Chapter 6

If my luncheon with Dr. Crane proved anything, it was that we could never be friends. My advanced maturity to the contrary, he couldn't get past the age gap. What's more, he was thoroughly ensconced in academia. I wasn't, which made me an inferior outsider, and with the exception of our discussion about Jane Wilson, he treated the luncheon as an art critic interviewing an up-and-coming young artist.

Neither of us brought up Sherry and Vivian.

After lunch, he followed me to my studio to view my paintings. He was effusive with his praise, congratulated me for taking a risk with the direction my work was taking, and drove away.

Following my mother's advice, I tried to remain friendly with Dean, but after Grace dumped him, he refused to make any time for me.

Two failures, but my one resounding success made up for the failures.

Agnes Porter became a true friend. We gave and we got. One evening she asked me to shut down the coal forge for the night. She didn't trust me. The request was obviously a test, and she watched me perform the task. I didn't mind.

Like me, I noticed that Agnes believed that maintaining a full fire not only offered a more efficient heat source but also insured plenty of fuel to light a new fire the next day. Coke lights much easier than coal, so before I pulled the fire apart, I pulled out an ample supply of coke and left it near the fire pot to light the fire the next day. I didn't douse the fire with water. As long as the bulk of the fuel is pulled out of the fire, the fire will go out on its own. The following morning, only fines would remain in the firepot — mostly. Agnes would remove those with a shovel, sifted first to separate the good coke from small pieces of clinker.

"Yep, you'll do," she said. "Come on, I'll give you your first welding lesson."

After that afternoon, if I was around at the end of the day, I stopped by Agnes's studio and shut down her fire, and one morning I stopped by early enough to light the fire. Soon we worked side by side, forging specific pieces of metal for her sculptures, and I was starting to get a handle on welding. Welding was a quick study for me because many of the principles of forging and welding overlapped.

Agnes didn't have a kitchen in her studio, so I gave her free reign of mine. She was polite enough not to bother me if I were working and didn't bang on the door if it was locked. Still, it didn't take her long to realize that Sherry Crane was visiting me for some fun and games, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

"You want to do what?" Sherry said the second time she visited my studio.

"You heard me the first time," I said.

"Brent, I'm here to satisfy my craving for a stiff male organ, not to get my pussy eaten. Vivian makes sure that craving is satisfied on a daily basis."

"Hey, I have cravings, too. I love the flavors and fragrances of an aroused cunt. After I eat you, I'll fuck you. Guaranteed. Take the position, babe."

"Position?"

"Yeah, you know, spread your legs and pull up your knees, and then, using your fingers, spread the lips of you amazing pussy."

"Like this, you mean?" she said with a schoolgirl giggle.

"Uh-huh," I said just before my open mouth covered her entire cunt. I lapped my tongue up through her crease, rolling it over her clitoris. The lick wasn't soft or tender. I wanted her to feel and appreciate the difference. I'd eat her like a man, not a woman, and I had a treat for her, something I'd learned when I was Jane Wilson.

After lapping her cunt like a large male dog for a minute or two, I inserted two fingers inside her and searched for a small rough area, her G-spot. I found it, and with my hand turned up, I started to tap the spot, a sort of come-hither motion with my fingers, while I continued to lick her inner lips and clit.

"Oh, fuck, Brent, that feels so good. Viva la difference!"

My fingers tapped with a steady rhythm; my tongue did its thing, and soon Sherry was thrashing around on the bed under my face. That's when I sucked her clitoris into my mouth and lashed it with my tongue.

She screeched with pleasure, and her hips rose up off the bed as her body stiffened in orgasm. That would be her first and last clitoral orgasm that afternoon, but nowhere near her last climax before our lovemaking ended for the day.

When she collapsed, I let her relax for a few seconds, and then started to tap her G-spot again. My licking tongue stopped being male and gave her the kind of licks Vivian probably gave her. Soft licks. Sweet.

"I'm getting hot again," she said. "Fuck me now."

"Later."

"Now!"

I ignored her and continued my tapping, my little licks, and a few minutes later she said, "I can't believe it. I'm coming again. Coming, Brent! Come... !" Her words became unintelligible. Her hips waved, and she tossed her head back and forth. I felt her second orgasm start when her cunt tried to expel my fingers. I let the digits be pushed a little, pushed them back inside and tapped, using the same insistent rhythm I'd used before. I slackened off, and her interior muscles pushed my fingers all the way out. But I knew what I had to do, and my fingers slipped back inside her and did their thing again. She wailed and went stiff, her cunt fluttering very fast, as she squirted a small amount of orgasmic juices into my mouth and over my face.

They were delicious, my favorite flavor.

Thanks for the memories, Jane.

Sherry thought I was finished, but I was just getting started. Tap, tap, tap, went my fingers, and my tongue got busy again.

"What are you doing to me?" she gushed.

I said nothing. My mouth was busy.

"Whatever it is, don't stop," she said.

One more orgasm, and I'd have her where I wanted her. The moment her cunt convulsed, I let my fingers pop loose, but shoved them back inside and tapped. She exploded, went into convulsions, and her squirting juices doubled in volume and power. I worked her, kept her on an orgasmic plateau. She didn't have one, long continuous climax, but the peaks came at about thirty-second intervals, one after the other, and each orgasm was more powerful than the one before.

I waited for the big one, possibly the most terrifyingly intense climax she'd ever experience, and it came upon her suddenly. That's when I moved up over her and jammed my cock into her with one powerful thrust.

After so many orgasms, the interior membranes of her vagina were convulsing, squeezing and releasing my shaft astonishingly fast. I thought she'd collapse before I could climax, but her orgasm went on and on, and in the end, I screamed with her, and expelled my seed into the depths of her pulsating cunt with five powerful squirts of my own.

We collapsed together.

I maintained consciousness. She didn't. I held her in my arms until she came around.

"What did you do to me?" she whispered between gasps.

"Ate you."

"No, you ate me through my first climax. The ones that followed... I don't know, but I've never come that hard or as often in my life. And the last one! The last one fried my brains." She reached down and touched herself. "You fucked me, came in me. I thought that's what happened, but I was so out of it I wasn't sure."

I brushed her hair from her face and gave her a soft kiss. "You were magnificent."

"Your face is sopping wet."

"You squirted."

"I don't squirt."

"Feel the bed under you."

She rubbed her hand on the sheet between her legs and giggled. "I squirted."

"More than once. Lick my face. Taste yourself. It's a different flavor than your normal juices."

Her tongue reached out and licked.

"It's lighter," I said. "Not as viscous. I prefer it to your normal spend."

She leaned back from me and held her head up with the heel of her hand, using her elbow as a fulcrum. "I thought I'd tried everything, done everything at least once. I was wrong. Where did you... ? When... ? Who... ? Fuck! You're sixteen years old. You can't be that good."

I laughed. "I told you. Before I met you, I had two girl friends, one twenty years old, the other twenty-one. I watched them do that to each other. I wanted to learn the techniques. They taught me." A lie, but I couldn't tell her about Jane Wilson.

She frowned. "You watched them? They taught you. Are you saying that you had sex with both of them at the same time?"

I frowned. "Isn't that what I just said?"

"They taught you?"

"Yes."

"Can you teach me?"

"So you can do to Vivian what I did to you?"

She had the humility to blush.

I laughed. "She'll want to know who taught you."

"I'll say I read about it in a magazine."

"Okay. I'll teach you, but to get, you've got to give. Eat me while I describe the technique to you."

"Deal." She giggled as she scooted down on the bed. "I love sucking cock. I'll be getting to get."

"What's wrong, Grace?" I asked. She'd been dispirited, and I believed I knew why.

"It's New Year's Eve, and I have nowhere to go and no one to go with me."

I laughed. "You've got me, babe. I'm paddling the same canoe. Put on your glad rags. I'll do the same, and we'll go out and about and bring in the New Year with a bang, not a whimper."

She hooted. "Criminy, Brent, in three short sentences, you slaughtered four clichés, and mixed some metaphors, to boot."

"Which reminds me, how's your writing coming along?"

"It's cliché ridden. I talked with Mom this morning. She said she had to talk to Dad, but she all but promised to arrange some expert tutoring for me." She sighed. "Were you serious about going out?"

"Sure, if that's what you'd like to do."

"I don't, but I do want to bring in the New Year with you."

"Then that's what we'll do."

She put a CD in the player and soft music filled the room. Her shoes went flying. "Take off your shoes and dance with me," she said.

My shoes went flying. I held out my arms, and she moved into them, pressing her lush body against me. She kissed my cheek, and we moved gracefully around the floor. My cock lengthened. I didn't pull back. Neither did she. Instead, she nuzzled her face in my neck.

"I excite you, don't I?" she said.

"Always have, always will."

"Sometimes, I wish I wasn't your sister."

I said nothing.

"If I wasn't, you'd fuck me, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. I'd make love with you, too."

"I'd like that."

I said nothing.

We danced. I led. She followed. But we moved as if we were one. The song ended, another started. We continued to hold each other, barely moving. She looked up at me. Her dark eyes brimmed with tears. I kissed the edge of each eye, tasting her salty emotional offering.

"Life played a dirty trick on us, Brent," she said so softly I could barely hear her.

"I know."

She nuzzled her damp face in my neck again.

"If I wasn't your sister, and I asked, would you stop fucking Sherry Crane?"

"Yes."

"Would you stop fucking her anyway?"

"No."

"Are you in love with her?"

"A little, not a lot. She's in love with someone else, a woman. Sherry and I have no future together. We're using each other to satisfy some basic cravings."

Grace leaned back. "A woman?"

"Yes."

She snickered. "How about that? Is Sherry's lover bisexual?"

"No."

"Too bad. Otherwise, you could fuck both of them, like you did Terry and Nora."

I said nothing, but she sensed that she'd gone too far.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Apology accepted."

"Let's open a bottle of wine."

"All right."

She spun out of my arms. I followed her to the wine rack in the kitchen, adjusting my erection when she couldn't see me.

"Have you ever gotten drunk, Brent?"

"No, not in this life."

She gave me a curious look. "You say that a lot, talk about this life versus other lives, I mean. Red or white?"

"Red. Red wine doesn't need refrigeration. So says Agnes."

"I like Agnes." Grace deftly peeled off the waxed surface around the stem of the bottle.

"So do I. She's my only friend."

"Why do you talk about other lives?"

"Because I remember parts of them."

"Really?" She rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a corkscrew.

"Yes. I believe my previous lives are the source of my advanced maturity."

She pulled the cork and poured the wine. I took one glass; she took the other, and we clicked them together.

"Happy New Year," we said simultaneously, and then laughed together.

She gulped at the wine. I sipped.

"Then you must believe in reincarnation," she said.

"Yes."

"Tell me about some of the things you remember about your past lives," she said and grabbed the bottle. "Let's sit on the sofa for this theological discussion."

As we walked back to the family room, I debated with myself about how much to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything. I'd wanted to tell someone everything since the first Jane Wilson memory entered my mind.

Dribble it out, I told myself. Test her reactions. Go as far as she'll allow without her thinking that you've lost your ever lovin' mind.

She curled her feet under her, something I couldn't do, not in this life, and in the process exposed a lot of leg. She noticed that I noticed and offered me a coy smile. For safety reasons, I sat at the opposite end of the sofa. While we'd danced, I'd come close to kissing her with passion. That's what she wanted; that's what I wanted. And if I'd kissed her the way I'd wanted to kiss her, we would've ended up making love, which in the end would've been an unmitigated disaster.

"If I tell you about what I remember about my past lives, do you promise to tell no one?"

"Yes."

"Not Mom or Dad, not any of your friends, not any future lovers. No one, Grace."

"I promise, Brent. Why are you making this such a big deal?"

"Because it is. I've told no one about my past lives, Grace. If I tell you, you'll be the first, and it's likely that you'll be the only person I'll ever tell."

She shook her head. "I still don't understand why it's such a big deal."

"I'll give you one example. Like Agnes, have you been curious about how much I know about her coal forge? You've known me all my life. When in this life could I have learned what I know about forging metal?"

"I don't know, but you do so many things like that, Brent, that I just... well, accept them. I'm not the only one that does this, either. Mom and Dad react the same way."

"I know about coal forges because I was a smith in a previous life. At the turn of the century — that's the year 1900, Grace, not 2000 — I was born as a man who lived thirty-one years. For much of my adult life during that life, I worked as an industrial blacksmith for a copper company in Nevada. Now, do you understand why keeping my secret is such a big deal?"

"Jesus! Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack."

I waited. I needed her reaction beyond shock before I'd proceed.

She gulped at the wine, emptying the glass. She filled it from the bottle she'd carried with us from the kitchen.

"Were you an artist in a different past life?"

"Yes."

"Is that why suddenly one day you asked Dad to buy you some art supplies and turn the garage into a studio, and then, out of the blue, painted the most magnificent works of art I've ever seen?"

"Yes."

"Jesus." She gulped at the wine again. "How much detail do you remember?"

"Similar to the detail I remember about this life. I lived those lives, Grace, like I'm living this one."

"How many past lives do you remember?"

"Two."

"The artist and the blacksmith?"

"Yes."

"Amazing!"

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes! It explains everything, all the incredible things that you do. You're not sixteen years old. You're older than dirt."

I laughed. She laughed with me.

"Our secret?" I said.

"Oh, yeah. Nobody would believe me if I blabbed anyway. Wow! What a way to bring in a New Year! By finding out my little brother is over a hundred years old!" She slipped across the sofa and cuddled against my side. I put an arm around her shoulder, and she brought my other arm around her waist. "There, I'm comfy now. Okay buster, tell me everything."

I talked the old year out, kissed my sister at the moment of the birth of a New Year, keeping the heat of the kiss manageable, and then talked some more, running down just before my parents arrived home blitzed from their New Year's Eve party.

"School days, school days/Dear old golden rule days," I sang as I drove the pickup into the student parking lot at the high school for our first day back to school after the Christmas break.

Education. I needed all the education I could get in this life. Josh Randall finished the eighth grade — barely. Jane Wilson finished high school, but she took her talent as an artist seriously, not her education. That had to change during my current incarnation, if only for future incarnations to use, which begged the question. Would I remember my previous two lives, and this one, when I reached puberty in my next life?

I'd searched Jane Wilson's memories for any Josh Randall memories. Likewise, with Josh Randall and his previous life. Nothing.

"Don't quit your day job to go on a concert tour," Grace said, referring to my terrible singing voice.

I was a talented artist with perfect vision and above-average hand/eye coordination, but my body was flawed. I suffered from tinnitus. I heard the sounds of rushing air in both ears. Some days the rushing roared; other days it quieted somewhat. Because of this rushing, roaring air, I was musically challenged. I didn't hear what everyone else heard. What's more my memory retrieval system for this life was almost entirely visual. In other words, if I saw something, I could remember it. If I heard something, I'd probably forget it. Even my memories from my previous lives were imagery oriented. Accordingly, unless I took notes, lectures — to use a slightly altered cliché — went in one roaring ear and out the other.