Paths Straight and Twisted

Each part of this story has quite distinctive erotic characteristics. While the chapters can be read and, hopefully, enjoyed in isolation, they are meant to be part of an evolving and complex whole. I hope you will take the time to read them as intended.

I await, as always with thanks, your comments and evaluation.

With Regards, Benultimo.

***

At long last Inge was coming, and her arrival was only a few weeks away. I had longed for the day to arrive, but now that it was near, I was filled with trepidation. And it was not because my involvement with Gertrud had ended. It was never meant to be -- for me and especially for her -- more than a brief, enjoyable diversion.

My main concern about Inge was that I was so unsure about her true feelings for me. This uncertainty had a history. I had fallen in love with Inge three years ago at home in Austria. Then, could never be sure that Inge felt the same about me. And indeed, I finished up getting hurt.

Now, as a young woman, after years of writing to each other, Inge had decided to come to Australia. I hoped that she came to be with me and that we would get married. But could I be certain or was I again deceiving myself about her loving me?

Her coming confronted me with two equally likely possibilities. If Inge came to be with me, we would be in unison were joined from the beginning. However, if her reason for coming to Australia were like mine had been, she was simply following an example I had set. In this case, it would only give me a chance to win her affection while I helped her settle in. Beyond thanking me for that, Inge would not be committed to me in any way.

About what it was going to be, I was uncertain. If I remember rightly, Inge's letters had always been circumspect about what she wanted and what part I had in her life. In retrospect, I can no longer be sure that Inge and I exchanged love-letters. I believed we did because my letters were.

Anyway, my preparations for Inge's coming were based on hope. I wanted us to be as one from the day of her arrival! I have already described how this expectation had motivated me to reform. I had secured a Public Service job, saved some money, enrolled in night-school. I was confident I was laying foundations on which a future with a loved woman could be built.

I had also left the rooming-house I had lived in for more than two years and rented a bungalow. It was nearby, located in a backyard-garden, and consisted of a large main room, a kitchenette and shower. For Inge, I managed to tentatively arrange a sales job with a Continental butcher in Acland Street. Josef's latest girlfriend, Dorothy and her mother had a spare room to rent. I secured it for Inge's arrival.

All this marked me as a conventionally decent, young man, doing all the right things. As I have said, I was uncertain about Inge's feeling for me. What I did for her on arriving in Australia was what I thought was necessary.

Regarding what was to come, I lived in hope, not certainty. I also did not realise that I may have imperilled my chances of gaining Inge's affection in making these preparations.

Inge was not a mail-order bride. I had no right to assume she came to Australia for my sake. Unasked, I took it for granted that she wanted to come to Melbourne, to live in St. Kilda, and to be collected from the boat by me. All this could have been -- it probably was - for Inge an irritating imposition. I saddled her not only with indebtedness to me but with arrangements that restricted her freedom to make her own choices.

When I collected Inge from the liner down on Station Pier, there were already signs that matters were not as I had hoped.

As with all boat-arrivals, individuals in the expectant crowd on the pier searched for a familiar face and a first excited wave of recognition from somebody leaning over the ship's railing. It was a fixed ritual of arriving in port after a long journey and separation.

I must have moved up and down the ship's side for about twenty minutes. The gangways were already put in place before I saw Inge. She gave me a small wave. When she finally disembarked, Inge came down the gangway with a group of young people, in animated conversation with them. A young man had his arm loosely around her, his hand resting on Inge's hip. They were obviously friends she had made on the journey.

Could they not have farewelled each other adequately before?

Inge was the only one among their group that was being met. I am not sure whether my welcoming her left her indifferent or embarrassed. We shook hands, said a few words. Then Inge turned back to her friends to join in their chatter. I had no chance to say anything, much less to give Inge a hug or a kiss. We had not seen each other for more than three years. Since then, we had exchanged more than a hundred letters. But now, this was not what I had hoped for and - I felt - had a right to expect.

Inge settled in well and quickly. Her English, a bit hesitant at first, was quite good. The Acland Street butcher was happy to employ her; she would work in his shop during Inge's four-year stay in Australia. She and Dorothy became close friends; they remained so until Dorothy's premature death from cancer some twenty-five years later. I mention this here to show that the arrangements I had made for Inge worked well. They suited her.

Regarding work and everyday life, Inge was not adventurous or a risk-taker. While coming to Australia was her one big adventure, she immediately chose a settled existence. She was, as the rest of her life would show, what I know about it, a model of conventional steadiness.

During the first few weeks after arriving, Inge saw quite often a young man. I had noticed him in the group as they disembarked on arrival. She never said anything about him, making it clear that she did not owe me an explanation.

Through Josef, I learned that he had turned up at our rooming-house, where Josef still lived, to meet Inge. As she did not know about my new address at departure, it was evident that she had given it to him. Inge obviously didn't care if he turned up at my place to meet her. It showed that she was indifferent about how I would feel about it, and wanted me to know it. Or was Inge, as she had done once before, playing a hurtful game?

Inge should have told me how she felt about me. If it was too hard for her, which was unlikely the way she behaved, I should have been brave enough to ask. But I had invested too much hope and longing in Inge to just let her go. I persevered with courting her in a very old-fashioned way. I brought her flowers, bought gifts, took her out for dinners and drives to the country.

A few weeks later, on a Saturday night, we went dancing. Inge was in good spirits and quite affectionate. I was happy and proud. In my eyes, she was the most beautiful and desirable woman in the Club on this night, and she was mine. She seemed to have made up her mind about us. She came home to my bungalow to stay the night.

It would be our first night together as lovers, and I was shy and more than a little afraid. Before going to bed, we kissed and petted for a while in a very similar way we had fondled and kissed four years ago. Like then, I feared going too far and getting rejected. With Inge, all the insecurities and inhibitions that I thought I had overcome, were still painfully present.

But what about Inge? I knew nothing about her sexual experiences. On arriving back in my bungalow, Inge's unresisted but casual kisses and the stiffness of her body in my arms gave nothing -- or too much - away.

However, it was Inge who eventually moved us towards the bed. Slipping out of her shoes, she asked me to turn away so that she could undress. I did, and also undressed. When I joined Inge in bed, she asked me to turn off the light. Her requests were given in the calm voice of a woman for whom this was a familiar routine.

When I lay down next to her, I neither met any hesitancy nor a warm welcome. Taking her into my arms, I must have stammered; the words tumbling out, trying to tell Inge how much I loved her and wanted her. Everything I said was charged with the fear of rejection. I sought a confirming answer in a kiss. But my tongue probed too impatiently, and Inge turned away her face. Giving a sigh, she said in a hushed voice: -

"It's all right, Alf. I am going to sleep with you."

For a long, long time after this first night with Inge, my mind was troubled by regrets and questions. Why did I not say 'No Thanks', the way I would have done with any other woman that was clearly so disinterested? The difference was that I was in love with Inge. Perhaps, I hoped that Inge's sexual disinterest in me was a pretence that I could sweep away by making love to her. She had, after all, declared herself willing.

My reaction to Inge's so apparent sexual indifference was unsurprising. I had gone limp; my cock was much wiser than my obsessive mind. I had the naked, svelte body of the woman I had desired for years next to me in bed and not even the beginning of an erection.

Kissing Inge's reluctant lips lit no fire. She did not resist when I ran my hands all over her body and kissed her breasts. When I parted her thighs and -- for the first time ever -- touched her sex, Inge gave no sign of discomfort. She had consented to be fucked, but gave not even a hint of excited anticipation.

Still, I must have derived pleasure from getting to know Inge's naked, beautiful body. Eventually, I was almost hard. I knew nothing about Inge's sexual past, she could have been a virgin. She was not. It was her hand that, centimetre by torturous centimetre, matter-of-factly, assisted me in entering her cunt. Without her help, I would have failed.

I had penetrated her, but we failed to fuck. It was my mind, my major sexual organ, that decided to end what should not have been begun. My dirty mind always found it easy to invent an enticing scenario to support masturbation. However, the reality of Inge's frigid compliance, no imagination could overcome.

The situation we found ourselves in that night was not sexy but sad. We fell asleep, and after a silent breakfast in the morning, Inge went home. We had found no way to talk about what was happening between us.

Through Josef's relationship with Dorothy, I found something out about Inge's past that put much that mystified me in a new light. Dorothy and Inge had quickly formed a close friendship and, as women seem to be readier to do than men, confided in each other.

As I related earlier, Inge's coming to Australia had been delayed for almost eight months. All her letters had been vague and evasive about the reasons. Now I learned that Inge had during part of this time been in a relationship. But then, her lover had been killed in a car crash. Inge told Dorothy that this loss had been for her, the reason for leaving home and coming to Australia.

Hearing this shocked me out of my illusionary dreams. I suddenly saw that everything I had believed about Inge's reasons for coming to Australia had been a construct of my wishful thinking. Even in the first throes of pain, I did not blame Inge for living a life independent of my dreams and wishes. I accepted that after falling-in-love, she would not have joined me in Australia. But I was bitter and deeply hurt by what I then saw as her falsehood in not telling me. I felt used and toyed with.

I did not admit to Inge that Dorothy had talked and that I knew. Despite my hurt state of mind, I continued to see Inge. I still hoped, despite our first night together, to overcome Inge's sexual indifference to me.

Some weeks later, on a beautiful warm Sunday, I took Inge down the Ocean Road for a day on the beach. Returning home to my bungalow, we had a shower to wash the sand and salt off our skin. I prepared a light meal. Then, enjoying some wine, sun-soaked happy and relaxed, we talked and laughed, and eventually, were playfully petting. And Inge seemed at ease and to be less disinterested in being seduced than last time. When my tongue teased over her luscious lips, they opened slightly, and her tongue even began to meet mine with playfully reproving flicks.

After the shower we had dressed again in the light summer clothing we had worn all day. When my hand slid under Inge's top, I discovered that she had not put her bra back on. I began to caress Inge's firm, shapely breast under the covering cloth. As her nipple hardened under my now clearly unresented touch, she offered me her lips with a sigh. I savoured these small tokens of interest from her as a small victory. However, I was determined not to go any further, unless Inge encouraged me to do so. So, I stopped.

I made coffee; we sat opposite each other. We again chatted about innocuous things, unrelated to our unresolved sexual tensions. It was a warm, star-filled, Australian summer night. The big window of my bungalow faced out to the garden with its fruit trees. The window was wide open to cool the room down from the day's heat. Inge and I sat in the slowly darkening, lights-off so as not to attract the bugs. I asked her: -

"Do you want to stay, or should I drive you home now?"

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes, but only if you want to."

Inge seemed to shrug her shoulder. There was nothing flirtatious in her voice: -

"OK. I'll stay. You'll have to take me home early tomorrow morning. I'll have to be in the shop by eight-thirty."

We quickly undressed. In the semidarkness, I could see the contour of Inge's tall, beautifully proportioned body; her long shapely legs, her broad hips and narrow waist, and her high, firm breasts. Standing very upright, facing me, the lighter outline of her panties accentuated in the low light the rest of her body. Inge looked at me. She knew how much I wanted to look at her like this. Then, unhurriedly, she lay down on the bed. The night was too hot for coverings.

My bed was a low, single bed. I decided this time that I would not immediately lay down with her. I would wait until Inge would draw me to her. I knelt down next to the bed. Inge lay on her back and made no move to turn away from my hands and lips as they searched all over her face and body for a welcoming response. While there was no cringing away from my touch, Inge gave no sign of being greatly aroused by my caresses. However, her prominent nipples had hardened and peaked under my tongue and gentle bites. Her arms and hands Inge kept on her sides, except when my mouth brushed in passing over her panties-covered pubes. Then they almost reached for my head every time.

Were they waiting to push me away if I lingered? I needed to find out. So, I let my lips hover, almost touching, over Inge's cloth-covered pussy. I was aroused, breathing heavily onto it as Inge grabbed my head. She was neither pushing me down nor away. Encouraged, I pressed my mouth on the spot covering her clitoris. Her groin bucked against my face, and Inge gave a half-stifled cry. Her hands shook, hesitated, before pushing me away. Then, without a word, Inge turned and threw herself on her belly.

With her arms now crossed above her head, she was lying still. I offered no apology. For the first time ever, I knew that I had aroused Inge. If what we were engaged in was foreplay, it was conducted in an almost eerie silence. I was afraid that if I talked and Inge were to respond, a flat, unmoved voice of reply would break the spell my love-making was trying to weave.

Stretched out on the bed on her belly, Inge was to me even more of a turn-on than before. Her silence, as well as her pose, meant, I believed, that she did not want me to stop. And I still think if I had now taken her from behind, Inge would have quietly succumbed to be fucked. After, perhaps, she would have been even pleased about submitting to me like this.

I, however, wanted from Inge more than a mere submission. So, I began to plant kiss after kiss, from her ankles to the nape of her neck, on Inge's back. But most of all, I made love to her sexy ass, sliding my hands time and time up under her panties. And Inge's body lay no longer still: Her quivering buttocks lifted and pressed against my hands. Also, her legs strained and began to spread for my searching fingers. The panties still covering Inge's pussy were now tellingly moist. As my probing finger found and stroked her pussy's lips, Inge gasped. Turning her face to the wall, she moaned -- "Yes! ... God, Yes!"

It was the moment when Inge needed to tell me she wanted me! But I kept silent, dared not to ask. Instead, I got onto the bed. Kneeling between her spread legs, I reached down and pulled Inge up. She did not resist. I pushed aside the hindering cloth of her panties and slid my cock into the tight-hot embrace of Inge's slippery cunt..

Except with Helga, I have never particularly liked taking a woman from behind. I felt it was a depersonalised way of sexually possessing or being possessed. I suspected that it is favoured when one is not keen to face one's partner while one fucks or is fucked.

Whether it was in spite or because of this, the way I took Inge from behind that night was for me an extraordinary arousing experience. Not as an adulterous betrayal as I was focused on nobody else but her. But it was, I am ashamed to admit, the act of finally possessing Inge. I fought the temptation to fuck her violently and so make it a rape-like act of revenge.

I fucked her with slow, deep sinuous thrusts. My hands made love to Inge's back. My fingertips stroked down and up her spine, from neck to the firm roundness of Inge's beautiful ass. I grabbed her hair, trying to pull up her head to hear her gasps and moans. But Inge dug her face in the pillow not to be heard.

Her forced silence denied the arousal of her body. When I caressed Inge's sides and reached in to cup her breasts, her nipples were perky hard. Inge had put her hands above her head, besides the crumbled up pillow. Just visible in the dim light were her fingers: Stretching, opening and closing, gripping and tearing at the sheet whenever my cock thrust deep into her pulsating cunt. I read the signs correctly.

An irresistible orgasm hit Inge without forewarning. One moment she believed to be in control, the next she was tossed and thrown over like hit by a giant wave.

It wasn't just her. Inge was a tall, strong woman. In the shocking spasm of her first orgiastic convulsion, she threw herself sideways. It freed her from my deeply engorged cock and the possessiveness of my hands' grip on her hips. Inge just tossed me aside. Then, scrambling up, she flew at me with flailing arms. Her fists hit me hard, twice in the face. In a screeching, totally unfamiliar voice, she screamed that I was a Schuft.

The German word meant a conniving, scheming bastard. Unlike bastard in English, Schuft was never used in a lighthearted way. I made her, Inge screeched, do things she did not want to do, and that it was over, and that she never wanted to see me again. Then she started to cry uncontrollably and curled up on the bed in a foetal position, her arms pressing her still shivering thighs to her breast.

I was stunned by what had happened. Slowly, the realisation of what Inge's behaviour signified and what I must now do sunk in. Her sobs and seeing her in distress shaking body on my bed, evoked in me no pity. What rose up with my hurt was anger. Inge's grief about having climaxed, having allowed herself to be aroused by me, had been for her an ultimate betrayal!

I walked away from the bed, turned on the light in the kitchen. In the half-light flowing into the main room, I got dressed. I looked down on Inge, still curled up on the bed and said: -

"When you are done with your crying, I'll drive you home. I'll wait for you in the car."

I drove her home. Both of us were silent; Inge found no words to explain and I had none that would have offered forgiveness. I quickly got out of the car at Dorothy's house, walked around, and opened her door. Inge got out. Without saying a word and slamming the car doors shut, I drove away. I could not trust myself even with a Good Bye.