Part III

Annie licked her lips and winced as I rotated the small, silicone dilator in her vagina. Distracted by thoughts of my visit with the attorney, I inadvertently over-rotated it.

“Mm!”

“Sorry.”

She let out a stuttered breath. “It’s okay.”

We were naked on the couch. She lay on her back with her feet tucked under my thigh while a movie played in the background. I severely underestimated how uncomfortable the treatment would be for her. Even the smallest dilator caused her pain if I wasn’t careful, and I doubted that she would ever be able to have normal vaginal intercourse with a man who didn’t have a micropenis. She cried during her first treatment and I immediately called Dr. Agrawal afterwards, but she assured me that Annie’s body would adjust in time.

More than anything, I wanted Annie to be happy and fulfilled, and find success in all aspects of her life. To have close friends who would support her and with whom she could share the joys of her life. To go to prom and graduate high school. To attend university, earn a degree, and build a career. To get married and start a family. To have pleasurable, satisfying, loving sex.

I’d hoped to be her guide and companion through her life’s journey, celebrating her accomplishments with her and comforting her during her darkest moments, but Sheila Grasty, Esq. all but crushed that dream. To an officer of the law like she, and society at large really, I was a danger to Annie. A manipulator and exploiter. An abuser.

Was there any scenario that would allow us to share a life together without constantly looking over our shoulders? I had trouble imagining one that didn’t involve leaving the country. But where in the world could we go that would both accept us and afford her the same opportunities to become a fully self-actualized person? Maybe, if I had time, I could locate such a mythical place, but I only had forty-eight hours. In two days, the authorities would come to take Annie away.

She winced again and my shoulders sagged.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, Annie.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing. I just have a lot on my mind.”

Of course, she didn’t believe me, and I considered that I was setting a terrible example by hiding the truth from her. The first time she lied to me, I’d felt disappointment. Is that what she felt now?

“Will you please do the penetrating thing now?” she asked.

“Sure.”

The simple in and out motion of penetration was far less painful for her than rotating, but I still needed to be careful. Annie’s vagina was barely two inches deep. Given the observed elasticity and plasticity of her vaginal tissues, Dr. Agrawal believed it was possible for Annie to one day work up to the size eight dilator, but that process could take several months or even years. Getting the size one dilator much past her two inch limitation was challenging enough and I had to pay special attention not to force it.

I applied more lubricant to the dilator and carefully reinserted it, then gently moved it back and forth, applying a small amount of pressure when I encountered resistance. Just enough to gently stretch her vagina. It was a painstaking process, but one Annie seemed to enjoy. She spread her knees further apart and hummed softly.

“That feels really good,” she whispered, and I caressed the inside of her thigh. She took note of the throbbing erection standing straight up in my lap. “Mmm, I can’t wait until you can fit inside my kitty,”

I leaned over and kissed her knee. “That’s going to take some time, baby.”

“I know,” she said, sounding disappointed. “You’re the same size as the number eight.”

“I’m not sure about that,” I said with a laugh.

“It’s true. I’d know.”

“Okay, I trust you.”

“Mm-hm. You better.” She sighed wistfully. “I’m just glad you fit in my mouth.”

“Me too. I love being in your mouth.”

Annie lolled her head from side to side. “Well, I wish you were in my mouth right now.”

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, then fixed her with a firm stare. “We need to finish your treatment first, okay?”

“Boo,” she said, pouting her lip. “I want to suck you while you’re doing that.”

A soft groan escaped from the back of my throat. I put my thumb over her clit and slowly rolled it in a tiny circle. Annie’s eyelids shuttered and her lips parted.

“How about this instead?” I asked.

“Mmm ... That’s good, too.”

The movie was long forgotten as I turned my full attention to the task of pleasuring Annie. I pinched her clitoral hood between my fingers and gently rolled the loose skin over her clit. Annie gasped and moaned and opened her legs even wider. Soon, her hips began to move, a subtle gyration at first before they lifted off the cushion to hump the air.

“Are you going to cum, baby girl?”

Her eyebrows drifted apart and her mouth opened. She nodded quickly. “Yeah,” she whined. “Mm! I’m gonna cum.” A long, low moan escaped her lips and she squirmed under my hand, her hips writhing beneath me. In a soft whisper, she intoned, “I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

Her face screwed up and she cried softly, the tendons in her neck standing out as her body tensed. And then her release came in a gush of air. She curled forward, her soft little belly rolls bunching together as she silently screamed.

“Ah! Oh god! Mm! Sean!” She flopped her head back onto the cushion and breathed out a gush of air. In a languid stupor, she ran her hands over her body and pulled her hair. “Oh wow, that was so good.”

I laughed under my breath and put my hand on her belly. “Do you have any idea how sexy you are when you’re cumming?”

She looked down her body at me. “That was the first time I ever had an orgasm with something in my kitty.”

My smile faltered. “Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense, right?”

She looked up at the ceiling. “I guess.” She grew meditative and disappeared into her thoughts for a while before saying, “I never had an orgasm with something in my butt either.” She moved her eyes back to mine. “In fact, you’re the only one who’s ever made me cum, now that I think about it.”

Her confession saddened me. I hugged her knee and kissed it, then my eyes drifted down to her pussy and popped open.

“Annie, check it out!”

“What?”

She propped herself up on her arms to look between her legs. All three inches of the number one dilator were inside of her. She looked at me with astonishment.

“Oh my god, it went in!”

“I know.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe it happened during your orgasm, or because you were so aroused.”

Her face lit up with a huge grin. I leaned over to kiss her, but once we started I didn’t want to stop, and neither did she. Leaving the dilator in her pussy, I crawled between her legs and pushed her back onto the cushion. I kissed her face and her neck, then pushed her breasts together to suck on her nipples. Annie ran her fingers through my hair and wrapped her legs around my waist, sighing loudly.

I kissed her again, then sat up on my knees and pulled on her feet to straighten her legs. She scrunched her eyebrows together and gave me a funny look when I moved forward to straddle her torso.

“What are you doing?” she asked with a smirk, taking hold of my cock, trying to guide me to her face. “Want me to suck it?”

“I’m going to fuck your tits,” I said.

She looked down at her soft mounds and then at me. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I laid my cock on her sternum and pushed her breasts together, forming a little envelope that cradled my shaft. The delight and amazement on Annie’s face when I rocked my hips and slid my cock back and forth between her breasts almost made me laugh.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

She lifted her eyes and nodded quickly, then lowered them again to watch with fascination while I fucked her tits. Her brow furrowed. “I wish they were bigger,” she said, sounding disappointed. “They don’t even cover your manhood.”

“They’re perfect.” I built to a fairly rapid pace. “I love fucking your perfect little tits.”

She grinned at me, reaching to caress my abdomen. “I love it too.”

Our evening became a journey of sexual exploration and discovery. After fucking Annie’s tits, I hovered over her chest so she could suck my cock. Then we swapped positions and she got herself off by rocking her pussy back and forth along the bottom of my shaft.

Retiring to the bedroom, I went down on her and tried to get my finger inside her pussy, but even with plenty of lubricant it was still too thick to fit inside her narrow vagina. I fingered her asshole instead and brought her to a shuddering orgasm with my tongue. When I crawled on top of her to kiss her afterward, she held my face and looked into my eyes.

“I want you inside me,” she whispered.

I knew what she was asking for because she’d asked for it many times before, but although I wanted to make love to her, I had misgivings about putting it in her ass because of her past experiences with Gordon Barth. I ran my fingers through her short hair and kissed her again.

“Why don’t you want to?” she asked, sensing my hesitation.

“Annie...”

“I want it. Please.”

Trying to think of any excuse, I said, “Because I don’t think I’d fit. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She was saddened by my reluctance but said nothing more about it. We kissed again and then she rolled me onto my back and sat on my pelvis, pinning my arms over my head. She lowered her face to mine.

“I love you, Sean. Do you love me?”

“Yes, more than anything.”

She stared deeply into my eyes and slowly nodded. “Okay.”

As I contemplated what she meant by that exchange, she kissed me again and then her lips lifted into a mischievous smile.

“I want to do the thing again.”

“What thing?”

“You know. Where I sit on your face and suck you off.”

“Sixty-nine.”

“Six...?”

“Sixty-nine. That’s what that position’s called. Think about what the number looks like and you’ll understand why.”

She scrunched her brow and then her eyes opened wide with understanding. “Oh! Because they’re, like, facing in opposite directions!”

I laughed. “You got it.”

Her smile faded. “I want to do a sixty-nine, okay?”

We did just that. I encouraged Annie to take it slow and see how long she could delay my orgasm, and I promised to do the same for her. For the rest of the night, we edged each other to the brink of ecstasy again and again, taking breaks to kiss and caress each other, until we were out of our minds with lust and the need to achieve climax became so all-consuming that we couldn’t deny ourselves a second longer. With reckless abandon, we sucked and licked and fingered and jacked each other off to a glorious explosion of simultaneous orgasmic release.

For a time, I managed to put out of my mind that our carefully constructed life together was in jeopardy of being undone, until a call from the attorney woke me shortly before noon the next morning. I answered it quickly and carefully slid out of bed to keep from waking Annie, taking the call in my office.

“I wanted to follow up on our conversation the other day.”

“We’re still discussing it,” I lied.

“I’m afraid you’re out of time, Mr. Copeland. If you fail to notify CPS, then I have to.”

I rose out of my seat. “But you said we had forty-eight hours. That’s what you said.”

“The law says I have a duty to report within forty-eight hours, but I’m not going to wait until the last minute and risk my career. You need to do the right thing.”

“Please,” I begged, “just give us a little more time.”

Sheila was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “Tomorrow morning, ten a.m. You need to bring Annabelle here to my office and we’ll notify the authorities together, okay? And don’t worry, I’ll talk to them on your behalf so you don’t catch any charges. But if you’re not here by then, I’ll have no choice but to report Annabelle to CPS myself. Do you understand? Ten a.m.”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you.”

She sighed. “You’re welcome.” After another long pause, she said, “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry, Sean. If there was something more I could do for you, I would. I want you to believe that. I know how difficult this must be for both of you.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, unable to swallow back the bitterness. “We’ll be there.”

I ended the call and held my head in my hands. What was I going to do?

“Who was that?”

I spun to find Annie hovering in the doorway. She’d slipped on one of her long t-shirts. For the past few days, we’d hardly worn clothes at all and it was strange to see her even partially dressed.

“No one. Just a work thing.”

“What did she mean about reporting me to CPS?”

My face fell. “You heard that?”

“What’s going on, Sean?”

“Come here,” I said in a shaky voice, holding out my hand. She came to me and I pulled her into my lap. “I fucked up, Annie. I went to see a lawyer yesterday.”

“A lawyer? Why?”

“To find out about adopting you.” When I said that, Annie’s face lit up, but I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. It’s a complicated process, and they won’t let you live here while it’s being worked out.”

She looked stricken. “W-where will I live?”

“More than likely, you’ll have to go back into foster care in Mississippi.”

“No!” she yelled, leaping off my lap. “I don’t want to leave you!”

“I know! That’s what I told her, but she ... Oh god, Annie, she said I didn’t have a choice. I have to tell them that you’re here. If I don’t, I could go to jail, and if that happens I might lose you forever.”

“No!” she cried, defiantly shaking her head. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t want to go back there! I hate it there! Please, Sean, don’t make me go away!”

I pulled her into my arms. “I don’t want you to go, sweetheart. I don’t. I want you to stay here with me.”

Annie clung to me and cried into my shoulder. “I don’t want to go...” she wailed.

I tightened my embrace, desperate to hold onto her because the thought of letting go and losing her constricted my chest until I couldn’t breathe. My eyes burned with stinging tears.

“I love you so much, Annie.”

Unable to respond, she only cried harder.

It seemed fitting that the sky was overcast that day. A dull, gray blanket that dimmed the landscape, muted all vibrancy, sucked all joy, and added its tremendous weight to the morose pall that hung over us both. The rumble of far off thunder threatened yet another afternoon storm. We walked hand in hand along a wide trail, hugging the shoreline of a dried up creek bed that meandered through the wooded greenbelt. A few hikers and dog walkers passed us along the way but they paid us no mind. To them, we appeared to be a father and daughter, out for an afternoon stroll.

Our aimless wandering brought us to a rocky outcropping that overlooked what once had been a great swimming hole, now a tan pit of bleached limestone and cracked, sunbaked clay. A frayed, knotted rope swing hung uselessly from a nearby tree. She sat between my legs and I wrapped my arms around her, resting my chin on her shoulder.

“We could go away somewhere,” I suggested in a flat tone.

“Go where?”

I didn’t know.

“How long will we be apart?” she wondered after a while.

“I’m not sure. A long time, I think. Months.”

She started to cry again. I kissed the side of her neck and she clutched my forearm. Her anguished sobs tore at my heart. It all felt so hopeless. There was nothing I could do. No trick up my sleeve or loophole to wiggle through. We could only sit and wait for the inevitable.

“I want to go home,” she said between sobs. “Please, take me home.”

We made love on what would very likely be our last night together for many months, if not forever. After using the dilator and my finger to bring her to a breathless orgasm, Annie pulled back her legs and asked me to use the dilators to stretch her anus in preparation for anal sex. When I expressed my reservations, she begged.

“Please, Sean. Please, do this for me. It’s the only way I’ll ever get to feel you inside me and we might never get another chance.”

I kissed her and looked into her eyes. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

I held her beseeching gaze, searching for signs of doubt, but found none. I slowly nodded and kissed her again.

“Okay, Annie.”

With plenty of lubricant and an equal amount patience, we quickly progressed through the first several dilators. With the number six, I encountered significant resistance, and by number seven Annie was groaning, with tiny beads of sweat forming on her lip and brow. The largest diameter dilator stretched her butthole to its absolute limits. After using my mouth to bring her another orgasm, she was finally ready for the real thing.

I coated my shaft in lubricant and removed the dilator. The cavernous hole left behind slowly closed as I gripped her ankles and pushed her legs back. With her butt lifted off the mattress, I moved closer and positioned the glistening head of my cock against her anus.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“I’m ready,” she assured me.

The dilators had done such a good job of opening her up that I slid into her ass with remarkable ease. When I reached the thickest part of my shaft, Annie cried out and tears formed at the corner of her eyes, revving my heartrate.

“Are you alright?” I asked, easing back out.

“Yes! I’m sorry.” She wiped her eyes and laughed. “I’m just so happy.”

Holding myself still with the head of my cock poking into her ass, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you sure?” I asked, and she nodded. “Okay, here we go.”

Reversing direction, I pushed forward again and watched my cock slowly disappear into her rectum until my pelvis pressed against her buns. Her eyebrows parted and her soft moan built to a loud, throaty groan. The sensation was incredible. Her intense body heat radiated through my cock and her anus cinched tightly around the base of my shaft. I took several calming breaths and looked at her.

“How is it?”

“Mm, you feel so good,” she said in a strained but excited voice. “Way better than the dilator. Now, do it, okay?”

Easing into it, I fucked Annie’s ass with short strokes to open her up a little more and allow her to get used to my girth, pausing frequently to apply more lubricant. Before long, I lengthened my stroke and gradually built to a much faster pace until I was properly fucking her.

Annie looked at me with an eager smile on her flushed face, biting her lip. She grunted softly and her breasts bounced on her chest each time I bumped against her ass. Little puffs of air blew from my lips.

“Does that feel good, baby?”

Her smile widened and she nodded vigorously. “Mm-hmm!”

Trapping her legs behind my arms, I propped myself over her and leaned down for a kiss, bucking my hips to slide my well-lubricated rod in and out of her ass at a steady, rhythmic pace. Annie sucked on my lip when I pulled back my head and she stared into my eyes.

“I don’t want it to end,” she whispered.

“Me neither.”

Despite our wishes, however, I knew I wouldn’t last very long. My orgasm was already starting to build. I rose back onto my knees and reached down to stimulate her clit. Her eyes rolled back and she cupped her breasts, breathing heavily through an open mouth.

“Play with your nipples,” I urged.

She pinched and pulled them, and the additional stimulation stoked her fire. I fucked her faster, my thumb a blur as it flicked over her clit. Annie was close, so very close. Her face hardened, appearing as if she was about to sneeze. Her chest steadily rose as she filled her lungs with tiny inhalations. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and cried out, a sharp cry that folded her forward.

I put her feet on my shoulders and gripped the top of her thighs to pull myself into her, thrusting my cock into her ass as fast as I could, my orgasm rising and rising until it finally boiled over. Thrusting one final time, I slid into her ass as far as I could and held myself against her soft bottom as a euphoric eruption of semen burst forth from the tip of my cock, shooting deep into her rectum.

I tilted back my head and groaned, crying out to the heavens. “Oh god!”

Waves of pleasure and relief washed over me as all the pent up feelings and sensations and emotions of the last several months poured from my loins in a tidal rush and flowed into Annie’s receptive depths. A cathartic outpouring that left me feeling simultaneously drained and fulfilled, but also bittersweet in that it came so late.

I fell forward into Annie’s embrace and she locked her ankles behind my back, holding me inside of her, unwilling to separate. I cradled her head in my hand and nuzzled against her sweaty neck, my breath hot and heavy against her shoulder.

“I love you so much,” she whispered in my ear.

“I love you, Annie,” I gasped.

After sharing a long hot shower, we made love twice more. Once with Annie riding me on top and then again on her hands and knees. After filling her with cum for the third time that night, I was utterly spent. It was well past two in the morning by then and we needed to be up early to make sure we got to Sheila’s office on time.

At long last, we crawled under the sheets together and I fell asleep with Annie’s back pressed against me, my arm draped over her in a loving embrace.

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong. Annie wasn’t in bed with me and the house stood deathly still. Throwing back the covers, I rolled out of bed and went in search of her, my pulse pounding in my ears.

“Annie?”

She wasn’t in her bedroom, nor in the office, nor anywhere else upstairs.

“Annie!”

Downstairs, the den and kitchen were both empty. A check of the garage found nothing amiss. The 4Runner was still parked in its spot. I looked in the backyard then opened the front door and called out for her at the top of my lungs.

“Annie!”

She was gone. In a stricken panic, I nearly ran naked into the street. Back in my bedroom, I pulled on the first thing I found lying on the floor and rushed downstairs for my keys. I froze. On the entry table sat Annie’s cell phone and balanced on top was a folded note with my name on it. With shaking hands, I picked it up and unfolded it. As I read, my vision blurred.

Sean my love, I’m so sorry to leave like this, but it would hurt my heart too much to hear you say goodbye and to see your face when they take me away from you. I want you to know that you’ve made me the happiest girl in the word. You’re perfect to me in every way and I love you with all of my heart. You are my everything and one day soon we’ll be together again. I promise. I’ll wait for you for as long as it takes. I love you, always and forever. Annie XOXO

I shuffled to the den, letting the note slip from my fingers along the way, and collapsed in an emotional heap onto the sofa.

“Sorry I’m late,” Sheila said in a rush when she entered the conference room, dumping her bag onto a chair. “Deposition ran late.” She paused with her blazer halfway off when she saw me sitting alone. “Where’s Annabelle?”

“Annie’s gone,” I said, my low voice catching a hitch as I struggled to get the words out. “She left.”

“What do you mean, she left? Where the hell is she, Sean?”

Her incredulous stare and demanding tone told me that she didn’t believe me. Not until I fell forward onto her conference table and heaved a sob into the crook of my arm.

“I don’t know! She’s gone...!”

My life fell apart the day Annie left. Everything in our house reminded me of her. I couldn’t eat, because when I opened the fridge I saw the half-empty bottle of juice sitting there on the shelf. I couldn’t sleep, because I still smelled her on the sheets. I couldn’t sit in the den and watch a movie, because the bottle of lotion still sat on the coffee table. Work was impossible, because any time I sat at the computer, I prayed against hope that I would hear the thump of a deep bass rhythm.

For several days and nights, I drove up and down the streets of our neighborhood in search of her, slamming on the brakes or throwing the SUV into reverse anytime I saw a girl who even remotely resembled her. I never expected to find her. I just needed an excuse to leave the house.

Then I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka. I finished it in a day and puked my guts out the next morning. By the third bottle, I didn’t puke so much anymore.

Weeks passed, and then a month. Halloween came and went, and for the first time in years, I didn’t put up a display or throw a party. My porch light stayed off, as did the ones in the house. I sat alone in the dark that night and drank until I passed out.

In early November, Sheila called me with the news. Annie had turned herself in at the local police station as a runaway. After spending a few weeks in a juvenile facility, she was placed in a group home while child protective services took their time making arrangements to transport her back to Mississippi. Two and a half months after walking out the door, Annie was back in her home state. Back in foster care.

Sheila didn’t know where she was now or who she was living with. The trail ran cold at the Mississippi border. In fact, she’d had to call in a few favors with people she knew in local and state government to get what little information she had.

Knowing that Annie had spent weeks incarcerated threw me into a tailspin. My depression deepened and I became almost nonfunctional. Where before I used to dodge phone calls but still respond to texts, I cut off all human contact. I became a shell of myself.

Then, on day, as I lay curled in a ball on the sofa, someone put their hand on my shoulder. I turned to look. It was my neighbor, Gabe Rosen, and just seeing the concern and sympathy on his kind, gentle face caused my face to crack and I fell into a fit of grieving sobs.

When I’d exhausted my tears, he helped me off the sofa and pushed me into the shower. Then he got me stoned. For hours afterward, until the small hours of the morning, we sat beside the firepit and I told him the whole sordid tale. The full truth of my love affair with Annie. By the time I finished, he sat stunned with only one thing to say.

“Wow.”

“You must think I’m a total piece of shit,” I said miserably.

Gabe lit a joint and finished it before responding, and what he said moved me to tears.

“A couple brought their daughter to see me a while back. Danielle. Man, I’ll never forget that girl. She was suffering from blurred vision and painful migraines, and her doctors discovered a mass on her brain when they did an MRI scan. That’s when they referred her to me.

“Anyway, I diagnosed her with gliosarcoma. Do you know what that is?” he asked, and I shook my head. “No? Well, count yourself lucky. It’s an aggressive form of brain cancer. By the time she came to see me, it had already spread to her lungs and lymph nodes.”

He tilted his head back to look at the stars and lowered his voice. “I had to explain to Danielle’s parents that their little girl only had four months to live, and that there was nothing we could do for her other than try to make her comfortable in her final days. She’s only fourteen years old and she’ll be dead before Christmas. She’s going to die a horrible, painful death and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

Gabe turned in his chair to look at me. “I see kids like Danielle every day. Kids who’ll never know what it means to truly love someone and be loved by them back. You love Annie, and it’s obvious to anyone who’s ever met her just how much she loves you. If I had the power to give those kids just a taste of the love you and Annie have for each other, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

“So, to your earlier question, my answer is no. I don’t think you’re a terrible person. What I think is that you and Annie are incredibly lucky to have found each other and were able to share the love you did in the time that you had together. In fact, I can only think of one thing to fault you for in this entire ordeal.”

“W-what?” I asked in a trembling whisper.

“You should never have considered adopting Annie. You should have married her, instead.”

Marta Ahlquist regarded me with healthy suspicion that bordered on disdain. A mint green file folder rested on the kitchen counter in front of her, pinned beneath her protective hand. Inside that folder was information about Annie.

“Before I give this to you, I need to ask you something.”

“Okay...”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

I drew my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are your intentions with her?”

My head went back. “Why? What exactly are you implying?”

Marta cocked her head to one side, her cool blue eyes peering into mine. Then she glanced at the folder and took a moment to straighten it in front of her as she thought about what to say. When she looked at me again, her expression was stolid.