"Harry Westin! Phone call!" yelled the large aging proprietress of the aging motel, awakening Harry. Barely conscious, he threw on pants in the dark room lit only by a small window cut through the white cement block wall above his bed, and stumbled out the light green door, spongy from many layers of paint and down the hard cement stairs to the pay phone. As he reached it he noticed the proprietress's big ass being struck by the screen door as she exited.

"Hello?" he growled through a voice box unused for several hours.

"Mr. Westin?" said the medium high too perky female voice.

"Yeah," he grunted.

"I'm at the restaurant across the highway. How soon can you get here? We'll have breakfast."

"Half hour," said Harry with the first businesslike tone of the day.

"See you then," she chirped and hung up.

He showered in what could only be called a water closet. No bathtub was present. His medium 6'2" frame crowded into the stall. Not much for tight spaces, he made quick work of the shower. The shave and hair and tooth brushing continued the quick efficiency, leaning over the tiny sink to see his big soft skinned pale oval face containing an array of genetic influences, from Scotch/Irish to Native American to Eastern European Jew and its own mix of Slavic, Germanic and Semitic, a muddy, All American visage reflected in the low and diminutive mirror the towel wiped clear.

Once the faucet silenced, he heard the gentle muddy waves of the Mississippi River quietly slap the shoreline just outside his high window as he dressed. The sound located him in his mind, a forgotten motel on the western edge of Wisconsin several miles south of his four bedroom upper middle class Edina, Minnesota home. Looking to lure urban escapists, the motel never managed to be at the right location or destination to succeed in its lurid, now faded pink and green 40 years of existence.

Absence ruled the block and a half walk on the crunching stone and dirt road leading to the two lane highway and the massively thick presence of the Hideaway, a block and a half being a relative and uncertain term since the one small road crossing his path appeared even smaller and more derelict, and the small clapboard white houses numbering three in all gave little substance to the concept of a city or even a small country town and their measurement of a block.

The Hideaway was a successful steakhouse way off the beaten path, making it a special destination for citizens from Madison and Eau Claire and other smaller towns to have a special family dinner of steaks and prime rib and rich cheese infused rolls of moderate and stomach expanding quality. Aside from the rolls, the dark red hardwood interior, plush and decadent, with sparse images in sepia tones in ornate frames of Mafia gangsters from 1920's Chicago dimly lit on the walls and rooms upstairs from the restaurant historically preserved to show how these gangsters lived while hiding from the law after a bloody hit, the rooms shockingly small yet amazingly comfortable for their time; the museum concept mercenarily embraced back on the main floor with a successful souvenir shop set off to the left of the entrance door enticed visitors.

Finding the outer door locked, Harry pounded on it with unexpected force. The massiveness of the door and the building that it protected seemed to require effort in order to be heard inside. Moments before knocking, when he found the door locked, he wondered if the conversation he had had a half hour before occurred in a vivid dream because the meeting apparently was happening in a closed restaurant, but being an ultra realistic materialist, he laughed off the thought and then that laugh made him wonder how his steady, safe, successful and secure life of regional sales manager and fairly large stock holder in a Fortune 500 insurance company, with an attractive if subtly fattening brunette wife who fought the aging process with a fine tennis game and a low handicap golf game with an especially strong long shot, and three pretty good, pretty smart, pretty daughters ranging in age from 11 to 16, and despite being in those rebellious adolescent years respected though occasionally became embarrassed by their parents, following the even, well paved path he had been on for so many years, he could make such a violent detour on a path more rough hewn than the one he had just walked.

A heavy, low thud brought the bolt out of its mooring, but the expected creak of the door didn't happen, the hinges being well maintained. In the relative darkness of the entrance stood an attractive blonde of medium stature, her hair pinned up on her head with wisps of it drifting in the mild draft where they missed out on the pinning, the ears beneath these fringes small and tight to the head and naked of baubles. High rounded forehead and wide sensuous lips shared her face with a small rounded nose, medium light brown eyes a fraction of inch more separated than expected and a slightly pronounced chin which elongated the face's general circle. The white dress she wore hung tight at the bodice, clinging to her substantial breasts, leaving her healthy broad rounded shoulders bare, the top edge of the bodice being straight across her chest revealing a hint of cleavage. The tightness revealed the voluptuous curve of her waist as it flared out to pronounced hips, not matronly, but proportional to her bust. The skirt hung over her pelvic area, ending just above her knees, and where it ruffled out from the tight bodice at her abdomen he noticed a slight and healthy bulge. Her knees and thick muscular legs reinforced her healthy look.

"I didn't expect the restaurant to be closed," said Harry.

"We're not open for breakfasts. Johnny is preparing omelets. Come in," said the blonde cheerfully.

The entryway darkened markedly once she closed the heavy door and sent the bolt home. Red lights to the right cast dimly onto a ten foot wide entrance with a heavy maple podium at the left leading into a dining area of booths and tables.

Harry followed the woman into the restaurant, enjoying the subtle shifting shadows of her well maintained posterior, the muscular activity visible even in the dimness. When she stopped suddenly and turned, she caught his eyes' direction, and when his lifted to hers, he could see the cheerful smile bent a touch to the left with a hint of seductive evil.

"Have a seat Mr. Westin," she said, gracefully waving her hand across a booth table lit by the small flame illuminating an amber glass candle holder.

Once he slid into the booth, the friction of his pants against the Naugahyde seat producing a low squeal, the woman poured coffee into a mug bearing the restaurant's logo and an illustration of its formidable exterior sitting at the setting in front of him and topped off the nearly full cup at the setting across from him where after putting down the carafe of coffee she sat.

"The juice is fresh," she said, commenting on the full heavy glass stemware. H e drank a pleasant mouthful before adding the two containers of cream and a packet of sugar to the coffee and stirring. "Let's talk when ... Oh here he comes."

Johnny, a large black man, ebony skin contrasting the white of the cook's uniform, despite his size and the roughened and indelicately aged face as well as the thick boxer's hands he used to place the plates in front of Harry and the woman, revealed a kind and wise and more than a little sad nature in his eyes.

"He was more of a brother to me than he ever was to you, but he seems to need you," said Johnny in his deep, resonant voice, a voice that beckoned to be heard telling fascinating stories, a deep southern drawl beneath a layer of gentlemanly refinement.

"The omelets look wonderful. Thanks for ... well, thanks," said the woman.

"Thanks for letting me see him. I'll give you privacy as soon as I finish cleaning up."

"We'll talk soon."

"I look forward to it," said Johnny, giving Harry an inscrutable glance, sad, wise and kind before he turned and left.

"Miss Riemer..." began Harry,

"Please call me Lyndy."

"Of course; and I'm Harry."

"You know when I anticipated this meeting I figured I'd call you Mr. Westin even if you insisted otherwise. From what I learned, I figured you expected respect from the young, leading such a devoutly respectful life, but now that we've met, I can see my prejudice. Let's enjoy Johnny's omelets while they're still hot, Harry." Her pretty smile appeared genuine.

"I..."

"Eat first, then we'll talk," she said, a slice of omelet dangling from her fork. Harry smiled back with a lot more unease than hers.

After the two dedicated themselves to the delicious breakfast, making quick work of it, they set down their forks and stared at each other.

"You know I haven't seen or heard from my brother in at least twenty years, since..." said Harry.

"That's not actually true," said Lyndy.

"What do you mean? You'd think..."

"You would, wouldn't you, except he became for you in the way you look at people an invisible man. You saw him several times on Nicollet Mall while walking to a restaurant for lunch, maybe looking through him, but on occasion you gave him money, so you had to have seen him. Your brother said you could be quite generous if sporadic, dropping a five dollar bill into his cup more than once."

"I don't understand any of this. How could you know what my brother said?"

"Your brother was the love of my life."

"You're kidding. I'm sorry for you then. He was a murdering motherfucker!"

"I know. And I know how much you hate him."

"Of course!"

"But you don't know how desperately, eternally, unquenchably sorry he was."

"I'll never forgive him."

"He knew that, which was why his life was so relentlessly unforgiving."

"Why do you keep saying 'was'?"

"Why do you think?"

"I don't know. He probably stole your money, broke your heart and ran away knowing him."

"But of course you don't know him, do you? You never really knew him."

"You're right. How could any human being do what he did? I remember him being a troublemaking brat, but I never thought he'd..." Suddenly Harry heaved out a sob releasing twenty years of pain which manifested itself in a torrent of tears. Harry hadn't cried during the whole of the tragedy, from the shock of disappearance to the ceremonial funeral of two empty caskets.

"Do you want to know why I refer to Rocky in the past tense?" said Lyndy loud enough to be heard over Harry's sobs. "Because I killed him!" And with that statement she too sobbed.

What plagued Rocky Westin sat him on the edge of Turtle Lake cross legged rocking and murmuring prayers. He looked out at the reeds undulating with the wind like a rolling sea. The muck from which the lake grass grew he knew integrated the flesh of brothers. The flesh long ago dissolved and enriched the fecundity of the lake bed.

At home, in life, the bed of softness, safety and warmth from which they arose daily to act out the pleasantness or curiousness or silliness or playfulness of children, screeching in delight or screaming from the pain of scraped knees or a twisted ankle or broken arm, occasionally remaining for longer as their skin spotted or the body became hot and weak but inevitably and happily recovering to rise again, had become in death a cold and consuming bed, stagnant yet full of active forces either tinier than visible or the very environment itself filling their lungs, replacing air, from which they never left.

Rocky closed his eyes and heard their whispers the wind gave them to breathe. What news from the other side, the world which had dropped him into this world like tossing out a rotten tomato to keep the others edible without regard for its fate, sending him into the womb of a humble mortal making him seem like any human baby? Before, all he heard repeated told him to wait. "Wait, wait, wait," repeated in the duet of metamorphosed brothers.

He envied them. He knew his flesh could never transform into other things, reeds or slivery fish whipping through water currents effortlessly like birds flying in currents of air without the need for wings. He knew the cold of the water, like the cold of frozen winter blowing through skin in the taunting clarity of cloudless azure skies, never affected him as it should. Like a cold blooded lizard, matching the cold world made it seem balmy. But even those slithering creatures had blood. He seemed to but was stone, eternally adaptable to the climate and subtly changed over geological rather than generational time, the decay as detectable as the erosion of a man carved out of granite sitting silently and stoically in the middle of a park.

"Wait," the duet of brothers whispered. He climbed to his feet. "Wait, don't go," they whispered.

"What?" he exclaimed, but knew they couldn't hear. The wind that gave them voices deafened them. He sat back down and crossed his legs.

"Listen brother," they whispered. "You must bring us back."

Even gods from his old world couldn't achieve resurrection in this world without a lot of trouble. Though given a massive job, making this world as cold as him, he was the agent, the infector if you will and not the creator type and certainly no resurrectionist.

They answered his thoughts. "You must impregnate a mortal woman. She must conceive twins. We will live through them. Our murder was a mistake. The world you and the gods once knew has changed. It has undone the gods' tricks. The gods can do no worse than man. The winter achieves its intention. Its destruction creates the space for creation. It sustains creation. Man will live long enough to bring the self destruction it works towards until its job is done and it destroys itself and turns the world cold and allows the gods free reign. They found your work too petty and useless. The gods want no more from you except to bring the old world into the new through us. Go and mate and give us life and your work will be done."

Rocky laughed. "Why couldn't you have told me years ago?" he said to his deaf brothers.

Johnny couldn't decide whether to be happy or concerned his friend came back smiling. Being crazy himself, at least having been incarcerated in a couple mental institutions suggested the world thought him crazy, he accepted his friend's craziness.

Their friendship began as two youths incarcerated as criminally insane, their bunks sharing a cell. Since then, they kept company off and on, always journeying a couple days of the year, early and late of the warm half, to camp beside Turtle Lake. All those years, Rocky appeared sad when he returned from "listening to the lake," as he called it.

At first he tried to cheer his friend up, but sullenness and silence prevailed and he stopped the effort. They'd finish the cheap wine. Being drunk, Johnny would babble incoherently at his unresponsive friend or strum his guitar and create ridiculous songs forgotten as soon as they ended.

After a large swallow from the gallon bottle of cheap burgundy Johnny handed to him, Rocky laughed. "Got any weed left?" he asked his best friend.

Though enjoying getting high, Rocky refrained during their visits to the lake. He said it made him more depressed. Shrugging, Johnny pulled out a baggy of his home grown and stuffed the large bowel of his peace pipe and lit up.

Like everything else, Johnny was a connoisseur of pot, finding the best seeds and soil and lighting to grow powerful stuff. He hid his effort in the small closet of his small apartment in Milwaukee.

"You won't believe it," said Rocky after breathing out a lungful of smoke. "I've been ordered to procreate."

"That's nice," said the big African American.

"It's ironic is what it is," said Rocky with a chuckle. "I mean, think about it. How many chances I've had, and now I'm not such a catch, they've put it on me."

"You've never been much of a catch," said his friend lightly.

"I suppose not. But the girls didn't seem to mind."

"Especially the ugly ones." They laughed uproariously.

"Fuck you, asshole," said Rocky. "I'm not the one who needs grocery bags to do the deed."

"At least what I don't hide is tasty. You can't put a bag over everything."

Rocky stopped himself from an ugly mother joke. First of all, Johnny's mother was gorgeous, at least from the pictures Johnny showed him. Secondly she was murdered in front of Johnny by a jealous ex-husband. The fact that Johnny carefully eviscerated the motherfucker a year later where he was found covered in the man's blood and talking to his dead mother and put in the loony bin made mentioning her even more taboo. The subject of mothers remained the exclusive domain of Johnny. Without an ugly mother comeback he was stumped.

"Anyway, I'm heading back to Madison," Rocky said after a minute. "There's a student I've been meaning to fuck but thought better of it. We've been getting along like peas in a pod. I don't know about this whole love thing. Talking to her feels nice. And then when I see her and she's smiling because she sees me, my heart flutters. That's never happened before. I told myself never to get too close to a woman. I mean in the heart, not in the other sense. As soon as I see a woman looking all dreamy, I'm gone. I'm there for fun, not to break anyone's heart. I've done that once, broke my family's heart."

Johnny nodded. He knew about the fratricide. He knew the twins had been drowned. He knew Rocky confessed and the confession put him in the asylum. The confession must have been an incoherent babble to put him there. Rocky never told him or anyone else where they drowned, but Johnny figured Turtle Lake.

"I'd like to meet the lucky woman who broke through your stone heart," said Johnny.

"And so you shall," said Rocky.

Johnny made up a blues song about stone hearts reduced to rubble and Rocky accompanied him on his mouth harp.

"We met at Wisconsin, Madison," said Lyndy after recovering her composure and clearing her throat. "My final year of my Masters in Business and his as well meant a class in creating, nurturing and selling a business for huge profit. The more desirable the business, the better the grade. It involved collaboration between three students, and to make sure we pulled our weight, every step involved independent documentation and papers.

"Since the class required at least a year of previous Masters Classes, I knew everyone in it except him. Even though Madison is a huge school, at that level we had all crossed paths. When he ended up in my group, it was the first thing I asked him. He confessed he needed time between years of study to get funds together to afford that year and he'd been away doing just that for a couple years.

"I found him handsome, preferring the maturity of older men over my usual group of friends including my boyfriend at the time.

"My age and from my high school in Madison, the guy had been best friends with my high school boyfriend, and among my clique of friends. After graduating and before spending the summer in Europe with my high school beau before starting college in the East, he admitted his infatuation. His best friend and I had decided to move on which to tell you the truth probably didn't bother either of us all that much, and when he approached me, I think he wanted me once before heading away. We kissed just to test the waters, but I ended it when he began groping. I could read his frustration, but he managed to let it go, which probably helped when he found me again after we had both gotten our Bachelors Degrees.

"We dated and I let him seduce me after the third date and we ended up like we never left high school, hanging out with our group of Richies as the rest of the school labeled us who remained in the city.

"I guess I never let myself break away from my little world. I never left the city for more than a vacation. It felt easy. Problem was, I lacked confidence in my intelligence and didn't feel capable of going to an Ivy League school. I'm not lazy or submissive. Rather, my self esteem as far as book smarts remained low.

"Not that Madison is easy. It isn't. And I did well enough. I worked hard enough to earn A's in some of my classes and worked just as hard for B's and C's. Somehow your brother knew all this.

"I wanted him, but he kept his distance physically. Mentally though he became a sort of mentor. He made me feel capable and taught me studying tricks and ways to make my papers stronger.

"Every day after class we'd walk for awhile chatting and then spend time studying in the library. The only exceptions came when my boyfriend happened by. The first time I wanted to spend time with Rocky, but Rocky insisted I should be with my boyfriend. Funny thing is, it made me resent the guy.

"By the end of the first semester, I got rid of him. Neither Rocky nor my boyfriend was pleased. Rocky made it clear we couldn't date.

"The boyfriend confronted us with my gang of friends while Rocky and I had our usual walk. It was one of those times Rocky had let himself go and looked like a bum. He even smelled a bit, but I kind of like his smell. They shoved him and told him he was a dirty old man and should be with his own kind and eventually they knocked him to the concrete. The back of his skull bled. I told my friends to fuck off and helped him to his feet. My friends told me I was crazy and stomped off. I pressed some tissues to the back of his head and sat with him.

"'You see why I didn't want you choosing me over him, ' Rocky said. 'I wish I was, but I'm not the right guy for you. I don't want to break your heart.'

"'Let me worry about that, ' I said. He shook his head, making him dizzy.

"Our relationship stayed the same through most of the next semester. I'd see him on campus or heading to class sometimes with a girl fawning on him. It was rarely the same girl which helped ease my jealousy. Even scruffy, although less often, there'd be some girl.

"I returned to my clique and seduced another friend, cheating on one of my closest friends by doing so, but I felt revenge satisfied and it lessened my horniness. My ex no longer tempted me, and I could tell he felt uncomfortable hanging with our friends when I was present. His pouting made me wonder why I ever wanted him.

"Then one evening with only a couple weeks left until graduation Rocky stopped by my apartment with his friend Johnny. As you can see, Johnny is big and black and that was my first impression. I hadn't looked into those soulful eyes yet. As usual, Rocky knew. He offered to take us out to dinner if I felt uncomfortable. I thought about it. Rocky had never visited me inside my apartment, though he'd dropped me off and refused my invitation to come in many times.

"I looked at Rocky. I never saw him smile the way he did. There was always a hint of sadness. His smile was radiant, beatific, and completely happy.

"I invited them in. As soon as we entered, Johnny headed to the kitchen. He carried a grocery bag and from it proceeded to cook the most delicious Szechuan stir fry I ever ate. I guess they figured I would let them in.

"While his best friend cooked, I led Rocky to the bedroom. He asked to see it. I could never refuse such an offer from him. He sat beside me on the bed.

"'I love you, ' he said. 'Do you still want me?'

"I hopped into his lap, straddled him and kissed him for at least five minutes.

"'I should shower, ' he said when I let him breathe.

"'No you shouldn't, ' I said."

"I'd rather not hear any more," said Harry Westin.

"Yes you do," said Lyndy, unleashing her long thick blonde hair. "I plan on giving you a full demonstration. Help me move the table."

Transfixed and stunned by the implications, Harry remained sitting while Lyndy stood and grabbed the table. "I don't understand," he said.

"Come on. The table's heavy." They moved it out from the booth.

"Unzip me please," she said, turning her back to him.

"Are you sure?" asked Harry.

"Very."

He unzipped her.

"Oh my god," he exclaimed when her nakedness was revealed.

Harry never cheated on his wife. He fucked women during their marriage but only whores or escorts as they liked to think of themselves.

During travels to various cities within his Midwestern region or at conventions, occasionally the boys took him to strip joints where they got drunk and enjoyed the attention of lap dancers. Towards the end of the evening he'd choose a dancer for a more private and lengthy time. He preferred places where he could touch back, but those were rare. At the end he'd ask if she might be available for even more private sessions. Less than a quarter of the girls agreed.

If they didn't, he'd head to his hotel room drunk and horny and call an escort service and they'd send him a girl nor quite fitting his description but pretty and sexy enough to fuck. He made it clear he expected the full time he contracted because invariably he'd pop off soon after her mouth met his cock. He promised a large tip if she could restore his erection and within reason let him enjoy her however he wanted.

Most of the time he didn't ask for anything extraordinary. Every date followed its own unique progression. Sometimes he felt like kissing. A couple times he fucked her ass.

Once he felt particularly amorous towards a sweet natured blonde and spent his time missionary style with plenty of kissing and staring into each other's eyes. Even then, though a couple moments seemed like love, he knew he'd hired the girl to fuck his drunk and horny self and leave him forever.

The only thing shared by all his expensive assignations besides a quick blow job was cunnilingus. He loved licking pussy.

His wife loved his cunnilingus too. Though years of marriage had lessened the frequency of sex, when their desires meshed once or twice a month, they made it as entertaining as possible. Role playing, sexy Teddies, something different would occur every time. Like with the escorts, she'd draw out his first cum quickly, but usually after he'd licked her into readiness and they fucked. Then the games began.

One thing became certain: whenever he travelled on business and came back, travel sandwiched between fucking. She left him sated at departure and welcomed him with open arms and legs upon his return. If the boys didn't lead him astray and enflame his libido, whores would never cross his mind.

This was different. His wife spent the day soothing his anxiety, its cause he had a hard time explaining to her. He didn't understand the strange letter himself and its request to meet him in the middle of nowhere and the phone call to make sure it wasn't some fucked up gag, but having never been forthright about the tragedy of his siblings, telling his wife only of the twins' sudden death and his younger brother's coinciding disappearance, his unusually high tension mystified her. She had no sense of the magnitude of the tragedy. While his daughters attended school, his wife made love to him, the first time since they were newlyweds in the middle of the day. He left sated and slightly less anxious.

And now this.

Being a man confronted by a beautiful young blonde with soft skin and a healthy, voluptuous body meant for sex presenting the full package before him and kneeling down between his legs and loosening his trousers and pulling them off along with his Jockey shorts and kissing his rising cock and enveloping it in her warm wet mouth and sucking it into intense rigidity, he had no choice.

"Wait," he said when she pulled his butt out and straddled him.

"I'm safe," she said.

"Let me taste you first," said Harry. She smiled excitedly.

"You two are alike!" she exclaimed. She sat on the opposite seat and spread her legs. He dove in and discovered her fresh, intoxicating flavor and scent. "Ooh," she murmured. She planned on talking while she fucked him, but this was better.

Breathily, and pausing at particularly piquant moments, she began, "So like I did for you, I took off his pants and sucked his cock. Yours smelled clean, but his smelled like him. Like an animal smelling her mate's scent, it made me wild with desire. I got it as rigid as yours and tasted the beads of precum. Turned on more, I wanted to suck out his goo, but he seemed to offer me only tantalizing hints. No man, especially a man sporting such an intense erection, it felt like rock under movable skin, had ever lasted under my mouth. I watched his excitement like I love to do, and witnessed the pursed lips and the tight face and the wide eyes, thrilling me more, but no release."

She experienced her own release. Harry lapped up her liquid pleasure. She pushed him onto the floor and straddled him; guiding his rigid unbendable bone covered by the softest thinnest stretched tight leather into her quim and felt its heat and stiffness push away her slippery interior walls, the friction thrilling her.

"Oh yes! So finally he pulled me to my feet and stripped off my pants and panties and tossed me on the bed and placed his mouth on my pussy and made love to it. Maybe a little better than you, I wanted it so much that I was cumming within a minute.