California Zephyr

The story continues in Galesburg, Illinois

- Prof. Richard W., formerly of _________ University

oo0000oo

The morning after the memorial service, Karen slept late. She awoke in her old bedroom, and a flood of memories filled her mind as she opened her eyes. It was chilly in the room, and she tried to stay under the covers as long as she could. The old grandfather clock chimed, but she ignored it.

Finally, the aroma of breakfast reached her and she had to get up. When she had washed up, she went downstairs in her robe and found her brother frying bacon. The sizzle and snap in the pan, the coffee dripping into the carafe, the toast burning a bit on the edges, all merged together.

"All of this stuff, somebody says, is BAD for you," her brother laughed. "How much do you want on your plate?"

Karen had to laugh with him. She ignored her diet and filled her plate. Yesterday had been bittersweet, as friends and family had remembered her mother. Today, it felt good to laugh.

Turning serious, her brother reminded her that today they had to go downtown to see the lawyer and sign some papers.

"You'll remember the lawyer. It's Fred Schmidt." He scraped the rest of the bacon onto his plate and sat down at the table. "Didn't you go out with him once?"

Karen's brother was younger than she was, and apparently didn't remember that she and Fred were "steady" for a while. And, reflected Karen, her brother apparently didn't know how far Fred's Chevy had taken them... with the parking brake on.

So many memories were coming back to her on this trip- why not these? As she sipped her coffee, Karen remembered how sweet Fred had been, and how excited she'd been, him being on the football team and so forth. They had been out at the lake on a warm early fall evening after a show, and everything had been perfect. Kisses had turned into caresses, and then she had realized that his hand was inside her blouse. Instead of objecting, she had sighed a bit and pretended that she was too busy kissing him to resist. He had lifted her bra off her nipples, and then unbuttoned her blouse.

She had never let a boy kiss her there before, but somehow it seemed just right with Fred. Her sighs had become genuine as his lips circled and then sucked on her hardened nipples. Their excitement sent warm messages down through every part of her, and for the first time, she had realized how easy it would be to go just a bit further... and further yet. She had slid her hands between his knees and worked her way up, until she felt how ready he was, too.

She had started to picture the two of them tumbling, embracing into a four-poster bed, when a car had driven by slowly behind them. Karen and Fred both had jumped upright at that, did some deep breathing, and somehow discovered that they both had gone far enough. Fred had given her one last kiss on her left breast, and then he had gently covered her up, rebuttoning her blouse (with some difficulty).

"Next time, this is where I'll start," he had whispered.

It was to be her last intimate kiss from Fred. Karen took another sip of coffee, and realized that her hands were clutched tightly around the cup when she thought of it that way.

"Karilee, the bitch!" She muttered the name to herself, and then wondered if her brother had heard her. He did not look up from his bacon. Things had been so wonderful, and then the starting quarterback was injured, and then Fred was moved into the starting slot, and then Karilee, Fall Harvest Queen had moved into Fred's life. The only thanks that she'd gotten was victorious sarcasm from Karilee.

"Thanks for warming Fred up for me," she had purred as she passed Karen at her locker. "He was really great for me at the lake." Karen had already heard from the rumor mill how great it was. Fred's place as quarterback was now complete, with his not-so-Virgin Queen selecting him as her consort.

Now Fred was married to Karilee. Karen had seen them together at the memorial service; to her satisfaction, small town cooking had started to show on Karilee. The breasts, bigger than Karen's, were getting a bit sloppy. The waistline that seemed smaller than Karen's had now overtaken her. It even looked as though she was wearing a larger shoe size. This had flashed through Karen's mind when she should have been thinking Serious Thoughts, and she had shut off these ideas as unworthy.

The thoughts had come back to her as she dressed, however. In her old room, the teddy bear watched as she inspected herself in the mirror. She might not be a beauty queen, but she was staying in shape. Lingerie from one of the City's finer boutiques would add to the effect. She chose a cheering-up bra and panty set with lots of lace, then put on a serious-looking blouse and skirt. She was ready to go downtown. ---

At the law office, Fred was running late, but his secretary had the papers ready. Karen and her brother read them over. She found herself wishing that her mom and dad were still around to do this part.

Finally, Fred showed up. She hadn't gotten a very good look at him at the service. He was more mature looking than she had expected, and must have kept working out somehow, because he had stayed slim. She concentrated on listening to him explain what they had to sign, and on the details of signing, but every so often her memories kicked in.

"And lastly," she heard him say, "there's this note from your grandmother to you, Karen." He handed her a sealed envelope with her name written on it in a familiar old-fashioned hand.

"How odd," Karen blurted out. She reached out in a tentative way, and then took the envelope. Fred handed her a letter-opener, and she ripped into the flap. There was a short message; Karen read it silently, and then aloud:

"Dear K'ren (her grandma's nickname for her), since I do not have a safety deposit box. I have left some papers with Fred, including this letter. There is a ring of mine which I would like you to have. It is hidden behind the molding in the southwest corner of my bedroom.

I know that you will be careful with this ring, but you must not just treat it carefully, but also be careful in how you choose to use it. May it bring you as much pleasure as it brought me."

Beneath the message, she reminded Karen of her love, and then had signed in large, bold strokes.

Her brother started packing up his things, looking a bit miffed.

"I have to excuse myself now, because I've got to get back into the office. Can I drive you home now, sis?" Karen looked at her watch and realized that more time had passed than she had expected. Fred intervened, and pointed out that his next appointment was for lunch out at the country club. He could drop Karen by the house, and her brother could get right over to his office. ---

In the car, he laughed as he admitted that his real reason for volunteering the drive was to drop in and help her look for the ring. They talked the rest of the way about mutual friends. Karen noticed that he never mentioned his wife. As they rode along, she couldn't help but think of the drive out to the lake so many years ago. --- Their voices dropped to quiet tones as they entered her grandmother's bedroom. Fred knelt at the baseboard molding, and pulled at it every so far into the corner. There was a loose piece in the corner, which he pulled away, and there was an old-fashioned ring box tucked into a spot hollowed out in the plaster.

He handed it to Karen, almost shyly it seemed to her, without saying a word. She opened it and the ring glistened dully in its velvet nest. It needed polishing.

"Try it on," Fred urged. She did. It fit perfectly. She held her hand out to Fred, who took it in his. He held it steady as he inspected the ring. "Very nice on you," he murmured, and he let her hand go.

"I wish," thought Karen, "that he'd held on a few seconds longer." All the yearning from school days was coming back to her.

Fred took her hand again and kissed it.

"You look so good!" he exclaimed, stepping back to look her over fully.

"You do, too!" Karen blurted and blushed.

"I need to get going now," Fred hurriedly whispered. Karen thought that he looked sweet when he was trying to sound like he was in charge.

They went out of her grandmother's room, down the hall, towards the stairs, past Karen's old room.

"Just a minute, I want to show you something in our Senior yearbook." Karen and Fred had disagreed on the first name of a mutual acquaintance from school days in their recollections. She turned and entered her room. Fred stood in the doorway, watching her.

Her head spun with the thoughts of him; she remembered how she had spent nights, afternoons, mornings ("Hell, whole days," she mocked herself) dreaming about him in this room. She remembered Karilee's scorn; how Karilee's whole circle of friends had condescended to her after they took Fred in.

"I want him. Right here, right now! Too bad he's married to that bitch," she told herself, and then she started to reach to an upper shelf for the yearbook.

Somehow, Fred was right behind her now, embracing her and leaning his head over her shoulder to kiss her ear. His hands swept up from her waist and cupped her breasts through the blouse. As his embrace tightened, she felt the urgent pressure building below his belt, nuzzling her firm rear-end. He was unbuttoning her blouse.

She squirmed free long enough to turn and face him; the embrace resumed, two-sided now, as she ran her hands over his muscles.

Tiny, tentative kisses quickly turned into hungry explorations. They tried intermittently to get words out, but their passion carried them along without verbs. Her blouse opened, his hands caressed the mild curve of her tummy, and then his lips were tracing the lace of her bra.

His hands found the fastenings and her top went slack. Smoothly, he caressed his way under it to her left breast. He lifted the bra and kissed her gently along the side, being careful not to rush the nipple. Then he pulled away.

"This is where I'll start," he said quietly. Karen started to cry. Her tears ran down both their faces. This moment was so right and yet it was so wrong. And then she thought of Karilee.

"Let's slow down a bit," she gasped. Fred looked disappointed as he pulled back, still embracing her. He was taking this one way, but Karen had something else on her mind: just slowing things down and enjoying her ascendancy.

"Just sit down on the edge of the bed. I want you to enjoy watching me undress." The sexy City lingerie would finally get a chance to earn its way in the world.

Fred sat down, watching her intently. She had his complete attention; his luncheon was forgotten, but she enjoyed developing the replacement hunger. Her unbuttoned blouse framed her breasts. She leaned back a bit to take it off, letting her shoulders emerge and projecting the hardened nipples toward Fred at the same time. Her blouse slipped to the floor.

With a similar motion, the lacy confection which had held her breasts fell away. She put the eager points within inches of Fred's lips, and teased him by pulling away when he moved to kiss them.

Now topless in her business skirt, she twirled one turn and let Fred enjoy her curves. She knew how visual men are, but this was her first try at a complete strip tease. The growing effect on Fred was becoming obvious, as he moved to "straighten himself up."

She lowered the skirt slowly, watching his eyes follow it down her legs. They weren't "model" length, but they were long enough to be an asset, and she remembered that Bernard of long ago had loved to compliment them.

She stepped out of the skirt. His eyes ran back up her legs, and she smiled as he saw how eagerly he tried to make out her shape through the panty lace, all while he wanted to seem suave or cool. As she removed each stocking, his eyes followed the same path, always returning to his goal, and he blushed when he knew that she saw through his studied casualness.

"Now, I'm going to undress you," Karen purred. She moved close to him, letting him feel her warmth, and she unbuttoned and unzipped him as slowly as she could.

His briefs swelled up as the zipper went down, filling the gap she had opened. She let her hand graze over the cotton covering and saw his mixed reaction: the joy and pleasure of her touch, and the betraying fear of prematurely ejaculating from the thrill.

She worked her hands into his pants and pulled them away. They were down to their last coverings: his plain white briefs masking the male power building up beneath them, and her elegant lace radiating the feminine warmth that was about to capture all of his excitement.

She gently placed herself beside him on the edge of the bed, so that he could feel that warmth. They embraced, and his hand slipped over the lace, tracing it with his fingers, then holding the source of the heat in his hand.

It felt so beautiful, that Karen forgot Karilee for a while, as she accepted his kisses offered everywhere. Then the image of scornful Karilee flashed into her head one more time, and for a moment she found herself hoping that Karilee had been Fred's one and only bedmate- partly for health reasons, but really to make this moment especially thrilling... for both of them.

Karen leaned back on the pillows of her childhood, and raised her pelvis slightly. Fred's hand followed to the waistband of her panties. "Now, take me!" she whispered urgently. Fred responded with a quick tug of the elastic around her waist, and then trailed her last covering with kisses down those long legs. Karen lay there in her warm glory, her blonde hair showing against the pink flush of her skin.

He pulled away. She looked up at him, saw him outlined against the frilly curtains as the afternoon sun hit the window. He stretched the band of his briefs and stepped out of them. Now unrestrained, his penis swung upwards in a powerful movement, assuming the shape that she yearned to see. Initially, she had formed the idea that this would be a simple act of revenge on her part. She would fake excitement and bring Fred to a climax as quickly as possible, getting the deed done. But now, as he moved toward her, she realized that faking it would be unnecessary.

"Make this last, Fred!" she thought to herself. He knelt on the bed, and they again exchanged kisses, caresses, and whispered urgencies. Just when she began to want to get Fred into herself, he moved down and began kissing from her toes up. Leaving a cool, wet trail with his tongue, his kisses focused her mind on his approaching entry. Higher and higher along her legs, inside her thighs he kissed, and then his tongue was deep into her vulva, penetrating, swirling her senses, taking her to the edge. His kisses came back to her breasts, and then her lips again, as he positioned himself. All of the excitement which he shared with her had perfectly whetted her appetite for his entry. Her warm wetness merged with his own silvery flow to bring him smoothly in.

Nothing in her schoolgirl daydreams in this room had matched the glow that spread over her. Karen found herself visualizing the room from many angles, looked down from above the bed and saw her legs and arms wrapping over Fred's rippling back. His hips flexed in strong waves, moving in ancient rhythms, and she saw the warm colors of passion flow out from him into her.

The orgasm which she had told herself she would have to fake was there, stalking her, moving in on her, she realized. A part of her still did not want to enjoy this, wanted to gloat about Karilee, but suddenly the feeling of being a part of Fred, and him a part of her, overcame her, became more important than a victory celebration. She looked over his shoulder and saw her teddy bear looking blankly down, then she looked into Fred's eyes and saw his coming climax shining in them.

She blinked and closed her eyes and surrendered to the waves that washed over them. Fred exploded inside her. ---

They were drenched with sweat as Fred pulled himself from her. She held him in her vagina as long as she could, savoring the intimacy. Finally, he slipped out and lay beside her, their bodies cooling like sprinters laying on the grass after a race. Occasionally, one or the other of them carried the analogy further and stretched a leg muscle that threatened to tighten up. Karen kissed his chest, and Fred responded by tracing her shape with one hand, gently cupping her breasts as he passed them.

His fingers rested for a long time in the moist tangle of blondeness below her waist.

"I wish..." his voice started strong and trailed off.

"You wish what?" she asked. "Tell me."

"I don't know." He paused. "I guess that I wish that I had known you better a long time ago."

Karen smiled, wanted to cheer. But she stayed calm.

"It's just the ring," she said dismissingly.

"The ring?"

"Sure, didn't my grandmother's letter say that it would bring me pleasure?"

"It did. It brought you!" She was saying this to turn the conversation lighter, but on second thought, things had gone so very well. She looked down at the ring. "It must have been magic," Fred laughed, because I didn't believe that this would all happen so beautifully. I was going to suffer terrific performance anxiety with you." "With me?" now Karen laughed. "Yes, I had so many mixed feelings about you, about how I treated you back in school, about what would happen now...."

"Shhhh!" Karen raised her finger to his lips to silence him. He had said enough. "It really must have been the ring."

They both laughed again.

Just when it seemed that this moment could last forever, the grandfather clock chimed. Fred sat upright.

"My meeting!" he remembered.

"Can you call them and reschedule it?"

"I'll see." He stepped over to his coat and fished in it, pulling out a folding cellular phone. In a moment he was talking with the hostess at the country club, finding out if he could get word to his luncheon host. Karen watched him standing there, looking a bit incongruous - his naked body glistening, his voice all business on the phone. Suddenly, an idea occurred to her.

"What if the ring were kind of magic? Everything that I asked him to do, he did," she mused. It was a schoolgirl idea, of course, but it seemed easy to think that in this school days inner sanctum. She looked down at the ring and idly stroked it with one finger, enjoying the smooth metal.

"If it is going to be magic, I'd like to have him stay here a little longer." Her brother would not be back for quite a while. "This kind of revenge, if that's what it was, is sweet." She realized then that his abandoned host was now on the phone. If the ring was magic, it would have to work fast.

She sat up in the bed, and gave him her best effort at a come-hither look.

His male equipment hung loosely, but she tried to visualize it as being erect again. Was that how the ring had worked? She tried to visualize him saying that he'd have to make the luncheon another day.

And it worked. He looked up and smiled at her, acknowledging her presence for the first time since he had plunged into the business discussion. He must have thought that this was all that he was doing, but Karen saw his penis make a tentative, involuntary move, and then it began to struggle upward.

Karen grinned, climbed from the bed, and walked slowly toward him. She realized that her own body was doing more than acting. Her skin flushed and her excitement showed. He blinked, and the far-off telephone expression in his eyes changed suddenly, as he saw the dangerous weapons approaching him.

She circled him, as he tried in desperation to speed up the long-winded caller. Then she knelt at his feet and took kisses up his thighs, bringing his voice to a tremble as he realized where her lips were headed.

The target of her trail of kisses was not cooperating with the now frantic lawyer. She kissed its frantically working balls, and continued over their hairy curves. On her first contact with the base of his penis, it ignored his obvious mental order to behave, and the lazy erection shot up into the beautiful arc that she had seen earlier. She worked her kisses to its tip. Finally, after what seemed like ages, he had extricated himself with an urgent excuse, and disconnected the caller. They playfully raced to the bed, Fred reaching it first.