Freds Big Game

"Mf."

What's that? A pretty voice I don't quite recognize, off to my left...right where my elbow just went.

I open my eyes, and I don't recognize where I am. Sunlight shafts in through a window above my head, illuminating laundry baskets filled with folded laundry, a sliding closet door half-open on racks of sensible girlwear--nope, this is surely not my apartment. Carol's clothes were what she would call 'executive' and what the rest of the world would call 'whorish'. My eyes wander onto the dresser; a few cosmetics up there next to a small lighted mirror and a waitress' apron hanging from one of the dresser drawer pulls.

Waitress.

I turn my head, and see red-gold curls all over the pillow, next to me. I move my arm just a little, and yes, she is nude next to me, her breathing is even, she is so very warm and I'm struck with wonder that this beautiful woman would somehow be naked in bed with Fred. Sure, I've been able to pick up women, but....not good women. Not like Emma, the wet dream of every man in Jerry's Bar even before they'd had a drink and who bowls better than anyone I've ever seen. No, I mean women like...well, Carol.

Oh, yeah. Carol. Shit...I'm glad. I'm glad I caught her cheating, just getting away from her is best for both of us. This must be a regular thing for her, with her on business trips every week for three weeks and then one week off, the week she had her period.

So, I feel like a dupe about Carol, and court might get ugly. But I'm the happiest guy alive.

I roll toward Emma and brush her hair away from her face. She's got sleep dirt in her eye and she is still the most gorgeous woman I've ever been with, maybe even seen. She's been my barmaid for a couple of years--the gorgeous one, you don't dare flirt with her because she can kill you with a look--and this morning, early Christmas morning, I'd made her scream my name under her Christmas tree. I smiled to myself; I'd come down her chimney last night...

But now it's Christmas Day, and time to face the music.

I get out of bed quietly, so I don't disturb her, and I'm realizing as I reach for my pants that no, you do not slink away from a girl like this. I slip back into bed and run my cold big toe down Emma's shin.

"Mf..heh?" Emma's eyes didn't open.

"Emma?"

Her eyes snap open and fix on mine. "Here," she says, hoarse and groggy. "Fred...oh God, Fred, what did you do to me?"

I take her into my arms and we kiss--shallowly, for morning breath. She maneuvers her warm calves around my cold feet. "Brr, you've been up. Did you make coffee?" She gives me that glorious smile, wide and fun and summery.

"Do we have coffee?" I reply with a grin. I had been able to find very little in her kitchen last night for dinner, and I might have noticed coffee.

"Well, no, but I think you could make it out of nothing after that pasta, which you have to work off me by the way."

"We need more pasta," I tell her and she giggles against my neck. I run my hands along her slim side and am surprised at how wiry she is, the strength in her seeming fragility. It's reasonable; she was a pro bowler. My hand finds her waist, slides up to her shoulder, over her shoulder and ends cupping her left breast. Emma's eyes close and I feel a little tremor pass through her.

I press my hand against her, rubbing her breast against her chest but without a lot of friction to her nipple. Hers are really sensitive. She moans and then uncoils, all graceful and slow, and moves out of the covers as if surfacing. Her hand finds me already hard and she strokes and she kisses me and she is laying me back on the bed, her eyes on mine, still tugging my dick.

Emma straddles me. She pauses a moment, I feel her lift me and position--and then she's sliding onto me, a little at a time, and those blue blue eyes go vacant as she feels me in her. Now she is lifting, lifting forever and it's all I can do to keep my hips from rising to stay inside her, and now she slides down in one stroke and I gasp and run my hands along her hips.

"Ohhh, damn!" Emma yells, and she lifts herself off me without ceremony and runs to the dresser. "I hate these things." She tears open a condom and rolls it onto me, then she's back aboard before any loss of altitude. "They kill the mood, you know--unh..." I bottomed out in her and she threw her head back and drew in a long shaky breath.

Emma reaches out and grabs my wrists, stretches my arms above me, and holy shit, I really can't move. She has me, and she knows it, and now she's leaned way down onto me, and looking me in the eye, and smiling that smile, and she rocks her hips and grinds her mons against my pubic bone and I see her breathing catch, and she rises and lets go of my wrists and I get the full glare of that smile and...I...fight...but I lose, I have to lose when I see that smile widen and her blue eyes grow big. "Oh God Fred, yes, do it, come now--"

I feel myself blast like a shotgun inside her and the blast echoes throughout my body. I feel my guts wind like a catapult and warm chills all over as they release. All I see is Emma, riding me, grinning at me and glowing with the aura of a woman in happy coitus.

"Raise your legs," she tells me, and I do, and she is reclining back against my legs, kneeling backward, and I am still inside her, and now she is drawing little circles on her clitoris with one hand, spreading herself and occasionally dipping to the wetness between us, and she lays there spread for me, watching me watching her demonstrate her masturbation technique. She slides her fingers up and down now, along the sides of clit, and her breathing deepens. And now I've got enough wood just watching her that she can feel it inside her, and her eyes go vacant again and she wriggles on my dick. "Ohh--Fred--oh hold me baby?" and her arms are around my neck and I'm railing into her and she is gasping in my ear, and her 'unh's are raising both in pitch and in volume and I feel her gush onto me, I can't come yet, it's too soon, but it isn't and I do and I am, and I cry her name and I feel the condom overflow onto me as I spurt, shooting into her over and over and gradually slowing, Emma coming to rest with her head on my chest and making soft whimpering sounds and trembling.

"Baby, this thing is leaking all over..."

"Hm? Oh. Uh, yeah," Emma replies vacantly. "Take it off then."

"Um, most of it is still way up inside you."

"Huh? Oh!" She chuckles, then lifts herself off me. The condom goes with her, spilling the rest of my wonderful time onto my belly. I hold the condom while she rises and it pulls from her. Emma feels along the side of the bed and produces a wastebasket; I throw the rubber into the can and she drops it, then skootches down to lick my spend off my lower belly. I lay back and put my hand on Emma's head, stroking her hair, and begin to let sweet post-coital sleep take me, but I know I have things to do and stop myself. I lever my way to a sitting position, with my feet on the floor, and Emma slides into position beside me. "Going somewhere?" She bats her eyes coyly.

I sigh. "Yes, unfortunately, I have to."

I watch Emma's face fall, and it's heartbreaking. "On Christmas?"

I nod. "I have to see about my apartment."

"Well, Fred--" She broke off, and I looked at her, waiting. "Wow, I just really met you yesterday, and I'm about to ask you to move in with me. I'm crazy, huh?"

"Yes, Emma. You're crazy." I kiss her lips, and they're sticky; I taste myself on her. "And I would love to live with you. But," and I watch her eyes widen, "you don't have anything in my size. All my clothes are at my apartment."

"Oh, Fred... your wife is at your apartment."

"Ex-wife," I correct. "Yes, and I have to make sure she knows that she's out of there on the first of February, unless she decides to take over the lease. And that I'm out of there today. And that I need my clothes and bowling ball."

"You know it makes me worry, Fred," Emma told me, and her blue eyes clouded to a misty grey. "You'll talk to her, and you'll miss her, and she'll want you back, I know she will."

"Honey, you don't know the woman. I myself wonder how I stood her so long." I encircle Emma with my arm and kiss her, tender. "But if you want to, you can come with me."

I watch her eyes deepen to blue again. "I'd like to see where you used to live."

I love Emma's laughter. It makes even the crummiest stuff all right, like rounding the corner of my apartment building and finding all my stuff outside in boxes. She wastes no time in poking around inside the nearest box, which evidently has ties in it. She pulls out the bowling one, with a view down a lane at pins flying before a hurtling ball, and looks charmed beyond imagining. "Aw, it's a bowling tie! Was it a gift?"

I nod and she tweezes the tie between her thumb and index finger. I laugh. "My buddy Mark got that for me two years ago." Emma grins and pulls the tie to her, smelling my aftershave on it and looking beatific.

I take the tie from her and knot it around my neck, then take it off and hand it to her. She puts it on and tightens it over her coat, looking distinguished, and flashes me that big Emma grin and I feel all melty inside. We pick up boxes and take them to the car. I begin to load the car and she walks back for another load.

While I load I hear yelling, and look up to see Carol, pointing a finger at Emma and Emma backing away.

"Hey!" I yell. Carol turns to me and I see contempt in her eyes.

"Oh, is this yours?" she asks, indicating Emma. "I thought it was a garbage picker. But then," and she looked me up and down like some kind of specimen, "I guess it is. Aren't you, darlin'?" Carol gives her her best brat sneer. Emma doesn't move. "Well? Aren't you a garbage picker?" Carol gets in her face.

Emma just smiles. "I picked you, didn't I?"

There's a pause while Carol figures out she's been insulted. Emma has time to walk away and end it here but she doesn't move, and Carol takes a swing.

Emma looks like she never moves, and Carol is flying through the air. I can't tell what she did. But whatever it is, it looks effortless and launches a five-ten brunette through space. Carol lands in the snow on the lawn and she's up spoiling for a fight.

"Please, I don't want to fight," Emma tells her reasonably. She's smiling a little.

"Well I do." Carol flings a snowball at Emma and it hits me in the side of the head as I enter to break it up.

"Hey, enough!" I yell.

"Um, Fred, you need to move," Emma tells me softly. Carol looks at her.

"Why?" I ask her.

"Because you're going to be in the middle of a cat fight if you don't," she replies, and I hear the laugh in her voice as she stoops for a handful of snow.

"Okay then," I reply amiably, and back away. Carol's eyes follow me with a betrayed look; I realize she was counting on me breaking this up. Instead I look straight back at her. "Go on, you started it," I tell her.

"I thought you didn't want to fight," Carol asks her, her voice a bit uncertain now that no-one's going to rescue her.

"You said you did. I'm easy," Emma tells her with a grin.

"Yeah, well, obviously," Carol says snidely. Emma laughs.

"I never cheated on any of my boyfriends, let alone my husband," she responds. "At the Shady Rest during a snowstorm, hm?"

"Beats another night at home with this boring piece of shit nobody--Owww!" Emma's smile is gone and her snowball takes Carol high on the cheek. "Oww! No fair, I wasn't ready!"

"Ready enough to talk shit about someone I care for," Emma replied.

"He's my husband and you can't...have him!" Carol yells, and she throws herself at Emma, who just stands, watching her approach, and steps deftly to the side. She trips Carol into a snowbank.

"No fair, I wasn't ready," Emma tells her with a dollop of angry spite mixed into her sweet high voice. "Just like you're not ready to be married if you can't at least be nice to the poor guy you roped into doing it with you. Oh, and last night--I had him. Oh yeah."

Carol walks up to her--no more throwing herself at people just because they're smaller, I see--and pulls back her right arm to deck her, but before she can get that one away, Emma's own right connects with Carol's eye. I hear it from here and I hurt in sympathy; I know that's going to turn black and I know as sure as sunshine she will blame it on her abusive ex-husband. I pull out my cellphone and snap pictures, including a video clip of Carol circling Emma warily and Emma smiling and waving to the camera.

"Hi, Mom, this is me cleaning up the neighborhood!" she yells, and I laugh hard enough to shake the camera. Carol picks this opportunity to land a solid hit to Emma's chin, and Emma rocks for a beat.

"Hey, you hit me! Good one," Emma tells her amiably, and I think this is what turns Carol off of the fight entirely; for her it's personal, her pride is at stake, and for Emma it's...kind of like a car wreck on the freeway--you have to look, but it's no-one you know.

And now Carol rocks back, and again, and she is driven backward by a flurry of combinations. "Do it this way next time," Emma is telling her, "and you stay on your opponent's weak side, and if you're really lucky or your partner's really bad--" and she lets a punch fly solidly into Carol's side; her arms drop to protect her and she doubles over a little bit. I can't hear what she's saying now but I see her lips move. The women circle and as Emma nears me, I hear she is continuing Carol's boxing lesson.

"So you feint, like this--" and Emma's hard little fist snakes out toward the hurt place in Carol's side, and Carol drops her guard to protect that place and her jaw is bare. Emma's other fist darts out, fast but with arm behind it, and cracks against Carol's chin, snapping her head back, and I see that suddenly no-one is there behind Carol's eyes. "--and boom." Emma steps behind Carol and catches her, easing her to the snowy concrete. A quick look at the puffs of steam blowing into the cold air from Carol's nostrils, and a feel of her neck for a pulse, and Emma straightens to face me, her face rueful. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Ladies don't box; it's unladylike."

I step forward and, grabbing her wrist, raise her arm in the classic victory. "The Winnah!" I take her in my arms. "I bet you could kick my ass."

"Maybe," she says quietly, looking deep into my eyes, "but I haven't seen you do a damn thing to deserve it. She egged me on, she told me she wanted to fight me, I begged her--"

To my surprise, she's crying a little. I kiss her tears away. "I know, I saw. She wouldn't have let it come to anything other than you or her stretched out on the ground." I look at Carol, still out cold. "It happened just right, baby, you tried to make her better even while she was trying to bring you down. Where'd you learn to fight like that anyway?" But I know what she will say as soon as I ask, and we answer together. "PBA tour." Emma used to be a professional bowler, and seems to have learned everything about being a great wife on tour with the PBA.

Emma laughs and wipes her tears away. "Fred, you know me! That's sweet. Where's your rock?"

"My what?"

"Bowling ball, didn't you say--"

"Oh yeah, that's not here." I feel for my car keys, and for certainty I take Carol's keys. "Let's go look. I'll give you the tour."

We take the stairs rather than the elevator; it's shorter for only two flights so I take them all the time. Emma doesn't seem tired by the climb but she is shaking from adrenaline withdrawal. At my apartment the knob looks new; sure enough, my key doesn't work. I try hers and we're in.

"Everything okay? Are they gone?" A naked man steps out of the bedroom, sees me, and freezes.

"Yeah, they're gone," Emma tells him, smirking. "Put something on, okay?"

He puts his hands in front of his dick, and he's shaking. His eyes are big and he can't look away from me. I spread my hands, showing him the palms. "Relax, buddy. Frank Caswell, I take it?"

He nods, speechless.

"Listen, I don't think you know just what Carol is. I know you won't listen to this, but you ought to do yourself a favor and run away from her." He looks panicky and I continue. "I mean, she's not a nice person. I don't know how long you guys have been doing this, and I don't really care to now. But she's a beautiful woman--" I feel Emma's light punch on the side of my arm. "--And you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Frank..." I drew a breath. "I'll tell you right now that I'm sorry, to save me the trouble later. Now if you'll excuse me," and I step past him into the bedroom, into the closet where a good deal of someone else's duds are already hanging. On the floor in the corner I find my bowling bag, and I heft it out. I snag a few of my outfits and carry them on the hangers, and my good shoes, which go in a box under my bowling-bag arm. As I leave the bedroom Emma takes the shoes.

"Bye, Frank," I tell him, and walk out the door, Emma in tow. I hear her chuckle all the way down the stairs.

Carol is ringing for the elevator as we walk past, and she faces Emma with wide eyes. Emma walks up slowly. "You know, I didn't want this," she tells Carol. "I begged you not to fight me. That didn't mean I can't fight."

"Yeah, well, you and your boyfriend get to pay me alimony." She sneered at me. "What have you got there?"

I shrug and show her. "I bought you that bowling ball," she says, as full of spite as I ever heard her--which is quite a lot. "You can't have it."

"I bought you that dress," I tell her. "I want it back. Now."

"Fuck you. I'll see you in court over this. She assaulted me."

I hold up my phone. "I got movies, Carol."

The elevator door opens and she steps inside. "You know what, Fred? You're a lousy lay as well as a dumb gullible son of a bitch."

"God, you're a liar," Emma chips in, and with a dagger look Carol gets in the elevator and the doors close.

I turn to Emma, and I see that fun, sunny grin and she takes me arm. Her eyes are blue as the overhead sky on a summer afternoon. "You're incredible, Emma," I tell her. "I wish I could have seen you on that tour." I think of her on tour, learning how to suck cock and fight. "I bet you had a boyfriend, huh?"

"No, not exactly," she replies. "I had a few guys I slept with but no boyfriends...just a girlfriend." Her voice falls very low when she says this.

"A...girlfriend?" I think of Emma with another woman and the thought goes straight to my crotch.

"It wasn't a good breakup," Emma told me, and her blue eyes clouded. "She's the reason I left the tour." She chances to look down at my crotch, and a laugh escapes her. "You fuckin' pervert! Anything that smacks of lesbian sex and your tail's a waggin'."

I don't address this; I just get in the car and open her door. "What was her name?"

"Genevieve," she replies. "Same as the girl who runs the skinny-bar outside town. But no relation."

"Genevieve. Pretty name."

"I told her I'd name my first girl that. But it started to look like there'd be no family, no man around the house, and I'd be Emma Grossberger forever. I couldn't do that, and Gen needed that. So I left the tour, and spent the next two years single. There was one guy I liked right when I got into town, but it turned out he was married and no-one else looked as good."

I'm embarrassed by this.

"So now, two years later, here I am with the guy I dreamed about. I used to listen to you talk about stuff with Tony whats-his-name, the playboy guy? I always laughed at your jokes, when you weren't looking." She pauses. "That guy's a whore, you know?"

I shrug as we get into the car. "Tony's a good guy."

"I know," she says. "He's your good friend."

"How do you know that, little girl?" I raise an eyebrow at her. Emma chuckles and pins me with that blue gaze and that heartbreak smile.