Rachel My Rachel

From the beginning of our relationship Rachel joked in an underhand way about the size of my penis, as she formally referred to it, though I am, let's say, on the north side of normal. She told me that she'd said similar things to previous boyfriends and that none of them had complained or felt threatened. I shouldn't either. Her remarks, she said, were endearments, expressions of sweet affection.

"It's baby talk," I said. "It's belittling. I don't like it."

We were in bed, reading before putting the lights out. An oscillating fan created just enough breeze to make the heat and the weight of a thin sheet bearable. Rachel set her book aside and slid her hand toward me.

"But you have such a cute little penis," she said.

"Do you want to pick a fight?"

"Nooo, I'm just teasing, so . . . lighten up, mister." She threw back the sheet, then lifted my sack on the flat of her fingers. "When your balls are really hanging like this," she said, "I

know

it's hot out. They're so cute."

"The things you say, Rache ... "

"That your balls are cute?"

"No man likes to hear that."

She shifted her grip and squeezed the base of my dick, wagging what showed above. That's all it took to get an erection going.

"It's too hot to roll around on each other," she said, "want me to jerk you off?"

"Only if you think you've got enough to work with."

She switched to a feather-light touch and a slow rhythm.

"I'm pretending that this is a really big dick."

"See? What -

whew

- how big do you have to imagine one ... to call it ...

man

... really big?"

"I don't know. Nine inches?"

"We could . . . get you one of those . . . big silicone dongs."

"Oh, that's disgusting."

"It has to be live? What if it's ... a nine inch ... pencil dick?"

"What's a pencil dick?"

"Really, really skinny."

"That's even more disgusting."

"How many 'big dicks' ... have you actually had?"

"None. Yours is the biggest. This itty-bitty penis is the biggest penis I've ever had."

"Then you better keep pretending," I said.

"Maybe someday I won't have to." Her pace quickened with a tightened grip.

"Are you ... making plans of some kind, sweet ... sweetheart?"

"No, silly. I wouldn't know where to start."

"That's ... bull."

"No. It would have to be completely unexpected, unplanned, like, this freak opportunity."

"

Aah

- your choice of words."

"And I'd have to be forced."

"Forced?"

"Persuaded."

"By logic."

"By circumstances."

"Oh. The opportune moment."

"Like I'm away at a business convention ... at a big hotel ... and I meet an old friend there, a girlfriend from school, college. It's too bad we only found each other on the last day. And we go for a drink. And ... she was a little out of control back when, but she was fun. And ... I invite her up to my room, but she prefers hers. It's a suite. And she makes a confession ... that her boyfriend's there. But he's not really her boyfriend. Just her latest interest."

"Her boy toy."

"She's very successful. He's nice. Handsome. They hand me my second vodka and tonic, and . . . they sit close together on the couch just across from me. My friend calls the guy a hunk and drapes herself all over him. I'm relaxed about it. She gets that wild look ... and she strokes down his leg and he goes, "Whoa!" and sits up and looks at me in this embarrassed way and I look to where she's stroking him and ... it's like he's got this eel in his pants."

"Eel in his pants . . ."

"Don't laugh. It's quite intimidating. She knows that I've got this thing, this hate-worship thing about big cocks. At school she called me a closet size-queen."

"An insightful gal."

"That's why she brought me to their suite to meet him. It's a trap."

"Whoa ..."

"Finally she takes it out to show me. He lays back. It's like ... bobbing in the air and it isn't even hard yet. And she's looking at me, because she knows that to save my life I can't take my eyes off of it. She sees that I'm, like, about paralyzed ... "

"Entranced?"

"Yeah, just ... hooked. And she starts to hand job him, real slowly ... this big dick ... eyeballing me because she knows, she knows I'm hooked. Then she asks me if I want to do it. And I say no. But she reaches over to me with her free hand ... and takes my wrist. And I pull back, but she doesn't let go. She knows I'm weak and pulls my hand to his hard on ... and makes me touch it ... and wrap my fingers around it ... and squeeze ... And she starts making my hand go up and down ... until I take over on my own ... and it's like ... I get so far into it that when she pushes my head down I figure it's just part of the deal and I let this big head slide into my mouth so I can suck it."

"You've given this some thought," I said in a strangled voice.

"I want to make him really hard ... and tease him and stroke him like I'm addicted to orgasms. I lick it up and down. 'Cause I want to make it build ...I want to make it swell like a volcano ... overload ... before I make it explode."

A day or two later - again, reading in bed - Rachel snapped her book shut and looked at me directly until I gave her my full attention. She pursed her lips and was snaking her hand under the sheet, deja vu.

"Tell me the truth," she said.

"I always try to."

"That's a lie in itself."

"What do you want to ask me, Rache?"

Her fingertips touched my thigh. "Would you be hurt if I jerked off another guy?"

I sat up. "Hurt isn't the word, Rache. You'd be cheating." I stopped her motion. "Did you? Have you done that?"

"Noooo." She kissed me. "You know I couldn't."

"This is the second time you've brought it up."

She freed her hand to wander again. "What if you were there while I was doing it?"

"Like I'm supposed to walk in or hide in a closet? Thank you, no, absolutely not."

She reached further and found my prick. Her fingers started to play.

"What if I lost a bet or got caught cheating in a game?"

"Like, Go Fish?"

"Something more serious."

Despite skepticism, my prick began to grow. I said, "Have you noticed ... in these fantasies, Rache ... you're never quite responsible for what happens?"

"I'd have to pay up."

"You're all talk."

"It excites you, doesn't it?"

"It excites me when you stroke like that, and ... get that dirty look in your eye." I slid further under the sheet.

"I could tell you about the one real time, the one real time ... I got myself in trouble and couldn't get out of it. And had to pay up."

"You are so full of it."

"No, for real. ... This is true." She ran her thumb around the knob of my prick, then changed tactics and stretched my nuts southward. "This really happened," she said. "I'm ashamed to say how old I was, because they were a lot younger and they really ... took advantage of me."

"

They

did? How many?"

She was stroking again.

"Two. Twins."

"Really? Boys or girls?"

"Boys, of course. I was housesitting at a beach for their parents. The twins arrived two days before their folks and I was supposed to keep an eye on them."

"How old were your twins?"

"Younger than you'd believe. We spent a few hours in the water. I nearly lost my top after a big wave hit me. One of them might've seen something."

"A good nip-slip is every young male's dream come true."

"After that they kept pestering me to show them my tits."

"Did you?"

"I kind of had to."

"You had to or you didn't, Rache. Did you want to?"

"It was late. We were playing a board game."

"Slides and Stairs."

"Word Crunch, actually. They suggested it. I thought, okay, educational ... you know. Improve their growing minds ... "

"Build their young vocabularies."

"As it turned out ..."

"Their young dicks were growing too."

"They had these concert tickets ... they showed me ... incredible tickets ... three ... for the next night ... and they said the third one was mine, if ... I showed them my tits."

"I gotta ask again, how old were these twins?"

"So ... the ticket, you wouldn't believe. Their parents were loaded of course. So I made a bet. I said that if I won the game, I would get the ticket. And if I didn't, then ..."

"Ta da."

"Yeah. I figured, how could I lose? They'd been making pathetic words like "your" and "hide", or adding an s onto my words. I was already way ahead."

"They got better at it though."

"As soon as we made the bet, in the next two rounds, they spelled two words. I'll never forget them either." Her fingers spider walked along my erection. "Naked", with the d on a triple, so ... triple two words ..."

"And the other?"

"You won't believe it." She pressed my erection to my stomach with her flattened palm. "Mammaries."

"How the heck do you get "mammaries" in Word Crunch?"

"I know, incredible. Double word. Fifty more for using eight." Rache looked genuinely chagrined. "I came in way third."

"They set you up by setting each other up."

"The moment I lost, they wanted me to strip."

"From from the waist up."

"No, completely, since I lost so bad. And they said they had the right to touch me. If I let them touch me ... they would put the ticket in my hand."

"Touch you where?"

"I had on a long sweat shirt and a two-piece underneath."

"Tell me you didn't drop trou."

"They agreed to turn the lights off and they moved the coffee table out of the way. The room looked neat in the dark because there was a theater juke box lit up in the corner with these reds and yellows."

"Hmm. Sweet nostalgia."

"I started to get really nervous and said I didn't want to do it ...and then they said that if I tried to back out ... they would strip me anyway and tie me up."

"I'd love to tie you up."

"Down, now. Shhh. I pulled the sweat shirt over my head, then pulled off the top of my bathing suit, and held it, and ... let them look. I was standing with the back of my legs up against the couch. One of them was standing in front of me. The other stepped up on the cushions behind me. He said he wanted to look down."

Rache lifted her grip, and used just the pad of her thumb. "Like that, Rache," I said. "That's ... yeah ..."

"They were like ... smart. They didn't just go pawing me all over, you know? They took their time, touching ... brushing down my arms or . . . down my back. Light touches, just fingertips."

"Reassuring."

"And then the one in front of me, he just flicked his finger over my nipple, and he saw my reaction and flicked it again and ... you know ..."

"You jumped."

"Yeah. And he said are they touchy? And I said yes, don't. And the one behind me took my arms and pulled them back. I said hey, but the one in front took my nipples and . . . teased them . . . and I tried to tell them to stop . . . and I tried to struggle away, but . . . they held me . . . and the way he teased . . . my hips kind of pushed forward, and he slid one hand right between my legs and cupped his fingers . . . And he hurt my nipple just right . . ."

"Slow . . . Slow, baby . . ."

"That moment, with them holding me by my arms and my crotch, I felt like sick to my cervix. They were getting me off. I got scared that they could smell it. The one in front got a mean look and started to rub me with both of his hands. The one behind me kept my arms pinned while he . . . reached around and . . ." Rache flicked and pulled a nipple to demonstrate. "My legs kind of buckled. They sat me down and untied my bottom piece and pulled it off."

"You didn't let them fuck you, did you?"

"No, I didn't."

"You are so bitching good at this."

"Want relief?"

"Not yet . . ."

"They fingered me off."

"Oh, shi . . . You came?"

"They made fun of me because I came so fast, and they wiped their sticky wet fingers on my face."

"And . . . where did they wipe their sticky wet dicks?"

"They took off their clothes after I came and sat on the couch with me between them. They spread my knees over their legs, and said they were going to make me come again ... and they kept my arms pinned behind their backs while they felt me up and played with me."

I rolled to kiss her and tease her nipple through the thin gown, but she shoved me down again.

"Every word of this story is a lie," I said. "But I believe you while you tell it. Did it get you to the concert, Rache?"

She looked straight into my eyes with a stern expression, and started pumping with greed. "After I came again, they made me kneel on the rug and blow them," she said. "I had to suck their dicks on my knees."

"Damn, Rache . . ."

"They even put both their dicks in my mouth at the same time. I thought about tasting their cum."

"Fucko."

"I made them finish off on my titties and it was a good thing too ... because they shot a lot of cum, a lot of it ... dripping off my nips." Her eyes flashed with mean humor. "And it was the most bitching fucking concert I've ever been to."

It was time to have a daylight talk. Over the past three weeks our sex life had become handjobs only. It was becoming alienating, irritating. I missed the more intimate sex we had, the love we made, locked close, rocking together in slow rhythm. I missed the taste of her, sometimes peppery, touched, unbelievably, with a trace of maple syrup. Her skin, her many responses to touch.

The prolonged heatwave, the intensified stresses at work, hard deadlines for both of us, didn't explain to me the distance in Rache.

We met for dinner and a drink before going home that Friday.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing, silly. Except work."

"You're avoiding me, sexually."

"Oh. How many times a night am I supposed to -" She blurred her fist.

"Are you mad about something? What's changed, Rache?"

"Nothing," she said, "I like telling stories. They sure work for you."

"They're fun," I said, "but I like to please you too, and it doesn't always have to involve fantasy, does it?"

Rache ordered a second vodka and tonic.

"It's best when it's real," I said.

"I love you," she said, "and I could probably spend half a lifetime with you."

"Half's not half bad."

"And because I love you, there are certain ways that I can't be with you and that you can't be with me."

"That's a lovely paradox. What does it mean?"

"We have to respect each other."

"We have to trust each other, but challenge each other too."

She leaned across the table and took me by the arm with tears in her eyes.

"Exactly," she said.

The

click click

of flint and iron in the back of my brain warned that a misunderstanding was in progress, but I chose to ignore it. I chose to assume that her meaning matched my own, the easier path.

"I have bad news," I said. "I have to work tomorrow and it might go into the evening."

"Why?"

"The clients are flying out Monday morning. We -I -have to wrap everything up."

"What about Sunday?"

"If things go well, I should be free."

"All I want to do is relax. We can stay home and eat in."

"Perfect," I said.

"How's your new friend, the one who's made the ordeal bearable?"

"My counterpart. His boss is as much of a jerk as mine."

"They're West African?"

"They are."

"Does your friend have a charming accent?"

"Dez? To his ears, we have accents. He speaks a very formal English on the job."

Then she surprised me.

"If he's leaving on Monday," she said, "why don't you invite him over for dinner on Sunday night?"

Dez accepted the invitation. The higher ups kept us running until Saturday late afternoon before they exchanged handshakes and congratulations. A couple of us underlings stopped for a celebratory drink before going home. Kimi, one of my co- workers, sidled close to me when Dez left the table for the men's room.

"You two are chummy," she said.

"We're like war buddies now."

"He has a rep."

"A rep for what?"

"His endowment, what else? Supposedly it's humongo. Like his ego."

"Kimi, where on earth do you get that?"

"People talk." She gestured toward two of the women on Dez's team. They were too rapt in their own conversation to notice.

"That's more than I need to know," I said. "Should I cut out so you can get the chance to verify for yourself?"

"Not my type," Kimi said. "And my boyfriend would be pissed."

"I'm heading out anyway," I said. "Good work this week. You were great. See you Monday."

I was saying goodbye to the others as Dez returned. He grabbed his jacket to leave with me and I drove him to his hotel with Kimi's gossip blipping across my imagination.

Dez said, "Your girlfriend will not mind company for dinner on a Sunday night?"

"She suggested inviting you."

"The woman likes to please you."

"Sometimes tease more than please."

"That Kimi is a sour one."

"Why say that?"

"She also will tease more than please."

"What's that about, Dez?"

"I should not say. It should remain between she and me."

I pulled up to the front door of his hotel and said, "You didn't dick her, did you?"

He climbed out of the car and winked.

"I will bring some good wine," he said and then disappeared into the lobby.

Sunday dinner was ready on the early side. Rache started a glass of wine before Dez arrived.

She liked him. He brought flowers and a good red and he bowed without kissing her hand when they were introduced.

We ate, then went to the living room and sat casually around the floor, listening to music and opening a new bottle. Rache found a deck of cards among the cd's randomly stacked on a shelf.

"I didn't know we had these," she said.

I didn't either. She tossed the deck on the coffee table.

"What card games do you like to play?" Dez said, a question for both of us. "Blackjack or Texas Hold Them?"

"The only card game I ever played was strip poker," Rache said, "and that was at girl's camp."

"I am not sure that I have heard of that game," Dez said.

I was thinking of the story Rache could weave about girl's camp. I heard that

click click

once again.

"Instead of money," she said, "players bet their clothes," Rachel said.

"Everybody wins," I said. Two words that sealed my culpability in all that followed.

"What happens when a player loses all clothing?" Dez said.

"Then they have to do something to get their clothes back."

"It's a game for kids," I said, "first explorings, you know?"

"But it sounds as though it could be very adult," Dez said.

"You can keep the deck and play solitaire on the plane," Rache told him, "we're the two worst card players in the world."

Rachel, I thought, Rachel, oh Rachel, what danger are you courting?

Dez opened the deck, shuffled, and dealt us each a hand of five card draw without mentioning stakes. Rachel lifted her cards. "What have you got," she asked me.

I peeked the corners. "Four kings," I said.

Rache gulped her wine. "You should automatically lose for lying." She turned to Dez. "He should take something off, don't you think?"

"If he wishes."

Rache turned to me and said, "Start with your socks." Then to Dez, she said, "You can deal again."

Rache thought it was funny as I lost three of the next four hands, and she lost none. She was drinking quickly, finishing nearly half the bottle herself. After her luck turned, and she lost both of her socks and her blouse, she grew quiet. The deal passed to me.

"Do you still want to play?" I asked.

"Do you want me to have to show my tits?" she asked.

"Everybody wins," Dez said.

I calmed my anxious heart and dealt.

A short while later, Rache stared at her losing hand, then reached behind her back and swiftly unhooked her bra.

"This is what you wanted," she said, flinging it at me. She turned to Dez with a little jut of her chest and said, "Get your eyeful."

She looked unbearably sexy. Pale skinned, stripped to the waist above her jeans with those stunning breasts. I thought of concert tickets.