Chapter 18A

She woke up at about five-thirty in the morning. Half sleep, I heard her close the bedroom door and then I heard the shower running in the kitchen. I awoke again a few minutes later and smelled coffee. Then I went off again, dreaming about Martha. She was Martha Jane in the Lauderdale Courts and she was helping her mother do something in their bedroom, except the mother looked more and more like an older version of Ronnie.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on my back. Martha lay with her face resting on my chest and looking toward the bedroom window. I looked around. The clock on the night table said seven-fifteen.

Martha raised her head and propped herself on her elbows. "Good morning," she whispered. She swept my hair away from my face with a warm hand. She said, "You have a very hard early morning erection."

"Yeah, I know."

"Tell me something."

"What?"

"How do you start out so little and get so big?"

I smacked my dry lips together. "Years of practice and selfdenial. And I probably have to go to the bathroom."

"Now?"

"Soon."

She played with my chin, running a finger round and round. "Is it difficult for you to cum, when you have to go to the bathroom?"

"Never tried it. But it's difficult to go to the bathroom when it's that hard."

"Oh, that's right. You have to bend it down, don't you?"

I let my head drop back to the pillow. "Oooh. I have to get up and get my run in the park."

"No."

"Sure. Before it gets too hot out there."

"No." She coiled her arms around my head and lifted herself over me and settled onto my chest and held her face against mine. "Take the day off. You never take a day off, you're worse than I am."

"I took Wednesday off."

"Take today, too. Stay here with me."

I put my arms around her. "Well, I don't wanna start any bad habits."

She said sleepily, "It doesn't matter. I've already ruined you. This is the first day in a long time when I have nothing, absolutely nothing to do. Except lie around and be ruined and ruin you even more. Ronnie has a date tonight. We have the whole day. Stay here with me. Stay here until you can't stand me anymore. Stay until you can't bear to touch me or hear the sound of my voice. Stay until you're sick of me, sick of the sight of me. Stay until you hate me. Until you can't stay any longer and you have to get out, you have to fight your way out so you can be free..."

I put a finger under her chin to raise her head, and she resisted, but I pushed her head up anyway. I asked, "Hey, what are you talking about?"

She looked out the window, her face in a mild pout, and she made a fist of her hands on my chest and leaned on it. She seemed to want to speak. But her lips held firm, as if she were locking the words behind them. She shook her head no, weakly, and lowered her eyes. Then she turned her face away from me and lowered her cheek to my chest again.

I stroked her back. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"What's the matter?"

"No."

I waited. "What's the matter?"

She said quietly, "Remember what you said last night? When I came home?"

"Yes."

"Whatever happens."

I sighed. I say I love you, finally, and I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble if I say it, I'm in trouble if I don't.

I said defensively, "I didn't say I'd never get pissed off. I said I love you anyway."

She waited, thinking. She said, "Do you mean that?"

"Look, what do I have to do?"

She laughed, softly, suddenly, against my chest, and she hugged me. She said, "Take the day off."

"Oh, all right."

"Go take a shower. You're sweaty already. And come back in here and take a nap with me. I got up too early."

After I went to the bathroom and showered I piddled around the kitchen making my super-duper brewer's yeast drink.

She called from the bedroom. "Steevennn."

"What?"

"What are you doing in there?"

"Making my drink."

"Come on in here and be lazy with me."

"In a minute, please. I'm hungry."

I mixed and stirred, and just as I was taking my first gulp she called from the bedroom, "Minute's up."

"I'm comin', arready."

"'Arready'? You're sounding like a New Yorker, arready."

"Be there in a minute."

I finished my drink, and in the bedroom I found her curled up on the bed, wearing the bath towel she had worn after her shower. She had a sleepy smile on her face.

She pointed listlessly toward the bedroom window. "Could you turn on the fan, please?"

"Yes, Miss Martha."

"I'm so lazy. I'm going to be lazy and messy and stupid all day. All day. No phones, no papers, no thinking. Vacation only. I'm going to waste a Friday, waste it completely."

I pointed the little Hunter fan at her. I said, getting back into bed behind her, "I'll believe it when I see it."

She pulled the bath towel off her and pitched it onto the floor, and then she reached behind her with one arm, searching for me. "C'mere. Next to me."

"I am next to you."

"Closer."

I snuggled into her back. We were two naked spoons.

She said, playing, "Closer."

"I can't get any closer."

"Try."

I snuggled as close as I could without pushing her away, her firm butt in my lap and my dick sneaking between her legs, my arms around her. She hugged my arms to her breasts and she closed her eyes and smiled, snuggling into her pillow.

"Better," she said, contented. "Still sleepy?"

"Yes."

"Sleep, then. Let's nap."

I dozed on and off. Martha lay like a sleeping doll, all curled up along my front, her fine, mussed, light auburn hair highlighted in the glow from the window, blonde hairlets gleaming. I had one arm draped around her, my elbow resting in the deep valley between her slim waist and the high rise of her rounded hip. I heard the rush hour outside start and then subside. People walked past the building. Then I went into a deeper sleep for about an hour, dreaming about Martha weeks ago in the coffee shop near Columbia with her coworkers, and they were all sitting as if at attention, listening to her, and she was reading instructions from a paper.

When I opened my eyes again neither Martha nor I had moved. I lifted my head and looked past her at the clock. It was nearly ten in the morning. I let my head rest near hers again, and Martha stirred and glanced at the clock, craning her neck back, and she closed her eyes and lay as if still snoozing.

I said, "Hi."

"Hi, ' she whispered, hugging my arms into her again, letting my captured hand rest on one of her nipples.

I lay still against her, wondering if I could drift off again.

She kept her eyes closed. She said, "You're hard again."

"Mm-hm."

"You get an erection every time you sleep?"

"No. Just with you."

She smiled. "You say that to everybody."

"Not to guys."

She didn't say anything or move for a moment, her eyes closed as if she wanted to continue napping, so I closed my eyes and rested against her. After a minute she extended a hand below her crotch and reached underneath to straighten my cock and nestle it along her slit. She held my cock between her thighs and squeezed them together. "Mm," she said. In a moment she began running a finger up and down the half of my cock that stuck out between her legs. This went on for a while, her eyes closed as we lolled on the warm mattress, and then she used a couple of fingers to squeeze my cock and then she smeared the precum onto my tip and made circles with her fingers. My cock throbbed pleasurably.

She whispered, "Touch me."

I loosed one of my captured arms from her bosom and reached around her hips to run my finger up and down her slit. She uncurled her legs a little, lifting one and hunching her hips forward a little, and then she closed her legs around my cock again, starting to pull on me slowly, pulling and pulling and then just holding and squeezing, and then pulling, and my finger found her clit and she sighed when I began to circle it.

For a long time we played that way, and then she lifted one leg a little and snuggled her tush into me and angled my cock into her cunt, and I slid in, slowly, into the snug, cream-coated, marshmallow glove of her. Her cunt sucked me into her and the strong, thick outer lips gripped me by the root. We lay like that, not moving, while I played with her clit. After a while I would move in and out of her now and then, staying still and deep in her most of the time, and we went on for nearly twenty minutes that way until I started throbbing in her.

With her eyes still closed as if dozing, she said, "Cum."

"You're not there yet."

"No, just cum when you want to."

I said, "Soon." I started moving in and out slowly.

She said, "I've never done it like this."

"Me neither."

"I'll be all right. I have all day. All day. I'm concentrating on feeling you in me. I want to feel the cum. I want to feel the spurts when I'm not thinking, not thinking about anything."

I went in and out a few times, not straining, and I said, "Touch it. I'm almost there. Touch my dick where it's going in."

She put two fingers along the sides of my root, and she lay there waiting with closed eyes while my orgasm slowly approached. I couldn't concentrate on fingering her clit and fucking at the same time, it was getting too good, but I kept my finger on her clit. Then the early throbs began, and she whispered, "Mm-hm." Then the warning pulses accelerated and she waited with closed, lazy eyes and whispered, "C'mon. C'mon. Yes. Mm, yes." Then I began panting quickly and the tired, thin squirts started, and she smiled and murmured, pleased, "Mmmm. Is it good?"

"Uh! Yeah!"

"Tell me."

"'T's good! Ah!"

"Mm, the sounds you make when y-- Oh!" She giggled. "Steven, your whole body jerked."

"Yeah. Ah! Mmmmm."

"Just stay there, now. Stay there." She hugged my free arm tighter to her breasts, which were now moist and warm. "Stay just like that and rest."

I stopped, sweat breaking out all over me, post-orgasmic throbs pulsing weakly in the slick tunnel. I caught my breath for a minute. It wasn't that momentous a fuck, but it was, after all, with Martha. I felt I had scaled the heights and then fell on my face.

She kissed my arm that was nestled in her bosom. She said, "I like it when you're cumming and you tell me it's good."

"It did. It always feels good with you."

"I like it when you get that excited. And I figure it must be especially good when you get excited enough to say so, because you hardly ever talk when you have sex."

"It's not easy to talk when I'm doing all that work and trying to breath."

"I know. That's why it's so exciting when you tell me."

I started fingering her clit again, and it took another several minutes, but eventually the nutty, sweaty-sweet, warm milk aroma steamed from her and she whispered fervently, "It's gonna be good! It's gonna be good!" Then she drew in her legs a little and her head dropped downward, as if she were trying to double up, and she hugged my free arm to her mouth and moaning against it while she came for a long, long time, her cunt contracting and squeezing my soft cock out of her, and then her head fell back on the pillow, and she lay with her eyes closed, panting and looking satisfied as hell while I kissed her face and shoulders.

She whispered, "Put your finger in me."

I did. She was still snug from cumming but she was slick with both of us and my finger slid right in. Her cunt hugged my finger. She grinned and said, "God. A whole day off."

After a couple of minutes I said, "Don't you have to go to the bathroom?

She frowned. "Oh, it's... hon, it's pretty safe right now."

"Martha."

She grumbled, "Oh, all right. Let's just wait a minute. I don't want to move." She hugged both my arms to her bosom again, tightly, and she nestled her hips closer to my lap. And strangely, she held one of my hands to her mouth and she kissed it and then clasped it to her cheek and she said, her voice inexplicably cheerless, "I don't want to move yet. Not yet. Not just yet."

Within a few minutes she dozed off again, holding my arms tightly against her, and I made her wake up. She got out of bed groggily and wrapped the bath towel around her and stumbled to the bathroom.

I'd had extremely satisfying sex with either Martha or Ronnie or both every day for the past four days. I'd live through two emotionally wrenching weeks. I was tired! I dozed off again while Martha was in the bathroom, wondering if she had been adding booze or something into her morning coffee.

Half sleep, I heard her take another shower in the kitchen. Then I smelled coffee again. After several minutes she came into the bedroom in a new, pale pink towel, and she had two cups of coffee with her. She sat on the edge of the bed and handed me one.

I rose, drowsy, and I said, "I'm not supposed to drink this."

"Just today. Please. Try not to spill it on the bed."

I took the cup and sipped while she brought her legs onto the bed and sat up, her legs folded under her. I said, "Are we supposed to go somewhere that I forgot about?"

"No." She sipped and sipped again. "We may as well wake up, because I'd putter around and wake you up anyway." She sipped again. "Hurry and finish that, so I can get these cups out of here."

I took another small sip, reluctantly. I said, "Wow. You make it strong."

She said nothing, but watched me over the top of her cup as she sipped.

I said, "This is too hot to drink fast."

She said, "Want me to put an ice cube in it?"

I held the cup out to her, "Could you?"

She took my cup, looking at me, tilting her head and frowning, curious and surprised. "Did you see what you just did?"

I smiled sleepily at her. "No. Did you?"

"You did it again!"

"What?"

She laughed, beside herself, still looking at me. "Why, you little sophisticate. So blas, aren't you? Your hands behind your head, hair on your legs and chest, just sitting there looking like the gorgeous guy you're growing up to be, and you're already doing it."

I insisted, "Doing what?"

She imitated me, as if handing my cup to someone. "'Oh, yes! *Could* you? On the rocks, please. One rock.' Look at you, I was afraid you'd be one of those educated, irritable, ambitious types that throws women around like paper clips." She handed me her own coffee cup, and kept mine, and scooted backward on the bed, her voice mildly scornful. "Oh, not you. You're not going to be a ladies' man, hon, *you*'re gonna be a snob. You're going make your women think you're doing all the work, then you're going to run them to death catering to you."

I said defensively, "I don't want to be catered to."

"Of course not! You're so independent. That's why people *insist* on catering to you in so many subtle ways. It makes them feel necessary."

I sighed, leaning back limply. "All this for an ice cube? It's probably cool enough to drink by now."

"What a snob." She slithered off the bed, keeping the big towel around her torso and hips, and I watched her hurry off, watched that gentle swing of her hips and the dancer-like, graceful gait. No wonder the only thing most men could see of Martha was her body.

I heard her quickly crack open an ice tray, saying to herself, "Passive aggressive. Why didn't I *see* that? Why didn't Martha *see* that?" I heard an ice cube being plunked into the coffee cup, and hasty stirring, then she closed the refrigerator.

She returned, slid onto the bed, took her cup, gave me mine, and watched silently as I drank it down in three or four loud gulps.

"Finished?" she asked.

I handed her the cup and nodded. She hopped off the bed and placed the two cups on the dresser, and I asked, "Is there going to be an opportunity for me to ask questions about what's going on?"

She said innocently, "Nothing's going on." She sat up with her legs folded under her and fluffed her wet hair with one hand. "But class can have a question period."

I thought for a minute. "I just have a general question. Are you up to something?" I shrugged. "I don't have anything more specific right now."

"I do."

I put a hand over my eyes. "Oh, god. I'm too tired."

She grinned. "No, these are easy." She hopped out of the bed, almost losing the towel, and she tightened it around her. While she stood at her dressing table collecting her cigarettes and lighter and an ash tray, she asked me, "What were you smiling about this morning?"

"What?" I propped up my pillow behind my head.

She sat on the bed again and she lit her cigarette, with her ashtray on her lap.

I said, "You never smoke in bed."

"Just today. You're here to keep me safe." She took a drag and blew it out. "I got up early this morning and showered and made breakfast, read a little, and when I came back here I got back into bed. And while I was waiting for you to wake up you were smiling and ended up with that terrific erection."

"Oh."

"Were you dreaming?"

"Mm."

"Okay, the next question is: what were you dreaming about that made you smile that?"

"Uh, tryin' to remember... You."

"You really expect me to believe that?"

"Mm-hm."

"Well... I don't."

"You were in the Lauderdale Courts, in your old apartment, and you were helping Ronnie do something in the bedroom. Sewing, or something. You were showing her something, and Ronnie seemed to act like your mother."

"You made that up."

"Nope."

She paused. "You have it wrong. I'm the mother. Ronnie's my daughter."

"Okay," I said, turning onto my side, "Next time I have that dream, I'll get it straight."

She blew out a thin stream of smoke. "That's why Ronnie's the only female who ever kissed my nipples."

I didn't say anything. What could I say to that?

Martha reminded me, "You saw her do that, right? When we were together?"

"Mm."

"Steven, don't grunt. Talk."

"Yes, I remember. That's what 'Mm' means. It means yes. It means I agree. It means --"

"Okay, okay." She gave a little smirk, almost to herself, muttering absently as she flicked ashes in the ash tray, "Listen to you. I'm not talking to little Steven anymore, I have to start watching myself." She went on, "Ronnie's the only female who's ever done that. I can't imagine ever letting anyone else do that. You, of course. Oh, you know what I mean."

I said, patiently, purposely, "Mm."

She paused again. She asked quietly, "So what did you think when you saw that?"

"Think?"

"About me."

I sighed. Such questions were far too difficult for my young, sleepy mind. "Well... I thought it was very loving. Affectionate. Exciting, too. I thought it was nice."

She paused again, holding her hand in front of her face and idly using one finger to scrape at one of her pretty, painted nails. "There's no one else that I could possibly talk to about that."

"Well. If you didn't like it, why not talk to Ronnie about it? Or just stop her from doing it?"

"That's not what I asked."

"What did you ask?"

She turned her beautiful, hazel green eyes onto me with a warning light. "Steven, this is important to me."

"I understand. I do. What did you ask?"

"I asked what you thought about me when you saw it."

I shrugged. "I didn't think about you, y'know, not just *you*. I saw both of you. Together. I thought it was a sweet thing to do and it was very sexy."

She let her head drop, bending over until her forehead touched the mattress. "Oh. The Catholic kid from Memphis didn't go into shock. Steven didn't go into shock."

I said, "Actually, I don't think you and Ronnie should do that while you're on Second Avenue waiting for the bus. But I thought it was very loving. And sexy."

She laughed quietly. She settled down and straightened up, and then she said slowly and seriously, her eyes on me, "Steven, do you realize how much we've shared sexually? More than most married people. I shared more of me with you than with any man, far more. Even more than with Ronnie."