Chapter 37

"Hey! Who's in the bathroom?" I called out the moment my feet crossed the bedroom threshold.

Like I didn't already know.

"I am!" Peggy hollered back thru the partially open door.

I dropped my suit jacket on the bed, kicked off my shoes then sat down and removed my socks and shirt.

"How'd it go?" Peggy asked to the accompaniment, an instant later, of a flushing toilet.

"Not bad, I guess." I replied, getting up, unbuckling my belt and sliding my pants down off my legs.

I heard her turn on the sink's faucet and then followed the sounds of hands being washed. I gathered up my discarded clothing, carried them into the closet, dropped the lot on the floor and backed out just in time to watch Peggy come strutting out of the bathroom.

She had on her favorite workout clothes, which at the time consisted of a pair of skin tight black spandex cycling shorts, a loose fitting tie-dyed t-shirt whose color combination and pattern were horrific enough to give veteran sky-divers vertigo, white ankle socks and day-glo pink running shoes.

She looked absolutely adorable.

I leered and gave her a low pitched wolf-whistle. "Baby, you look good enough to eat." I said before heading to my dresser and digging out my jogging pants and a loose fitting long sleeved gray t-shirt.

Peggy sashayed over to the bed, hopped up on the mattress and stood up in the center.

"How bad is 'not bad'?" she inquired.

I pulled the faded blue pants on, one leg at a time, adjusted the waistband and then shook out the t-shirt.

"Well, nobody died, if that's what you mean."

"It wasn't, but I'm still glad to hear you say so."

I shoved my arms thru the bottom opening and into the sleeves, slid the shirt over my head and tugged it down over my torso. Then I gathered my hair and pulled it outside the collar, allowing it to fall freely down my back and across my shoulders. From the top drawer I snagged a fresh pair of socks, backed up to the bed, dropped down and started pulling them over my toes.

Peggy fell to her knees, bounced over, put both arms around my neck and pressed comfortably against my back.

"Come on Ike, what happened?" she demanded, nuzzling my left ear.

I grinned and finished putting my socks on. "Later, squirt. The only thing I want to think about right now is playing tag."

Peggy snorted and pushed away. "Be that way then." she groused.

I chuckled, bent down and fished around under the bed for my running shoes.

"I think I will; thank you very much." I located the shoes, put them on and laced them up. "I also think that if I were you I'd be focusing on our game to the exclusion of everything else."

Peggy flopped back on the mattress and stretched like a cat. "Oh you would, would you? Why?"

I turned my head to the side and grinned. "Well, you could win yourself a pretty big wish if you beat me. On the other hand ... I've had plenty of time to work out what's gonna happen to you when I win."

"If you win."

"If you say so." I murmured softly. "Have you decided what you're gonna ask for?"

"Yep."

"What?"

"I'm not tellin'. Not yet anyway. I want witnesses around so you can't back out."

I stamped my feet a couple of times and stood up. "I wouldn't do that. Don't I always keep my promises?"

Peggy ignored my question. I turned around, reached out, put my hands around her waist, lifted her up and set her on her feet.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Okay." She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips.

I ran my hands down over her slim hips then back up along her sides, under her shirt, over her ribs and across her soft skinned back. "Don't you want to know what I'm gonna get when I win?"

"If you win." she corrected with a soft sigh.

"When." I repeated firmly.

"Huhh!" she snorted. "Guys always want the same thing ... sex."

I snorted in return. "And how, pray tell, would you know that?"

She laughed brightly, batted her eyes coyly and then gave me a wink. "Oh, I have my ways."

I snorted again in mock disgust and gave her a raised eyebrow.

"I just bet you do." I continued to run my hands over the skin of her back, enjoying not only the warmth of her body and the silky softness of her skin, but the little shivers of delight and faint tingle that spread thru her body at the same time. "You know, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, quite a bit of it just about you, and after extensive review I'm prepared to confess that I'm guilty of a rather grievous error in judgment."

Peggy grinned sarcastically. "Not you?"

I dropped one hand down her back and gave her a quick smack on the behind.

"Be nice. I'm serious about this."

"Okay; what grievous error?"

"When you came and told me about being in love with Izzy, I didn't respond the way I should have."

Peggy gave me a bewildered look. "I thought you took it very well. Much better than I expected, actually."

I nodded. "Yeah, and that's where I made my mistake, wasn't it?"

Her mystification increased.

"I failed the test, didn't I squirt? You probably should have known that I would, given my vast and wide-ranging experience with the opposite sex, but still ... even if I wasn't aware it was a test, I still failed."

Peggy shook her head. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I wasn't supposed to take it well, was I? I wasn't supposed to take it in stride; be all mature and adult, was I?"

Her eyes widened fractionally and her heart began beating faster.

Got'cha!

"You weren't expecting me to react like that, were you? You didn't want me to react that way."

Peggy began shaking her head firmly from side to side.

I smiled briefly then let it dissolve into a frown.

"I think what you really wanted was a display of hurt feelings, disappointment, anger ... maybe even a full blown jealous outburst. I think you wanted a whole lot more than simple acceptance."

Her head shaking became more frantic and increasingly desperate.

"Today I'm going to rectify that error." I flashed her a wicked leer. "So little squishy, when I win, sex is the least of what I'm gonna get from you."

Peggy pulled back and looked at me apprehensively.

My lips and eyes were on fire. Literally. "The first thing I'm gonna do is put you over my knee, peel off your shorts and paddle your bare bottom until it glows in the dark. Then I'm going to spend about twenty minutes licking every inch of your sweet sexy little body, and when I get tired of licking I'm gonna diddle your clit, pinch your nipples and probe every orifice you've got until you beg me to let you cum. And when the begging gets really loud and pitiful, I'm gonna put you back over my knee and paddle your cute little ass some more. Then, when you finally break down and scream for me to stop, that's when I'm gonna get really nasty."

Peggy's breathing became raspy and erratic. Her eyes were glazed and her heart was pounding a mile a minute.

"I'm going to fondle and caress, manhandle and maul you. Tease and torment every nerve and sensitive spot you've got ... the ones you know and the ones you aren't even aware of yet. I'm going to take you to the edge of orgasmic insanity, push you over and, just when you're ready to surrender to the madness, I'm going to yank you back, suck every one of those deliciously agonizing feelings right out of you and start all over again. And again and again and again ... I promise, each succeeding time the feelings will be stronger and more intense than the time before."

I eased my hands around and lightly grazed the edges of her small breasts, just barely touched her stiffening nipples then traced my fingertips down over her smooth quivering belly.

"I'm gonna make you my personal cock warmer, little squishy. You'll squeal and shriek and eventually, when I'm damn good and ready, you'll cum for me. You're going to cum so hard and long that you'll probably think you're dying. It'll be the most exquisite pleasure and the most god-awful pain you've ever experienced, and it'll go on and on and on and on..."

I smiled serenely, closed my eyes for a moment to catch a glimpse of the images I'd promised, and a low rumbling worked its way out of my chest.

"It's gonna be sweeeeeet ... soooooo fuckin' sweeeeeet." I drawled. "You may be in love with Izzy, Half-pint, but by the time I'm done playing with you, we'll all know beyond a shadow of a doubt who loves you."

Peggy shivered, shuddered and shook. Her breath was coming in heaving gasps and her fingers were clamped tightly on my upper arms. Her knees wobbled, her legs folded and she dropped down.

I caught her under the arms, pulled her to my chest and wrapped both arms around her twitching torso.

She moaned weakly, indistinctly ... a weedy whimper.

"In a few minutes I'm going to do something completely alien to my nature. Something I've never, ever done before. I'm going to chase a woman. I'm going to chase you, Peggy my sweet. And do you know why?"

She tried to shake her head, but couldn't quite manage the muscular control necessary to perform that simple little gesture. But I could feel her trying.

"Because I want you. I want your mind, your soul, your love and your sweet sexy body. I want you so much it hurts Peggy. Can you feel how much I want you?"

She gasped, exhaled faintly and went limp in my arms, her arms and legs occasionally twitched spastically, driven by random and unthinking chemical/electrical impulses.

"I'm going to chase, catch and possess you; and once I've done all three, you'll be mine ... always and forever. Because nobody wants or needs you the way I do."

I lowered my head, kissed her temple, linked and filled her body with as much of my raw desire and love as she could safely hold; fusing the mass of undiluted and only slightly amplified emotions into the ring I'd given her more than eight years before.

"And maybe then you'll understand that nobody, absolutely nobody, will ever love you as much as I do."

I carried her limp body downstairs, out thru the hothouse to the back deck we'd had installed not long after the girls had been born. Izzy, Lilly and Peggy had decided that they needed a place to sunbathe and they didn't fancy lying out on the grass, so we'd scraped together the money and hired ourselves a contractor.

The deck had been a minor irritation to me, back in those days. There wasn't enough of the kind of sunblock I used available for me to cover my entire body, so I was never able to enjoy sharing the deck with them. Instead I would stare out the window of my bedroom, which overlooked the sundeck, and watch them laying out in their skimpy little bikinis, or more often than not in even less, constantly reminded of the fact that nature had denied me the simple pleasure of laying out in the sun with my girls. Summer was never one of my favorite seasons and after we built that deck I began to actively detest warm weather even more than when I'd traipsed the Iraqi desert.

But they wanted it, and I wanted them to have whatever they wanted. So I suffered in silence, never letting on how much it bothered me.

Izzy, Lilly and the kids were already out on the deck; Izzy leaning back against the long front railing, Lilly and the children gathered around one of the two small circular tables, sipping from mugs of what smelled like hot chocolate.

I carried Peggy up the short plank stairway and laid her out on one of the reclining deck chairs.

Izzy pushed off the railing and walked over.

"Were you two having a little pre-game warm-up?" she asked with a grin.

"Not exactly, more like a pep talk." I said, and wrapped both arms around my big sister, pulling her tightly against me. Izzy kissed me warmly and returned my embrace with her entire body.

"How was your day?"

"Interesting. Very interesting. How 'bout yours?"

"Not bad. Lilly inventoried the pantry and did some laundry, the kids and I worked on geography and history lessons, and Peggy spent her morning giving check-ups to the horses. She says one of the older mares has a split hoof."

"Dr. Peggy doubtless has the situation well in hand."

Izzy frowned. "Don't do that Ike. It's cruel, making fun of her like that."

I smiled warmly at my big sister. "Honey, no one's prouder of Peggy's accomplishments than I am. It might sound flippant, but I meant what I said. She's as good at what she does as I am at what I do. Maybe better." I gave Izzy a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm certain she gets fewer complaints about her bedside manner."

I gave her another squeeze before putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding the both of us over to Lilly and the children.

AJ spotted me first and his face lit up, which, along with the chocolate moustache on his upper lip, gave him a comical expression.

"Did you get to talk to the President, Daddy?" he asked eagerly.

"Sure did. Got to meet his wife and the Vice President too." I said.

Tink twisted around in her seat and looked over her shoulder. "How come Mommy's asleep? Doesn't she want to play?"

I chuckled. "She's just resting. Trust me; she really wants to play this game."

I took my arm from around Izzy's shoulders, walked around the table and pulled Lilly against me. She snuggled up close, snaking both arms around my waist.

"Do you still have a job?" she asked.

"For the moment." I said, enjoying the warmth of her body and her emotions.

"No problems?"

"Sweetie, every time I have to deal with politicians there are problems."

"But nothing you can't handle, right?"

"So far." I replied noncommittally. "I'll tell you all about it later. Right now is much more important."

I released Lilly, knelt down between Rosie and Belle and spent the next several minutes answering their questions about the White House and its occupants.

I felt Peggy's return to consciousness long before I heard any movement from her. I noticed Lilly make eye contact with Izzy, Izzy stifling a smile and shaking her head negatively then caught Tink's smile widening from the corner of my eye. I heard a faint creaking sound behind me then an even fainter vibration in the deck beneath my knees.

I spun around quickly on one knee, just in time to catch Peggy as she launched herself at me. Her arms coiled around my neck and her legs scissored tightly around my lower ribs.

"You rat!" she hissed, seething with indignation. "How could you do that to me?"

I grinned happily, put both my hands over her spandex covered bottom and squeezed.

"It wasn't hard, squirt. As a matter of fact, almost too easy." I tilted my head and mashed my lips against hers, stabbing my tongue between her lips. Peggy sucked my tongue deeper into her mouth, making me believe for a moment that she was trying to swallow it. Then she bit down hard and pulled her head back.

My tongue popped out of her mouth with a nasty sucking sound as the pain from her sharp little teeth lanced down my neck.

"Did you mean what you said?" she demanded.

I blinked a couple of times then pressed one of my middle fingers firmly between the cheeks of her butt and goosed her anus.

"Every word." I assured her as the flames in my eyes began to flicker.

"You bastard!" she hissed, smiling and wiggling her hips.

"Don't cuss in front of the kids." I chided gently. "We don't want them picking up my bad habits the way their mommies have, now do we?"

"A few of your bad habits were worth picking up." she replied with a grin.

I rolled my eyes. "You're such a pig."

Peggy giggled and ground her pelvis against my belly. "I know."

"You gonna have any problems with the mare's hoof?" I asked after a couple of moments of mutual fondling.

My little sweetie's eyes went from sexily narrowed to wide open in a heartbeat. She leaned back and stared up at me.

"How'd you know about that?"

I shrugged. "While you were sleeping I asked Izzy about her day. She told me."

Peggy continued to stare intently. "What?" I asked.

She shook her head, smiled and pressed her face against my chest. "Nothing."

The kids, Belle in particular, began to grow restive ... and vocal.

"Come on Daddy! Smooch later, we wanna play tag!"

With Peggy wrapped around me like a bacon strip around a fillet mignon, I got to my feet and turned back towards the mini-mob surrounding the table.

"Okay, okay ... first we've got to set the rules for this first game. And since it's my game, I get to make the rules."

Peggy wiggled, indicating that she wanted me to put her down, which I did. "Don't I get some kind of say here?"

I nodded. "Sure; once I've laid out the rules you can offer counter suggestions, after which the game starts. Okay?"

Peggy nodded her acceptance.

"Right, this game between Tink's mommy and me will last for exactly fifteen minutes. Lilly will be the official timekeeper. In order for Peggy to win, she has to keep from being tagged for the full fifteen minutes. If I tag her before time runs out, I win. A tag, for this game, means I have to put both hands on any part of her body, at the same time. One hand alone won't count as a tag."

Peggy put both hands on her narrow hips and glared up at me. I grinned in return, knowing exactly what was most likely on her mind right then.

"And just to be fair, you get a two minute head start."

Peggy's face lit up like a lightbulb.

"Those are the rules. Anything you'd like to add?" I asked my little half-pint.

"How will we know when the fifteen minutes are up? Is Lilly going to run out there with us?"

I shook my head, reached into my left pants pocket and pulled out one of my old dogtag chains with a brass whistle hanging from it.

"I think this ought to be loud enough for us to hear." I tossed the whistle to Lilly, who caught it with both hands, put it to her lips, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, puffed out her cheeks and blew with all her might.

The shrill blast was piercing, painful and loud enough to wake the dead. The children shrieked almost as loudly and clapped their hands over their ears, as did Izzy and Peggy. Once the noise stopped everyone slowly lowered their hands.

Lilly smiled apologetically. "Sorry, just testing."

"Yeah," Peggy said a little loudly, "that should work."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Yeah, one more thing ... no cheating, Ike." she said, with a marked inflection on my name. "And you know exactly what I mean, don't you?"

I gave her my best indignant expression. "I can't stop being able to feel you, but I promise, no active use of my talent."

She flashed me a sweet smile, which then morphed into a sly grin. "Alright, let's play."

I held up my right hand. "One last thing. I already told you what I'm gonna get when I win; now you tell me what you're playing for."

Peggy blushed furiously at the memory then squared her shoulders and straightened up as tall as she was able to.

"When I win, you have to give me and my sisters our freedom back."

All things considered, recent events, confrontations and discussions included, I should have anticipated her demand.

I hadn't. It caught me completely by surprise.

Izzy's amazed expression, and Lilly's matching one, told me that she hadn't informed them either.

The smile on my lips dribbled away, replaced by a stoic acceptance that I didn't really feel.

I nodded. "Agreed." I turned to Lilly. "Timekeeper, start the clock."

Lilly hesitated before taking a look at the watch on her wrist. "Fifteen minutes from... now!"

Peggy leaped forward, slapped her hand against my belly, "Tag! You're it!" she squealed, spun around and sprinted across the deck, down the steps and out across the back yard towards the trees some seventy yards away.

Peggy isn't a runner in the same sense that I am. If there were an Olympic marathon race of more than thirty miles I don't think there's a human being alive who could keep up with me. I'm not fast enough to win any kind of sprint, even one twenty-six miles long, but I've got enough physical endurance and stamina to run damn near any living creature to death over a long ... and I do mean long ... distance.

Peggy is fast and quick. And she's always had a surplus of energy that simply amazes me. When she took off across the back lawn, it was like watching a giant jackrabbit scamper across the desert; dashing in a straight line one moment then shifting directions as if on a rail, with absolutely no loss of speed or momentum.

And she looked so damn cute doing it. I just love watching her body in motion.

She covered the distance between the deck and the woods in less than thirty seconds and promptly vanished from sight. I looked over to Lilly, who was staring intently at the watch on her wrist.

I moved away from the table and went to stand next to Izzy at the rail.

"We didn't know what she was going to ask for." she said quietly.

"I know."

"Will you give her what she wants, if she wins?"

"Of course. A deal is a deal." I closed my eyes and allowed my senses free reign. Emotions poured in from miles around.

There you are!

A slight smile formed on my lips.

"How far can you reach now?" Izzy asked.

"I'm not sure. About a hundred miles or so. I keep meaning to test it, but I never seem to find the time."

"So you know where she is?"

"Not precisely, but give or take a few yards ... yeah, I know."

"How? How can you tell it's her?"

My smile grew wider. "Everyone feels and tastes different. Like fingerprints. I know her emotional states so well that she couldn't hide from me in a city packed with people."

"Can you do that with anyone?"

"I suppose. If I knew them well enough."

"So you can do that with all of us?"

I opened my eyes, looked down at my dark skinned sister and wiggled my eyebrows.

"If I went blind right this minute I'd still be able to tell where you were, my love. Your feelings are burnt into my memory. They call out to me like a siren song, drawing me irrevocably onto the jagged rocks of your love."

Izzy snorted derisively.

I lifted my hand and brushed my fingers over the side of her face. "I always know where you are and what you're feeling." I dropped my hand. "I usually keep those feelings to myself, like I keep my own. Everyone deserves a little privacy."

"Time!" Lilly called out loudly, looking up. Her expression was conflicted. Divided loyalties can be such a nuisance.

"Where is she Ike?" Izzy asked.

I raised my arm and pointed to a spot between where Peggy had vanished into the trees and the horse's stable more than two hundred yards to the left.

"Skirting the yard, moving just beyond the trees towards the stable. A little winded, very keyed up, eager and ... smug? Half-pint's got something sneaky on her mind."

"I'd wish you luck, but..." I waved off her protestation, planted a quick kiss on my sister's forehead and then started moving.

I vaulted over the railing, dropped the five feet to the ground and took off like an avalanche with a head start; long, easy strides carried me straight at Peggy's bundle of hyper emotions. I was a little eager myself, and at that point completely focused on my prey.

It's never been a problem for me to cast aside the trappings of civility and genteel behavior. They're like a suit I put on to impress other people. Besides, I've never had much more than a paper thin veneer of good manners anyway. Deep down, where it really counts, I'm a hunter. It's who I am ... what I born to be.

I let my eyes take in my physical surroundings; the ground beneath my feet and the woods ahead of me. My senses kept track of the prey. It felt good to be on the hunt again, even if it was only a game. I felt strong, powerful, unstoppable and inevitable. I was locked on target and homing in fast. I felt a jump in Peggy's heartbeat. She'd spotted me.

So what? Nothing was going to get between me and my prize.

So naturally, something did.

I felt the vibrations first; low pitched, sub-sonic vibrations that worked their way up out of the ground, thru my leg bones and up into my skull where they bounced around between ears and brain like a maniac on PCP.

Louder than a herd of thundering aardvarks racing across a linoleum tiled prairie, faster and bigger than a series of seven foot high brick walls on roller skates, they came out of nowhere, circled once and then formed up in ranks between me and Peggy.

Peggy's little herd of horses pawed the grass, bobbed their heads, flared their nostrils, snorted and huffed loudly. The seventeen hand high male at the front, not more than ten feet in front of me, was the very same animal I'd put Peggy on when we'd first come to the ranch. He'd been little less than two years old at the time, but he'd grown a lot since then. I once asked her, after she'd spent several months researching his lineage and breeding history, what the horse's name was.

"Virginia Seabreaze." and then she rattled off a long list of names: so-and-so from so-and-so from so-and-so ... none of which meant a thing to me. Apparently, at least according to Peggy, the youngster had a pretty distinguished family tree, going back on his sire's side to 'Justin Morgan', whoever the hell he was. Peggy seemed to think that was better than being related to George Washington. Still didn't mean a thing to me. Peggy informed me that Mr. Virginia Seabreaze was, as far as she could tell, part Morgan, part Spanish Barb and part Andalusian. As far as I can tell, horses all look pretty much the same. I've ridden before (well twice, but that still counts, doesn't it?) but that's as far as my knowledge, understanding or interest in horses goes.

"But I call him Junior."

"Okay, I'll bite, why Junior?" I asked.

Peggy grinned and blushed. " 'Cause when I ride him it feels almost the same as when I'm riding you."

What is this fascination women have for horses? I don't get it, but that probably has a lot to do with my not being a woman. After hearing Peggy's little confession, I found that I had two completely divided viewpoints on the subject. As a psychologist I was intrigued by the variety of possible explanations for that fascination. As a man with three wives I discovered that it was a subject I really didn't want to examine too closely, especially once the girls began referring to me, during rather intimate and inappropriate moments, as their 'stud' or 'stallion'. To each his, or her, own kink I suppose.

He'd grown a lot since the day I'd put her up on his back for her first ride. As a youngster his coat had been a rusty brown with lighter patches around his lower forelegs. He'd also been shorter than me back then. He'd grown a lot. His head was slightly higher than my own, and his rusty coat had darkened considerably. For such a large muscular animal, he moved very fast and without a lot of wasted motion. Like a buffalo performing ballet.

Junior and Peggy had bonded over the years, even more than she had with the other members of his family, and I could feel the protective aggression swelling in his massive body. He was defending a member of his herd.

And Peggy, yards off in the trees, was linked to him, encouraging and bolstering those murderous feelings.

I slid to a stop, just in time to watch the stallion rear back on his hind legs and paw the air with his forelegs. He slammed down, driving his hooves thru the grass and into the spongy ground not more than three feet in front of me.

I'd promised I wouldn't cheat. Apparently Peggy hadn't intended that particular proscription to include her sneaky little self.

I shifted quickly to the left, attempting to go around the horses. The stallion whinnied loudly and the animals on his right drifted out to block my way.

"Goddamnit!" I swore angrily under my breath. "I don't have time for this."

I opened my senses wide, inhaled every negative emotion for miles around and flames burst into full bloom behind my eyes. Amazingly the flames never got past my eyes, though I have no idea how I kept them reigned in; Peggy's horses quickly passed the point of simply pissing me off and lept right into full blown provocation and displeasure.

Horses may not be the brightest creatures on the planet, but they know danger when they see it, or more likely smell it, especially when that danger is fire, and particularly when it's within spitting distance. Their first instinct when confronted with fire, even the small blast furnaces that spat at them from my eyes, was to run and that's what they did.

All except Peggy's pet stallion. Junior held his ground, stepping easily from side to side, keeping himself between me and my prey for far longer than I would have expected.