Chapter 4

Finally, everybody left, and I followed Becky to her place. We made love again, this time I was on top of her, and she had her arms around my shoulders and her thighs wrapped around my waist as I slid slowly in and out of her body. But each time I tried to slow down, she would use her heels and push on my bottom, urging me to keep going. I was able to hold off long enough for her to reach her climax first, but only barely. Her tight contractions inside as she started to peak was more than I could handle and I came along with her, both of us moaning as we kissed deeply.

It was tiring holding my neck up, and with regret had to slide off of her and lay on my back next to her. I apologized, but Becky put her fingers over my lips. “None of that Pete, you are still recovering. There is nothing to be ashamed of, but I do admit I look forward to when I can hold you on top of me like that. Just give it time, I may have you begging for less before I am finished with you.”

I smiled and kissed her and we cuddled together. I told her what I was looking forward to was being able to lie on my side again, so I could spoon up behind her as we normally did. “Hmm, me too. Like I said, just give it time.”

The next morning we took a shower together, and then decided to head to IHOP for breakfast. I had the western omelet as she had waffles, and we returned to her house where we made love again. This time she was on top, and she refused to slow down or hold back, and in just over five minutes I could not hold back any longer and shot what little I had left inside of her. I looked into her face, and she was actually smiling and had a glow about her. “Oh finally, I never thought I could make you cum before I did.”

I looked at her, slightly surprised. “You wanted that?”

“Gods yes. Pete, I adore making love to you, but I wanted at least once to be just about you. You try so hard to make things wonderful for me, I wanted to return that. I love making you feel this good, and am blessed that you are able to be here with me after what happened. But the others are right, you give so much of yourself, all the time. It is your right to sometimes just take, we do not mind if we are giving freely. And hell, most times it was rare for me to climax with a guy at all. With you this is the absolute first time I did not. And I still feel happy and well-loved. Both loved emotionally, and loved physically. And I am sure that as soon as I slip off to go to the bathroom which I need to do soon, I will have absolute proof you just well-loved me.” She giggled, then slipped off and out of the bed. And keeping her thighs together she went to the bathroom.

God, I loved watching her bottom move in that magical way only females can do as she walked out of the bedroom. We took another shower together, but a much quicker one before I made sure I had everything and got into our cars. We drove to my parent’s house, and dad told me he had talked to Jeff a bit ago, and both Kim and Grace were fine. Kim had an episiotomy. But otherwise, there were no complications.”

I saw Dee wince, and Becky just nodded. “OK, sorry, but I have to ask, what is that?”

“Dear, they made a small cut at the bottom of her vagina. It’s not a big deal, it’s fairly routine actually. I had to have one with George, just a couple of stitches and there are no long effects.” Becky nodded, saying her aunt had one and complained mostly about the stitches itching afterwards.

I loaded up the car, and gave everybody a hug and kiss, saying I would be back in three days. Becky and I hugged and kissed again, then I got in the car and headed to the freeway.

Traffic was light, and I made good time. I stopped at Carlsbad for a burger and bowl of split pea soup at Anderson’s. Then an hour later I pulled into the parking lot at the hospital. Everybody asked how my holiday had gone, and I said it had gone great, and that the day before my niece was born. That got me a lot of congratulations, and soon we were all chilling out and shooting the shit.

The next day after Physical Torture I got a visit from my doctor. I asked him if I could do something because I was going out of my mind with boredom. “Come on doc, I sit here most of the day, it’s getting old. Maybe they can use some help here in the computer department. Even that would be welcome. I am not used to doing nothing. If I am here for another six months like this I will go crazy!” He smiled and said he would check around. But he reminded me, no promises. And I could do no lifting, and to wear my damned collar!

Wednesday afternoon I threw my bag in the car and headed out. I got home at just after 4, and as expected Dee, Becky, and Sharla were all in the office playing away. Becky had her synth hooked up to my computer, Dee to her own. Sharla had hers on the table, and she was playing with the cartridges that Becky had gotten with her system.

“Pete, dude! You really scored big time here with this! I had no idea she had all of the cartridges, I’m playing with them now, then having Dee copy them all to her computer. How much did this cost you?” I winked at Becky, then leaned in and whispered the price to Sharla. “Holy shit, the cartridges alone are almost worth that. Score!” I laughed, and described how they were behind the foam, so likely they never even realized they were there.

She nodded and said she knew who it had belonged to. I looked at her, stunned. “Really? You knew who owned this?”

“Not well, met and worked with him a few times though. He was a kind of big name for a while in the blues and folk movement in the early 70’s. Got into smack, kinda went into a downward spiral after that. About 8 years ago he finally got cleaned up, but too late. Hepatitis and liver damage started to take his toll. Did a few comeback attempts in the early 1980’s, never went anywhere. I met him about then, did some work with Rad for him at the Palladium in 81, and again in 85. He died about a year ago, and I’m guessing his estate just sold that off, having no idea what it was or what all was in the case. And the store did not look closely either. But trust me, music was his life. He must be laughing now, seeing it being used again as it should be used.”

“Should I try to contact his estate Sharla?”

“Naw, all he left behind was two ex-wives, and a greedy manager and who knows what else. If you did, they would probably just say thank you, and demand more money. But I bet this is the exact same keyboard I saw him use in 85, and I already copied his sounds. I got to thinking after we left, I knew I had heard some of them before. That was before I got my own DX7, this is actually the first one I played and I fell in love with it then. And I am going to spread them around, putting his name to them first so others can appreciate his genius. I actually got chills when I realized that, but I bet you anything this is it. That set of six different harmonica sounds to me is the proof, that was his first instrument, and I can guarantee by that alone that that is who owned it.”

“By any chance, was he a Macintosh user?”

“Oh wow, was he! I will see if I have a picture of his setup, it was a three synth stack like mine, and he was also using a Mac he had connected to it. He used to joke he could take a nap, and it would perform the concert for him.”

“Well, this was his then I’m sure. When I got it, it had a connector to use with a Mac. I traded it in for a PC one they had since Becky does not have a Mac.” Both Becky and Dee had also been listening and asked his name. Sharla said it, but it meant nothing to me. Becky also looked blank, but Dee nodded.

“I remember him. Don’t think he ever cracked the Top 40, but he had some stuff in the 50’s and 60’s range I think. I wanna say he toured with the Dead once, or at least did events with them. I saw a bootleg once with him and the Dead at some festival. Kinda sad, but you are probably right. He would want his stuff being used, not just sitting around somewhere, or the spare by some band member who will use it for a year or so then dump it for something else. I love mine, and bet like me Becky will use it for years.”

Becky nodded. “This is more than I really could ever need. But it sounds great, and I am starting to play with the MIDI capabilities. Dee, Sharla, want to show him what we had worked out earlier?”

Dee and Sharla nodded, and after pressing some buttons Sharla gave a count and they started playing. And I was entranced, within ten seconds I knew the song. Rainforest, by Paul Hardcastle. It actually got some serious airtime on AFRTS when it came out, and I had a bootleg tape of it somewhere in my stuff.

And this was obviously a longer version, lasting almost ten minutes, with each of the girls changing between two and three instruments as they played. I asked Sharla, and she said that was a version she had arranged. “One of these days, I would love to get a tape of you three doing that. That was fabulous!”

She grinned and said that could be arranged. “Rad now has a full recording studio in our practice hall. One of these weekends I will get us all together, and we can do that. But just ask Becky or Dee, I already gave them a MIDI track of it, almost as good as a recording.”

“Only through the Roland though,” Dee added. “I tried playing it on the Adlib, it can not handle a lot of the custom sounds, and substitutes others instead. But load them on the Roland with the playback software and it sounds the exact same.”

I left them to play around a bit, and kissing Becky I said I would be back in a bit. I got in the car and drove to Encino. This is a visit that was long overdue, and wanted to make it. I got to the house, and when I knocked the older lady I remembered answered the door. I introduced myself and said I was hoping to talk to Jack. Thankfully she remembered me, and asked me to come in. She hit a button on an intercom and said there was a visitor.

About two minutes later Jack came downstairs. “Pete! I’ll be a son of a bitch!” We gave each other a big hug, and went down into the living room.

Living room hell, this was almost as big as Becky’s house! We spent about an hour catching up, but much he had heard through Holly. “We still talk a few times a year, mostly at holiday times really. And she told me about your accident, I’m glad to see you are doing better. In fact, I’m surprised. Last time we talked was about two months ago. You were still in a coma but expected to awaken soon.”

“Yea, I did in late November. Am down at San Diego now, staying at the hospital and doing therapy. They are talking about surgery to fuse two of my vertebra together, but other than that is mostly doing therapy and waiting for the paperwork to retire me.”

“Well, I hope you are suing the shit off of the guy that hit you! Holy shit dude, you almost died!”

His mom admonished him for language, but Jack just laughed. I simply nodded. “The last offer from the insurance company was 300k, my lawyer is saying hold out for 500k and they pick up his bill. And since the guy is likely to get ten years I will likely get it. This is likely not a case they want going to court. We could get more, but it also becomes an issue of how much longer would it take. But I agree, not as much for the money but to send a message. That guy should have never had a commercial license. He actually had one in California that was revoked, he just went to another state and got a new one.”

After a bit he asked me to go outside with him, and once outside he lit a smoke. “My mom does not like me smoking in the house, so I come out here.” I nodded, not having an issue with it but never had the habit myself other than a cigar on a rare occasion. “One of the things I wanted to talk to you about, is that I want to work with you. I graduated last year with a degree in English. Kind of a pointless one, but I work as a scriptwriter now. I was not kidding when I said I knew people who would love to produce a movie based on one of your games. What do you say? You and me, I bet together you could make a plot and characters, could flesh it out.”

Wow, me, making movies! We talked for about an hour, and he admitted that he had not really played since he left for college. At that point I made him a deal. I gave him Peggy and Mike’s number, and said if he got back into playing, I would see what I could do for him. “In fact, I have two more adventures in the works, or I was before I got busted up. They should be out next year, one of them is even a Kaos adventure. Keith, Mandy, Peggy, and Mike are the core group, but Holly and Dan came up to test them for me.” Jack nodded and grinned, and shook my hand.

“Deal! Kick around some ideas, write a treatment, say around twenty or thirty pages. Let me know when and we will talk some more. What do you say to a 50-50 split?”

I grinned. “Sorry, talk to my agent.” Jack laughed out loud and said I was not in Hollywood even five minutes and I was using a cliché old line already.

“No Jack, there I’m actually serious. My dad is still my agent, he always handles all the money parts of my works. I will work with you on a handshake and promise. I like, know, and trust you. But my dad handles the money. Hell, remember how I told you I was getting $250 per convention plus expenses? I never even knew that by the end I was making double that. I never gave a fuck about money, I let my dad handle that part. But whatever he agrees to, I will also. And if he asks, I will tell him to go easy because we are friends. Deal?”

We shook again, and he said “Deal!” We hugged again, and I gave him my number, and he gave me his new one. And with a big smile I drove back home. When I got there, Sharla had already left, and Becky gave me a kiss when I came in. They had already eaten dinner, but we all sat at the table as I explained about meeting Jack. Becky even smiled when I said he wanted me to prepare an outline for a screen treatment, which I said I would do.

“And he wanted to talk money, proposed a 50-50 split. It sounds fair, but it might not be at the same time. It is my work, my outline, and my characters he will use. So if you can dad, ask around and see if that is a fair agreement. I told him to talk to you when it came to money, but I also promised to ask you to take it easy since we are friends. But I will talk to Brad next week, see what he would want to release the movie rights for Kaos. Honestly, I think ‘Chaos in the Capital’ would make a great screenplay. I would have to cut it down of course, but I think it would work good. And everybody loves her.”

They all agreed, especially Dee and Becky. Dad and Dee gave us hugs and kisses, and headed upstairs to bed. I smiled at Becky, and grabbing a tape from the cabinet we headed out to her place. Once we got there, we crawled into bed, both of us quite tired.

But we were not so tired that we did not make love in the morning. This time we got into a lovely 69, with Becky on top as I scooted down farther than before so I could use a pillow to reach her pussy without bending my neck up. And after I let her swallow my cum after bringing her off twice, we had breakfast and sat in robes in front of the TV as we watched my full tape from so long ago of my first game.

Now she had only played the first part of this, there was just not enough time to play all three parts at the convention. But even she laughed like crazy when the Mage asked who was “Dopey”, and the dwarves got angry. And when we passed that and into areas she did not know, she got quite a bit tenser. Then came the part I loved the most. The mage stabbed the Ogre Mage with the dagger, and it smiled and almost killed him. She looked dumbfounded, and when it was finally dead after Holly/Kaos screamed “Get bent you grody ogre!”, I paused the tape.

We took a bathroom break, then getting more coffee she looked at me. “OK Pete, I remember that dagger, they let my thief take it after that battle. Like, is it cursed or something? Is that why it did that?”

I smiled and kissed her, and said to watch the tape. I hit play again, and after they had healed everybody and searched the room for treasure, they used the specially placed Identify scroll. And Becky watched as the screen showed the stats, and I explained to the party and audience that it was a dagger of healing. Stab somebody with it and it heals them. I paused the tape again as she started hitting my arm and chest, saying that was disgusting. “Why is that baby? You heard it, it is a very good item. Stab somebody, and it heals them.”

“A weapon that heals people? That’s sick Pete! Who in the hell invents a weapon that heals?”

I simply smiled, and said “Me, that’s who.” She laughed, and after a hug and kiss she cuddled back in my arms, whispering “Bastard!” We watched until they got back to the captain and turned in the information collected, and he said to return in a few days, he had another mission for them.

At this, I paused it again and suggested we go get some lunch. Becky said that sounded like a good idea, and I watched in admiration as she simply put on a pair of panties and slipped into a pretty knee-length dress. Then hand in hand we got into my car and headed off to get some beef bowls. We grabbed two large ones to go and went back to her house to watch the conclusion.

Becky laughed when Kaos used her wand to blast some bandits, and an elephant appeared and charged them. Then when they created a plan on how to ambush the Arch Mage in the next room, and Kaos blew their plan and interrupted the spell and announced them and walked in. I could see the confusion on her face as Holly walked into the room and called him “Master”, and the reaction of the others in the party. Then the battle, and a member of the audience as soon as he was dead screaming “Kill the bitch!” Then Holly in her full Valley Girl splendor kicking the dead Arch Mage, then finally cutting off his head. Then her explaining she had no choice, and the notes confirming this fact, she was working under a magic compulsion.

Becky sighed as Holly said she kissed the dead mage softly, then their wrath as they ambushed the sleeping captain in his home and dragged him to the king where he was sentenced to death. “Damn, and I thought it was great when I played it! Now I see that was really only a taste. Like watching Star Wars only until they arrive at the Death Star, then turning it off and thinking it was done. I watch that, and it’s funny. I see you and Holly, but you’re both so young. And your hair! Until I saw this at the convention I never pictured you with long hair before.”

“Well, we were young. And I had no idea I was breaking almost every rule in the book when I made that. A plant inside the group working against them, a dagger that heals, a ditsy wizard that can’t tell one wand from another. I was making it up as I went back then, and everybody loved it. Pull in some pop culture references, I was not taking it completely seriously, and that is what so many loved about it. The night of the first playtest, that is when I first met Dee. She was reporting on the convention, and just wanted to see what Brad was working on. Dad had to come down to sign the contracts, and that is when they met. I kinda have a feeling they started dating that weekend, but within a few months they were a couple.”

“So they are together because of Kaos, that’s awesome. Because if you had never done that, they never would have met.” We kissed for several minutes, and then I rewound the tape and we went to get dressed.

I watched as Becky slipped on a pair of pantyhose, and walked over to the closet. And it was absolutely full. Almost all of it was taken up by blouses, skirts, and dresses. And the hangers even had extensions, so a blouse and matching skirt could be hung together in the space of only 1. “Wow, I had no idea anybody had this many outfits.”

Becky grinned, and said this was only her winter collection. She had already moved her spring and summer ones into the closet in the office. I watched her select a pretty white bra with some kind of pattern embroidered in it, then pull out a dark floral dress and slip it over her head. Once it was smoothed down over her body she grabbed a pair of black pumps and slipped them on. She put the pearl necklace and earrings back on, and putting some things in a black clutch she was ready to go. I grabbed the two bottles of champagne I had put in the fridge earlier and after seating her in my car I got in and we were heading to my place.

Rosie and Mandy were already there, and after hugs and kisses I had Mandy on one side holding one hand, and Becky doing the same on the other. Rosie and Dee just grinned, and at 8 dad gathered us in the dining room where he turned on the speakerphone and we all talked to a tired sounding but happy Kim and Jeff. They had already closed out their apartment, and were staying with her folks until the house was ready. Grace was doing fine, and sleeping at the moment. We talked for a bit, and I promised I would be going up there the first chance I got.

Kim asked me what was next, and I said that next week I was going to find out if I was going to get the surgery to fuse two of my vertebra. My doctor at San Diego had agreed with the one in Yuma, and said that was more preventative to ensure a strong jolt would not do more damage in the future.

Finally, we hung up, and we spent most of the evening just chatting and enjoying being together. I teased Mandy that the parade would be tomorrow morning since it was a Friday, and she blushed and called me a bastard as I told everybody about our first New Year sleepover here, when she was all bummed out that there was no parade because it was a Sunday.

At 11:30 we broke out the champagne, and were relaxing and watching the party in New York, talking about the past year. And as the clock drew closer, I noticed Rosie moved next to dad and Dee, and Mandy came by Becky and me. And after the clock struck midnight, I kissed Becky first, then Mandy as my dad kissed Dee then Rosie. Then we swapped and kissed the other ladies to their laughter. I broke out the last bottle, and we continued to chat and hang out until almost 1 when we all got ready to make our departure.

Mandy hugged Becky, then gave me another kiss as they got into her mother’s car and headed off, and we went to Becky’s house. Once again we stripped down and cuddled together as we drifted off to sleep, it had been a long day.