Chapter 10E

We strolled down East 86th Street. It was getting late, yet I was amazed that the traffic and the people on Lexington Avenue were as frenzied as they were during the day. Martha led me to a newsstand so besieged with customers that we had to push our way through to get a copy of the Sunday Times.

"This is not the way you get it in Memphis," she said, offering me the hefty newspaper with both hands as if it were a precious gift. She saw my eyes bulge: the complete New York Times, including sections the out-of-town editions didn't carry. "Hot off the presses," she said, pleased at my reaction. "Be careful. The ink's still wet."

We headed home with the Times under my arm, my neck craning to catch sight of all the activity that flourished in late night Manhattan.

"Who would ever believe," I said delightedly, "that buying a newspaper could be such a major event?"

"New York does have its simple pleasures," she said, enjoying my excitement. "But don't stay up all night with it. You'll have plenty of time later. Remember, Fiore told you to rest."

Later, upstairs, I crawled into bed as Martha sat propped against her pillows reading a book.

"You really perked up tonight," she said.

"I did?"

"It makes a big difference when you're around people you actually get along with. Ronnie was very impressed. See? There really are people who like you."

"Well," I said grudgingly, "I did pretty good for a fifteen year old."

Martha scowled. "You did well, period. Stop running yourself down, or I'll spank you."

I lay on my side as Martha paged through her book to lull herself to sleep, as she usually did when she was alone. I gazed out the window and listened to the city. Martha was right: being with kindred souls made a difference. I wondered how I would handle myself when I returned home. The very idea of having to fly back to Memphis loomed threateningly, making the spread of the next few weeks seem like a paltry few minutes. How much did Martha think I could accomplish in so short a time?

I shifted onto my other side, facing Martha. She put her book down and looked at me.

"Ready for sleep, hon?"

I yawned. "Looks like it, hm?"

She turned around to shut off the light on the bedside table. She rested on her side and faced me. Her hazel eyes glistened in the dark as she smiled at me sleepily.

She said, "I'm glad you're here."

I pursed my lips and made a little kiss. "Me too."

"Goodnight," she whispered.

Settling onto my side facing her, I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking. The small kiss I gave Martha reminded me of Ronnie's friendly kiss as she bid us goodnight earlier. I still felt Ronnie's thin, lipsticked, warm, sticky lips on my cheek. A mild horniness sprang from nowhere and spread with a vague tingle through my tired body. This was a new feeling, purely physical and seemingly unalloyed with any emotion. I wondered if the yeast and the bellyful of vitamins were responsible. I wondered whether the tingle meant that Fiore's efforts on my behalf were beginning to pay off. I wondered what kind of answer I could give to Martha's confession of a few hours ago.

I opened my eyes and saw Martha, on her side, still watching me.

She asked, "Are you thinking again?"

"Mm."

She looked at me for a long moment. Her sleepy gaze changed to a mild frown. "That was terrible what you told me, about your mom when she caught you masturbating. Did she really act like that?"

"I got over it."

"No. I don't think you did." She yawned. She fumbled with the slit of my underwear and found the tip of my flaccid organ. "Maybe I should check it again, though, and make sure it wasn't damaged." Carefully she opened the slit and pulled out my cock. She said, "I told you I was wicked. I can't help it. You're so touchable." She looked down at my cock stirring languidly between her fingers. "Can I pull you off? It can feel very nice when you're sleepy."

I smiled, lax and weary except for my cock, which itched pleasantly in response to her soft hand. "Okay."

She said sheepishly, "You must think I'm terribly perverted, doing this now. Maybe I am."

"Maybe I am, too. You see how courageously I resist."

Perhaps it was Ronnie's affectionate kiss. Or the lack of sleep. Any misgivings I may have had about the strangeness of the moment or the reasons for her need to masturbate me just then were obscured by the warm tickle of her begging fingers.

She murmured, "I felt lonely, telling you all that about me this morning. I felt you might think I was pushing you away."

"No," I said. My cock slowly unraveled.

"Steven..." she began falteringly. Her hand encircled and hugged my tube. She swallowed thickly. "It's not so easy for me... to open up that way."

"I know," I whispered, aware of the same problem within myself. As I lay on my side watching her I sensed in her careful, delicately urging fingers and her disquieted tone, our mutual need to coax reassurance from weary flesh.

After a long moment of pulling and squeezing, Martha said, "you're still not really hard yet. Are you too tired?"

"I'm tired, but... now you've got me wanting it."

"Well... wait, let's try this..."

She reached behind her and grabbed a bottle of hand lotion from the bedside table. Wetting her fingers, she smeared the peach scented stuff on me and resumed her tender milking. I sighed pleasurably as her slick hand gently pulled upward, completing each motion with a squishy clench around my tip.

She asked, "Better?"

"Yeah. I'm tired, but I need it."

"I know."

She soon had me stiff, and as she began methodically milking me I reached under the waistband of her pajamas. On her side, she raised one knee so I could find her clit. Lazily I made one-finger circles on her slick nub, now and then dipping inside her to caress the little lump of nerves that I knew lay deep within. For a long time we masturbated one another, in no special hurry to finish. We played languorously, sighing and moaning. She came first, closing her eyes and easing into it with a long groan, her hand on me pausing in its ministrations while she stiffened and enjoyed her cum with quiet desperation. As it ended for her, her hips undulated softly a few times and then jerked to a stop. She came out of it gasping wearily. I kept my middle finger in her while she finished me off. Just before I came she nestled closer, gathering a portion of her pajamas shirt and baring her flesh just above her navel. As cum splattered on her tummy she smirked contentedly, murmuring "Mm-hm, mm-hm," and watched thin rivulets drool down her hip onto the sheet. When I finished she wiped up with a kleenex, then tugged my shaft firmly to draw the last of it onto the tissue. With our arms limply entwined, we fell asleep.

I awoke early Sunday and lay for a while watching Martha sleep. She was curled into a ball, her pajamas stretched over her smoothly rounded hips and firm thighs, one hand folded loosely into a fist near her cheek. She lay on her side, her face toward me, her eyes softly closed and her lips parted. She seemed touchingly angelic. It had been years since I'd watched her sleeping. For a while I dared not move; I had only a few days to see her this way. My brain ached with the question: How could this woman, this grown woman, so lovely, so intelligent, so accomplished, appear so childlike as she cuddled in sleep beside me?

I lowered my head to barely touch my lips to hers for a moment. As always, her flesh seemed to melt into mine.

Knowing I would not fall asleep again, I slid carefully from the bed and crept into the kitchen, where I rummaged for coffee and set the percolator brewing. Then I found a pen and some paper and sat at the dining room table. I gazed at the window in the living room where Martha had confessed her thoughts and feelings early Saturday morning.

I began writing, one word or phrase at a time. At fifteen, what could I say to allay the anxieties she expressed? Did she see me as a man, as a boy, or as a man who happened to be less than sixteen? How could I have expected her to respond to me in any way other than the way she responded while standing next to that window? How could I expect her to embrace an uncertain, undefined future with a partner whose major claim to fame was a paper route and advanced skills at delivering groceries in Memphis, Tennessee? Should I proclaim an undying love for her? My fifteen-year-old heart idealized that love as precious; but a more cynical old man in my head knew that my youthful heart was susceptible to indulgence in impractical mush.

The words I wrote fell together and fell apart fitfully. I crossed them out, rewrote them, crossed them out and began again. Over an hour later, I had written:

You were always the one who offered first.
Am I the one who only receives?
That in me which I couldn't do, you do.
That which I couldn't have, you give.
I give you that you are more than loved,
but as my secret otherness,
the You-ness I can't be but am,
you are cherished, dearly.

Before I could finish, I heard a muffled knock at the front door. Thieves? The landlord? Quickly I fetched my pants from a hanger in the bathroom and stood listening at the front door as I dressed. Again, two brief, soft knockings. I cleared my throat. Silence. I cleared my throat more loudly.

"Steven?" a girlish voice whispered from the other side. "Is that you?"

It was Ronnie. I started to open the door, remembered that I wore my glasses, removed them, opened the door halfway, and peered out. She stood in the hallway in her pajamas and floor length bathrobe. Her face looked shiny, as if just washed.

"Hi," she said, grinning. She gave me a little wave of her hand. "Martha up?"

"Not yet."

"Steven, I'm outta coffee." She folded her hands beseechingly and grinned meekly. "Please?"

"Sure," I said, beckoning her inside. I opened the door and held a finger to my pursed lips. She nodded and tiptoed into the kitchen. Realizing I was in my t-shirt, I tiptoed to the bedroom and fetched my shirt. Martha still slept. Closing the bedroom door, I buttoned my shirt and waited in the living room until Ronnie tiptoed from the kitchen.

"Shh, okay," she whispered. She held a cup half filled with coffee grinds. She stood near the door waiting, smiling sleepily with curly black hair falling into her face. I moved quickly to the door.

She whispered, "You guys sure clean up fast around here."

Not understanding, I looked at her.

With her head she gestured toward the living room sofa. "The sofa's already made up and folded. Unless you sleep on the floor."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. I woke up early."

She patted me on the shoulder. "Good boy. You Southern guys are so self sufficient." Wincing and grimacing playfully, she whispered "shh" again and opened the door and slithered past it. I stood near the door and was ready to close it when she poked her head back inside. "Oh, by the way--" she whispered, craning her neck and face toward me. She gave me a quick, innocent peck on the cheek. "Thanks." She withdrew, waved a tiny bye-bye at me with her fingers, and tiptoed down the hall.

Just as I quietly closed the door I heard Martha mutter sleepily behind me, "Steven, is somebody there?"

She stood in the living room doorway, drowsy, her formerly combed hair a tousled, light auburn fuzz across her eyes and forehead. She slumped, she had no makeup, and her pajama sleeves half covered her hands as they flopped uselessly at her side. She looked deliciously girlish.