Solitary Susan

Warning: This is a tragic romance. A big thank you to my editor, Blackrandl1958.

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I liked to be alone. I lived alone, and I wanted to stay that way. I was off the grid as much as possible. I enjoyed being all alone and hidden away in Brooklyn, in New York City. I used a false name, and I paid my rent in cash. The landlord liked it; I suspected he was a tax cheat. Not my problem.

The one problem was getting money. You need a lot of money to pay the rent and live alone in New York City. I worked, so I needed a bank account. That had to be in my real name, thanks to the Patriot Act of 2011, passed after 9/11. My banking address was of course my parents' home upstate.

Perhaps ironically, I worked at a digital privacy company. I am gifted with computers. I used one at home, but I fixed it so that it could not access the Internet, and the Internet could not access it. My home was my private place. It was my very private place.

People thought I was paranoid, but I wasn't. You're not paranoid if someone truly is out to get you. In my case, someone was.

I grew up in a large family. I was the only girl. I have four older brothers and two younger ones. As soon as I was old enough, I was helping my mother manage the family. I cooked, cleaned, did housework, and basically, I did the work of a stay at home housewife of the 1950s. I even did the laundry and made the beds of my six brothers on a daily basis. Somehow the idea of helping me out by making their own beds escaped my brothers' minds.

I was changing the diapers of my youngest brother when I was eight years old. I did however have one brother whom I liked. He was Ray, and he was one year older than I. He and Lucas (who was two years older) looked after me. Both of them grew to over six feet, and I was five feet three inches at my tallest, so they viewed me as their little sister and always protected me in the best fraternal sense. Ray and I became really good friends.

When Halloween came, I sewed them all costumes. My mother had taught me how to sew and she had the world's best sewing machine. I also learned how to apply make-up, and made up each and every one of them for Halloween. Later, when I was in high school, I joined the theater company, and I helped in both wardrobe and make-up.

Nevertheless, my dream growing up was always to be left alone. I was living my dream.

It was hard growing up being the only girl in a family with six boys. The brothers did nothing, with the qualified exception of Ray. I cleaned their rooms. I cooked their meals and I made their school lunches. Then, as my body changed into the body of a woman, privacy became a concern. I was always nervous that one of my brothers would spy on me when I was taking a shower. I always locked the bathroom door when I was in the shower, but one time when I was done, the door was not only unlocked, but a little bit open.

After that I always took my showers at the home of my girlfriend Betty Ann. Betty Ann had told her mom that I had six brothers, and that was all she needed to know. Her mother understood my problem immediately, and I never had to explain in any detail. I loved Betty Ann's mom.

Our own bathroom had a lock on the door, but you could easily open it if you knew to push the tip of a ball point pen in just the right place on the doorknob. My bedroom door was similar, so when I became aware of the significance of having the body of a woman in a testosterone filled home, I became a locksmith. My breasts became fairly large when I was only 14. All my brothers noticed. They just kept on growing until I was 20. Now they are large indeed.

I installed such a sophisticated lock on my bedroom door that my brothers would have had to break down the door to get inside my bedroom. My breasts alone were a huge temptation. I could tell by the way they leered at me.

The one exception was Ray. I learned much later he was gay. That explained, at least to me, why we became so close. I still love gay men most of all. I love gay culture, the way they dress, the way they dance and the way they celebrate being alive.

I now use my hard-learned cleaning skills to keep my apartment immaculate. Everything is in its place, and everything shines, literally, it's so clean. I help out the landlord with my locksmith skills when they are needed. The landlord calls upon my talents surprisingly often, since he owns four buildings, all divided up into apartments. Tenants lock themselves out with alarming regularity. I get called, and I let them in. I now keep a set of keys to all of his apartments, which makes everything easier. However, if need be, I can easily break into almost any apartment. I have all the tools of a house burglar.

The skills I learned as a child are now quite handy. My own apartment is a fortress. It would be easier to enter it through the wall then it would be to enter it through the steel lined front door. I also have well hidden, yet extensive, electronic surveillance of both the inside and the exterior.

When I became interested in sex I was already in college. Given the example of my mother giving birth practically every year, I decided that copulation was not for me. I avoided any chance of getting pregnant simply by remaining a virgin. Instead, I became a world class expert at blowjobs. Great blowjobs can keep a man happy for quite a while before he insists on conquering the girl with his cock pumping away inside her. Consequently, my relationships with men were always of a limited duration.

The men would get all the blowjobs they wanted, but they never, ever got to fuck me. Nevertheless, they had to get me off too, or I would dump them. With those men I did not dump, I was fingered and pleasured with their tongues until I would come.

For the blowjobs, I was considered to be good. That's an understatement. I had quite a reputation, in fact. I would tease the men slowly, taking my time, licking their balls, tickling their cocks with my fingers, then licking the sides as if their cocks were lollipops. A specialty of mine was to hum while I sucked their balls. Men seemed to love that.

Of course, what the men seemed truly to love, every single one of them, was my deep throat skills. I could bypass my gag reflex with the alacrity of a porn star. Truth be told, I could have been a porn star: I have the body, and I have the fellatio skills. I suppose I could fuck, too. On the rare occasions when I have fucked, I find that quite naturally I moan loudly. Men seem to love that. Good.

I think my secret was that I actually liked giving the men blowjobs. I liked the feeling of power I had over them. The men would put their most prized and sensitive possession in my teeth filled mouth. All I would have to do is to bite down hard and all hell would rain down on them. The human jaw generates 55 pounds of pressure with the incisors, and 200 pounds with the molars.

Maybe men don't know that, or at least they don't think of it. They trust us women. Women are sweet beings after all. We're taught to be submissive, to smile a lot and to think men are wonderful. Wrong! That's not the case if the girl was the only girl among six boys when she was growing up, during her formative years. I never acted out. I gave them all wonderful blowjobs and men loved me for it.

There was one time I made a mistake. I got drunk at a party. I was a healthy young woman, and I had desires and sexual needs like anyone else. A man, Bob his name was, took me outdoors, into the woods behind the house where the party was, and we began to make out. He was good looking, very masculine, and I was kind of into him. I let him get me naked, which I think surprised him. I prepared to give him my signature blowjob, but he had other ideas.

It was not nonconsensual. It was more of a surprise. He took my virginity that night, and I could tell he was surprised when he broke through my hymen. That was the night that I learned that I'm a natural moaner when I fuck, and I moaned really loud. Another couple came to investigate, and they watched us fuck, which surprisingly turned me on all the more. I screamed a small scream when I climaxed. At the end Bob pulled out, and I engulfed his cock and swallowed his load.

I knew he did not come inside me, but I was nevertheless terrified of becoming pregnant. The very next day I did two things: I decided no longer to drink, or at least to limit myself to one drink in social settings. I saw a doctor and went on the pill. I was lucky and did not get pregnant. After that, I made no more mistakes. I was deflowered, and kind of glad that I was no longer a virgin. I knew what fucking was, and I felt that I could easily survive without it.

Also, to be a good porn star a girl needs lots of flexibility; not every girl can fuck with her ankles around her head. I can do that, too, I discovered. I did not want to discover such a talent. The discovery was forced upon me, you might say.

The way I learned how talented I am at fucking is not a story I want to share in detail. The time with Bob did not teach me much; I just lay on the ground with my legs spread while Bob ravished me. Afterwards I knew what fucking was, and I knew how thrilling it was to orgasm with a man's cock deep inside me. That is, however, about all that I knew.

One guy in college, Jim, took me to his room off campus. I did my usual thing, and gave him a naked blowjob, and one to remember. In exchange, I expected to be pleasured too, in any way at all except copulation in my pussy.

Men always liked it when I was naked. I tried to please. That was not enough for Jim. I told him if he truly needed to fuck me, he could take me in my ass, but my pussy was strictly off limits. My pussy was Verboten. Niente. Nada. No. I let him know I was up for most anything, just not traditional fucking. He did not accept my refusal. I tried to leave, and he stopped me.

I was date raped. It's not a pretty story how it happened, but it happened. Suffice it to say afterwards I was black and blue and my left eye was swollen shut. After the date rape, I staggered home to my dorm room, but before I got there I stopped off at Best Buy and Home Depot. Before I went to sleep that night, I had serious locks on the doors and windows, and electronic surveillance outside the room. I also had a can of mace.

My precautions seemed prudent, because since I was such a "great fuck," Jim wanted more. One night a few days later he came over at 4AM with the intent of getting into my room and enjoying my body again. He looked to be drunk. He never stood a chance. I called campus police, and since I had time stamped videos of him trying to enter my room, eventually he was expelled from the school.

I learned the meaning of a Pyrrhic victory. He was expelled, but now he no longer just wanted more sex, he wanted sex plus some brutal revenge on my body. I spent a lot of energy trying to be safe from Jim. He stalked me.

I tried to get a court order, but that was not easy, and I could not afford a lawyer, so it did not work. My safety from Jim became up to me. I became a ghost. People never saw me walking from one place to another, I just appeared. I went to all my classes, but when class was over, I was in the wind. I always carried mace.

That's a long preamble to the beginning of this story. After college, I moved to New York City, and I lived alone there. Protected by my carefully cultivated anonymity, I was also chaste. My solitary life allowed for no fucking, no blowjobs, and basically no men. I was still on the pill, because you never know. My stalker was still after me, I heard, but my strategy seemed to work well to hide me.

I knew that Jim had hired a private detective to hunt me down. I had my own spies. Fortunately, private detectives in the modern age use electronic tools. All leads led him to my parents' home upstate. My parents live in Plattsburg, far upstate in Clinton County, with a house fronting Lake Champlain. It's near the Canadian border. He decided that's where I was. I was betrayed by a neighbor of my parents who told Jim he thought I had moved to New York City.

Probably I should mention that I am considered to be pretty and sexy. I think my serious bust must have something to do with it. I'm small, and skinny, and sometimes I feel as if half my body weight must be in my breasts. When I dress for the evening, which is rare, my outfits invariably show a lot of boob. Why not? If you've got it, flaunt it; that's my motto.

Even if I wear slacks and a turtleneck sweater, my boobs are so prominent I still get a lot of looks, just when I walk down the street. I could dress grunge, and hide my body, but I don't want to do that. That's twenty years out of style. I get pleasure from looking nice.

One night I felt in a celebratory mood. It doesn't matter why; I had some success at work, and let's leave it at that. I took myself out to dinner. New York has a lot of restaurants, and one can find most any cuisine, from Moroccan, to Peruvian, to Ethiopian, to Tibetan. Despite this panoply of exotic cuisines, and despite the ubiquity of Chinese, Mexican, and Indian cuisines, my favorite is Italian. I don't mean pizza. I mean real Italian food. In New York, which was largely settled by Italians, there is a plethora of choice among restaurants serving fine Italian cuisine.

I took myself out to a nice one, accompanied with a good book. I ordered a bottle of Chianti Classico, some cacio e pepe pasta as my primi (first course), and then I ordered fegato (calf's liver) cooked with sage, as my secondi (main course). I had finished the pasta and was waiting for my secondi when a handsome man entered the small restaurant and joined my table. He was dressed in state of the art Brooks Brothers. It's not my taste, but nevertheless he looked nice. He had a hunky body, and I like that in a man.

I always watched single men enter, just in case one of them was my stalker. What was special about this one was his eyes. He took in the entire restaurant in a mere second, finding me sitting alone with no place setting for someone I might be expecting. A single woman, alone, who was 50% boobs. He made a beeline for me.

There was more to his eyes. He was trying to hide it, bravely maintaining a front, but I could tell that behind the veneer of Hail Fellow Well Met, there was a true desperation in his eyes. Women like mysterious men, and I am very much a woman. I admit it: I was intrigued.

I always sit in restaurants with my back to the wall and facing the entrance, just in case my rapist Jim was to enter. It was nice to see this man enter who was the antithesis of Jim. He came directly to my table and sat down across from me in the empty chair. I was not expecting this, but he was not Jim, and it's hard to faze me, so I simply said, "Good evening."

He said, "Good evening miss. Excuse me for barging in on your meal, but I'm desperate. I'm being hunted, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could pretend I'm your date tonight."

"I'm Susie," I said extending my hand. I was enjoying the man's bizarre way of meeting a girl. I admired the creativity of the line he was using. So, I decided to play along for a while.

"Mark," he said, and then he leaned across the table and he kissed me. It was a nice kiss.

"You're doing a good job pretending we're dating, Mark," I said. "Do you often barge into restaurants and kiss strange women?" Truth be told, I was amused at this strange new development. At least he kissed well.

Mark blushed. The waiter came over and asked Mark what he'd like. He realized I was waiting for my main course, and he said, "I'll have the same as my pretty friend Susie, please."

"You're laying it on a little thick," I said to Mark once the waiter had left.

We got to talking. Mark was mysterious. He was on the run, but he could not tell me from who, or why. I'm not the best judge of people, as my story about my rapist and stalker should demonstrate, but nevertheless I believed him. "In this day and age, it's hard to hide, isn't it?" I observed.

"Yes, very," Mark said. "If I'm lucky, I'll survive the night. Once I'm found, I'm toast. This meal will help; I haven't eaten for the last 48 hours, and as a consequence I am weakening."

We continued to talk, and I learned a lot about him, although nothing relevant to explain why he was on the run. All I could conclude with any certainty was that he had a nice face, a nice, muscular body and he kissed well. It was fun having such a dramatic companion for dinner, and I found my mood brightening in his company. He ate his fegato with the gusto of a man consuming what may very well be his last meal. It was also delicious, for what that's worth. We both had tiramisu for dessert.

He treated me to dinner, saying it was the least he could do to compensate for having barged into my quiet peaceful solitary meal. I had to agree, and I let him treat me. He paid in cash, a smart move I guess if one is on the run. I also let him walk me home. I had told him I live alone. Very alone.

When we got to my apartment in deep Brooklyn, I asked him if he had a place to stay for the night. He confessed he did not. I offered to hide him in my apartment. He said he did not want to place me in any danger. I explained that I was off the grid, and hiding out at my place was probably the next best thing to disappearing. He came upstairs with me, and we went inside. He saw the quality locks on my door and on my windows. He looked at me quizzically.

I told Mark the sordid story of my stalker, but only the broad outlines. Mark was horrified, gave me sympathy and then reached over and held my hand in a comforting gesture. It worked. That simple gesture melted my hardened heart. I felt as if I were 19 again (I was 24 at the time of this story).

I never thought I would have a man in my apartment, which for me was my sanctuary, but I was glad to help Mark. I realized he could be a criminal, or a terrorist, on the lam from government forces. He could also be a rapist, and cleverly had manipulated me into inviting him into my apartment. Despite these fears, he seemed like a good person to me, a good man in fact, and sometimes a girl just has to rely on her own judgement. I kept my can of mace close at hand, however. It seemed prudent.

Mark had what appeared to be the briefcase of a lawyer or a businessman, and from within it he removed a toothbrush and a nightshirt. I let him change in the bathroom, and while he was in the bathroom, I changed in the living room.

Since I live alone, I am not accustomed to worrying about modesty, and I realized my nightshirt was in fact a bit suggestive. I looked in the wall mirror, and I could see the outlines of my large boobs, the image of my nipples poking at the nightshirt, and since it was thin and white, I could see the shadow of my pubic hair around my pussy, too. Shit. This was not just a bit suggestive. It was full out suggestive!

As I was looking at my image with disapproval, Mark emerged from the bathroom. I turned to face him, and I could see his eyes widen, and his mouth smile. He said nothing. We just stared at each other, and finally he said, "I am very grateful you're helping me. You looked beautiful at dinner, and you are still beautiful now. Sexy too, if you do not mind me saying it. Mostly you are kind to help me."

"I'm sorry about my nightshirt. I live alone, and I did not ever realize until tonight how revealing it is. I have a vow of chastity, Mark. Can you respect that?"

"Yes, of course," Mark said. "Where should I sleep?" There was only one bed, and I did not have a couch, or an air mattress, or much of anything. At least my bed is a double bed. Mark volunteered, "The floor is fine."

"We can share the bed, Mark," I said. "But all we're to do is sleep, okay?"