Chapter 1

"Why can't you get on an earlier flight?" The phone in my hand was slick from the sweat of my hand. The temperature in Tucson was already 85 and climbing, and it was only 7AM. Even standing there naked in the air conditioned house I was dripping with sweat. The sheets I'd left when the phone woke me up were soaking wet.

"I told you that the conference has splintered into departmental groups," my wife said with exasperation. "I have two more meetings tomorrow and by the time they're over it will be too late to catch the last flight. Believe me, baby, if I could get on a plane right now I would. This is the wettest summer Seattle has had for ten years, they said. I'm frickin' cold!" At least I wasn't getting rained on. I looked out the patio doors at the pool. The sun sparkled off the blue water.

She had been sent to Seattle as part of her promotion to the position of regional rep for her corporation. It was a real plum for her and would look good on her resume. It also carried a considerable raise in salary. Even though it meant she'd be doing more traveling, I was happy for her and proud. The glitch in this present change of timing had one big drawback. A month earlier she had made arrangements for her ex-roommate from college to come visit us. She would be meeting me for the first time. Now I would have to pick 'Tally' up alone, introduce myself, and entertain her for two days.

Barb (my wife) has shown me pictures of the two of them back in school. Tally is -- or at least she was -- a tall redhead with skinny hips, big tits and a nicely rounded ass. She wasn't fat, but, as Barb had, she looked like she might broaden with time. I guessed I'd be able to recognize her from her height, if nothing else. Barb told me Tally was exactly six feet tall. Her green eyes have a wicked gleam in them in most of the pictures. If I'd met the two of them together back then I can't say honestly that I'd have gone for Barb.

Tally had been in an accident her last year of school. Apparently she was pretty badly injured. Barb had never really said how exactly, she'd been hurt -- if she even knew. Other than Christmas cards, the call from Tally was their first communication in a whole lot of years.

According to Barbara, Tally was just returning to the country from England. She'd gone there to live years ago. While she was there she got married and had just recently gotten divorced. When I was single, I'd have been thrilled at the prospect of spending two days alone in a house with the pretty redhead. The problem is that now I am married to Barb. I've always been a 'true blue' kind of guy: I was never unfaithful to any of my old girlfriends and I have continued that integrity in my marriage to Barb.

We finished our conversation and I hung up the phone. I went down the hall to the bedroom and slipped out the sliding door to the patio. Beyond the adobe brick wall surrounding the yard the hill dropped away sharply. Baking and glittering in the desert sun, the city of Tucson stretched out below. Rush hour traffic streamed along I-10 and on the cross town avenues. We don't have neighbors on either side of the house.

I decided to take a quick dip in the pool before showering and dressing to go to the airport. Barb and I normally go nude at home. Barb said Tally would probably take to it, though we should probably take it slow. I thought about that as I dove into the pool and stayed under the surface as I swam toward the shallow end. Tally was supposed to stay for two weeks. I surfaced and snorted the water out of my nose as I backstroked to the pool's edge. I pushed off and side stroked back the other way. I wasn't really looking forward to two weeks of enforced clothing, so I hoped Tally was okay with nudity.

The air inside the airport was only slightly cooler than the air outside because the doors were always opening and closing. I felt drops of sweat breaking out on my forehead and dripping down my sides under my shirt. Tally's flight was going to be twenty-five minutes late according to the monitor on the concourse. I stepped into the bar and ordered a vodka Collins. I pulled the latest J. A. Jance novel from my pocket and opened it to my mark. I drank and read until it was time to go to the gate.

The speakers announced the flight's arrival as I joined the crowd milling around. Relatives and friends all peered expectantly past the security checkpoint as passengers began streaming down the concourse. I was standing so I could look straight up the ramp. After a few minutes a head covered with red hair appeared at the bend. It moved along above the heads that surrounded it. 'This has to be her, ' I thought.

Sure enough, when the throng thinned out she stood looking around. I was surprised at the changes from her younger picture. The tall thin woman with a great rack who had roomed with my wife had put on a few pounds. Her hips were broader, but still nicely rounded under her summer dress. Her waist had thickened some too. Her breasts had also burgeoned along with the rest of her body. She was undeniably attractive, but not in the way I'd expected. I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Tally?" I called out. Her head turned toward me. I raised my hand and she smiled at me. Her smile was beautiful! I smiled back. She came toward me. I held out my hand but she took it in her left hand, pulling me toward her. She hugged me as if we were old friends. I was a little uncomfortable but it felt good too. I hugged her back.

"So you're Frank! I've seen pictures, and Bobbi has told me so much about you I feel like I know you already. Sorry I didn't see you right away." Her breath on my neck was hot. She smelled good. It wasn't a perfume smell. It was more likely the trace of her soap mingled with the natural heated scent of her body. Her tits pushed hard into my chest as I returned the hug. She broke away and looked around. "But where is she?"

I explained the problem and Tally just grinned. "You mean she trusts you alone with me for two days?" Her eyes held a mischievous gleam and her eyebrows wiggled up and down. 'Uh-oh, ' I thought. "She must have a lot of faith in you."

"Well," I said, blushing for no reason I could name, "she has good reason to trust me." Even to myself I sounded like a prig. I tried to lessen my discomfort with a grin and a 'gawrsh, ma'am' kind of a shrug. She looped her arm in mine as we walked down the concourse toward baggage claim.

"Good Lord, it's hot!" she said. "Can you find me a cold drink soon?" I noticed she had a slight limp. She was dressed in dark slacks that had to be hot. I offered to buy her one right there in the bar but she was aware of airport prices. I assured her it wouldn't take long to get home. While we waited for her bags at the carousel she told me all about her flights and the idiots she had to endure all the way from New York. She spoke with a pronounced British accent. That could be expected from an American after living in London for fifteen years, I guessed.

We got her two bags and ventured into the furnace outside. Tally stopped and staggered -- actually staggered -- when the heat hit her. I grabbed her arm to balance her. She gripped my shoulder. "Good God! Is it always this hot here?" I eased her down onto a concrete bench just behind where we had stopped. I stood up and looked at her.

"No," I told her with a grin. "Sometimes it gets hotter. The good part, according to those who don't live here is that 'it's a dry heat'." She looked at me and I saw that she had broken a sweat already. She also was too hot to enjoy my little attempt at humor. "Don't worry, though. All the cars and the houses have air conditioning. I told her to wait just inside the door and I'd go get the car. "That way you won't get heat stroke and the car will have a chance to cool down some before you get in it." I left her fanning herself with her book while I went to get the car.

I walked through the lines of cars to my Jeep. Using the washrag I keep in there for the purpose, I held the steering wheel as I started it up. I would have to drive with the cloth between my hand and the plastic of the wheel until the A/C kicked in to make it cool enough to handle bare-handed.

By the time I'd paid for parking and driven around to pick Tally up, the car had cooled pretty well. I popped the hatch and loaded her bags in and we were off. "I don't think I could ever get used to this heat," she said, looking around us at the desert landscape.

"Oh, you'd be surprised. It only takes a year or so. When I first came here in the winter time I'd be walking around in shorts while the locals were wearing coats. Of course the temperatures were only around 70 or so at the time. Still, to the locals it was 40 or 50 degrees cooler than summer. After living a summer here, I got acclimated."

When we got to the house up in the hills west of town I pulled around the curving drive and pressed the button to open the garage. It was shady in there but still hot. I took her bags and ushered her into the cool of the house. She stopped a couple of steps inside, let out a grateful sigh of relief, and started forward again. I showed her where her room was and deposited the bags. "You'll probably want to get out of those clothes... into something cooler, I mean," I told her.

"That's for sure," she said.

"I'll go pour us something cold to drink. What would you like?"

"Anything as long as there's booze and lots of ice," she said, pulling the neck of her top away from her chest. I turned to leave the room.

"Is vodka okay?" I asked.

"Great," she said as she turned away, already unbuttoning the top.

I went back to the family room and mixed up two vodka tonics. I was just slicing lime into the bubbling drinks when Tally came in. I glanced up and then did a double take.

She had changed to shorts and a tank top. I could see she wore no bra under the top, but what caused my surprise was the flesh colored prosthesis sticking out of the left leg of her shorts. She caught my glance.

"I know. It's a shock when you see it the first time."

I looked at her and then away. "Sorry, but, yeah, you're right. Barb didn't tell me..."

Tally was good-humored about it. I realized she was probably used to it. "That's because I've never told her. Motorcycle accident my senior year in college," she said simply. "My boyfriend was driving and he ended up in a wheelchair for life. I count myself lucky now, but I sure didn't at the time."

"I can imagine," I said.

"No, no, you probably can't. But thanks for the thought." She sounded resigned to the situation. She hoisted herself onto a bar stool and we looked at each other across the bar. We clinked our glasses together and drank deep. She set the glass down and looked around. "This is a beautiful home, Frank," she said. "You and Bobbi must do well for yourselves." Every time she called my wife 'Bobbi' it rang an off note in my ear. I'd always only known her as Barb or Barbara.

"We do okay," I said. "I owe a lot to Barb -- Bobbi," I said. Tally grinned at me.

"You didn't know we used to call her that?" I shook my head. "That was us, 'Bobbi and Tally'. Of course all my British friends know me as Thalia, but that's such an old fashioned name, don't you think?" I did, and said as much.

"The only Thalia I ever heard of -- other than the muse -- was Thalia Menninger on that old Dobie Gillis show," I told her. Tally laughed at that.

"That's where my mom got the name! She had a heavy crush on Dwayne Hickman." We had finished our drinks. As I mixed fresh ones I noticed that Tally was fidgeting. She saw me looking again and blushed. "I'm sorry, Frank, but this damn thing itches under the best of circumstances. This heat is only making things worse."

"If you want to take it off, it's okay." I didn't know the proper protocol for amputees. Tally was the first I'd ever known personally.

"It won't gross you out?" she asked hopefully. I smiled and shook my head. I couldn't understand why anyone would be grossed out about a missing leg -- or the stump it left behind.

"You're going to be here two weeks. Just make yourself at home. When you don't wear it do you use crutches or what?" I hadn't seen crutches in her luggage, but what did I know?

"No, usually I just hop around or use a cane. If you could help me just a second, though..." I walked around and steadied her on the stool while she unstrapped her leg and popped it off. It made a damp sucking sound as it came free. She passed it to me. Her pleasure was evident in her expression. "Ahh! That's SO much better!" She furiously scratched at her stump. She had to raise the leg of her shorts quite a way to reach it. She probably didn't realize I was getting a fair view of her crotch since the shorts were rather baggy. She had left her panties in the bedroom too, I noticed. I didn't see any pubic hair and that gained her a huge measure of approval from me.

I realized I was staring before she did this time. I turned and set the prosthesis on the couch and retreated to my spot behind the bar. My dick was activated by the sight of her crotch and I thought it best to keep it to myself.

As we sat and talked I realized that removing her plastic leg had changed her whole attitude as well. I guess it is kind of an intimate thing to do. I thought it might be similar to being naked with someone for the first time. She told me all about her job and life in London and I told her about my consulting business. We talked about Barb's work and Tally told me some tales from their college days. I stashed some tidbits away to use on my wife when we got together again. It seems the two of them were quite the wild coeds in their day.

Tally kept reaching behind her head to lift the hair from her neck. It was clear that she was still too warm. I suggested she might want to shower, "Or you might want to jump into the pool. I hope you brought a swim suit," I said to my new friend Tally.

"Um... actually I didn't. Bobbi -- I mean, 'Barbara' -- said the two of you usually went without. She didn't think you'd mind if I did, too." She was looking at me with that wicked grin again. I felt my face color.

"Well, yeah..." I said. "If it's okay with you, it's fine by me." I picked up our glasses and she rested a hand on my shoulder and hopped along as we crossed the room to the sliding door.

I wasn't sure if my wife had this in mind once she knew Tally and I were going to be here alone for two days. But, oh well. I could be naked with an attractive woman with my wife out of town without anything happening... couldn't I? Well, of course I could! I believed me.

Tally was pretty agile on one leg as it turned out. We reached the sliding door and Tally pulled it open. The sun had set by then and the sky was all electric orange and purple the way it can get in Arizona. The air had cooled little yet, though. Tally hopped to a lounge chair and sat down. She grinned at me and tugged her tank top over her head. Her tits were some of the most impressive I'd seen. They had huge areoles surrounding very prominent nipples.

She saw me appreciating them and gave me a smile as she unbuttoned her shorts. Standing up again she let the shorts drop and there she was. I'd been right about her lack of pubic hair. She raised her arms and hopped around in a circle, causing her big tits and fleshy ass cheeks to bounce slightly. Her right leg was thick with muscle. My cock started to inflate. Her stump was smooth and ended about five inches below her crotch. Something about that stump, I thought...

"Well?" she demanded. "Are you just going to stand there all covered up?" Her hands were on her hips and she watched me. I was amazed at her balance. "Bobbi promised me I'd get to see some naked man-flesh."

I shrugged and pulled my shirt off and then my own shorts and underwear. I tossed them on a chair next to the glass-topped table. My cock was about half hard and on the way up. "I have to apologize for this," I started, gesturing at my growing hard on.

"No, you sure as hell do NOT!" she laughed. "It's a compliment. I hope it never goes away as long as I'm here." Tally laughed even harder at my groan. I hoped that by the time Barb got home I'd get over this sudden infatuation. The problem was that I only knew one way to get past it: and that was to indulge it.

Tally had me help her walk to the shallow end of the pool since she didn't trust hopping that close to water on the concrete and the glazed tiles. She put her arm over my shoulders and I put my arm around her waist and held her hip as she stepped down into the water. Out of necessity the move brought her tit up against my ribs and my bony hip and my thigh against her warm round hip and her stump. None of that made my dick any softer. Neither did the reflexive motions of her stump when she hopped. My cock was as hard as it could get by then and it was bobbing lewdly as we moved toward the shallow end of the pool. Tally giggled and my face just got hotter.

Tally sat on the lowest step in the pool and leaned back on her elbows. The water lapped around her globes and her nipples puckered up. She let out a heavy sigh. I sat next to her, our hips touching. Her eyes were closed and I found my own gaze returning to her stump under the chlorinated water. The pool had calmed again after we got settled and my view of it was unobstructed. I would look away and then I was looking at it again. I didn't realize she had opened her eyes until she said, "You can touch it if you want."