Melody

My fourth interview had been with Melody Sato. Melody was a stunning 20-year-old Japanese woman with long wavy brown hair and flawless tawny skin. She was slender, flat-chested but with a tight little round ass, and maybe 5'5"; she looked like a runner, which she was. She was reserved, soft-spoken, and impressively poised. When I gave her the rundown I had given Carolina and Autumn, her eyes darkened with sympathy for me, but any other implications seemed to miss her completely.

"So, you're an el ed major?" I asked as we started walking.

"Yes," Melody replied in a musical alto that fit her name. "I love kids, and I love seeing the light come on for them—the moment when they understand something they didn't before. I like older kids as well as younger ones, but once they get big"—she gestured self-deprecatingly down her body—"I might have trouble commanding a classroom. Not with the younger ones, though. They respond well to me."

"I'm not surprised," I told her with a smile.

Melody enjoyed the tour. When we got to the kitchen, she looked around ruefully and said, "It looks lovely, but I don't know how to cook, so—" She shrugged eloquently.

"That's not a problem," I assured her. "I wouldn't mind sharing the kitchen with whomever I hire, but I cook for all of us and enjoy doing it. If you were willing to help clean up, though, that's another matter." I grinned at her.

Melody twinkled back. "I'm always willing to help clean up," she assured me in return.

She was more appreciative of the girls' rooms. She offered a couple decorating ideas which made sense to me, but since I didn't have pen and paper to write them down, I knew I would forget. I finally asked her to e-mail me later if they came to her mind; she gravely assured me she would.

When we sat down at the dining-room table, I asked Melody, "So, you said earlier you don't have a boyfriend?"

"No, I don't," she answered matter-of-factly. "I've had a couple in the past, but none of them serious." She paused for a moment, thinking. "My friends tell me I need to go looking for someone, but I haven't found many boys who interest me. My friends say I'm too picky, but I don't want to date someone just to have someone to date."

"That's wise, I think," I said judiciously.

"My friends say I'm naïve, that I miss signals," Melody continued. I kept my mouth shut. "Obviously I can't say they're wrong, but I'm not worried. I want to find a man to be with, but I don't need to hurry. When the time is right, it will happen."

"That's very . . ." I said, my voice trailing off when I lost the word I wanted.

"Zen?" Melody asked. There was a faint tension in her voice, and her lips tightened a fraction.

I looked at her in surprise. "No, that's not what I was going to say, though I don't remember what I

was

going to say. Why? Do you get that a lot?"

Melody nodded, then suddenly relaxed. "Sorry," she said. "I shouldn't assume."

"Hey, no worries," I told her. "The first rule of predictions is always the Quisenberry Rule."

She looked at me blankly. "I've never heard that."

"Sorry," I said, "it's my own coinage, in a way. Dan Quisenberry was a baseball player—"

"I love baseball!" Melody broke in happily. "I don't know much about the history, though."

"OK, that simplifies things, though," I said. "You remember Kansas City won the World Series a few years ago?" She nodded. "Well, thirty years before that, in 1985, they won their first World Series. Dan Quisenberry was their closer. Back then, there was the general sense that closers were eccentric, and Quiz fit the bill. Bright, quotable guy who didn't just give the same old answers. Anyway, long buildup for a short story, one time he said, 'I have seen the future, and it is much like the present, only longer.'"

Melody nodded. "I see what you're saying. The first rule of predictions is that things will be what they have been."

"Right, that's the baseline. Change does happen and different things come along, but that's where we start."

Melody nodded again, thoughtfully. "Still," she told me, "I don't want to assume that you're no different when I had no reason to—when you're clearly different from anyone else I know. I don't like that reflex."

"Learning to catch our reflexes, our instinctive reactions, is hard," I observed. "It's about the hardest thing we can learn to do. It's worth it, but it only ever comes slowly."

*****

I mentally crossed Melody off the list and went on about my day. I checked my phone to find a voicemail from my local lawyer, asking for a favor. Ben's on the board for our local Habitat for Humanity affiliate; he told me they had a fundraising dinner scheduled for that night and their speaker had come down with double pneumonia and would I be willing to step in? I hadn't really been involved with Habitat since college, but I believed in the organization and had donated both money and household furnishings. I called him back and agreed; he gave me all the details, and I sat down to write a brief speech.

Partway through, it occurred to me that I would need a babysitter. I grinned.

Here's a chance for a trial run. Might as well go in order

. Neither Kylie nor Carolina answered, but Autumn picked up on the third ring. "Mr. Andrews?" she said, sounding a little breathless.

"Hi, Autumn," I answered happily.

"Have you made a decision already?" she asked, a trifle wary.

"What?—oh, no, nothing like that," I responded quickly. "Actually, something's come up and I need a babysitter just for tonight. Are you available?"

"Sure!" Autumn said eagerly. "When?"

*****

As it happened, I had been doing research for a project on the effects of housing instability on children and youth, looking at grades, arrest rates, teenage pregnancy, and other indicators. My research had included some data on the downstream effects on families who moved into Habitat houses. Given that, the speech didn't take long at all to write.

"If you've read any of my mystery novels," I told the gathering, "you know I deal a lot with the ways relational patterns replicate themselves—generational patterns, family patterns, community patterns. The most valuable thing we can do, and the hardest, is to break those patterns, because when we find ways to do that, we stop just putting Band-Aids on problems and start bringing real healing. We stop just treating symptoms and start addressing the underlying causes. We can all be proud to be connected with Habitat for Humanity and support its mission, because Habitat, one family at a time, breaks those patterns and puts families on a track for real meaningful positive change. That's why we say we don't just build houses, we build hope. Thank you for supporting hope tonight."

*****

I got back home feeling good about myself. Autumn greeted me happily at the door and said, "The girls are both hard out. They fell asleep snuggled in to me, one on each side, as I was reading to them, and I got them transferred to bed. They're absolutely adorable."

I smiled. "Thank you, Autumn. Let me dig out my wallet so I can pay you—with a bonus for filling in at the last minute."

She put her hand on my chest and said, "I appreciate that, Mr. Andrews, but the money can wait a few minutes. I want my

other

payment first." She leaned in and gave me a long, hungry kiss, then whispered in my ear, "I'll have time for a shower this time."

I led Autumn up to my bedroom. I pulled her shirt up above her full, heavy boobs, fondling them through her lacy black bra while she pulled the shirt the rest of the way off and tossed it aside. I kissed her neck and throat as I reached around behind her to undo her bra; she let it fall to the floor, and I kissed my way down the slopes of her breasts. I teased first one areola, then the other, lazily circling them with my tongue and caressing them with my lips. I undid her pants sight unseen while I latched on to one nipple and suckled it gently, then I worked her pants over her full hips and ripe ass. I suckled the other nipple, harder, and slid my fingers under her panties and into her slit, which was dripping wet. I grabbed the other tit and pinched the nipple, rolling it in my grip. "

Fuck

, Mr. Andrews," Autumn moaned, "you've got me so fucking horny—I'm so turned on, it's fucking

insane

. . . no man has ever done this to me before . . . I need your dick in my mouth, baby—I need to suck it . . ."

I stepped back, pulled Autumn's black lace panties down, then lay down in the middle of the bed. She approached me from the side on all fours, but I hooked a hand around her thigh and pulled. "69 with me, sexy girl," I said.

Autumn moaned and let me draw her into position. Before she could do anything else, I pierced her sex with two fingers to rub her G-spot and started suckling her pearl. She mewled loudly and plunged her head down, deepthroating me until her nose touched my balls. She swallowed hard a couple times, then pulled her head most of the way off and did it again. She fucked me with her throat, pausing at the bottom of each stroke to give me a few extra swallows. It felt marvelous, but I didn't want to cum in her throat when her pussy was available. I sucked hard on her button, like I was trying to suck the coating off an M&M, and started humming John McVie's epic bass riff from "The Chain." To my surprise, she responded by driving her head down on my prick, somehow managing to scream around it as her orgasm blasted through her like a hurricane.

When it passed, Autumn pulled off and swung herself around. "I need to ride this big fucking man-muscle," she panted. "I need this big mommymaker in my little pussy"—she straddled my dick and lined herself up—"right—

fucking—NOW!

" She impaled herself to the root on my spike with a yowl. I reached up and wrapped my hands around the front of her fat melons, pressing my fingers into their supple flesh and feeling their hard pink points boring into the centers of my palms.

Autumn put her hands behind her head and thrust her chest into my hands. She started dancing on my pole, rolling her hips and grinding them against me, fucking my cock by rotation, then shimmying them from side to side and swinging them in small circles. "I'm so full of dick . . ." she moaned. "You're so fucking deep—I swear I can feel you up between my titties." She swung her hips in figure-eights and also moved them up and down, shifting in all three dimensions. "You like my little pussy, Mr. Andrews? Does my tight 19-year-old pussy feel good wrapped around your big fat cock?"

"I love your pussy, minx," I growled. "You feel incredible." I gripped her tits hard and pulled her down on top of me. She fell forward with a squeak, landing on her hands. I fed myself first one, then the other, filling my mouth with springy titflesh, then licking, suckling, and even nibbling her dusky-pink peaks.

Autumn bounced her hips on my pole, moaning, "Love my girls, Mr. Andrews . . . lick them, suckle them, squeeze them . . .

fuck

I love your cock . . . stretching my pussy so good . . . so fucking good . . ."

"Cum for me, sexy girl," I growled around a mouthful of tit. "Cum like a good little babysitter." I slipped my fingers between Autumn's lower lips and into her flooded quim to find her pearl. I pressed on it, and her body detonated on my prick. She writhed above me, grinding herself against me and screaming my name into the headboard, as her cunt clamped down on me like overpressure from the blast. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.

As Autumn began to recover, I rolled us over and kissed her deeply. Her eyes fluttered open and she murmured, "You haven't cum yet."

"No, I haven't," I agreed, nuzzling her neck. "How do you want it next?"

"Mr. Andrews, I need to get

plowed

," Autumn said urgently, "good and hard and deep. Plow me like you're gonna plant trees."

"If that's what you want, little babysitter, I can do that," I told her.

"Ooooooh, yeah," she moaned.

I put Autumn's knees to chest, reached under her legs to fill my hands with her heavy curves, and then slammed my prick down into her tight, wet hole again. The bed bounced and moaned as I jackhammered her hot little cunt. She gasped and mewled and grabbed my ass with both hands, pulling me hard into her with every thrust. "Is this what you wanted?" I asked roughly. "You wanted me to line you up and fuck you silly?'

"

Take

me, Mr. Andrews," Autumn gasped. "Fucking

take

your little babysitter. Fuck her good."

I pinched and twisted her nipples as I pummeled her tight hole. She grunted and panted and cried out like a baby bird. It wasn't long before she gasped, "I'm close—I'm close—I'm close—"

"I'm close, too," I rumbled in her ear. "I'm gonna cum so deep in your tight little cunt, your eyeballs will fog over."

"Give it to me, Mr. Andrews," Autumn panted. "Fill me with your seed . . . Plow me hard . . . plow me and seed me and make me cum . . ."

We came together, her orgasmic scream tearing from her throat at the same moment as my balls boiled over. I buried myself balls-deep in her tight, wet heat one more time as her hotbox went crazy; we pressed ourselves together and trembled wildly as I pumped her honeypot full of my cream.

*****

I fucked Autumn once more in the shower; I ate her to another screaming orgasm and she sucked me until I was once more fully erect, then I bent her over and took her hard from behind. She gripped the handhold between the showerheads and held on tight, moaning and wailing and crying out my name as I railed her. Before I finished, she came a couple more times. Afterward, we washed each other tenderly, then I dried her off with a towel.

"I didn't quite believe the shower was wide enough for that," Autumn commented with a yawn. Her energy was definitely ebbing.

"I made sure of it," I told her. "You'd better get headed home soon or you'll end up sleeping here."

"If you hire me, I can do that every night," she replied, her voice fading at the end into an even bigger yawn.

Autumn did manage to make it to her car, but I told her to text me when she got home. "I only live a few minutes away," she protested.

"I know, but you're crashing," I told her. "I want to make sure you don't crash behind the wheel, too." She grumbled a little, but she agreed, and soon a brief text told me she was home and on her way to bed. Then came another text that read, "Let's do this again soon."

*****

The next day, Tuesday, my scheduled interview no-showed. I tried to contact her, but to no avail. I finally gave up and went into my office to get some writing done. I was engrossed in a scene when my phone rang. In fact, I was so engrossed that I didn't notice it . . . until the person on the other end tried again. When I finally answered, it was my agent. "Rob, I need to meet with you ASAP," Patrick said. The eager energy in his voice told me to take him seriously.

"What is it, Patrick?" I asked.

"Someone from HBO is sounding us out about

Rise Not in Anger

," he said. "They want to make it into a TV series—well, a short series, but longer than a miniseries. We need to get together and talk about it."

Rise Not in Anger

was my first mystery novel and my fourth published book. My detective is a little out of the usual. I took a class in college that introduced me to family systems theory through the work of Edwin Friedman, Murray Bowen, and Roberta Gilbert. I was fascinated by it and have continued to study it over the years; I even got to know Dr. Gilbert and had the chance to learn from her directly. I had the idea of developing a character to explore systems theory further, and ended up with Dr. Rhys Griffith, a psychologist and family therapist whose father is chief of staff to one of the most powerful members of the Senate. I was actually a number of chapters into the book before I realized it was a mystery novel, at which point I had to restructure and rewrite everything.

The book tells the story of a foreign diplomat who goes missing, causing all sorts of consternation in D. C. Since Rhys already has a security clearance because he's worked with the DoD on PTSD and other issues for returning vets, his father Ifan brings him in to consult when the police hit a dead end. He solves the case, of course; equally of course, it launches a new sideline for Rhys as a detective. I've published four Rhys Griffith books so far, and they're among my more popular ones. (The book I'm working on now will be the fifth; the victim this time is the IRS Commissioner. The working title, in homage to my all-time favorite movie, is

Death and Taxes

.)

"Can we make it a dinner meeting?" I asked. "I'll need to get a babysitter, and that's going to require at least a

little

lead time."

"Sure, fine, whatever," Patrick answered impatiently. "Just confirm with me as soon as you can."

"Roger," I said, and hung up. Immediately, the phone rang again, but it wasn't Patrick. "Hello, this is Rob Andrews," I said.

"Mr. Andrews, this is Melody," came the voice on the other end.

Melody? Is she psychic?

"Hey, Melody," I replied, my surprise clear in my voice. Before I could stop to think, I heard myself ask, "Are you free to babysit this evening?"

"What?" she responded, equally startled. "Sure—when? But that's not why I was calling . . ."

"No, I don't imagine it was," I told her. "I didn't need a babysitter tonight until a split-second before you called. I do need one, though, as I have a dinner meeting. Can you be here at six?"

"Sure, Mr. Andrews," Melody answered. "And afterward, can we talk about what I was calling about?"

"Absolutely," I said gratefully. "I owe you that much and more."

*****

After Patrick and I polished off a good dinner and talked through every aspect of the HBO opportunity, he gave me a pointed look and asked, "Is there anything in your

personal

life that we need to take into account here?"

I put my hands up in surrender. "Patrick, you've always read me too well," I conceded. "I haven't done anything with it yet, but I found out a couple weeks ago that Lori is cheating on me."

"I've suspected as much for a while," he replied with a nod, "but I didn't figure you'd listen to me. I wasn't sure how to play the situation, but the risks didn't seem to be that great from a

financial

perspective, so I didn't push it. If this offer comes together, though . . ."

"Right," I grimaced. "At that point, my potential income goes way up. Yes, to your little vulture mind"—Patrick just grinned; I don't even remember where I came up with that line, but he's always taken it as a compliment of sorts—"I'm planning on filing. I just want to get someone in place to take care of the kids before I do."

"Well, obviously these things never move fast, and we can make sure they keep it

sub rosa

for some time yet—but move as quickly as you can, to be safe." Patrick's tone was earnest, and honestly concerned.

"Yes, Patrick, I get it," I said drily. "Anything else you want to tell me? Like maybe to wait until the semi has gone by before crossing the street?"

"Since you remind me, yes," he retorted, grinning snarkily. "Also, don't try to feed the crocodiles."

"Gee, thanks."

*****

"I love your girls," Melody burbled when I got home. "They were so sweet for me. They didn't give me any trouble at all."

"I'm glad to hear it," I told her. Wryly I continued, "Like most good kids, they save that for their parents." She giggled. We talked through the specifics of her evening with my daughters, and then I asked, "So what can I do for you, Melody?"

"Mr. Andrews, I'm taking a creative fiction class this semester, and the prof has us do a project. I'm not happy with the way mine has been coming together, so after I met you, I went to her and asked if I could interview you and write it up. She said yes—she was quite interested—as long as my list of questions met with her approval. And, umm, as—as long as I could get her an autographed copy of one of your books. She said," Melody added hastily. "I don't know if she . . ."