Stephanie and Dwayne

This was the story Stephanie told to her friend Nina. By the end of it, both of them were bathed in tears.

"Omigod!" Nina said. "Getting stood up at the altar! How awful that must have been! I didn't think that really happened except in books or movies. But you're telling me you made

no attempt

to get in touch with him afterwards? Just to find out what had happened to him?"

"Look, Nina," Stephanie said, feeling a mix of anger and sadness, "if he'd been in an accident or something, we would have heard about it. But there was clearly nothing of the sort. He must just have felt that everyone—especially me—was trying to railroad him into getting married; and he balked. That's all there was to it. I wasn't going to beg him to reconsider; I have my pride, you know. I did leave a rather bland message on his phone, saying something stupid like, 'Hey, we missed you at the wedding—what's up?' But he never replied.

"I mean, we couldn't just go back to being the way we were—boyfriend and girlfriend spending a certain amount of time in bed together while we went about our daily lives. That would have been horrible. So I knew it was over.

"And that's where things stand today."

Nina fell silent, knowing this was a hugely sensitive issue with Stephanie. At last she said: "What are your feelings for him now?"

It took a long time for Stephanie to respond. "I don't know. I really don't like to think about it. He sure did a number on me—but maybe I did a number on him in my own way. Who can say? But at least you have an answer now to those questions you asked hours and hours ago, about whether I was ever in love and whether it had ended well or not."

Stephanie stood up. "I think I want to go home now."

"Okay," Nina said, admitting defeat. They hugged each other, and both went their separate ways.

But Nina was far from letting go of the matter. She knew she was being horribly—perhaps unconscionably—nosy, but she had to figure out what the other side of the equation felt. Almost the moment she got home, she went to her computer, got on the Internet, and typed in "Dwayne McMillan."

Almost instantly, a webpage for his services as an electrician showed up. There was no picture of him on the page, but it had a pretty comprehensive summary of the kinds of work he was able to do. And, of course, it did not give out his home address.

Biting her lower lip in ferocious concentration, Nina did something she never expected to do: she called a private detective.

She found one almost at random, explained to him exactly what she wanted, and let him get to work. It took the guy less than half an hour to come up with the information, and she was happy to pay him his fee of $250.

Now she knew where Dwayne lived. She figured it was probably the very same house he had occupied when he was involved with Stephanie—the house she had been inside exactly once in the year or so she had been with him.

She waited till the next day, Sunday, to beard the guy in his den. Afternoon might be best, on the off chance that he went to church in the morning. So it was a little after 1 p.m. that Nina found herself outside a small and rather untidy house in South Seattle. There was a car parked on the street right in front of the house, but she wasn't sure that meant anything. Kids (almost all of them black) were playing in other yards on the street, and some adults (also black) were mowing lawns or carrying groceries in little carts or just sitting comfortably on their porches. Some of them seemed to be eyeing Nina—whether because she was a white woman or because they were surprised that anyone was visiting Dwayne's house, she couldn't tell.

Muttering, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she stepped out of her own car and marched up to the front door.

Her knock was answered with unexpected speed. Seeing the man in front of her, Nina's knees almost buckled.

She had heard what Stephanie had said about Dwayne being "beautiful," but she dismissed that as merely a lover's understandable bias. But as she now saw the tall, slim, muscular man looming in front of her, she realized that Stephanie had been telling the absolute truth. If a Greek god had somehow managed to infuse his essence into a human being, this would very likely have been the result. Dwayne almost

glowed

as he stood before Nina, even though a shadow of melancholy had traced lines around his eyes. Nina was so overwhelmed that her mouth went dry and she couldn't speak, merely letting out strange croaking sounds from her throat.

Dwayne was looking at her in puzzlement. "May I help you, ma'am?"

Nina was still unable to utter articulate speech.

"Ma'am," he went on, "if you wanted a job done, you should have called. No need to have come here." The oddity of anyone who wanted a "job done" knowing where he lived did not seem to occur to him.

Nina tried to shake herself into coherence.

"That's, um, not what I want," she blundered. Then, in a higher-pitched voice: "You don't know me, but my name is Nina McAvoy. I'm a friend of Stephanie—Stephanie Jameson. I think—"

The moment he heard his former lover's name mentioned, a peculiar look came over Dwayne's face. Not anger—more like inexpressible sorrow and even a touch of fear.

Nina wasn't entirely surprised at what he did: he slammed the door in her face.

"Dwayne!" she cried. "Please, Dwayne, listen to me! I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. Dwayne, please . . . please . . ."

After several minutes, it must have become plain to Dwayne that Nina wasn't going to go away. She had been continuing to plead and tap lightly on his door the whole time, and so he finally gave in and opened the door again. Looking balefully at Nina, he backed away from the entrance in a tacit acknowledgment that she could come in.

As Nina stepped gingerly into the house, she saw that its interior was even a bit shabbier than what Stephanie's words had led her to expect. It was not dirty, but merely unkempt, as if Dwayne really didn't care about furnishings or decorations as long as the place provided a roof over his head and a means of making his cheerless and lonely meals.

They stood in the middle of the small and crowded living room. Dwayne was only about four inches taller than Nina, but he seemed to tower over her like a giant. He could only glance at her intermittently, as if the very sight of her was liable to cause him pain. Nina, on the other hand, couldn't take her eyes off of him.

My God, what a gorgeous specimen of masculinity. I hate to say it, but he makes Patrick and Larry look like little boys.

His silence didn't make it any easier for Nina to say what she wanted to say.

"Dwayne," she began, "I—I know something of what happened between you and Stephanie. I think—"

"She told you?" he spat out in sudden rage. "She shouldn't have. That was private—between us."

"Dwayne, I asked her. She told me a lot. I'm sorry if you think I invaded your privacy, but she's been my doctor for years and I feel bad that she's been alone all this time. And now I know why." Letting out a big sigh as if to gather strength to carry on, she said: "She misses you, Dwayne."

Dwayne, looking off into space, muttered: "She hates me."

"No, she doesn't!" Nina cried. "Of course she was hurt and disappointed by—by what happened, but she doesn't hold grudges. She's not like that. I can tell she misses you. I think you should call her—talk to her."

Nina fished a card out of her purse.

"Here—this is her business card. I wrote her cellphone number on the back. It's probably the same one she had when you were—going with her. Give her a call: she'll be thrilled to hear from you."

"I cain't—not after what I done to her."

"She doesn't care about that, Dwayne! Really she doesn't. I think there's still a chance for you two."

Dwayne's brow suddenly furrowed. "Did she send you here?"

"God, no! She doesn't know anything about it—and would probably chop my head off if she knew. This is all on my own. I'm just trying to—"

Dwayne was shaking his head, as if saddened by the hopelessness of all human existence.

"Dwayne," Nina said in a whisper, "she loves you. She still loves you. I know she does."

Dwayne at last turned to look directly at Nina. At first he was aghast. Then, suddenly, his face crumpled in agony and he fell to his knees.

Uttering a strangling cry, he flung himself against Nina, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her groin. He started crying like a baby—loud, unashamed, and in the summit of plaintive agony. His hands unwittingly slipped to Nina's bottom, but she didn't mind: she knew that she was, at this moment, something of a stand-in for Stephanie, and that Dwayne's tears were really a plea for forgiveness that he was making to his erstwhile lover.

Nina stroked the shaved head at her belly. She could feel the tears moistening her skirt as the man shuddered and bawled and clung desperately to her.

Then she slipped out of his grasp, but only to fall to her knees herself. She was now face to face with Dwayne, and there were tears flowing from her eyes also.

"Dwayne, dear, you must get in touch with her. You're miserable, and she's miserable. It's not too late. You can make it up to her."

And Nina took his face in her hands and kissed him long and tenderly on the mouth. Their tears intermingled as the seconds turned into a minute or more, their lips still fastened together. Nina's arms were around his neck, his around her back.

At last they parted, but still gazed into each other's eyes. There was no embarrassment on either side for what had happened. It had all seemed so natural.

Nina urged Dwayne to get up. With brisk strokes of her hand she wiped away the river of tears from his face, and he followed suit more gently with his own hand. She gave him a broken smile that he echoed—the smile that, Nina knew, had pierced Stephanie's heart and was pretty close to piercing her own.

"You'll call her, won't you?" Nina said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I will."

"Good. Good man."

She gave him another little kiss on the mouth, then made her way out of the house.

As she sat in her car, breathing heavily, trying to regain her composure after the intense scene in Dwayne's house, she found her hand sliding inexorably to her groin. She pulled up her skirt, pushed away her panties from her crotch, sat back in the car seat, closed her eyes, and gave herself one of the most intense orgasms she'd ever had.

*

"Hi, Dwayne."

"Hi, Stef."

They had agreed to meet in a bar not far from Dwayne's house. The clientele was almost entirely black or Hispanic, but that didn't bother Stephanie. It was a Wednesday night, and both of them were well aware that, in the times of their involvement, this was one of the nights Dwayne would spend at Stephanie's house. That seemed a century ago now—but in other ways it seemed like yesterday.

When Stephanie entered the bar, she had almost immediately seen Dwayne sitting quietly in a booth on one side of the place. When he saw her, a shiver went through him before he tentatively raised a hand to greet her.

She slid into the seat across from him.

"You're looking good," she said.

"So are you."

"Doing well in your work?"

"Pretty well. How 'bout you."

"No complaints."

Now that that exchange of meaningless trivialities was finished, they both felt supremely unsatisfied. It was just as well that the waitress now chose to drift in their direction. They gave her their orders—Scotch on the rocks for him, a Tom Collins for her—and she went away.

"Dwayne," Stephanie said, "can I sit next to you? You seem so far away from me."

Rather grudgingly Dwayne slid further down his seat to make room for Stephanie to sit beside him.

"That's better," she said, although she wasn't entirely sure it was. Their hips had touched briefly, but they both backed away from the contact.

Dwayne had lapsed into his customary taciturnity; and after the waitress had delivered their drinks, he became fixated on taking precise quantities of the fluid into his mouth. Stephanie used a straw to imbibe her drink, but stopped after a few sips.

She knew she would have to take the conversational bull by the horns. And maybe it was right that she should. When talking to Dwayne on the phone, she had initially been outraged that Nina had taken such a high-handed action to look up Dwayne. Echoing Dwayne's reactions, she had said, "She had no right!" But Dwayne had persuaded her that Nina was acting in what she thought was their own best interests. Stephanie had made an outward show of being hesitant in accepting Dwayne's invitation to meet, although she was secretly ecstatic at the prospect.

But now, faced with her stonily silent ex-lover, she hardly knew what to say. She remained determined on one point (

I'm not going to beg him to come back to me!

), but beyond that she was flummoxed as to how to clear the air between them.

"Dwayne," she said, "I'm sorry about what happened to us. It was all a big misunderstanding, I think . . ."

"I'm sorry too, Stef," Dwayne said.

Stephanie wasn't sure exactly what Dwayne was sorry for.

Sorry for blowing off our wedding? Or sorry that you ever met me?

"I didn't mean to pressure you into marrying me. I should have realized that was a stupid and counterproductive thing to do. I—I don't blame you for not showing up." She really didn't feel that way: how could she not have some resentment for the public humiliation Dwayne had dealt her? But she felt she had to say something of the sort to get Dwayne talking.

But instead of talking, he just started to cry.

His expression did not change. He just sat there, peering forward, as some tears—not many, but some—leaked out of his eyes.

Just looking at him made Stephanie cry too.

"Dwayne," she said, grabbing his hand as it rested next to his hip, "what happened to us? How did we end up like this? What can we do to make things better?"

"I don't deserve you, Stef," Dwayne said.

"Don't you ever say that!"

"It's true. I'm a scumbag. I need to have my head handed to me on a platter. You know my ma didn't speak to me for about three months after I—I bailed on the wedding? Man, was she fit to be tied! Even now, she glares at me every time I see her."

"Well, what you did was pretty bad. But what I—and she—did was also not so good. I knew she was giving you a lot of heat about marrying me, and we should have known that would backfire."

At this point the waitress swung by—but seeing both of her customers weeping, she bolted away without a backward glance.

"I don't hold that against you, Dwayne."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't see how you can't."

"Dwayne, you need to let me decide how I feel."

He turned his face to her. Just as Nina had done a few days before, she wiped the tears from his face. And then she kissed him.

It was a soft, gentle kiss, and Stephanie enhanced it by placing her hand on Dwayne's cheek.

Afterward, she smiled at him and said, "Dwayne, I think you need to take me to your house."

Nodding absently, almost to himself, he urged Stephanie to get out of the booth. Flinging a bill—far more than what was needed to cover the drinks and a tip—on the table, he led Stephanie out of the bar.

They of course had to get to Dwayne's house in their own cars, and Stephanie assured him that she remembered the way.

Dwayne let her in and dumped her light coat on the sofa. Stephanie then led him to the bedroom.

They stood facing each other like huge chessmen on a board.

Without a word, Dwayne started undressing himself. He recognized the significance of the gesture. As he slowly and carefully removed his shoes, socks, shirt, pants, and underwear, he knew that he was, by the very fact of his nudity, making himself exposed and vulnerable to his old sweetheart. She was secretly pleased that he was already hard by the time he took his briefs off.

Then he approached Stephanie and began disrobing her. It was all a kind of ritual: blouse—skirt—stockings—bra—panties. His eyes widened as he took in the wondrous sight of her nakedness, so fondly remembered after all these years.

They held each other in a tight embrace for minutes, relishing the renewed contact of their entire bodies.

Then Stephanie slipped down to her knees and, as she had said to Nina, worshipped his cock. Lips and tongue were brought to bear in coating his member with her saliva and bringing him to even greater hardness, and a gentle hand tickled his balls in a way that she knew drove him wild.

When she stood up, she thought he would lead her to the bed. But instead, he pasted his lips to hers and slid his hand between her legs. With all too familiar motions, he stimulated her gently but inexorably, and she knew that he was going to do her the honor of bringing her to climax before he experienced one of his own. She melted in his embrace, and when the orgasm came, far faster than either of them expected, she had to fling her arms around his neck to keep from falling to the floor.

Even now he didn't take her to bed. Without warning, he picked her up by her hips and impaled her on his cock. She gasped at the sudden penetration—the first time a cock had invaded her since the last time Dwayne himself had done it three years ago. This unorthodox position also allowed for unprecedented depth of entry, and she lay passive in his arms as he pummeled her. At this angle, her face was slightly above his, and he looked up at her almost blankly as he thrust again and again into her pussy, clutching her bottom and sometimes nuzzling his face on her large breasts. In as little time as it took for her to come, he shot his seed deep into her—and in this way they both understood that a bond that had been broken was now resealed.

At last they fell into the bed, although Stephanie knew that this was only the beginning of the night's adventures.

As Dwayne held her on top of himself, stroking her back and butt, she sensed that his desire for a second round was imminent. In a shaking voice she said:

"Um, Dwayne, you can go into my bottom if you like."

His eyes lit up, but then clouded over.

"Stef, we don't have to do that if you don't want to."

"But I

do

want to, Dwayne!"

"You sure? You're not doing it just to please me?"

"Well, I mean, I don't know what it's going to feel like—but if there's anyone on earth who I want to do this with, it's you!"

He gave her that crooked smile and said, "We need some lube."

"Okay, go and get it."

He almost ran to the bathroom and came back with some hand lotion. She had already placed herself on her stomach so that he could apply the stuff. After he had done so, she positioned herself in the way that he had asked her on their first coupling: bending over the bed and draping her legs over the side. As he looked down at her, almost in disbelief that this longed-for moment had finally come, he approached her almost tentatively and said:

"You tell me if this hurts. I don't wanna hurt you."

"I will—but you just go ahead."

He guided his cock in the direction of her nether orifice. Knowing that one of the more painful parts of the procedure (for the woman) was just getting the tip in, he made a quick job of that. It grieved him to hear her let out an immense gasp, and he was on the verge of pulling out when she cried, "No, no, Dwayne, keep on!"

He watched himself enter her inch by inch, marveling at how his cock was seeming to disappear into her. When he was in at about three-quarters of his length, a kind of choking cry came from Stephanie, and he figured that was enough. With exquisite slowness he began going in and out of her, as she clutched the bedsheets spasmodically. He felt that he was in fact hurting her, but she seemed determined that he carry on and finish. Now he seized her hips with his hands and began pounding her hard, his thighs slapping against her bottom, his balls grazing her sex every so often. She was emitting soft grunts in rhythm to his thrusts, and when he sent his emission into her she let out a squeal that didn't end until the final drops of his fluid had been deposited into her. The squeal rose to a higher pitch as he pulled out.