Chapter 2

Echoes of ten years before blew cold through Avenue A. The same chilled air seemed to have circled the earth ten times to return as a first hint of another cold winter. Echoes remained in the clothes of Joe, who still thought black was the choice of hip New Yorkers, but it was shiny black leather jacket and pants and shoes instead of the cotton outfits he wore to work at the beginning of the eighties. Leather was his uniform at his little East Village nightclub, the outfit to schmooze and be cool with the ultra hip crowd that, less and less, frequented his bar.

Echoes were on his face. The slashing he received from Jesus to warn him off Lani. It had nearly lost him an eye, proven by the scar, which began under the scalp above his temple that ended millimeters from his eyelid. The scar cut through his right eyebrow. And the jagged swish across his cheek remained as well. Testimony to his forbidden and impossible love which, nevertheless, continued stronger than ever through the summer as Lani nursed him to health and moved into his apartment.

Echoes remained in his elbow hollows where phantom injections from his early addictive ways were joined by fresher scars of an occasional injection when he felt he just had to have that feeling again. Somehow he kept it on again and off again. Joe discovered he wasn't a true junkie, as Lani had told him all along. He wasn't dedicated enough to the obsession of the relentless pursuit of the high. Joe was floating through life.

In fact, all in all, the most profound ten year old echo was the only true obsession in his life, now a mere whisper of its former ear shredding alarm blasts. Lani. When she left him, they were still completely in love. Their lovemaking had still been remarkably frequent and adventurous and orgasmic. Their quiet conversations and noisy arguments had still been through the most intimate of loving channels. They were completely, physically and psychically, linked. Separation was like Siamese twins joined at the heart surgically cleaved. It was that traumatic.

Like his scars and his memories, the last thing one might expect of an echo was for it to gain volume. It's all about the fade and eventual disappearance. But again Lani was unique.

Thursday night was slow, negating the feeling generated by the unusually busy Wednesday, which had momentarily given hope to the lessening possibility of continuing the five-year roller coaster ride, which was Joe's club. When Joe and his old friend Ned combined Ned's parents money with Joe's experience with all things to do with rocknroll clubs to create "Joe's Place," the little narrow bar and showplace, they didn't figure on a long ride, but hoped for the best. Five years was pretty damned remarkable all in all. But with Ned's and Joe's many rocker friends, both old and young but pretty much punk, they kept the place packed many weekends as the most intimate place to see truly great rocknroll. And unusually for New York, a lot of the cool and famous, whether rockers or artists or movie stars or whatever, would still pop by to enjoy the dark, seamy atmosphere. But like most fashionable spots, that fact didn't attract other customers for more than a couple years. So, for three years, they had mostly floated along like Joe's life. Still, Joe loved it. Without his club and its clientele, Joe was alone. The club was his life. But love for the club, as was love for his own self, was cool, detached. Hot, deep love was nine years and three months gone. Then she walked inside.

Lani was making an infrequent visit to her old neighborhood, having come into the city from her Rochester Minnesota home, where she worked as a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic. Despite her youth and female sex, she was rising quickly in the old boy's clique of highly respected surgeons. She discovered what her steady nerve, despite all the dangers and risks growing up in the Lower East Side, had given her: a steady hand despite any situation.

Steady Lani in all things. Except for the one nearly yearlong blip in her emotional life, which was Joe, she had never entered into a lasting relationship. She didn't have the heart for it.

She was visiting her mother, who lived in Brooklyn with her stepfather. Her father had been killed by some drug lord, at least indirectly, and of course the drug lord and the assassin were never found. It could have been Jesus even, as cold and deadly as her old suitor had become over the years, but he was, as far as she knew, still in Greenhaven Prison. It was someone just like him; she knew that to be true. His father's death saddened her still, a permanent pall in her heart, as it saddened her mother, who didn't have the joie de vivre she once had. Her stepfather was an okay man, but her father was the sweetest man she had ever known.

When she agreed to visit her mother for a brief but well needed vacation, she decided to set up an evening with her old friend Tina. Despite doing pretty well as a social worker, Tina decided to stay in the old neighborhood. After meeting for a delicious dinner in the West Village, Lani discovered why Tina might want to stay. The cab brought them to the corner of Ninth and Avenue A, right across from Tompkins Square. The evening had become night, and Lani was expecting the worst. Not that Avenue A was the worst of it. Far from it. But it always hinted at the decay and danger just east. Lani looked at the street sign to be sure they were where they were supposed to be. Yep. Ninth and A.

"My God, it's night and day! I can't believe it!" said Lani.

"Yeah, I told you. You remember how ninth between C and D was gentrifying. Well, its spread."

"It's like swanky or something. I don't know if I like it. Kind of flattened out."

"A lot safer, though."

"Sure. Of course."

"But most of the old crazy neighbors are gone. I don't know where."

"Can't afford it."

"Can't afford it."

"Can you?" Lani said with a smile.

"Well enough I guess. Jose's been working on buses for the city, fixing them. It pays okay. We're scraping by."

"How is Jose?"

"He treats me okay most of the time. Wish he'd do more housework. Since we're both working. But the macho thing... And I think he wishes I wasn't working and was raising babies and being a housewife and all that. Living in a dream world. But he mostly respects me."

"You're not having kids?

"I think we will. My biological clock is starting to kick in loud and clear. I think so. For all the problems, I think we'd love to bring some kids into the world."

"Sure," Lani nodded, a little sadly. Her body suddenly felt dry and desolate. Tina seemed so much more vital than she could ever be.

Their conversation distracted them from marching swiftly through the neighborhood. They would stop and talk. Lani would study the gentrification, the café and the boutique, the restaurant and even the grocery store had the yuppie swath, with a touch of edge to give the neighborhood a hint of history. Towards the end of the block was a black door that stood out. A last remnant of the punk thing, which, although not a commercial enterprise in the area ten years ago, was a personal presence. A lot of punks called the area home. Music pounded behind the door. It was the music of ten years ago. The door, the music, the place, gave tug to her heart for the first time in years.

"Ever been there?" Lani asked Tina, pointing to the noisy black door.

"Never been my scene. You used to..."

"Come on," said Lani, unable to resist the urge. For some reason she had told Tina to dress classy and sexy, and the women both looked hot, stunning, and perfect for some wild club, so why not. Lani had filled out a little, her curves a little more pronounced, her face just that much more beautiful, but she remained on the thin side, while Tina had become a voluptuous Latina with magnificent, dark, twinkling, flirting eyes in a sexy, broad face, with a sexy broad's body just below. They resembled a pretty, female Mutt and Jeff. Lani's strong healthy yet narrow hips contrasted with Tina's rolling, fleshy ass. Lani's breasts were firm oranges. Tina's breasts still held up, but resembled the melon family more. In other words, they attracted a lot of glances from the male of the species. They covered the full spectrum of female sexual attractiveness.

Joe was sitting at the far end of the bar, nursing his alcohol free tonic water, when the two lovely Latina women in their late twenties stirred up the quiet (as far as customers), and loud (as far as music) atmosphere of Joe's Place. Joe rarely drank, except the occasional champagne offered. As mentioned previously, he rarely indulged in powder. Never cocaine and only occasionally heroin. His drug of choice was marijuana, accompanied by nicotine. With the beginnings of a chronic respiratory problem, even those vices were getting questionable. But that's not to say Joe was on a health kick. He still had the pale, nearly sallow complexion of the night owl who haunted greasy spoons at four a.m.

He glanced at the catalyst for the disturbance of atmosphere. The echo of Lani suddenly crashed against his brain like an unexpected ocean wave. Like the wave's result, he didn't know if he was going to be crushed to death or drowned. Crushed by the massive expansion of his heart. Drowned by the sudden, impossible surge of blood. He stood and stared. He had seen enough faux Lanis to fill a yacht. Somehow his heart beat more fiercely. Perhaps it would be the old boring heart attack that did him in. He began ambling towards the door. The closer he got, the more sure he was. His head was throbbing with heartbeats. He felt hot. His face must be flushed. Could she see him like this? All flustered like a kid? Could she still be the One? She sure looked like it.

It didn't hit her all at once. She noticed a guy when they first walked in. She noticed he looked familiar. She noticed he was staring at her. Her heart began to make itself known. It wasn't only a stare. He was digging holes with his big blue eyes through her brown eyes straight into her mind. She looked away, but had to look back. He was walking slowly towards her. If anyone had been in his way, he probably would have walked right through that person. He was too intense. She looked away. She had to look back. He was so familiar. It had to be. It had to be!!!!!

"Joe!" she screamed. Her voice drowned out all other noise. He ran into her arms, lifted her into his arms. She was more substantial than he remembered. All the more to love. She could have weighed a ton, and he would still have lifted her into his arms, he had that much energy. "Joe," she said quietly. She smiled. Her eyes were tearing up. The stare continued.

"Lani," he said, barely getting it out through his throbbing chest. "My darling." He couldn't stop himself. He kissed her.

Even with the ferocity of passion behind the kiss, he kept it gentle, at least to start. Lips touched, separated, touched again. He sucked in her lower lip, and then his lips moved to the upper.

When the mouths separated, the eyes found the connection again. This time he saw her softness, her gentleness, her love. The face she showed him was his alone. There was no more holding back.

He turned his face to the right so that his lips found the perfect spot on hers. Sealed together, they sucked as if they wanted each other's hearts, which they had missed dearly and which they actually already had. Her tongue slipped into his mouth. Tongues teased and slashed about. His penis began to harden and quickly became a full-fledged cock. It pushed against the smooth texture of her sexy black dress and felt the warmth and dampness there, preparing the final surrender way too long in the offing.

She pressed her groin hard against his hardening manhood, feeling the stiffness and the heat. She pressed it hard enough for a sexual report, like a mini cum, to spread through her body, tingling at her toes and fingers and nipples and at the top of her head. She wanted to dry hump him right there. Fuck that, she wanted to tear away their clothes and have his beautiful hard flesh find its way back deep inside again. Right there on the bar counter. Then again...

She separated herself most reluctantly, decorum finally winning out. Slipping down his leg to return to her feet, she couldn't help sliding her damp hidden pussy along his thigh. It felt far too delicious to even consider being embarrassed by their obvious display of passion.

Joe leaned down for one more kiss, which was as soft and gentle and warm as an infant's sweet skin. "Uhm..." was all he could say.

"You remember Tina?" asked Lani, after a moment of pulling herself back to reality and another of clearing her throat so she could actually be heard.

How could Joe ever forget Tina?

Ten years did nothing to the vibrancy of the memory of that night when Tina and Joe met.

Springtime 1981. A particularly chilly winter was finally melting away, and the relief was extraordinarily powerful. It had been a chilly relationship for Joe and Lani as well. Not emotionally. They were more in love than they had ever been. The problem was finding the time and place for getting literally physically attached. Communication had become only via talk and loving eye contact, and those were all too brief. It became extremely rare when Lani could have several hours to devote to sex with her lover.

After her father's attack, her mother had become more dependant on Lani being around. Her mother had to do some of her father's work, so Lani was taking care of him and her young brother and infant sister. Also, when Lani had been out the night of her father's beating, her mother had felt her absence amplified the horror of the night.

In the four months since losing her virginity, they had finagled only two nights of all night lovemaking, disguised as sleepovers with her trusted friend Tina. And Lani didn't want to start making love without the possibility of finishing in a loving, comfortable, safe place: sleeping in her sweet love's arms. But being young and completely in love made for such restrictions from sexual pleasure too difficult to maintain.

The plan was to go to Tina's then boyfriend Jose's apartment, which he had with roommates of his age and without parents around. It was to be a high school party. Joe heard about it a week before it happened, allowing him the time to ask for and get a rare weekend night off. When Lani came by his work to tell him, she was so excited about having a crazy, sexy time with him that he could smell her excitement. It had been way too long for both of them. Nearly a month! It was always way too long between sex. He never recalled her to be so feverish with desire before. She was in heat.

Luckily it was a slow time between dinner and when the rocknroll kids came to drink. He pulled her behind the partitions closing off the backroom, which was only used on the packed weekend nights. She sprang into his arms, pushing her dripping, panty clad pussy against the ridge of his zipper while tongue lashing inside his mouth. He felt the heat and pressure of her pussy as the black jeans expanded.

He sat her carefully on the long curving couch of the large round booth and kneeled before her (and his) desire. His hand slid along her smooth narrow thighs until fingers found the edge of her panties. She rocked desperately, allowing for the removal of the moist garment over her lovely, squirming ass and revealing the pink lips surrounded by smooth black hair, which were in need of his attention. He spread her wide, watching his fingers slide inside the hot, slippery entrance. Those fingers caressed along the edges of the narrow passage, discovering every nuance and texture, and getting wetter and stickier. Her passion was becoming more verbal. Her sighs deepened, shortened and got louder. Even though the music was a little loud in the club, Joe was briefly concerned that that lovemaking would be heard. But her odor and her obvious desire, especially when his tongue and lips entered the fray, made him forget everything except sending her into libidinous oblivion. His tongue circled where his fingers had been, while his fingers slipped deeper, searching out and stroking her g-spot.

"Ah, ah, ah," were the sounds of her exquisite sighs. They stretched out into a long, guttural moan, her upper mouth forming a circle, when his lips sucked in her rigid and thickening little clit. Her moan guided his motions. He could hear the crest nearing as the moans thickened and became rumbles of pleasure. They stopped. She stopped moving. Her hands grasped and pulled his head hard against her throbbing pussy. Then the throbs intensified, her breath a whistle through her tightened mouth, as her cum dripped forth in a perfect orgasm.

The big throbs barely abated, she insisted within her moan, "Take off your pants goddamn it and fuck me!"

She remained spread open and seated on the edge of the booth as he rose up and quickly unzipped. His jeans and jockey underpants were at his feet. Kneeling again before his beautiful love, admiring her for the briefest instant, but the instant was like an intense bright flash that lingered, all red with a post orgasmic flush on her face and chest, he pulled her lips to his as the hard purple head of his rigid, pulsing cock bounced against her sopping pussy entrance. Her small hands took hold and, with his deep sigh echoing inside their kiss, guided it inside. Grasping the small firm hills of flesh of his ass, and with his most welcome assistance, she sent his rigid cock deep inside her still orgasmic, pulsing grotto. Three strokes and he was buried deep as he could, his tip barely touching the deepest part of her.

Despite the time between the last fuck, several weeks before, and the present one, and the constraints of his work not allowing him to be in the back room penetrating his girlfriend, or for that matter, the penetration happening in a public place, he kept stroking inside her relentlessly, hard and deep, with immense pleasure, but without the sense of an orgasmic ending. She rose onto another profound plateau before cumming again. Then, finally, sliding a finger into his fundament at the pace of their fucking, she pushed his orgasmic button. He slid in deep and hard three more times; then held her tight as his cream gushed deep inside.

The quick fuck had enough love to it to abate her constant hunger for his body that week until the party. When the time finally arrived, he would have loved to have picked her up at her home to escort her, but it wasn't to be. Up until that night, she had never associated herself with him in view of her family. She kept their relationship a secret. There were two good reasons. Her mother and father would not approve having a customer of theirs (even though her father refused to sell him drugs, at least not directly, after the fiasco of the night when Joe hadn't paid and her father was beaten) associate with their precious daughter. Secondly, and to her more importantly, Jesus wasn't a safe man to stir up jealousy.

Even though it kept him from ever walking under her window, and it could have been a horrible moment in his life, when the cops picked Joe up on 10^th Street, dumping his precious bags of heroin in full view of the street traffic behind them, which occurred a couple of weeks after losing her virginity, and Joe didn't rat out Jesus, saying that Puerto Ricans all look alike (Joe could be a smart ass), Joe was not accepted on the block anymore. When he was foolish enough to reappear the next day, Jesus showed him his long, retractable knife and told him to fuck off.

So Joe had to meet Lani on the street that evening in front of Jose's apartment on 7^th. As soon as he spotted her, he sensed something wrong. But he also saw her lovely red wool dress flow around her as she walked. He felt unsteady. He wanted to swoop towards her and sweep her off her feet. At the same time, he sensed her wanting him to back away. He stood swaying in place. When she was beside him, she acted like their meeting was a coincidence.

"Hi, Joe isn't it?" she said loudly, putting her hand out to shake his. Joe said nothing. Quietly, while shaking his hand, she said, "Walk straight ahead and around the block. Come back in half hour." Joe remained frozen and silent beside her. Impotent. Unmanned. "Please. I'll explain."

Joe finally nodded his head and took off. His confusion ended once he turned the corner and saw Jesus looking at him curiously across the way.

Lani had once said that Jesus and his gang had beaten the shit out of some poor high school boy who had the temerity to escort Lani home one evening. He knew Jesus was a major cause of his not being allowed to proclaim his love of Lani to the whole world. Their fear of meeting the nasty little prick while strolling hand in hand or embracing on the street or sitting together on a subway was continuously present. Joe sucked up some courage and stubbornly returned the gaze until his steps took him away from eye to eye contact.

As he walked away from the vision of his antagonist, that curious thought would reemerge. Jesus was a remarkably handsome guy, whereas Joe was just Joe Average. He wasn't just a kid with youthful, well-proportioned features and a hard, lean body who would probably lose his looks and bodily proportions as he aged. The thing was, his attractiveness was vibrant. Jesus glowed with handsomeness.

Neither ugly nor beautiful, Joe was okay looking. His past relationships were with women who were pretty but rarely gorgeous. He didn't expect the most beautiful women to find him in their league. He didn't repulse anyone; he just didn't make anyone look twice. The only remarkable characteristic was the fact that despite his height and his longish face, he had cuteness, a certain look that made determining his age difficult. One would have to add a couple years to the estimate. When he was in his mid teens, his height would make him seem older, but his face would make him seem younger. Now that he was in his twenties, he still looked drinking age, 18 at the time, as he had at 16 when he'd go to bars and not get carded.

So here he was completely in love with one of the most beautiful women in the world, a Latina at that, and she reciprocated! And if she wanted, she could have one of the most handsome faces and well put together bodies who ever walked the earth, and one from her own racial group, with just a nod of the head. Instead, she chose the tall, cute Average Joe!

But still... But still, how could she resist the beauty of the man he had seen across the street on the edge of Tompkins Square Park challenging him with a stare, and threatening him with a potential of complete destruction? Of course that was the whole point. Lani wanted him because he was a gentle man, even maybe a gentleman. Joe was quick to anger, but his violence was not easily brought forth. His defense was not offense like Jesus but the dodge. Either with words or with his long thin body he dodged attacks and managed to get the attacker to let go of the cause of the attack. Joe had hardly ever been a victim and had never been a victimizer of violence. Joe was average in looks, but his intelligence was keen and attractive to Lani, who fell in love with Joe's eyes, but sustained her love via Joe's deep and thoughtful conversation.

Demonstrating how careful one learned to be growing up in Alphabet City on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Joe hardly noticed the pass Lani had made, putting a small piece of crumpled white paper in his hand. Once two blocks separated him from Jesus and from the entrance to Jose's apartment, he raised the paper to his eyes and read the message.

"1⁄2 Hr. 338-5119."

Joe had himself a slow cup of coffee at a nearby coffee shop. He was still within throwing distance from Tompkins Square, so he kept vigilant. Jesus was more than a thought, but was a physical apparition haunting their day.

At last, the longest half hour of his life passed. Joe dropped coins into the wall mounted payphone inside the coffee shop and awaited Lani's voice.

"Not yet, darling," Lani said with her gentle, subtly Nuyorican accented voice which, except for their rare spats, always soothed. "I'm sorry. One more hour."

He wanted to scream "Fuck Jesus," but kept quiet.

As usual, Lani had the exact words to soothe his ready temper. She even added some much needed humor. "Have a drink at a bar. I'm having one or two here along with everyone else. You'll have to catch up to us. It's already getting a little wild."

"My darling Lani is a wild woman?" said Joe incredulously. "And I thought you were the steady customer in our relationship, even more than my careful character."

"You saying I'm the bigger stick in the mud?"

"I guess I am."

"Well, we both need a vacation from all that tonight, wouldn't you say?"

"These are good friends. I've never heard you sound more comfortable anywhere except laying in my arms."

"Tina is my longest, dearest, and until I met you, closest friend," said Lani, getting serious again. "Jose is her love, and she chose a good man."

"Speaking of love..."

"One hour. You can wait one hour, can't you?"

"No."

"Neither can I. See you soon, my love." She hung up. He kept the phone against his ear, catching imagined reverberations of her voice, her breath, her soul. He wanted all of her, and never seemed to be allowed very much.

When the door opened, Joe blindly grabbed whoever was there and lifted her into his arm, squeezing his groin against hers and pressing his face beside hers, whispering into her ear which was touched by his lips, "Oh Lani!" But it wasn't Lani. Despite being the same height, the body in his arms felt different. Fleshier. More relaxed somehow, despite the surprise. He leaned his head back to look. A lovely round faced Latina smiled back. "Uhh," he stammered. She kissed him on his lips. Her lips were soft and nice. There was a definite odor of tequila. And something else sweet and familiar. She ground her warm pussy mound hidden by jeans against his risen flesh. He felt her warm, firm but fleshy large breast against his chest, the nipples large enough to be unmistakably hard despite any clothing between them.

"You must be Joe," said a breathy Tina when their kiss ended. She smiled at him, kissed him again, shorter but still with energy. She then slid seductively down his long body, her warm, hungry pussy rubbing all the way down his leg until she was kneeling at his feet. She lay back and laughed, looking up at him. "Lani's right. You are cute."

"Thanks," he said, unsteadily. "Where's..." The answer came without asking the question. He felt Lani's lean fingers tap at his shoulder. He turned to her, and she jumped into his arm, kissing him full force, taking Tina's place. There was the tequila again. And the other flavor. He figured it out. He released his lips from hers despite her hungry need to continue. "Pot! You've been smoking pot!" Lani giggled; then sealed their lips together. Her tongue slipped inside his mouth and flipped about like a suffocating fish, finally finding sustenance at his tongue tip. His needs and his thrills for her amplified despite already nearing the highest heights without consummation. Just one addition would send him over, filling his pants with jism.

But suddenly his nerves slammed against his heart. He had been making love to Tina a moment before. Wasn't this Tina's boyfriend's apartment? Was he about to be challenged a second time by an angry and dangerous Latino? Without meaning to, the thought having paralyzed him, Joe let Lani slip out of his hands.

Glancing around the small living room/family room/dining room shared area of the apartment gave answer to why no Latino was threatening him. Everyone was sitting slumped and barely conscious, intoxicated, in an inebriated fog.

Looking back down at Lani, he wanted to see how conscious she was. He had never seen her wasted. In fact she hadn't quite reached that threshold. But it was the closest she had ever gotten. She seemed loose and free and open and happy. Except at their most intimate moments, when a shared climax had let loose all tension along with their cum, he had never seen her more comfortable in her own skin. They shared a loving stare into each other's eyes. She playfully yet lovingly wrapped her arms around his thighs. Her hands caressed up his ass, fingers nudging deep between the cheeks, touching the spot where his asshole was beneath the clothes. Hands slid between the legs and found the swelling balls. Fingers touched the expanding cock. All through clothes and yet with deadly accuracy.

His fingers returned the compliment, finding the heat and dampness of her hidden slit. Joe loved everything about Lani, including the restraint, but her unusual impetuousness and abandon was intoxicating. He was utterly lost in her wanton sexiness. She had sent him into a cloud of sex, a complete, universal, all senses, all elements, infinite world of sex. Her fingers undid his pants and slipped inside to feel his throbbing naked manhood painfully wishing to be free. A most wicked smile emerged from her lips and eyes. He kissed those provocative lips. They were loose and on fire. While lips conjoined and tongues drunkenly tangoed, her hand inside his pants pulled him into a bedroom as the fingers kept aiding in his cock's expansion.