked at the boy. "Your mother is a very smart woman," I said. Like an idiot, I smiled at him again. I probably looked like a hungry bear.

"Keane, this is Bob. I told you about him. He's here to have supper with us." She turned to me. "Bob, this is Keane, my son."

Now you might think I was surprised, or maybe even shocked or something like that. Some of you might think I was thinking, "Damn, a rugrat! I knew something had to go wrong." But the fact of the matter is that little boy just made every bit of sense in the world. He actually completed the picture that was Ronnie.

Why?

It's simple. I was a man. I had fallen under her spell. I had, quite recently, spent an entire night engaged in a strenuous effort of trying with every erg of energy in my body to get this woman with child. That was the effect she'd had on me, and it wasn't at all odd to me that she'd had that effect on some other poor schmuck. Not that being with her made him a poor schmuck. I should have known she wouldn't have invited me over if he was still with her. She wasn't that kind of dame. So that meant that he'd either fucked up and gotten kicked out or, for some insane reason, had walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to him. That was what made him a poor schmuck.

I felt bad later, when I found out Keane's father had died of a rare disease he'd contracted while he was off in the Peace Corps, being a better citizen of the world than I was.

But I didn't give the poor schmuck any more thought, then. My mission was clear, at that point. It wasn't to bow out gracefully anymore. Now it was to make friends with Keane.

Fortunately, kids are like dogs. They have this built in ability to sense whether someone is a good guy or not. They can be fooled sometimes, but only by a real pro. And while I could be a human chameleon, I never did that with kids.

Supper was Thai takeout, which she'd "fixed" by ordering when she hung up from inviting me over and then kept warm in the oven. Actually, that's not fair. She had made ants on a log, filling celery sticks with peanut butter or Philadelphia cream cheese, then lining up raisins all along the length.

I talked to Keane all through supper, asking him about school and what he liked and things like that. His natural suspicion and reticence gradually went away. I knew I had been accepted when he started telling me the kind of jokes that six year olds tell, which are hilarious to other six year olds, but not to adults.

After supper, I found out he was an artist, when I was presented with a thick pile of drawings he'd made. They'd been done in various media, from crayon, to marker, to pencil, to paints. And they seemed bizarre in a way, until I was presented with a book of art prints by all kinds of famous artists. He had looked at those pictures and then drawn his best impression of them. He was pretty good, too. He also knew way more about art than I ever would, and he was just a kid.

Time flies when you're having fun, and the next thing I knew Ronnie was telling him that it was bedtime and he had school the next day and things like that. It was so odd to see her completely comfortable in the role of a mother, but only because I hadn't thought of her in that role before tonight. I had thought of her as a mother-to-be, as I said before, but that's different.

"Please don't go anywhere," she said over her shoulder as she led him off to bed. "There's something important I want to talk to you about."

I had no idea what it was that was important. She hadn't touched me or sent me any signals since I'd arrived that evening. Which had me thinking that she was thankful, but remote, as far as what I'd done for her. Had that unbelievable night we'd spent together been a onetime thing? I knew there were women out there who didn't form attachments to men like I was used to. Women's lib had resulted in things men hadn't expected. There were a lot of independent women out there who didn't need a man like women had needed them when I was in my late teens and early twenties.

I was in the process of talking myself into being resigned to accept what she'd given me as all I was going to get, when there was an odd repetitive thumping sound that came from the hallway she'd disappeared into. My subconscious mind alerted me to the sound of someone trying to skate on carpet, when she appeared, wearing the skates my mind had just told me would be on her feet.

I laughed, because she looked delighted.

She skated up to me and, without slowing, plopped herself down on my lap with a thud that made both my femurs unhappy.

"Ow," I complained.

"Don't be a baby," she said. "I'm not that heavy."

Then she kissed me like she meant it. Apparently she liked anticipation, because all those hours of not touching me or sending me any signals were made up for in that one kiss.

And, once she stopped anticipating, she didn't waste a lot of time getting to the point. When that kiss ended, she wiggled on my lap and stared into my eyes.

"You wanna take my skates off again? I liked how you did it last time."

Now I TRIED to pay attention to time, because I wanted to spend as much of it as I could enjoying what was going on. I took my time removing each skate, then unwrapped my present slowly, too. She didn't say a word, just watching me as I tugged and pulled and uncovered things. When she was naked, I stood there, looking down at her, enjoying the view. I was doing a little anticipating of my own, just then.

I shucked my own duds and she sat up and then stood up. She led me to her bedroom and pushed me down on the bed. Then she got on her hands and knees and let her face hover over an erection I was proud of.

"I missed you," she said to my penis.

Then she kissed him and licked him and convinced both him and me that she'd meant what she'd said. When I was about to explode, she stopped and crawled up to dangle her nipples in my face.

"They missed you, too," she said, lowering her body to brush a stiff nipple over my lips.

While I tried to make up for that, she positioned herself and wrapped Mr. Happy up in tight, warm pussy, sinking down with a groan of happiness that almost made him spew.

I tried to distract him.

"So what was the important thing you wanted to talk about?" I asked.

"This," she said, rocking faster.

"You wanted to talk about doing this?"

"No, I wanted to talk about continuing to do this."

"Isn't that what we're doing?"

"Yes," she said, jerking her hips in a way that threatened to undo all the control I'd painfully reestablished. "You didn't take much convincing."

"You thought I'd try to talk you out of it?" I gasped.

"I want to keep seeing you," she said, leaning her weight on the hands she put on my chest.

"OK," I said. "I'm in complete favor of that."

"Good!" she said, whipping her hips forward and back in jagged three jerk motions, accompanied by three little grunts that went with each of the jerks.

And then she whined and moaned and came all over my cock, and there was no WAY in the world I could contain my own orgasm. It rushed at me like electricity in a copper wire, and when my I went off in her, it felt like that electricity was zinging its way through my penis.

I am probably still alive to tell you all this only because she didn't demand a repeat of our first night together. Had she done that, all that would be left of me is the withered husk of a man, dried out and brittle, like the leaves in February that fell from the tree in September, the year before. She could have broken me that night. I'd have killed myself trying to keep up with her.

But she didn't make me do that. Instead, she lay down on top of me and nuzzled my ear.

"Can you stay for a while?" she asked in a soft panting whisper. "I really don't want to get up."

Does a man lost in the desert leave the oasis once he's found it?

"I can stay," I gasped back.

"Good," she murmured in my ear. "I'm going to take a nap now."

Her nap turned into an all night cuddle. At some point, she slid off of me, onto my arm, which wrapped around her of its own volition. We slept like that all night long.