Chapter 10

'The orgasm-a-tron event' happened on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving (in the U.S., anyway), Mr. B. called Alex Merriweather, my trustee and not so incidentally, my lawyer. Alex called me and wanted to have lunch. It was important, he said.

When I got to Alex's club and asked for him, I was directed to a private room. Mr. B. was there. He stood when I came in and crossed to meet me.

"I'm sorry to have used Mr. Merriweather as a ruse, but I didn't know if you'd meet with me," he said.

"Of course I'd have met with you. You're my foster dad. You went with me to get my driver's license. You were there for me when my parents died and when I went through that baby scare. You were there for me every day."

"Yes, but then we forgave Lucinda for what she said and did, too. She's my daughter. I love her. I forgive her all her sins. But I'll never forget the terrible things she said about you and the horrible things she planned."

"Yeah, well..." I was stumped. I hadn't expected this. I was prepared for the police.

"She says she had to listen to that tape repeating and repeating those horrible things for over six hours. She cried all night Sunday."

"I'm sorry, but I had to do something," I said, knowing that it was insufficient.

"No, Chris. I am sorry," said Mr. B. "I'll apologize for all members of my family. I know you can't be friends with Lucinda any more. But can we – my wife and I – still count you as our son?"

In answer, I gave him a huge hug. I decided then and there, I'd pay his utility bills forever. It was the least I could do for these wonderful people. It wasn't their fault that their daughter had turned into a ... I didn't want to say that b-- word even to myself. I'd promised my mother not to swear.

I caught Alex looking at us. He obviously didn't understand what was going on. Maybe someday I'd tell him. I hadn't known him for very long, but he was a good friend.

December 20^th was a Saturday, and that was the day scheduled for the company Seasonal Party. I thought that was a stupid name. Everybody knew it was the Christmas party. I guess we had Seasonal decorations and a Seasonal tree in the corner of the office. We exchanged Seasonal gifts, I guess.

Our boss and the senior architect that made Mile High Design work, Gaby Entroge, was dressed up as Santa. She gave a new meaning to Santa as a 'jolly old elf.' Ms. Entroge was not the Coca-Cola Santa, not the rotund, hundred pound overweight guy with a beard; no indeed. She was a slight, small woman, but she made for a jolly Santa. I bet she'd fit down a more chimneys than the fat guy. The company had had a good year and she gave everyone the exact same bonus: a $1000 U.S. Savings Bond. I tucked mine into my jacket pocket and thanked her very much. She thanked me for working so hard this year. And she meant it. Just as she meant it for every person in the company she said it to.

Darby O'Shaunessy was imbibing entirely too much champagne. She was leaning on people and laughing at absolutely anything they said. She eventually came into my orbit. It was a fairly solitary orbit at the moment; I was standing by the food tables, talking to Daryl and Stella. I didn't drink at all, and that kind of left me out of the merry making. Well ... the alcoholic merry making, anyway.

Darby came up to me and draped her arms around my neck. "Why are you stall'owne? Don't you drink at all? C'mon over here." She proceeded to grab my neck tie and pull me over to stand under the mistletoe.

Now I'd been under the mistletoe earlier. A couple of the secretaries had cornered me there, and Stella Carruthers had offered me a glass of egg nog under the mistletoe. Even Ms. Entroge caught me and gave me a peck on the cheek. All of them had kissed me, to one degree or another. Darby didn't exactly kiss me.

Well, she did kiss me, but it was more like a whole body kiss, complete with groping and grinding and et cetera. I had noticed that Darby was good looking, but that 'et cetera' was really something, let me tell you. After about twenty or thirty seconds – maybe it was as much as a half hour – I broke for air, like a trout in a stream trying to throw a hook.

Daryl looked at me and said, with a laugh, "I think you should take the lady home, while she can still walk."

I took his advice and found Darby's coat. We staggered out to my $75,000 electric go cart, and I picked my way through the Colorado winter streets to Darby's apartment. Once inside, Darby wanted to smooch some more. She got her blouse opened, revealing a very sexy bra, or slip, or whatever it was, underneath, and then proceeded to try and untie my necktie.

She didn't quite make it, and wound up in/on my lap as I sprawled on the couch. She was seriously drunk when she said, "I'm wannid you since I was a intern and you were 16 yearsh old." And then she passed out on top of me.

She was a big person. It took me several minutes to get out from under this befreckled Irish Amazon, but I eventually made it. I thought about leaving her where she was, but decided against it. I took off my tie and jacket, rolled up my sleeves and lifted her in my arms. I struggled with her – my left arm being not so useful, remember? – and got her into her bedroom. Thanks, dad, for urging me to life weights all that time ago. I took off her expensive blouse, found the zipper to her skirt and slid off her high heels. There she was: wearing a slip and some undergarments. I tucked her in and went in search of someplace to sleep – which I found in the guest room. I'd only had to rearrange the pile of discarded clothing choices from the bed and then I, too, had a place to sleep.

It was 1:37 by the electric clock on the nightstand. I was asleep before the clock ticked over to 1:38.

At 2:19 in the a.m., Darby was pulling on my arm. "C'mon. C'mon. C'mon. You can't sleep in here. C'mon." She wasn't strong enough to actually move me, but she did wake me. I staggered out of bed in my boxers and let myself be led into Darby's room.

"'Siz a nicer bed. 'S Bigger too." She pushed me onto her bed and I landed across the bottom. With a mental shrug, I pulled the blanket down on the unused side of the bed and crawled in. In a scant microsecond I was falling back asleep. I felt the bed shift as another person got in and snuggled up to my back.

It was 10 o'clock when I felt someone's eyes burning into the back of my head. I woke and took stock. I could feel somebody's body heat in the cool bedroom, so I rolled over carefully. My hand bumped into a naked woman. I carefully opened my eyes.

"G'morning?" I ventured.

"What did we do last night?" Darby said. She didn't look exactly pleased. Her head was propped on her hand and the elbow attached thereto was propped on a pillow. It was her glare that had awakened me. She was covered with a sheet up to her armpits. " I know you didn't drink, so you'd remember what we did."

"Nothing. I think ... I'm pretty sure. Nothing."

"Well then why am I naked?"

"Beats me. When I put you to bed, you had a bra, slip, stockings and probably some stuff under the slip on. I went to sleep in the guest room. I remember you dragging me in here sometime in the night, but I went to sleep. This is the next thing I remember."

"Well," she continued. The sheet covering her body slipped a little and I saw a torrent of freckles across her upper chest. "The last thing I remember is saying something to you in the living room. Do you remember that?"

"No, honestly, I don't." That was a flat out lie. I don't lie well.

"Christopher! Don't ever play poker. You can't lie for sh ... well, for anything. What exactly did I say?" I know what she wanted to say. I guess hanging around me for several years caused my mom's 'no swearing' rule to rub off oh her.

"You said that you wanted me since you were an intern and I was only 16. Then you passed out and I put you to bed."

"And nothing happened."

"No. Nothing," I replied.

"You bastard!" She slugged me on the chest ... HARD. Then she turned away from me and started to cry. From what I could see on the naked back (down past her shoulder blades), 'freckle' was her native color.

Well, her crying confused me, I'll tell ya. So I did what probably every male has done when faced with a female crying for no reason he understands.

I said, "There, there. It'll be all right. What can I do to make it better?" And I began to stroke her back, soothingly I thought. Her back felt extremely good to me; I popped a boner in a second, and shifted my ass to get a little farther away from her.

She flinched under my touch, like a horse does to chase away flies. More of a shudder of the flesh. She extended a hand and found a tissue on the nightstand. Then she blew her nose – quite effectively, I might add – and then wiped it. "You mean that?" she asked.

"Sure."

She sat up, throwing the covering sheet to her waist; I'm human and I'm male. My eyes went to her breasts. Nice. Very nice. My boner couldn't get any harder. The area around her nipples was the color of her freckles. She reached over toward me with both hands, grabbed my cheeks and turned my head to look at her eyes. "I'm up here," she said and proceeded to kiss me for the next – oh, I dunno ... a lifetime?

I was surprised, but I knew what to do. Both the little head and the big head were in agreement. I kissed her back!