Chapter 19: Jason

“Look her up on social media or Google,” Maddie said over the phone.

“I did,” I said. “Her social media is strictly school related. Her name appears in Google but I don’t think it’s her they’re talking about.”

“Why do you want info on a teacher?” she asked. “You’re not going to do anything weird are you? Why can’t you just date a cheerleader?”

“I’ve dated cheerleaders,” I said. “They’re boring. And you’re going to have to define weird, we set the bar pretty high on that.”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

“I’m not going to stalk her or blackmail her,” I said. “I only want to get to know her better. It’s tough to raise your hand in class and ask about her favorite color, or what kind of pizza she likes.”

Maddie said, “Okay, let me see what I can do to facilitate your love life with a lady of totally inappropriate age” With a sigh that would have reached the cheap seats in a theater, she ended the call.

Feeling put upon or not, an e-mail from Maddie with a large file attachment arrived in my computer the next day. From that file and rumors about her in school, I learned the following: Victoria Grayson Hyde was known as Vee to friends and family; she detested the name Vicky. She was the daughter of two college professors and had degrees in math and physics as well as teaching. Not long ago she had been jilted very nearly at the alter by her fiancé, a guy named Phillip. After the aborted wedding, she had promptly moved from her parent’s home in California and crossed the country to take a teaching position at our humble institution. She was renting a duplex about ten miles from an aunt who lived here. Hunter green was her favorite color. She liked caramel ice cream and lots of butter on her popcorn. Her favorite movies were sappy romantic comedies. She hated reality TV. She ate only vegetarian pizzas. That was a huge character flaw in my book, but I was willing to overlook it for an opportunity to get in her pants.

There were a bunch of pictures included in the file. I bet they had been deleted from her phone or computer. I thought that because most of them were of or included the same guy. I had to assume it was Phillip. There were pics of them cycling, wall climbing and running. There must have been a hundred pictures of them eating meals. There were candid pictures of Phillip doing this and that. And then there was one pic of Phillip I’m betting Vee didn’t show to many people. Phillip had evidently just stepped out of the shower and was toweling off his hairy body. Phillip was hung. I mean nothing like I’m hung, but he was well equipped. Had she been impressed with the size of his manhood? If so, she’d be overawed by mine. Or had she been willing to marry him despite the discomfort his big dick caused? Had Phillip left her for a Nordic blonde bridesmaid who was awed by his endowments and demanded that he pound her pussy like a wild man? Was I overthinking this by a million percent? You damn right I was. Baby steps Jason ... baby steps.

Okay, step one ... getting some one-on-one time with her would be a good thing. Chance was in my favor there. The vice-principal at our school was away on maternity leave and Victoria had stepped in. My guess was that she wanted to keep busy, or maybe she being the new girl, she got the crappy job. Anyway, she arrived at school early and spent her time after classes in a tiny office doing administrative work.

“Ms. Hyde?” I said to her as I and her other students filed out of math class one morning.

“Yes, Jason?” she said as she looked up. I was more than a head taller than she was.

“I’m having some real trouble with chapter five.” I said. “Do you think you could go over it with me before the test? I can stay after school.”

“Sure,” she said. “Drop by the vice-principal’s office after the last bell.”

When classes ended for the day, I spent a minute getting my locker squared away, and then I headed for the restroom. You’d have thought Vee and I had a real date. I checked my teeth for food gunk and made sure my breath didn’t stink. I had borrowed one of my Dad’s golf shirts. It was dark green, the favorite color of you know who. I thought it made me look older. My school was the land of tee-shirts and flannel. You didn’t see many guys wearing knit shirts with collars.

My other choice of clothing was strategic. I had worn boxer-shorts that morning. I usually wear briefs because it’s easier to keep my manly package in check, but not today. I shifted my boxers until my cock was dangling free and clear down my left thigh. Picking up my books I headed for the administrative offices. Once there, I had to wait while Vee dealt with five other students.

Finally, a girl who had complained loud and long about having to apply for a parking sticker gave up her rage against authority and left. I entered the vice-principal’s office. It was about what you expect for a public school. It was tiny with cement block walls that had been painted over many times. There was a battered metal desk and folding chairs. Books and charts and whatnot lay gathering dust in a corner.

“Jason, come in,” she said with a smile.

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks for doing this.” I put my books on her desk and then I thumbed through my math book to the chapter we’d been studying. I fumbled with the book, saying, “Over here ... uh.” I put my finger on a problem and then tilted the book so that she was seeing it upside down. “That won’t work,” I mumbled. I turned the book around and put it in front of her on the desk. Taking one of the folding chairs, I went around the desk and plopped down next to her, practically shoulder to shoulder. “In this problem...” I began.

I got a hard-on, which guys my age get all the time, but in this case it was inevitable. Ms. Hyde smelled good, something along the lines of vanilla and a faint whiff of sweet perfume. She had worn a button-up blouse and blazer that day. Now the blazer hung on the back of her chair, and I could look down her blouse and see the curve of her breast above her white bra. My cock was a long lump running down the leg of my khakis. I could even see the bulge of my cock-head. I didn’t catch her looking, but there was no way she could have missed it.

Our session of math tutoring came to an end less than an hour later. Due to my painfully bent cock, I made an awkward exit from her office. I immediately went to the boy’s room and masturbated. I lost my load into a handful of tissue after about a minute of fantasizing about undoing the buttons on Vee’s blouse and cupping the satin smoothness of her breast.

Next in my simple, yet crafty plan, was to show Ms. Hyde that we had shared interests. We were both runners and it was common knowledge that she used the school track several times a week. I detested running on a track, but a few days after our office meeting I just so happened to trot onto the four-hundred meter oval as she came by.

“Hi,” I said as I caught her and matched her pace.

“Jason,” she said in acknowledgement. “I didn’t know you were a runner.”

“Yeah, for a few months now,” I said. When she didn’t say anything else, I said, “Do you mind company?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Uh ... I was about to pick up the pace though.”

“I’ll try to keep up,” I said. And pick up the pace she did. We passed guys who were on the school’s track team out for practice. We did four laps at a pace that left me wondering if there was an Olympics in her future.

Finally she slowed and said, “Follow me.”

We went through a gate in the low fence that surrounded the track and slowed to a jog as we went along an access road. We were walking by the time we went through another gate and into the faculty’s parking area. We stopped behind a Mini Cooper that was caked in dust and had California plates. She opened the back and brought out two tall plastic bottles of water. Handing me one, she said, “It’s warm, but at least it’s wet.”

“Thanks,” I said. I cracked the top and gulped down half the bottle. When I lowered the bottle, she was looking at me funny. “What?” I said.

“At least you’re not a poseur when it comes to running,” she said.

“You thought I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other?” I said with a big smile.

She took a sip and said, “So what was your next move ... ask me out for pizza at a secluded spot two towns over where we would be sure not to be seen by anyone we know?”

I lifted the bottle to my lips to hide my red face. Oops. The cat was out of the bag and clawing at my pathetic scheme. Oh well, try the truth when all else fails I suppose. “Actually,” I said, “I was going to propose burgers at your place while we compared notes on training and you tutored me some more.”

She nodded. “You laid some groundwork and planned to follow through. Nice. The thing is you’re not the first student to have a crush on me. I felt a vibe.”

“A vibe?” I said.

“You’re a good student ... highly unlikely to suddenly be clueless about a relatively simple math concept,” she said. “Then you just happen to show up on the track as I run by. And of course the thing that really made my sixth sense tingle was the stuffed athletic sock you ran down your pant leg.”

“That was...” I said.

“And why bother with an old woman like me?” she said. “There are lots of pretty girls in the school.”

“About that...”

“Not to mention the fact that I could be fired and or put in jail for dating a student,” she said.

When she stopped to take a drink, I figured I’d better jump in. “Here’s the thing,” I said. “I missed a year of school because I was sick. It’s a long story and I’m fine now, but I spent a lot of time with a series of beautiful, exciting, intelligent women. After them, high school girls are just ... painful. And you aren’t all that much older than I am. I’ll turn eighteen in a few weeks.”

She smiled and shook her head. “That’s not enough to explain why I should risk a felony charge.”

“We wouldn’t get caught. It’s simple statistics,” I said. “I looked it up. Studies are understandably imprecise, but there are probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of teacher-student relationships every year in America. Only a handful ever come to light. I sure as heck wouldn’t rat us out.”

She pursed her lips and said, “I’ll give you an A for presentation, but really...”

“One more thing,” I said. “That was no stuffed sock in my pants. That was all me, in the flesh. Sitting next to you made me so hard, I had to masturbate in the boy’s room before I could go home.” There, I’d laid bare the truth. Where was it going to get me?

She looked shocked at first ... maybe because of the masturbation thing. Then she looked kind of intrigued as she glanced at my crotch. Finally, she settled on amused disbelief. “No man is that well-endowed,” she said.

“Care to bet on it?” I said. “Noon on Saturday. I’ll bring the burgers for lunch. If I’m lying, I’ll hand wash this rolling dust magnet of yours.”

She looked at me. She looked at her car. She finished off her water bottle. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay, two-thirty Martin Street. Don’t forget to bring your text book.” She tossed her empty bottle in the back of the Mini and took off.

On Saturday morning I took a long shower, and made sure I soaped down my cock a couple of times to make it nice and fresh. Of course that gave me a full hard-on, but I didn’t do anything about it. I wanted to save myself in case Ms. Victoria Hyde wanted to get frisky. It was warm day for the Fall so I dressed in tan cargo shorts and a black tee. As for the food, there’s a place not far from our house that does only made to order hamburgers with fresh toppings. Their stuff is pricey, but they give you a ton of fries with every burger.

Two-thirty Martin was in a working class neighborhood of small homes and small businesses. I had to park on the street. Armed with my bag of food and my math textbook, I rang Ms. Hyde’s doorbell a minute after twelve.

Ms. Hyde did not answer the door. The young woman who did had lustrous, raven black hair that fell in loose curls over her shoulders. Her soft brown eyes were set in a beautiful oval face. She was wearing a light flannel shirt over a Henly top that stretched tightly over her bosom.

“Hello?” she said.

In fact, I got the impression she’d said that more than once. “Oh ... hey,” I said. “I ... uh ... I was looking for Ms. Hyde? We were going to go over some math,” I held up my textbook as proof. “I brought burgers,” I added, showing her the bag. I guess I could have acted more like a complete dork, but I’m not sure how.

“You must be Jason,” she said with a brilliant smile. “Vee had to run down to the school. She said you might come by. I’m her cousin, Stephanie. Come in.”

She stepped aside and I entered Vee’s modest living room which adjoined a dining area. “Put your stuff on the table,” she said as I followed. Her perfectly heart-shaped butt was encased in skinny jeans. “Want a soda?” she asked over her shoulder as she turned left into a small kitchen.

“Yeah, anything” I said. I put my stuff on a dining table that was covered in a blue cloth and held a centerpiece of fake fruit in a wire bowl. I heard the pops of two cans opening. She returned and handed me a cola. As we drank, a buzz came from the kitchen.

“Maybe that’s Vee,” Stephanie said. She left and returned with a cell phone to her ear. “Really? Okay ... yes he’s here.” She handed the phone to me. “She has to stay at the school for a while.”

I took the phone and said, “Hi.”

“I won’t be back until at least four,” she said. “Share the hamburgers. You can thank me later. Now put Steph back on the phone.”

“Uh ... okay,” I said and held out the phone to Stephanie. “Back to you.”

She wandered back into the kitchen, giving me a chance to study her really great ass. Her end of the conversation was mostly “yes” and “yeah.” It ended with, “ ... love you, see you later,” She came back to the table and we simply stared at one another for several moments. Stephanie had removed her flannel shirt. I have to admit I was mesmerized by the swell of her breasts in the stretchy fabric of her untucked shirt. I imagined lifting the hem of that shirt to see if my hands would completely encircle the soft warm skin of her narrow waist. “It would be a shame to waste all that food,” she prompted.

“Oh, yeah ... uh, no let’s don’t do that,” I said.

“Good, ‘cause I’m starving,” she said as she picked up the bag. “I’ll warm this up.” She heated everything in the microwave and put it on a couple of plates.

“So you guys grew up on opposite coasts?” I asked between bites.

“No, no I lived like twenty yards from Vee’s house in California. We moved here a year ago when Mom scored a great job with a biotech firm. Before that, thank goodness for unlimited call plans because Vee and I have always been very close despite the differences in our ages.”

“So what brought her here ... besides you of course?” I pretty much knew why, but I wanted to hear her perspective.

Stephanie rolled eyes and said, “Ohmygod, she became engaged to this guy named Phillip. For months he was all she could talk about. Mutual friends told me that he didn’t know the meaning of the word monogamous. I tried to tell her to cool her jets and wait, thinking that he would eventually show his true nature, but she was determined to marry the guy. So Mom and I flew out to spend the week of the wedding with her. From the second I met Phillip, I had a bad feeling about him.” She gulped down a fry. “I mean Vee hadn’t dated a lot of guys. She’s always been such an academic. I think she latched onto him because he talked a good game. I think he latched onto her because her parents have money.

“Anyway, a couple of days before the wedding there’s this combined bachelor-bachelorette party. It’s at a small pub that Vee’s dad rented out for the evening. There’s a buffet, karaoke, a darts tournament, and a whole bunch of drinking games.” Her voice dropped. “I mean, I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t old enough, and I had promised Vee that I would be a designated driver. At like three hours in I had to go pee. You had to go down a hallway and the restroom was a single. I went in, and when I turned to lock the door Phillip was sliding in. He locked the door and then stood there with his hands in his pockets, grinning like he’d just told some sly joke.

“What’s up? I said. He said, ‘My cock. I can’t keep my eyes off you. You look amazing.’ I don’t know; I guess I looked okay. I was wearing a navy slip dress. It shows a lot of skin, but it’s supposed to. It’s a party dress and I don’t get to wear it very often.”

I nodded as if I understood her dilemma. Actually, I was imagining her in a filmy dress with thin straps over her bare shoulders. It would be cut low enough to show her cleavage and high enough to reveal plenty of shapely leg. My dick had been half-hard from the first second I’d looked into those doe-like eyes, and now it was an aching lump between my legs. Except for the trapping her in a bathroom thing, I could see Phillips side of things ... so far.

Stephanie said, “He pulled the material of his pants tight in front until I could see the outline of his penis. I told him he was drunk and about to be married, and that we should get him out of there before anyone noticed. Hey, I have to admit the guy was sexy. He had this arrogant bad boy swagger, and the looks to pull it off, but now he was acting like a total asshole. I stepped back and he stepped forward until my back hit the cold metal of the basin.” She stopped and took a huge bite of her hamburger.

“Don’t leave me hanging,” I told her. “What happened?”

“Burger’s getting cold,” she said around a mouthful of food. She sipped at her drink and said, “I’ve taken a couple of self-defense classes. No way I was going to get around him, so I acted like I was going to give in. When he got close enough I kneed him in the balls ... hard.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Then, while he was in a weakened state so to speak, I shoved him against the wall and held him there with my forearm at his throat. I told him that if he didn’t call off the wedding, then I would very loudly proclaim what he’d done ... during the ceremony ... in the church.”

“Wow.” I said. I was practically speechless. That was the sexiest nonsexual thing I’d ever heard. One more tale of violence from this beautiful girl and I think I would have creamed in my pants. “So he broke the engagement?”

“Actually, no. He tried to preempt me by telling Vee that I had come on to him and then kicked him the balls when he oh so virtuously refused.” She shrugged and took another sip of soda. “She believed me of course ... threw her engagement ring back in his face. A few days later, we packed up the Mini and drove across the country. So, tell me about you.”

I couldn’t very well tell her about my adventures with Maddie, and let’s face it, my life outside of that is very average and pretty boring. But I talked about myself for a while, and she seemed interested. In fact, a couple of hours passed in conversation about this and that.

“I guess we should clean up,” Stephanie said after checking her watch. We’d laid waste to the burgers and fries.

“Allow me to clear,” I said. She chuckled as I made a production out of picking up our two plates, two glasses and two slightly used paper napkins.

We went into the kitchen where she ran some water in the sink and washed our dishes. I dried and put the plates and glasses in a cabinet that was bare except for a couple of cereal bowls and a travel mug. When I closed the cabinet door, she was smiling at me as if I’d done something endearing. Well why not? I’m an excellent dish dryer. It’s one of my few life skills.

I gazed into those pretty eyes, and then I kissed her. It was a pleasingly solid smack on the lips. I’d done it on an impulse and now I waited for her reaction. I didn’t rule out a swift knee to the groin. We looked into one another’s eyes for a second, and then our bodies collided ... in a good way ... in an ohmygod I cannot hold you closely enough way.

In the movies they have this shot where a camera follows a trail of clothing into a bedroom where we see the characters happily humping away, or in some earlier or later stage of the humping process. That’s what happened to us. It was ... step, step take off my shit ... step, step take off her shirt ... step ... bra ... step ... shoes ... and so forth. By the time we got to Vee’s modest bed we were naked and ogling one another.

“You are amazingly well hung,” she said as if she was stating a fact I wasn’t aware of.

“And you are perfect,” I said. Granted, I was completely smitten by this girl and gazing at her through the eyes of love, but her body neared perfection. Her nearly flawless skin was lightly tanned except for bikini lines. In our bare feet she was only a couple of inches shorter than me. She was slim and her breasts were beautifully shaped.

“Flattery will serve you well,” she said with a smile as she sat on the edge of the bed. She grasped my shaft in both hands and bent the head to her mouth. “It’s so big. I wish I could take it all,” she said just before she snaked her tongue over my cock-head.

I was surprised by the sudden, voracious appetite she had for my dick, but I wasn’t going to refuse the pleasure she was offering. I stood there, swaying my hips gently to match her hungry mouth. She rolled my soft balls in her fingers and stabbed at my cum-slit with the tip of her tongue. The pressure swelled in my groin. My cock-head had never felt so bloated. “I’m going come if you don’t stop,” I warned her.

She took her mouth off my dick only long enough to say, “Yes, yes ... right in my mouth.”

I have to admit that wasn’t the reaction I expected and it made me blast my considerable load immediately. She sucked it all in and swallowed without hesitation. “Salty,” she said as she stood and laid a tongue swabbing kiss on me. If she was wondering if I’d be repulsed by tasting my cum, she was wrong. After all, I was probably the world’s cum drinking champion.

“Salty,” I agreed. We lay on the bed. I would have happily plunged my cock into her pussy right away, but my now fairly normal body had a refractory period. I was going to be merely half hard for a few minutes. I put the time to good use. I lifted her knees and spread her legs. She sighed and shivered as I kissed and licked my way down the inside of her thighs.

“Ohmygod, please lick my pussy, Jason,” she begged.

“Mmm,” I said and moved up to take her breast in my mouth. I sucked and tongued her nipple until she arched her back and tried to shove more tit into my mouth.

“I’m so wet, Jason. Please,” she cried. I relented and slipped two fingers in her pussy. It was oh so wet and oh so very tight. I massaged her clit and the girl went wild bucking and grinding her hips in a frenzy. “Ohhh ... faster, baby ... harder ... please harder.”

I slammed her cunt hard, following the wild jerks and plunges of her hips. “So good that’s so good. Oh shit, do it hard ... don’t ever stop,” she cried as she came on my hand.

I was hard and raring to go again. So much so that my cock had smeared pre-cum on Stephanie’s hip while I had fingered her to orgasm. I moved between her legs and grabbed one of her tight ass cheeks in either hand. She squealed as I pulled her into position, and then plunged my dick into her incredibly tight pussy. I could have sworn that her muscles were still twitching from her orgasm. I pounded her with quick, hard thrusts and she took it all. In fact she grabbed my shoulders and threw ass in the air to meet my plunging dick.

“Jason,” she screamed, “fuck me ... harder ... fuck me ... FUCK MEEEE.” Her legs locked around my waist. Her fingers scratched my back as I felt her pussy ripple up and down my shaft.

I bellowed something and came with an intensity that I’d never known ... charm enhanced or not. After I bucked out my load, I fell onto my side dragging her around with me. We lay face to face, drinking in one another’s heaving breaths.

“That was not too shabby,” she said when she’d recovered enough to speak.

The naked truth seemed to be doing well for me that afternoon so I said, “If sex got any better than that, I don’t think I could stand it.”

Stephanie chuckled deep in her throat and then her eyes grew wide as she looked at over my shoulder at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Oh crap,” she said. “Vee might show up at any moment.”

Thirty minutes later, we were seated at either end of a surprisingly lumpy couch sipping sodas when Vee opened the front door. Everyone said hello and then Vee said, “Jason, I’m sorry I missed our tutoring session. Was Steph able to help?”

“More than I can say,” I said.

“Oh, good,” she said as she shed the jacket she was wearing and stepped into her bedroom. She came back a second later. “Are you washing my sheets?” she asked Stephanie.

There was a stacked washer-dryer combination in the kitchen, and the humming swishing noise coming from there made it clear something was in the dryer. “Yeah,” said Stephanie, “I thought I’d freshen them up for you.”

“That’s sweet,” Vee said with a smug smile and then and disappeared back into the bedroom.

I stood and whispered, “I better go, so you two can talk about me.”

“We were obviously set up,” she whispered back as we walked to the door. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m thrilled with it,” I said.

She laughed and said, “I know I’m supposed to play it cool at this point, but I’m thrilled too. Call me tonight.” We shared a deep, lingering kiss and I left.

I was floating on air as I went back to my car. I didn’t notice Maddie until I practically bumped into her. “Hey,” she said.

“Oh, hey yourself,” I said. We hugged. Apparently, near death experiences make you want to hug more. Over her shoulder, I saw a large, black SUV with tinted windows sitting in the street. “How did you find me? Are you having me followed?”

“Sure, I have a deep cover agent watching your every move. I call her Mom for short,” she said with a smirk.

“Oh, yeah,” I said.

Maddie lifted her chin in the direction I’d come. “I gather you’re on your way back from your tutoring session? Was that the teacher you asked me about? How’d that go?”

“Maddie,” I said. “I have met the girl I’m going to marry.”

“Your teacher?” she said, her voice rising an octave in disapproving disbelief.

“No, her cousin, Stephanie,” I said. I launched into discourse about Stephanie ... how she was only a couple of years older ... how she was studying law ... and everything else I could remember we’d covered that afternoon. I had barely noticed that we had walked to the end of the block, turned left and now we were entering a local coffee shop. We ordered and took our cups outside to the rear of an empty patio area. A few seconds later, two women emerged from the shop. They took up seats at a table by the door. I noticed the black SUV was now sitting at the curb.

“Is that a security detail?” I asked, inclining my head at the two women.

“Try not to stare,” Maddie said. “They’re trying to be inconspicuous.”

“They’re six-foot tall gorgeous amazons,” I said, “they suck at inconspicuous.” Maddie rolled her eyes in agreement. “Are you in danger?”

“I don’t think so,” said Maddie.

“Can’t you just tell them to leave you alone?” I said.

“I’ve tired. It’s like strangling kittens. It’s a lot less drama to let them do their thing,” she said.

“What about the guy who had you kidnapped ... uh ... Finn? Is he still a danger?” I asked.

Maddie smiled.

Eamon Finn was sitting in a café situated in the small city of Matera, a place in southern Italy. After the debacle in Vegas, Finn was hiding from his seriously disgruntled creditors and possibly a certain vengeance minded teenage girl. Matera was hardly a well-known travel destination, but it had its share of tourists and a man speaking American English wouldn’t be of any note. He needed someplace to be while he rearranged his life and this city was a good jumping off point for a man with his talents.

“Very good,” Finn said into his cell. “I will be there next week to sign the contract.” He smiled as he placed his phone next to the cup of espresso he’d been sipping. A new mercenary contract would go a long way to restoring his financial health.

In his peripheral vision he saw a swirl of thick, blonde hair. He caught a whiff of expensive cologne and then a perfectly manicured hand rested on top of his. The teenager had found him. Before he could react, something like an electrical buzz ran up his arm, suffused his chest and then settled in his groin. He felt his cock swell with hot blood until he thought it would burst. His cock-head tingled and hummed and he felt as if he was going to have the orgasm of a lifetime in the next second. But that second passed and the sensual agony intensified.

“Don’t move. Don’t make a sound,” said the teen. Another woman joined the table. Also blonde and beautiful, but older ... and with serious, determined eyes.

Sweat began to bead his face. Finn was reminded of the time he had remained abstinent for a month, with not so much as a wet dream. He’d then sought out a beautiful call girl and told her to excite him to the point of orgasm and then hold him there. Minutes had passed like hours as she had teased him to the edge of completion again and again. If he took that experience and multiplied it by a thousand, that was what the teen was doing to him. He struggled to breathe and gray began to gather at the corners of his vision.