Despite her grief, Marian sensed my erotic obsession with her body. For two hours I monitored the crack between her knees, every gesture of her hand or flick of her tongue, the rise and fall of her breasts. But we arrived in town with me feeling more uncertain about her erotic intentions than ever.
We spent the day and night at the wake. Marian was surrounded by family and friends. By the time we returned to the hotel she was exhausted. We retired to our separate rooms.
The next morning by prearrangement I brought her breakfast in bed. She wore a lacy nightgown and made no attempt to cover herself. I sat at the edge of the bed, trying to disguise my erection. The one valuable piece of information I had picked up yesterday was that Marian and her Baptist brother had not spoken for 25 years. I also detected a faint smile of satisfaction on her face when she’ stood before the bier.
The day of the wake passed equally uneventfully. Again we returned to the motel exhausted by conversation and tedium. By now Marian had said her farewells.
In the morning I brought her breakfast in bed, only this time she was wearing a robe over her nightgown. All night I schemed how to take advantage of this moment—consoling arm around her bare shoulder, a gentle embrace, followed by an uncontrollable outburst of passion. According to my way of thinking, sexual release was just the tonic Marian needed to get over the loss of her brother. It was certainly the only way I knew to get rid of my 48-hour erection. But I had not counted on Marian's show of modesty. It was even more perplexing when she asked me to hook her brassiere in back. Afterwards she made me leave the room.
We did not talk on the drive back, though the tension was palpable. Marian no longer wore her black veil, but was smoking, dialing the radio, and in general acting nervous and aloof. At one point the generator light flashed red and I joked: “This car is as hot as I am.” She pursed her lips, suppressing a laugh, but said nothing. A few moments later I blurted: “Why don't we stop at some roadside motel?” She shook her head.
“I'm not leaving when we get to your house,” I warned her.
“Al is coming by tonight,” she replied. “Remember him?”
“What do you and Al do?” I asked. “What is he like in bed?”
Marian's expression was enigmatic. “He's a degenerate,” she stated simply.
When we got to Marian's house, Al was waiting in the living room. Suddenly emboldened, I decided to play a concerned member of the family and expel the outsider.
“Marian's tired and has a headache,” I told him. “She has to lie down. You'd better leave. Come back tomorrow.” Taking him by the arm, I ushered him to the door. There he hesitated, looking to Marian for a sign. She nodded in agreement with my plan.
As soon as he drove away, I led Marian towards the big bed, lay her down, and slowly removed her shoes. She remained silent and impassive as I undressed her piece by piece, though by now our eye contact had become fairly serious. She seemed to be saying: “You're being awfully bold, but I'm enjoying it.” I was definitely sending the message: “You bitch, you're going to pay for tormenting me like that.”
Gently I positioned her in the middle of the bed. Then I dimmed the lights and poured myself a drink from the bar. Undressing, I sat beside her and admired her body. She had trimmed her pubic hair. Parting the lips of her vagina, I saw that she was wet.
“Don't move,” I instructed her. “Don't even lift an arm.”
By degrees I caressed and kissed her feet, thighs, flank, waist, breast, and neck, before parting her legs and entering her. Moaning slightly, she put an arm on my back. I replaced it on the bed beside her. Then, as slowly as possible, I began to thrust. She writhed and twisted, shuddered quietly, convulsed a few more times, then lay still. My own orgasm flashed exquisitely up my spine. When I looked down at Marian, she seemed to be pleasantly shocked. It was probably the first time that she had remained absolutely passive in bed.
As I was leaving, Al came up the front steps. My knees felt weak, but I stopped him and said: “Don't disturb her. She's sleeping.”
I never saw Marian again. Not long afterwards I moved out of town. For years she stayed in touch with my spinster aunt. Then the family lost track of her.
THE VIRGIN AND THE STOWAWAY
By Mike Durgan
I woke up feeling the hum of the ship's screws and knew that we were at sea—at sea, for God's sake! I'd done it! I swung my feet out of the bunk and sat up, rubbing my head. Jesus! I had stowed away on the boat!
I did not even know where I was going. I had been down and out in Miami. After a night of drinking I had found myself with no place to go. All my worldly possessions were locked up by a third-rate hotel that I owed two weeks rent to. So I drank up what money I had and wandered, for lack of any place else to go, to the docks. There I sat with my bloodshot eyes flinching from the brilliance of the white-on-white streamlined hull of the cruise ship
Evening Star.
The dock workers were sweating up her gangways, loading her up with good things for the trip out.
I was thinking how I would have to go to one of those dingy missions for derelicts where a Bible-slapping preacher would feed me with soup and warn me about the devil. Something crazy came over me. I stood up and stuck my hand in my pocket. My total remaining estate consisted of a quarter and two nickles. I flung the coins at the magnificent boat, nearly dislocating my shoulder. Then I did one of those lunatic stunts that can only happen when a man is so down and out that he will defy the world. I walked over to the magnificent
Evening Star
and marched up her gangway. I walked to the back of the boat and ducked down a hatchway to the cabins, trying doors until I found one that opened. I locked it behind me, spread out on the bed, and thought, “Fuck ‘em. Just let it happen.”
Then I passed out.
Now I sat on the edge of the bed trying to rub the coma out of my wretched face.
I stumbled across the cabin to the tiny John and began splashing cold water on my stubbled face. And then I heard something—a key scratching at the cabin door!
I ducked into the shower, pulling the sliding door to. Over the hammering of my heart, I heard a male voice and a female voice. I saw myself being arrested as a thief or a rapist found lurking in the shower and I regretted my folly. Now came a muffled thumping like suitcases being set down and then voices again. A door closed. A lock snapped.
A sound like a shoe falling caused my heart to start trip-hammering again. Then I heard the other. I peeked carefully around the edge of the shower door. From my angle of vision I could see the bunk. The lock on a suitcase clicked open. A red print dress sailed onto the bunk, followed by a pair of pantyhose. A brassiere landed on top. I was straining to assess the cup size when it occurred to me that the woman might be about to take a shower. I wondered if this cruise ship had a brig—and would I occupy it? I envisioned the shower door opening, and almost heard the scream.
But right now she was humming. I listened. She had a young voice. Sexy. Despite my predicament, I felt my cock begin to thicken. If I were being shot by a female firing squad I would probably die with a hard-on.
Then she appeared.
She was beautiful. And stark naked. She was looking in a mirror I could see, appraising herself front and then back. So was I: redhead in her early 20s, with an astonishing movie-star figure.
She disappeared.
I was ready to leap out of the shower and sacrifice all for one more look when she put some more things on the bed next to what she took off. She rolled on a garter belt, then a stocking, and hooked it. Leaning over in this way her ass was a perfect picture. She put on the other stocking, followed by white panties and a pleated mini skirt. Still naked from the waist up, she now began to sample the effect of different blouses against the beige mini. Her breasts were full and tipped with acorn-cap nipples. Scorning a bra, she left them free beneath a flowery blouse.
She disappeared again. A minute later the door opened and closed and I heard the snap of a lock.
At least I was spared the hysterical screams and arrest. I exited from the shower with the exhilaration of a free man—though I felt haunted by a strange loss. The fragrance of perfume lingered in the cabin. I had thrown the inside lock on the door and was on my way out when something caught my eye. I picked up a thin gold ear hoop and dropped it into my pocket.
I went up on the main deck. The passengers were in Bermudas and garish prints, drinks in hand. I hoped I did not seem too conspicuous. My expensive off-white sports coat had been purchased when things were going better. I could wear it with rags and still look all right. Otherwise I wore dirty jeans, no socks, old tennis shoes, and a faded blue shirt.
I searched on three decks for the redhead and finally found her in the main lounge. She was sitting alone at the bar. Her good looks were almost intimidating. I inhaled the familiar perfume. She looked up at me. “Have you lost an earring?” I asked. Her eyes were green. She glanced at the golden hoop I held in my hand, puzzled for a second, then reached up to her ears and was surprised to find herself with an empty lobe.
“Oh! Thank you.” She was pleased. “Where did you find it?”
“It was on the floor. It caught my eye.” She took the hoop and seemed about to say something. “May I join you?” I persisted.
“Please do.” She purred it, as if hoping I would ask. I sat down feeling a rush of unreality the way you do when something unexpectedly good is happening.
“I'm Kathleen,” she breathed.
An island band, steel drums and a singer, was playing a soft merengue and she was doing a kind of chair dance to it, moving slow and sexy to the music. I asked if she wanted to dance. Seconds later I had her wrapped in my arms, her breasts crushed into me. People were watching us. I pulled her in, my nose nestled in the burnished curls of her hair. My cock stretched at the thought of returning to the cabin with her, seeing again that luscious body, exploring it, spreading her ivory thighs, sinking my hard cock deep. The prospect of it spun my head and I stepped on her toes. “Sorry.”
“Yin and yang,” she said, referring to my misstep. “In ecstasy we sometimes have pain.”
We went back to the bar and had drinks. She told me about herself and what her sign was. I had heard all this before but she took it one step further. “I’m a Druid,” she confided. “I'm one with nature. All the spirits speak and I hear them. The moon warms me at night and the sun warms me in the day. We are all one with the spirit of love—we should erase the borders and make all nations one, feed each other's hungry, love each other's children.”
She went on about these things and all the while her jade eyes were wide and there was something very open about her, as if she were begging me to come into her world. She certainly understood her sexuality. She kept brushing my arm with her breasts. I tuned out most of what she was saying and lost myself in her physical beauty.
Finally I reached out and cupped her right breast in my left hand. She put her hand over mine as if to say thank you.
“You want me, don't you?” She asked it kindly as if she were offering food to the hungry. I did not answer, but only looked at her. “Don't you?”
“Very much.”
“Would you like me now?”
Kathleen signed the check and we went downstairs. We had a long kiss outside her cabin door. She worked her body against me, giving me her soft lips, holding me tight. We went in and swept the clothes from the bed. I opened her blouse and devoured her breasts. I told her how beautiful she was and sat down beside her, letting my hands satisfy themselves. She lay down almost vibrating with desire, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-opened, her chest rising, her nipples swollen. I sucked them in and out of my mouth as she squirmed; my hand caressed her stomach and thighs, then moved softly over her clit. I went down and kissed her stomach and the little mound with its sparse tuft of orangy hair. She put her hand on my head.
“Yes,” she said, “like that …”
She was murmuring with pleasure. Her hand went to the back of my head. I tongued her slowly for a while, and then, when she began to move against me, I began to lick her faster and faster. Her juice frothed around my mouth. And then she came, pulling ray head into her and holding me there hard while her body trembled. Moaning and sighing, she went limp, cooing, “Oh, oh, oh….”
With my tired mouth I kissed her stomach and breasts and then her mouth, giving her back some of the juice that was awash on my face. At the same time I tried to penetrate her. My stone-hard cock, which had waited so patiently ever since my first voyeuristic sight of her in the shower, was about to receive its reward.
To my astonishment she pushed me away. “No,” she said, “please.” I pulled her back under me but she closed her legs. I fell back in agony.
“What is it?” I asked. She remained silent. “I'm dying for you,” I gasped. Anger and frustration boiled inside me.
“Can I just do you with my hand?”
“What?” I sat bolt upright.
She looked at me in fright and lowered her head. “I'm sorry.”
“Sorry?” I roared.
“Shhh. Please. Oh Mike, I am so sorry. You see, I'm a virgin.”
“I don't give a damn about that. What the hell are you talking about. Virgin? Hey, this was your idea as much as mine!”
“I know. I liked you. I just thought you'd enjoy me without putting it in.”
I could not believe what I was hearing.
“I am a virgin. A woman's body is a temple of holiness. It's the entry for creating life and that's sacred. A Druid woman cannot let a man enter her except for the purpose of creating life.”
“So you expect me to eat you out all night and settle for a hand job?”
“Don't be crude.”
“Where's all this love and sweetness you were laying on me in the lounge?”
In the end she relented. But she had to go to the bathroom first. Poking around in a suitcase, she took something out and left.
I sat back, propped up on the pillows, lit a cigarette and waited. I heard the sink faucet run for a minute. And then came a zipping —or more likely an unzipping—sound, like that of a medicine kit. Then the toilet flushed. A minute later the door opened and she looked out. Blinking and swallowing, she came ahead.