Street Scene

Tracy Daniels graduated from high school not long before her father was forced to retire from his factory job. Partly for that reason, she went right to work, taking college courses at night. Tracy had lived at home for another year after she began working before she got her own apartment. Very soon after that, her father died suddenly. Since her mother had died when she was ten and her older brothers did not really have money to spare, the house was sold off to cover funeral expenses.

In the depression that followed all that, between being on her own and now not having a home to go back to, she was maneuvered into living with a man named Richard Drake. She thought she knew him well, but she slowly learned that she did not.

By the time she confronted him four years later about not moving toward marriage, she was no longer certain that she wanted to marry him anyway. They had a fight and she was back to an apartment of her own, less happy but less vulnerable.

Hank Davis was heading down Chestnut Street on an afternoon in May, coming home from work. He saw a familiar shape up ahead of him carrying two big grocery bags and he called out:

"Tracy Daniels! What are you doing down this way? I thought you and Richard lived further uptown. Although it's been, what, three months since I saw you. Did the two of you move down here?"

She turned her pleasant face around and smiled at him. "No, Hank, *I* did. I moved out on him two months ago."

The surprise must have shown in his face, because she went on, "It's been building for a long time, and what finally set me off was, well, too small and ridiculous to talk about. Mostly it's that after we had been living together for four years, I wanted to start talking about marriage, and he didn't. I tried for some time to bring him around to the idea, but he wouldn't have it at all."

Hank looked down at the ground for a second and he said to her, "I'm sorry to hear that, Tracy. You deserve as good as can be gotten, but I don't think it'll take very long for someone as sweet and pretty as you to find a good man to settle down with. You seem to be heading in my direction; could I carry one of those bags for you?"

She studied his face for a second, then said, "Why, thank you, sir. Thank you for the help and for the compliment, though I don't feel at all pretty or sweet today. It's only another block down here."

So Hank took one bag, and then he took the other one from her when they got up to her front door, so that Tracy could get at her keys. She opened the door and took the second bag back and invited him in, so he went. The door led into her living room, with a couch which he now recalled not seeing in Richard's place before she moved in. He caught a quick glimpse of a new-looking double bed and curtains as they walked into her kitchen.

"You've done pretty well getting this, with a first floor apartment and a private entrance," Hank said as he set the bag down and started to spread the packages out on the counter.

Tracy turned from shutting the refrigerator door and she said to him, "You know, I wonder a little what to make of you sometimes. You've known me for years, and we've been around a lot of the same people for years. You've always smiled and said hello when you saw me. You've always been polite. You've always remembered my goddam NAME, which it seems like a lot of people can't do. And in all this time you've never made a pass at me!"

Hank blinked a bit and stared at a can of soup before he handed it to her, while he tried to figure out what to say to that.

"Well, Tracy, your name doesn't seem that hard to remember. I smiled, well, because you're cheerful and nice to look at. I'm polite because I think most any woman deserves it. And I've never made a pass at you because it wouldn't seem proper. Most of this time you've been involved with Richard..."

"That's putting it delicately!" she interrupted.

"Well, why not? And when you weren't, both before you met him and again up until recently, I've been seriously interested in other women. One woman at a time is as complicated as I want my life to get, otherwise I can't relax enough to enjoy it. Or them.

"I don't want you to think I don't find you attractive. You have a good body, as well as a good head on your shoulders. The circumstances just haven't been right for me to feel right about thinking about you that way.

"I don't want to do anything I can't make a commitment on, even if probably nothing comes of it," he added.

"That certainly doesn't bother some people, I can tell you. Including Richard, I'm pretty sure." Her voice got a bit softer. "But some people grow up inside, and some never do. Hank Davis, we've known each other for years, but I'm just starting to realize that I haven't known you half as well as I thought." Then she added soberly, "And maybe as I should have tried to."

Hank smiled and reached and took her hand. "Few of us know our friends as well as we might, though sometimes it's a blessing."

"And sometimes I can't see what's in front of my face! Oh, Hank, it wouldn't take much... No, it doesn't take anything at all! Hank, hold me. I need some comfort."

He put his arms around Tracy there in the kitchen and bent down to kiss her forehead, as she put her face to his chest, halfway to crying. Tracy turned her lips toward his for a second and their mouths touched. Hank held her for a few minutes, trying to help her gain peace of mind from the contact, then Tracy pushed her hips against his. He raised his head and looked down at her.

This was he supposed a compliment, but it was also more evidence of her capacity for surprising him. "Think about what you are doing," Hank whispered into her hair.

"That you would say something like that just makes me all the more sure that I know what I'm doing for the first time in years!" she said to him. "I need a man who really likes women, and I want to collect one while I can."

Well, Hank did like women, and he liked Tracy quite a bit, and of course that was just the problem, wasn't it? If they went the way she was inclined at the moment, toward the horizontal, their friendship stood a fair chance of disappearing in anger after a while. His own entanglements had always ended peaceably, but he knew that it happens, it happens. And while it had been a couple of months since she left Richard, Tracy might still be rebounding a bit. The whole thing made him a little uneasy.

"I think the two of us need to sit down before this gets out of hand," Hank said to her.

She stepped back to look him full in the face and said, "Hank, unless you can come up with a good reason not to, and you've told me there isn't any now, I'm declaring it out of hand."

He started to walk to the couch, but Tracy grabbed his hand and tugged Hank into the bedroom.

When they got about a foot from her bed -- well, his resistance was not infinite, and he decided to leave his doubts to another time. Hank reached his hands around Tracy from behind. He put them under her blouse and then up and over her bra while pulling back on her and nuzzling her neck.

She gave a muffled cry of desire and pulled him onto the bed. Tracy opened his belt and took down his pants and his shorts. She smiled at what she found and dropped that clothing to the floor. She began running her tongue around the top of his erection, then took it into her mouth and started sucking furiously. After a few inches Tracy gave a little twist with her jaw, maybe three times, until everything that he had was inside her mouth and throat. It felt like a very tight vagina, but firmer, and the suction continued all the time.

"Tracy, I hate to stop you -- God, do I-- but at this rate I won't last long, and you won't get much out of it. Better pull up," he said to her.

She smiled and lifted herself off, then lay half on top of him with one hand on the biggest erection he could remember ever seeing on him, and she said, "That was something Richard talked me into learning how to do, and it feels much better to do it with someone who really deserves special treatment. And doing that to you is more of a challenge..."

"I just hope I can do something for you that is half that spectacular, Tracy," he whispered to her.

Hank rolled her over to his side and he began to unbutton her blouse, then he removed her bra. He bent quickly over Tracy and ran his tongue around her erect nipples, then he caressed the undersides of her breasts. Tracy made soft inarticulate noises when he did that.

He took one hand and spread it wide to run his thumb and little finger across both nipples at the same time while putting his tongue deep into Tracy's mouth. She shook and tensed when he did this, then again when Hank reached his hands up to turn both nipples like knobs on a radio.

"That's... pretty good for a start," she said, short of breath. "Definitely continue."

So he did. Tracy took off his shirt, running her hands over his chest and back, then he pulled down the zipper on her skirt and lifted it off. When Hank reached for her panties, Tracy pulled his hand in and held it in there for a bit. He used his fingers to bring Tracy to orgasm, since he could tell that she would have a lot more appetite left.

When Hank removed her last clothing, he moved down to nuzzle her belly, and then further. Her reaction to his tongue down there was gratifying. Tracy was very wet when he began, and all the more so when his mouth had been working on her for a while.

"Hank," she said to him as he moved up beside her again, "For somebody who was reluctant to do this, you certainly put your mind to it."

He smiled and kissed her hand. "Physical arguments don't usually persuade me, but this is an exception," Hank said. He showed her what he thought about her, and lifted her body over him. Tracy spread her legs and knelt to sit on his erection. She hissed as he slid into her partway. She slowly flexed her legs then and moved him into her more and more.

"You are pretty wholehearted about this yourself, Tracy," he gasped into her ear.

After a bit, Tracy said to him, "Hank, I want very much to feel your weight on me. Could we shift?"

He could hardly object. Hank positioned himself at her entrance and kissed Tracy on the mouth as he slid down (and up) into her. Tracy was a bit short, and muscular. The shortness may have been the reason she was small in the region he was moving into, but the muscles, the internal muscles she could use in this position, were a large factor in the effect she was having on him now. He had hoped to take a long slow time with her, but she was building again, and building him, quickly. He resolved to try his best to hang in there; Tracy was much too good in bed to be casual about.

"Hank, it feels so wonderful when you go all the way up inside of me... Oh, I want you every day, every day, EVERY DAY!" she shrieked as she exploded under him, and he in her. The way she was acting was a strong argument for granting her wish.

As Tracy lay there in his arms afterward, she looked sleepily up at him and surprised him again with what should have been obvious. She said to him: "Would you think it forward of me to invite you to stay for dinner?"