At the Summit

by Richard Williams Copyright 2005, All rights reserved

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Contributed by Richard Williams for the enjoyment of Literotica's readers. This fictional story is copyrighted and may only be used for your personal pleasure. It may not be sold, distributed, or posted on another website without the author's permission.

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AT THE SUMMIT

by Prof. Richard W. (formerly of the University of ____________)

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Part 13 - "Deadly Turn"

LATE IN 1997

The seasonal special had worn off, but Sophia and I still glowed from the warm discovery that she had encouraged me to find in her cute, new French-cut panties. The noise from the street scene in Lower Downtown's main intersection had faded away. Lazily, we traced each other's curves and found our hard and soft places. It was a beautiful moment, but I was wrestling with a dilemma. Somehow, this moment was more poignant than Sophia yet knew because the next part of Dean's story was linked to this feeling of completeness that we were sharing. It would make us cry all the more. Should I wait till cold and sober morning? It would be easier to put it off.

Finally, I asked Sophia. Of course, it was hard to frame the question, as I was sure that she could not imagine the answer. But, yes, I should go ahead and tell her the most difficult part of the story, the part that would be most difficult to share. And so, as we held tight to each other in the hotel room bed, I continued the account of Dean's return to Denver.

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BEFORE THE 1997 SUMMIT CONFERENCE

Dean stepped from the cab that had brought him up from the skyRide bus station. He stood outside the gate of the Bed & Breakfast for a moment, taking in the subtle sounds of a neighborhood readying itself for supper. Traffic noise from the Interstate down the hill rumbled beneath the more distinct sounds of cars arriving home, a bus on Tejon Street stopping and then pulling away, squirrels chattering at a dog. That the old dog was on a leash and oblivious to them went unnoticed, as they did their squirrelly duty. Dean identified with the dog.

I would not say that Dean relaxed in this setting, as he had been on the edge of trouble most of the time during his previous visit to Denver, but everything seemed to be in its place. Through an open door, a radio carried news about the final preparations underway for the Summit Conference. The only piece of the picture that did not fit was a red Geo misaligned against the curb, its windows rolled down. The right front wheel had scraped against the old pink sandstone curb.

The sound of a guest arriving had not brought out either of the proprietresses. Dean pushed the gate open and stepped into the yard. No response to the clink of the gate. Garden tools lay by an abandoned kneeling pad.

If you or I had been watching, we would have seen his intense eyes scanning the place, showing a mixture of curiosity and concern. He saw that the tools had been tossed down carelessly, tines on a rake facing hazardously upward. A water bottle, ever present in Denver's arid climate, lay on its side.

Warily, Dean climbed the worn, sandstone steps of the Victorian house. The door was open; no one came to greet him as he entered the hall, but now he was moving as quietly as possible. He set his bag down and flinched at the click of its brad feet on the hardwood floor.

Dean's imagination was under control-- there were a lot of reasonable explanations for what he had just seen. Still, he was not prepared for what he found in the parlor.

Val and Deborah were there, and so was Cheryl, the young woman who had so convincingly played the part of lover with Tony during Dean's walk in the park with Laetitia. His two friends looked up at him, but said nothing. Cheryl did not notice him, as she leaned her head on Val's shoulder. Tears were streaming from her dark eyes, and her long black hair cascaded over Val's white blouse. As the two women looked at him, Dean saw that they, too, had been crying, but their expressions now were more of anger than of sadness.

"What happened?" he blurted out. There did not seem to be a good way to start a conversation.

"Tony is dead... murdered." Deborah spat the words out, as if they had a bitter taste.

Dean dropped into a chair, his head spinning with the new possibilities that came with this news.

It was a drive-by, they told him. No one had a description-- the shooter's Jeep Cherokee had the usual tinted windows and barely visible temporary paper license-- as with hundreds of other unidentifiable vehicles shielded by Colorado's chronically underfunded registration offices. The police, of course, thought it was gang-related, though they could not say how.

Not that they thought Tony was in a gang, they had reassured his mother, it just could have been mistaken identity. But who were his friends? Who did he "hang" with. They had asked his brother questions like that, too, using gang-banger slang in a confiding, familiar way, perhaps to show that they understood and empathized. It rankled Tony's kid brother, who had mostly learned the words from watching the news on television. His friends in the Future Business Leaders of America club meetings at North High never used words like that, except as a joke. The officers left, puzzled when they learned that Tony was studying at Metro State to become a law enforcement officer.

Cheryl had raced in tears to the only two other people in town who would understand her grief. Val and Deborah had immediately realized that the shooting might have related to the escalating affair with the Lepenistes. They were genuinely concerned for Cheryl, but they also wanted to keep her away from the police till she had calmed down. Val had a contact in police headquarters-- he was in the Traffic division, but could help her. She wanted a quiet interview for Cheryl with someone who would take the information about Tony's recent activities seriously-- and keep it quiet until whatever storm that was darkening their lives blew on. Dean heard their softly spoken words, and his respect for the women went up another notch.

Finally, Cheryl cried herself to sleep, and Val eased her out onto the couch pillows.

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LATE IN 1997

Now, in the Oxford, Sophia was in tears, too. She stopped me in mid-sentence, and molded her generous curves against me in a long and hard embrace. Her vagina lips tenderly closed around my exhausted penis, as if holding onto the life that it held for her. I wondered if I should have waited till morning. I paused.

"Go on," she whispered with sad urgency. We pulled apart enough to breath, but held me at the waist so that she could keep me between her legs. And so I continued, in caresses that under other circumstances would have brought us to a boiling explosion, but now deepened our intimacy in a tender way that I cannot explain.

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BEFORE THE 1997 SUMMIT CONFERENCE

In the kitchen, Deborah was making tea. Dean caught up with her there-- held her hand for a moment. The contact seemed to let something loose-- she whirled and then embraced him for a moment. Then, as abruptly, she turned back to the kitchen utensils, angrily slamming down the teapot so that Dean expected it to break.

They sat till late that night, forgetting to turn on the lights. They talked about Tony, who they had known since the day they had moved in to the ramshackle fixer-upper. He had come to their gate and asked if they needed to hire someone to mow the yard. He had seemed to young to cope with the overgrown mess at the formerly abandoned mansion-come boarding house-come rest home-come B&B, but he charged into it with the energy that he had later shown at Metro State.

They wanted to blame themselves, Deborah said, for his fatal involvement in whatever was going on, but there was no one to blame except whoever had done the shooting. Tony had come to my attention when I was looking for help in investigating the Voodoo Candle swindle. He helped me gain entry to a number of Mexican-American homes where trusting old ladies had been fleeced by a fake medium.

"It was like the 'X-Files'," he had said. Except that we had been served iced tea, and lard-laden cookies by the kind ladies. They had loved Tony, and been impressed by me sitting down with them-- Señor Professor! The only personal safety hazard for us was the resulting cholesterol build-up.

I had seen that young Tony had the good policeman's knack for relating to people, while not losing sight of the overall goal.

So Dean had learned about him from me, and then discovered more about Tony from his old friends Val and Deborah.

Just as Dean and I had reasoned, Tony wanted to be a part of this. The more that he saw and understood, the more that his horizon expanded from neighborhood police issues to the international scale that Dean opened to him. Still, Dean and I, Val and Deborah, had all thought of the sexual/political struggle only as a "war" in metaphoric terms. Now, Tony, most blithe and ardent of us all, was a presumed casualty in that war.

As the women spoke with Dean, their conversation drifted over every aspect of Tony. Dean did not need their words to tell him that both had been intimate with the virile young man. Deborah had repeatedly smoothed her gardening smock as she spoke of him. Val's hands, usually so strong and purpose-driven, caressed each other lazily as she spoke, as she recalled times when she had coaxed Tony to slow down and enjoy.

Memories spilled out, and Dean learned that after the first time ("It was an accident...") when Deborah had just accidentally brushed against the young man while helping him change a light bulb, they had always flipped a coin before he came to them. They both knew then who he was to end up with, but he had to guess. The three would have dinner together, and the women enjoyed the split attention as he tried to guess which teacher would guide the extension of his education that night. It drove him crazy, and they loved it.

He called himself the Vanilla in between the Strawberry and the Chocolate... those became his pet names for blonde Deborah and ebony Val. It quickly became their custom that the coin toss winner brought him a bowl of Neapolitan, while the other cleared away the dishes and disappeared for the night.

They laughed when they recalled the week that Val had used a trick quarter to win every toss for four visits in a row. Deborah recalled how frustrated she had become-- ostensibly at Val's inability to get much work done that week. Val's floating around the house, humming to herself, THAT had irked her. Now, Deborah confessed with a sad smile, it was the thought of being denied her share of Tony's youthful energy that was so vexing. She had to admit that even now, she could not think of him as cold on a slab at the medical examiner's office. In her mind, he was still brimming with life, listening attentively, his manhood curving beautifully erect, while on behalf of all women who love, she taught him how to pleasure her.

Tony, as it turned out, subscribed to a certain moral code. The night that Dean and Laetitia had seen him striding away from the B&B had been the night when he explained his new love for Cheryl to the strawberry/chocolate pair. He had asked Cheryl, a drama student at Metro, to play the part of his girlfriend on an earlier sting operation on stores selling liquor to minors. Somehow, things had turned real, the women explained now to Dean. The cuddling and petting that he and Laetitia had seen was the genuine article. Tony had come to the B&B that night as soon as he could, to share the news with his female mentors. Dean understood what had happened-- it had happened between Michelle and him ages ago in Hamburg.

It had been a sad and sensual moment, with everyone trying to keep a stiff upper lip. When the hugging started, it lasted longer and longer than anyone had meant it to. For the first and last time, the proprietresses found themselves sharing Tony together.

"We never expected that," Deborah emphasized.

"But we were both so perfectly tuned to him," Val interjected. "You know how it is when you're with someone good-- someone maybe you're a bit edgy with at first... maybe he has trouble even finding it, and then, each time, he's more confident and you're less apprehensive and more ready... and now it's not a pearl... it's a walnut and you want him pressing against you so bad....!" Val stopped herself.

"I guess you wouldn't know exactly what I mean." She was silent.

Deborah smiled at her. She had been following each word. She had finally hung up the garden smock and her nipples were hard outlined in her blouse.

"Not exactly, Val," Dean observed, "but it feels good from my side, too-- that feeling that a man's touch is more and more welcome -- desired -- needed -- essential."

Then Deborah described how Tony had earnestly told them that he would look after finding them someone else for maintenance work around the B&B. Val cracked a smile. In a flash, Deborah was chuckling softly. While each of them had been responsibly ready to let go of steamy times in the hot tub with Tony, he had been worrying about who would do things like climbing the porch roof to clear it of leaves in the Autumn.

Val began to recollect about how great Tony looked as he climbed ladders in his usual jeans and t-shirt. Deborah said nothing for a minute, looking, it seemed, at a sealed jar of homemade strawberry jam on the counter.

"Remember the time when Tony helped us pick these strawberries?" A broad grin crossed her face and her tongue darted to the corner of her lips.

"And helped us eat them!" Val chimed in. They began to remember candid things about Tony that made Dean feel warmer and warmer-- and a bit out of place. Finally, he excused himself and headed back toward the main stairway, thinking he would head to bed and think this out in the morning. Already, their hurt was being scabbed over by the protective gold coating of memories.

Cheryl was sitting up now. She looked at Dean with blank eyes. Her dark hair hung in tired clumps. He walked towards her, trying to think of something to say. She stood silently for a moment.

Suddenly she rushed toward him, her long nails slashing wildly in the air as she advanced. She cried out curses in Spanish, bringing Val and Deborah rushing from the kitchen. Looking into the parlor, they saw Dean standing his ground, but fending off the distraught young woman's grief-weakened attack. They saw her collapse against him-- sobs convulsing her body. She leaned on the middle-aged agent for support. She, too, it seems, wanted to blame someone, but could not.

Val led the way to the same room where Dean and Laetitia had spent their unique night together. She helped Dean lay Cheryl out on the canopied bed. It was like adjusting a rag doll. Dean spoke in whispers to Cheryl, caressing her brow rhythmically. She drifted off, breathing heavily. Occasionally, even in half-sleep, her bosom jerked as a wave of sobs swept over her.

"I just talked about Tony, suggested that it was okay to dream of him as she remembered him-- in the most beautiful times. And I told her that since Tony had never done anything half-way in his life, that I was sure that he was welcome with God where he is now." Dean paused. They looked down at the Hispanic angel stretched out on top of the sheets and saw the tension lines fading from her face.

"And I told her that we needn't pray for Tony, that we needed to pray for those of us who were still here." They saw that her lips were parted, and moved a tiny bit, as if she was speaking, but Val and Dean could make out no words. Instead, they found themselves embracing, then quietly walking out of the room.

"You probably have to make some phone calls," Val sighed-- a resigned tone in her voice. "What else do you need to know?" Dean took some notes as they spoke, and then headed to the common phone in the upstairs hallway. Then he stopped.

"Have you had the phone checked for bugs?" Enough was going on that Dean was beginning to have second thoughts about everything.

"We hadn't thought of it," Val replied. "But a woman from your agency came here two days ago and checked it."

"That's interesting. After the last round of budget cuts, my agency doesn't have anyone who does that. That's when I had my cellphone cut off, too. We farm out our security checks to contractors. Remember anything about her?" Dean scowled.

"Not much. She's kind of a farmgirl build, stocky... I think that she said she used to work as a police officer before she got into security work."

"Do you remember where? Did she say where she worked?"

"Yes, she was kind of spaced out, hard to follow, but I do remember it was someplace up in northern California, someplace with a Scottish name, I kind of think."

Dean recalled the overheard conversation reported to him by Cheryl. The Svengali-like Lepeniste agent Bernard and his woman confederate ("Regina? Linda?" Dean mused.) had discussed a potential recruit that she was "developing." Whether this development was as a lover or as an agent of some kind -- or both -- was not clear.

"There's a payphone at the Panaderia down the street, isn't there?" Dean tilted his head obliquely at the now-suspect phone in a manner that communicated danger. Val's eyes grew large as she understood Dean's pantomime.

"Yes." Val confirmed. "You'd better make those calls." She watched passively as the weary agent and friend stuffed his notes into his pocket and headed out into the dark Denver night.

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LATE IN 1997

Tears had begun to appear around my lover and patron Sophia's eyes, and now they crawled down her face. We had moved to the overstuffed antique chairs in her suite at the Oxford as I completed the account of Dean's first night back in the Mile High City. The day's light was gone.

"So that's why I didn't see Tony again." Sophia had only met him once, but had been charmed by his lively eyes and intelligent conversation. It was easy for a woman to enjoy imagining him as her lover, if only for a moment.

Wordlessly, as if on cue, we rose to embrace each other. We held each other for what seemed to go on and on, so close that we had to breathe together. Then we returned to our bed in slow motion, pausing to hold each other again and again. As Sophia's chest pressed against mine, I could feel her heartbeat.

For a long time in bed, we just held each other, appreciating the life that was in our arms. Then, we found ourselves exchanging whispers, as if our own feelings would be too fragile for full voices. Sophia felt the pain of the three women, each now faced with memories of Tony's life with them.

"Imagine them waking up and feeling him there," she finally murmured, and as she said that, Sophia took my hand and moved it over herself, from her heart to her vagina. I held it over her moist curls for a long time, feeling her heat penetrating my hand. Finally, I let my fingers gently spread her lips and touched her complete, swollen readiness. That triggered something in both of us.

What had begun so slowly rolled on like an avalanche gathering momentum. Sophia swung her broad hips over me as we savored the life in each other. Tonight, the offering of her full breasts to my lips was more meaningful than ever, and I kissed them adoringly. Holding my erect staff against her clitoris, squeezing my softening fluid in a silver coating over her tenderest places, she glided in our mingling fluids back and forth, again and again. I looked up at her luminous face and I had to come.