The Night Before:

Jason Gold was just a little drunk, broke (although he did not know it yet) and still savored the sweet taste of victory. His left eye had begun to swell and discolor and his fly was open. He lost his shirt, had it ripped off his back, in a fight against two of the Venice locals who mistakenly thought the pale skinned, mild looking stranger would be easy pickings. It was their last mistake of the evening. Full of beer courage, they followed Jase out on the beach where he left the little bar to avoid trouble. Unless it was to protect one's self, Jason thought fighting was stupid.

On the other hand, to deliver a well deserved ass kicking to a couple of bar room bullies did feel good.

His antagonists suddenly lost all interest in everything except to get the hell away from this not-quite-so-sissified-as-they-thought stranger. They ran away from the fight as fast as they could, one with a broken nose while the other left his front teeth behind, lost somewhere in the sand.

In their hurry to escape, they left behind the two six packs of beer they brought along to celebrate their anticipated "victory." Jase spied the beer, smiled and shrugged. "To the victor belongs the spoils," he murmured to himself. He reached down and picked the two six packs up, held them at eye level to examine them in the semi darkness. He saw they were an expensive import. His smile turned to a wide, toothy grin as he shrugged at his good luck and jerked the cap off the first green bottle and thirstily chugged it down. He wandered out to the water's edge and drank the second beer. Fighting was thirsty work.

Jason Gold was not a man with a hungry ego and a chip on his shoulder. He did not like to fight particularly. On the other hand, though, he refused to tuck tail and run away. He mostly believed in facing whatever happened, then put the unpleasant things behind him as quickly as possible. He also believed in savoring the good things for as long as and as much as he could.

Now, barely past his thirty-fifth birthday, it seemed to Jase the unpleasant things happened much more often than the pleasant things. He figured it was about time to settle down. Well, maybe one of these days. However, not just yet; there was one more hill to head over, one more corner to turn and one more willing woman to meet, pretty or otherwise. And perhaps, with a little bit of luck, a whole bunch of pretty, willing women to meet, not all at the same time, though. The other ten beers of his "victory prize" followed the first two and, combined with the quantity of draft beer he had tossed down his throat earlier, he passed out. He lay there on the beach for the rest of the night, unmoving and alone.

The next morning:

He felt the sun beat harshly down on his fair skinned torso. It burned at his closed eyes. Suddenly he felt something shoving against his bared to the open air crotch. "Glaargh." he half moaned, half growled as he made the effort to open his eyes and looked at what was disturbing his more private parts.

A woman stood next to him, prodding him with a bare foot. She smiled, as she saw him open his eyes and commented in a conversational tone of voice, "Ah, I see we're awake. You better put your little pretty away before it gets all sun burned and blistered. Also you have another reason to put it away. There is a policeman coming this way and I don't imagine he would admire it the way I do."

Quickly, Jase got to his feet and adjusted his fly until everything was back inside where it belonged. He stood straighter and uncertainly and looked around.

There was no cop anywhere to be seen. Finally he looked at his female tormentor as closely as his hangover allowed. She stood about five feet four inches or so and was slightly overweight. "Chubbily pretty," would be his way to describe her. He guessed her to be somewhere in the neighborhood of forty, very well preserved, but still a solid forty. Her breasts were almost covered by a string top that barely hid her generous nipples. Her face was pleasant, even attractive in a wholesome sort of way. It seemed to tell the observer that here was a woman who knew her own mind and liked her own thoughts. Right now, her thoughts were obviously on the tall, younger than she, muscular man she had smiled down at with amusement

while she nudged him awake with her right big toe.

"What did you do, get drunk, get in a fight and wander down here to pass out?" She stood, weight evenly distributed on both feet, waiting for an answer. There was something a little imposing about her. He felt just the least bit intimidated by her attitude.

Right at that moment he suddenly had a strange feeling the rest of his life was in the balance, to be weighed against whatever the words he chose to answered her. As the Brits he worked with on the last oil rig said, he was "right spot on, though neither one of them knew it then. "Well, sort of," he began his answer. "I was talking to a pretty lady and these two guys picked a fight with me. I tried to walk away, but they pushed it. So, we fought." He shrugged his broad shoulders. He stuck his hands in his pockets. They came back out empty. Starting to panic, he reached in both hip pockets and they came out empty. His billfold was gone. Bloody hell! He thought, panicked. He stared wildly around him, searching the sand for a sign of his property. Nothing...

"You looking for this?" his new acquaintance asked him. She held up his lost billfold. "I had a hunch this was yours when This was laying on the floor in the bar. By the time I found it, you had gone and I didn't know where you were. By the way, it was empty. Someone else seems to have found it before I did."

He nodded wordlessly. Well, it looked like he was going to have to find some kind of job sooner than he had planned. Already the effects of the alcohol were receding, to be replaced by pangs of hunger that became more pronounced as he realized that he had no money to buy food or find a place to stay. Christ, he did not even have pocket change to buy a cup of that almost undrinkable Mac Donald's so called coffee.

As if reading his mind, she asked, "You want a cup of coffee?" He nodded and she said, "Come on. I own the Beach Comber. We'll have a cup in there. My day waitress quit yesterday and I have to open up until I find someone I can trust." She turned on heel and began to walk toward her little bar. The Beach Comber made no pretensions of any kind at all, huddled on the beach all by itself at one end of the Strand. Jase numbly followed, unsure of how to act in this setting. He was also at a loss of anything else to do.

As they neared the bar, he hurried ahead and held the door open for her, an act as natural as breathing to him. "Well, I do declare." she exclaimed in a mock Scarlett O'Hara voice, "A true gentleman, in this day and age. And here, of all places." She smiled her thanks and royally entered, head help high like imaginary royalty.

He admired the way her sarong fitted securely around her slightly generous hips. Oh yes, he decided, this is one well put-together lady. He smiled to himself; his eyes followed her nice, plump butt as she entered into the darkened interior of the little bar. They stood still for a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the darker interior of the bar. She sensuously walked around behind the bar, over to the Bunn coffee maker and poured them each a cup of coffee.

"Black, right?" she asked.

"Huh?" he asked stupidly, as his attention was drawn from her nice plump butt back to reality.

"The coffee." she told him, "You want it black, right?" He nodded and she shoved a cup across the bar to him.

"You broke?" she asked.

"Yup. That's what it looks like. Well, at least I got my ID back. It would be hell trying to get a job without any ID, especially here in Southern California. They might mistake me for a wetback. I have a hunch that right now work is going to be a bitch kitty to find, the way times are."

She did not answer him right immediately. Instead, she looked at him with a steady, appraising gaze that was direct but not challenging. It was a questioning, analytical look, rather than one of confrontation or challenge. Then she drew her eyes away, seemed to think for a moment and, coming to a quick decision, said, "Let's go get something to eat. I'm hungry, too."

They walked back outside, she first and he followed. She stepped past him, turned back and locked the door. She led the way to a not new by many miles Ford Bronco. It was well cared for and clean on the outside. However it had an air about it that said it had many miles on it, reminiscent of its owner. Not driven hard, but the mileage had begun to show. She gestured and he got in.

She slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine, waited for a half minute, as the engine warmed up, and then took off. They drove away from the beach toward Ocean Boulevard and turned north toward Santa Monica.

After a few blocks she suddenly turned up an alley and stopped at the rear entrance of a restaurant. She turned off the engine, slipped out and motioned for him to follow. Again, he hung back far enough to admire her ass. Too bad it's covered with all that cloth. He thought to himself, as he followed her inside.

Mentally, he removed the offending sarong and decided he liked what he "saw."

She waved to the waitress as they made their way to a booth near the rear entrance. She slid in, motioning for him to follow. Cautiously he slid in behind her, careful to only go in part way so he wouldn't crowd her. "Now that you no longer have my rear end to distract you, do you think you can decide what you want to order?"

Startled, he looked at her guiltily. How did she know? She grinned at him. "You think I couldn't see you staring at me? We passed three different mirrors. I checked you out in all three. At least you are a gentleman about it. And I would also say that you are definitely a heterosexual." His eyes widened at this last remark. She laughed at his surprise.

"Uh, well, I apologize, but you are one dam' fine looking lady. No normal man could ignore you, very long." He spoke with such intense sincerity it caused a little twinge in her belly. It had been a long time since a man had given her such an open and honest compliment. It touched something deep inside her and the feeling lingered on. It was a good feeling.

Whoa up there, Girl. She thought to herself. He is sexy and cute and all that stuff, but he is also at least ten years younger than you. She mentally shook her head as her thoughts continued. But all in all, he is so dammed good looking. The rest of him had looked pretty good, too. She blushed, as she remembered how she had nudged his penis with her big toe on a crazy impulse.

She had never done anything like that before. It seemed lately though, she was just so damned lonely, a little more so with each passing day. Her throat ached with loneliness. Damn it. Life was passing her by and ... well, it just wasn't fair.

He looked over the menu and asked, "Is it alright if I order hot cakes and more coffee? These prices are pretty steep in here."

She smiled and answered, "I know the prices are high. I made 'em that way. It keeps the bums out. There are too many undesirables around here, druggies, winos and other crazies. If I lowered the prices, they would come in, buy a cup of coffee and hang around all day, driving the good cash customers away. Here we have good food, good coffee and high prices. It works."

"You must be rich then," he blurted. Then, thinking about what he just had said, he quickly apologized.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It's none of my business how wealthy you are or are not. You are just one big surprise. I don't know how to take you."

She smiled at his gaffe, "That's alright. However, the short answer is no, I am not rich. My husband died five years ago, after a long illness and this cafe and the bar were all there was left, after the estate had been settled. Both places were and are heavily in debt. This year is the first year there has begun to be any profit at all. But if I have anything to do with it, that profit will grow."

"You know, ma'am, I truly believe you. From the very second I first became aware of you I saw quality. You are truly a lady of the finest kind."

He looked at her from deep, dark blue, heavily lashed eyes that seemed to peer right into her brain, leaving all her thoughts naked for him to see. She could sense the moistness beginning and the trembling mini-thrills that began to course through her body. Oh God. If only ... She mentally pushed the rest of that thought away from her consciousness.

There was no way she was going to let herself be made a fool out of by this person who could only be a "boy toy," at the most. (Yet, there were toys and then there were toys.) Reluctantly she forced her mind away from such a dangerous line of thinking. What was wrong with her? She decided she would feed him and send him on his way. There was no room in her life for stray dogs and casual sex. It was not that she was so very familiar with sex, casual or otherwise. She knew it to be especially true in this day and age. She had seen so much heart break in the Beach Comber as men and women, desperate for love, or just trying to establish and prove to themselves their personal desirability, suffered heartbreak more often than a TV soap opera.

Those people were so pathetic. She was not going to become like one of them.

"Do you want a job?" she asked him. Even as she began to utter the words, she tried to stop them. However, it was no use. It seemed her mouth had taken on a life of its own and refused to obey her.

"Yes ma'am, I surely could use a job." He looked at he with smoldering eyes that made her want to jump his bones right then and there. He added, "What would you have me do?"

A fast mental picture flashed through her mind of the two of them on the table in this very booth ... I'd have you take me here and now, she almost said aloud. She took a deep breath and answered with only a little tremor in her voice, "I could use you to open the Beach Comber in the morning and stock the bar and clean out the rubble from the night before." Oh yes, that would be for starters and so much, much more. Her thoughts screamed silently at him, sending a psychic message she felt he could not hear, and was thankful.

Seriously, with a touching solemnity, he answered her, "Ma'am, I will do my best to be everything you want me to be. I never worked for a lady, before, let alone one so fine as you. Another thing, I never tended bar before, and I have been in quite a few and I learn fast. I'll do you proud." He nodded his sincerity as he stopped talking. His southern courtliness captivated her. There seemed a faint touch of Tennessee blue grass somewhere in his voice, faint but there.

The alert waitress watched their talk taper off and pause. "Good morning, Marty," she greeted her boss, "What would you like, this morning?"

Martha Deeming, "Marty" to all who knew her smiled and said, "Bring us both a steak and three eggs. You know how I want mine; he'll tell you how he would like his.

The waitress looked over at Jase, first to find out how he wanted his steak cooked, then with a personal interest that had nothing to do with eating food. A provocative spread her lips as she asked in a sultry voice, "How would you like yours?" Jase had heard this same message all too many times in the past from women.

"Rare," he answered her with a smile, "and plenty of potatoes." He was careful not to sound the least bit flirtatious. He sensed it would anger his new boss. That he definitely did not care to do. He needed a job too badly to jeopardize it for a little flirtation.

Besides, he was more attracted to this lady across the table from him. There was something, a definite quality about her, some rare essence he had never found in another woman. If given a chance, he wanted to find out what it was.

"This gentleman is coming to work for me," she told the waitress.

The unspoken message was, "My claim is here first. Trespass at your own peril." The waitress heard the "message" loud and clear and backed off. Jase sat there, blithely unaware of the territorial skirmish the two women had just waged over him.

"Ma'am, when do you want me to start?" he asked her.

"Start wha-what?" her voice squeaked guiltily, as her thoughts were jerked from the fantasy she was having.

"Oh. You mean about work. Sorry, my mind was on other problems.Yes. About work." She struggled to regain her composure, continuing, "Oh, you're on the payroll right now. As soon as we eat, we shall go back and set things up for the day. In a couple of hours, the regulars will begin to straggle in for their liquid breakfasts."

He nodded his understanding and they sat in silence until the food came. The waitress silently served them, rubbing one breast "accidentally" across his shoulder as she bent to place the plates on the table. Marty noticed, but decided not to make an issue of it. Jase dug right in, eating with gusto. His table manners were acceptable, just barely.

Not that he belched or farted at the table, nothing co crude. It was just the way he ate so enthusiastically.

However, on the other hand, he did chew with his mouth closed and didn't take too big a bite. It was obvious that he spent more time with men than he had with women, and very little time in polite company.

He had finished his food and was halfway through his third cup of coffee before she had eaten half of her serving and quit. The servings were large enough to fill a person up. No one had ever left her restaurant hungry. He smiled at her, with a look that was somewhat between an obedient dog and a close friend. God all mighty, She thought to herself, this guy should be on TV. The girls wouldn't care what he said. They would just want to ... She shook her head, to banish the rest of that thought.

"Are you ready?" she asked as she started to slip out of the booth.

"Sure," he answered as he slid out of the other side of the circular booth. He followed her out to her car and they rode in silence back to the Beach Comber. She began to have second thoughts about this whole thing. Here she was, acting like a teen-age slut with this much younger man who had shown no interest in her at all. Not that he should, she reminded herself.

The problem was hers, he was just so dammed good looking, something like a much younger Robert Redford. Only, she decided, he was much more masculine than the original. Where Redford had merely looked like a pretty boy, he looked like a man. Besides, why would he want a fat old never was like her? For the first time since her husband had died, she was aware of her extra poundage.

As soon as they were inside the dark bar, she turned on all the lights and propped the door open. Without asking, he unerringly went straight to the back room and brought out a mop and bucket, a hand broom and a push broom. He stacked the chairs on the tables, emptied the ashtrays and stacked the stools on the bar. Then he swept carefully and emptied the full dustpan into the trash and started to fill the mop bucket.

"Where's the soap?" he asked.

She got it for him. She sat on a chair and watched him slowly and carefully mop and rinse the floor. She was fascinated with the beauty of those muscles rippling under his skin like angry snakes under a thin sheet.

Even the slightest movement caused more ripples in his biceps and his chest muscles. She was surprised to catch herself squeezing her thighs together tightly. Quickly she stood and walked toward the open door, embarrassed at her thoughts and her alien desires. What was wrong with her? She was gong crazy. That's it; I'm having some sort of a change of life. It was so unfair, she thought to herself, to go through the change of life and have never lived much of any sort of life at all. Damn it all.

For five years, from the time she was fifteen until she was twenty, she had taken care of her widowed father until he died. She had bathed him and lovingly cared for him after he suffered the terrible stroke that stole his life from him. She refused to let them take him away, to be put in a nursing home. An LVN sat with him while she was in school.

Then she took over and cared for him until the next morning. Her weekends were spent at home. She did not begrudge her father or resent him a bit. When he died, she was twenty. She sold the house and went to college on a partial scholarship.

There she met Daniel Deeming, her American History instructor. He was never "Dan," nor "Danny." He was always "Professor Deeming." As far as she knew, she was the only person to call him Daniel, even. It was not that he was a stuffed shirt or a snob. Far from it, Professor Daniel Deeming was the kindest, most gentle man she had ever met. He was considerate of others feelings and so very generous of his time.

By the end of her second semester in his class, they were married. Their honeymoon consisted of a weekend in San Francisco. Afterward, the newlyweds drove back to Los Angeles, to the campus and to work. Because she was so self-effacing and quiet, always deferring to the wisdom of the older faculty wives, they accepted her presence into campus life readily enough, despite her youth.

She continued her studies and acted as wife, help meet and hostess for her husband, when necessary. Her life was far from perfect. For Martha Deeming her life was uneventful and mildly pleasant at times.

Daniel had been an indifferent lover. His true passion was the American Revolution and the French Indian wars. Books and documents were his lovers. Marty was his friend. It was true they had sex, on very rare occasions, bland, unimaginative sex that couldn't really be called "fucking."

Because Daniel had been her first and only lover, Marty had no measure to apply to her life. She felt there had to be something more, but what that something was, she truly had no idea. Her thoughts snapped back to the present and the way this man came into her life, absolutely from nowhere. To her horrified amazement she began to feel emotions and desires she had never felt before. She decided she must be going crazy.

Silently, he had walked up behind her. "I think I had better leave, Ma'am. I don't think this is going to work out." He told her.

Startled, she looked up at him. "Wh-why? Is something the matter?" Fear darted through her. It shot through her middle and left her shaky. No. He mustn't leave. He, he just mustn't.

"Well, Ma'am," I'll have to tell you right now I can get those half naked titties out of my mind. I know that you are covered more than most women down here along the beach, but on you, it's just so damned sexy.

Ma'am, if I stay here working for you, I won't be able to keep my hands to myself. You just look so good to me. I am sorry if what I just said offended you, but it is the truth."

His apparent earnestness went straight through her heart. She saw how much he was struggling with himself. He paused, took a deep breath and continued, "Then another thing, I can't get over what you did with your toe when you nudged me there on the beach. I know you didn't mean anything by it, you were just teasin' me. But, Ma'am, That dammed thing has been hard ever since." He started to turn away.

"No. Wait a minute. Oh dear. Oh I ... Oh dear I, I just don't know quite what to say but you see, you, I, you, my fat. Oh dear." Her tongue was paralyzed. Her mind was a boiling pot of disjointed, half formed thoughts and words.

"Did you really mean it?" she finally, fearfully asked "Do you really find me attractive, even a little?" Her eyes were lowered as she waited for him to laugh at her or make an excuse and leave.

She felt his hands grip her upper arms tightly. "Ma'am, I want you so bad I hurt. Now I don't mean just to have you and say thanks and be on my way. I mean I want you, all of you." She looked up into his troubled eyes and almost collapsed at the intensity she saw there. He continued, "Well, anyway, I think I said too much. I apologize. It's just that I haven't felt anything near like this toward any woman in a hell of a long time.

And surely not, not real intense like this; it's all so crazy. We just met and I feel like I have known you all my life. It's like somehow you are what I was always looking for, what I always wanted and never had. I been looking all my life and I guess it was for someone like you."

"Can I tell you something that I have never said to a man before in my life?" she asked him.

He nodded, still holding tightly onto her arms. "What is that, Ma'am?"

She took a deep breath, then she began, "I want you to make love to me ... please?"

"Why? A lady like you must have all the men she could want in her life. Why me? I'm not anything special." He was bewildered at this turn in the conversation.

"Oh my God, I don't even know your name. I don't know anything about you. All I know is that today you woke something up in me I didn't even know was there in the first place. It's all your fault," she wailed. "I ... I..." She hiccupped a sob and looked down, unable to meet his eyes.

Gently, he slipped a knuckle under her chin and nudged it up until she was looking at his face. Slowly he bent and kissed her lightly on the lips. It was a soft, beautifully gentle kiss. He drew back his head and said, "Hi." in an almost whisper.

"Hi." she whispered back and stared up at his face. He bent down to meet her lips and kissed them again, just a little bit more firmly. His tongue slowly, sinuously slipped between her lips and darted quickly in and out, causing more spasms of thrills to course through her. Eagerly she returned his kiss and opened her mouth a little more until their tongues began to rub wildly against each other. Finally she had to draw back to catch her breath. She gasped.

"So that's what it's really like." she whispered. "It is like the book said."

The scant top across her breasts was pulled away. He had thumbed it down and she never noticed. His questing mouth found each delicious nipple and gave it a few sucks. It felt nice, more than nice. She did not know what it felt like except it felt good.

There were no similes she could compare her feelings to. He massaged her backside and her back with light, slow pats and rubs. Suddenly she started as she felt hard his penis nudge her belly. Without thinking she took it in her right hand. Her fingers could not quite reach around it. She backed up a half step so she could see it better. It seemed enormous. To her inexperienced eye it was huge and yet, it was also beautiful.

"Ma'am, I don't want to do this with you right here in a bar, like this. It just doesn't seem right. You should be in a better place than this."

Sweet warmth swept through her as he spoke those words.

"Go lock the front door. My apartment is upstairs. His hard cock bobbing and swaying back and forth and up and down, like a flagpole in the wind, he hurried to the door, shut it and locked it.

As he hurried back to her, she watched it bob and sway. When he reached her, she took his hand and led him up a rear flight of stairs.

She led him to her bedroom, all done in virginal pinks and whites. He looked at the room in amazement, "Wow. This is really something. This is really beautiful."

She brought his mind back to the present when she grabbed his erection and gave it a gentle squeeze. She felt it jump in her grip. He untied the knot in her sarong and let it fall to the floor. He knelt in front of her and pulled down the bikini bottom the sarong had hidden. She stepped out of it, the fresh musk of arousal wafting pungently through the room. He kissed her there and let his tongue wander in a bit to explore her a little more. Her knees wavered and she almost collapsed as the first thrill shot through her.

He stood and quickly dropped his trousers and shorts. Standing naked in front of her, he brought her bare body close to his and held her in a strong, gentle embrace. He made her feel so safe. He picked her up effortlessly and lifted her onto the bed. He placed his body on top of hers and slowly began to insert himself into her. It was ever so very tight. He could barely get the head in. Gently, he worked himself in and out, in and out, going in a little further with each down stroke. "I don't dare go in any further," he whispered in her ear. "I'm afraid of hurting you.

She hugged him closer and suddenly felt a release, a great release. "Ohhh. Ohhh. Ohhh my God. Ohhh." Never had she felt anything like this before in her life. This, then, was what an orgasm was about. She was amazed

He could hold back no longer. He exploded inside her with an intensity of sensation that made him roar with pleasure. "Ohhh Yess." he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Oh Hell Yes."

He collapsed on top of her, almost driving the breath from her lungs before he raised himself up on his elbows. They lay unmoving. He was still inside her. She was in a dream world, feeling sated and somehow triumphant, as if she had won a great victory. They still lay there unmoving. After a while, he shifted himself up higher, back arched, as he stared into her eyes. "God, but you are beautiful." She knew in her heart of hearts how much he meant it. Shyly, without speaking a word, she smiled and hugged him.