Anita

For those of you who read the first part of Anita, I have to answer my own question: yes, it was all fiction. This second part of the Anita (Annie) story is also fiction. So any resemblance to people living or dead or places are purely coincidental. These stories are purely products of my imagination, produced with the invaluable help of a friend S. who edited and improved my piece. The mistakes that remain are entirely my own.

If you have not read the original Anita, read it to help you make sense of the first part of this story.

*

Anita Pt. 2: The mature Annie takes the lead.

"Michael. How y'doing?"

Michael knew for some time this call would come yet he could not form even a simple acknowledgement. He was afraid and confused. He offered only silence as he clenched the phone to his ear.

"Michael y'there? It's Annie here. Speak to me." There was urgency in her voice. Annie's chest knotted. Had Michael had a stroke?

Michael held the silence for a few more seconds. He knew he had to answer. Something. Anything.

"Oh, Annie. Of course. I'm fine. Really. Was just choking off a cough." He lied. Then forced a phlegmy cough.

"I was expecting to hear from you. How have you been?" Annie's voice was gentle and calm.

"OK."

"Just OK?" There was something flat and unresponsive in Michael's voice that worried her. "Michael. I'll be at your front door in twenty minutes. Leave it unlocked." She did not wait for an answer. She swept up her purse and was out of the door in thirty seconds.

Michael was sitting in his living room in his favourite leather chair still dressed in his pajamas and a dressing gown. He had slippers on his feet. He sported a three-day stubble on his chin. Annie could smell him from the doorway. His hair was unkempt. He looked a mess.

"Michael. You're sick." A statement rather than a question based on Annie's immediate assessment of what she could see. "You poor sweetie. You should have let me know."

"No Annie. I was sick, but almost better now."

"Let me make you a coffee or tea. Which?"

"NO, don't bother. I don't need anything,"

Annie was firm. "Coffee or tea"

"Tea," Michael replied meekly.

The kitchen confronted Annie with a wasteland of dirty dishes. Not a single horizontal space had enough room for two cups.

She returned to the living room. "Michael. Here's the plan. You go upstairs, shave, shower or bath, get dressed and then come down. You stink, by the way. While you are upstairs I'll tackle the kitchen, so take your time. Then you'll get your tea and we can chat."

Looking Michael hard in the eyes she challenged, "OK?"

He nodded, rose and headed upstairs without a word.

It took almost forty-five minutes to bring order to the kitchen, fill the dishwasher and hand wash the rest of the dishes. Michael magically appeared at the same moment Annie brought the tea and some cookies into the living room.

"Here you go. Get that inside you. Now tell what's going on."

Michael sipped his tea, ate two cookies and looked at Annie from under his bushy eyebrows. He smiled. "You're right I am a mess. Thank you for this." He gave a genuine thick cough. "Bronchitis. The antibiotics almost have it beat now. Just a small residual cough."

"Walk me through this. You left tired and weakened last Friday week. Then what?"

"I went home and slept until Sunday afternoon. Woke up with tickle in my throat. Started coughing. It was full fledged by Monday morning. I called my Doctor, knowing this led to pneumonia in the past. Saw the Doc in the afternoon. Was given a five day intensive course of antibiotics. Hunkered down with my laptop in bed, came down for some soup, soft boiled eggs, bread and butter, and finally some frozen dinners and got up yesterday for a while, and again today."

"Oh Michael. You should have called. What did the Doc tell you?"

"Oh that was funny. You'd appreciate it. First off my Doc is a good-looking lady in her late forties. Looks like Lauren Bacall if you know who she was."

"The Big Sleep?"

"Right. You know your movies. Sexy as hell. I always flirt with her like crazy. Painted her portrait two years back. Anyway she looked me over and quizzed me on my diet. She wants me to see a nutritionist. Then she continued how did I get so run down, blah, blah, blah. I asked if she really wanted to know. Of course she did. So I told her about our event."

"You what? How much did you tell her," Annie exclaimed.

"No harm. No foul here. Just hear me out for a moment. She had a grin from ear to ear as I told her the outline. She called me an old dog. She looked impressed. Shaking her head from side to side she reached across and grabbed, and rubbed a little bit on my crotch. She declared, 'You have the first case of righteous bronchitis I have ever come across.' So I have my diagnosis."

"She did that? Maybe she is a gal after my own heart. So that's it? If so, why this moping around?"

"That's not quite everything. I referred her to literotica.com. Told her she might want to see the full story. She wrote the name down. I'll be curious if she follows through. I have a check up in two weeks, I will find out then."

"But she might be able to deduce who I am from a story. That's dangerous for me."

"I am sure she is trustworthy. She has more to lose sexually assaulting an old codger like me. There's leverage."

"You still haven't squared up why you have let yourself go so much. Tell me what's going on."

"First there was a time squeeze for me. What with all the sleeping due to the bronchitis and antibiotics and then my writing our encounter story I did not have time for grooming and housekeeping."

"You've written a draft of our story? Can I see it and edit it?"

"Yes in the first part. No in the second. I sent it off two days ago and its already published. Titled it Anita."

"What? We agreed. You said you'd send a draft to me."

"I did. I got carried away. I'm sorry. I may not have been thinking straight."

"Straight up you were way off. Very little I can do about it now though. You changed our names I hope?" There was an edge of panic in Annie's voice.

"Give me some credit Annie. Of course I changed the names. But I also realized something much more important that depresses the hell out of me." Michael paused.

"As I wrote I came to recognize that the ephemeral act of coitus, even with all its variations and engagement of all my senses, did not match my overall pleasure of being a chronicler of the event. I was a voyeur of my – our – actions. I think it is my age, and perhaps the downstream sickness that colored my conclusion. I hope I am wrong but sense I am right as far as our fucking was concerned. Does this make a blind bit of sense to you? It really doesn't to me except at a visceral level."

"That's heavy Michael. You preferred writing us up to actually fucking. That doesn't say much for me. Am I so lousy at fucking that you can dismiss us being clinched together? I'm going to have to think about where we stand."

"Maybe it's just us together. You are still Anita to me, rather than Annie. Our thirty-year history together means more than our one-night stand. Does our fuck-fest trump our friendship? I think not but I don't know the answers."

"Let me get this straight: you prefer to have me as a friend and at the same time imagine me getting into sexual situations – think the other literotica stories you wrote - rather than be part of an actual sexual engagement. That's beyond weird, it's perverse. I do not know the answers either, but I can tell you that you are seriously strange."

Annie tilted her head to her right shoulder. The gesture he had seen many times before when she was questioning him. The unspoken question hung in the air.

"Look Annie. As I was ramming into you I thought I was hurting you, even ruining you. What was worse was that I didn't care. I am appalled that I could do that to a friend."

"You didn't hurt me Michael. Do I look ruined?" Annie spoke quietly.

They sat in silence looking at each other.

Michael felt a general sense of relief. His burden unloaded, he felt a lightness in his chest. Was it an affirmation of his decision to return to being friends with Anita or a measure of the dread he'd felt for days about talking with Annie?

Annie was just plain confused. Had she just been brushed off and rejected. She was not particularly physically attracted to Michael, nor did she find him unattractive, but felt she owed him a deep debt of gratitude for his friendship over the years. She could live without sexual intimacy with Michael, but did not want to throw away his friendship. An idea came to her.

"Tell me honestly if you had sorted this out in your mind earlier, would you have called me had you not become sick?"

"I'm not sure. But probably yes."

"Can I count on you as a friend?" She paused. "Will you still call me Annie? Would you call me if you are ill?"

Michael brightened. He contemplated what he saw as an ideal situation. "OK. I would undertake to call you to help me when I needed help. But what do you mean by friend though? Do we hug when we meet or snuggle from time to time? Share our most intimate secrets?"

"Yes. I think all those things. But no open mouth kissing. Fingering or fucking are out. Maybe we could masturbate in each other's company, but no more. How does that sound?"

"Yes, I think all those things. On the upside, I won't have to worry that I might kill you....not that you wouldn't die with a smile on your face."

"I refuse to grace that with a reply" Michael said breezily "Are we agreed then? Friends without benefits?

"Yes, very dear friends without benefits. A chaste kiss to seal the deal"

She gave him a perfunctory peck.

Again they sat in silence.. Michael was the first to reengage. "How about the weather we've been having?" He offered with a slight smile on his face.

Annie laughed. "OK I get it. Lighten up."

Michael's confidence seemed to return, "This has been all about me. What have you been up to in the last few days?"

"Funny should you ask. I think this will tickle your curiosity – your voyeuristic tendencies, or should I call them your curiosities. Have you any wine?"

"No. I do have some Malt Whiskey and some Gin. Any interest?"

"Let me try the Malt." Michael rose and poured two small Whiskies into crystal glass tumblers.

"You will recall at my retirement party there were quite a lot of younger people. Most were my former students. I particularly liked one student, Gloria, who was very talented. She drew and painted very well. She branched out into strong abstractions and then into performance art. She was at the party with her two toddlers. I was very pleased to make contact with her again. I called her the day following our – what shall I call it now – event?"

A hint of a smile played around the corners of Michael's mouth. Annie continued.

"Gloria lives two blocks away from my house. Who knew? I visited her two days after our, dammit, fuck. Gloria revels in emotional reactions and expressive gestures."

"What does she look like? Give me an idea?"

"Genuine blond. Believe me. You'll see. About five-six or seven. Great rack – 36D I would guess, firm with very prominent nipples. Shapely hips, small waist. Long delicious legs. There's more I can say, but let me tell you how our meeting went."

"Do tell."

"Gloria's mother 'call me Pat'" Annie gestured with quotation marks and rolled her eyes "showed up shortly after I arrived at Gloria's. I remember her from parent-teacher interviews. An odiously officious woman. Thank God, Gloria inherited her looks rather than her personality."

Annie moved from an upright chair onto the sofa.

"It was not long after we had finished coffee when Gloria had to go and change a diaper on the younger child. Pat immediately collared me and asked me – actually it was more insisted - if I would help her. I was cagey. Pat thought there was something ugly going on between Gloria and her husband. She asked if I could find out what it was. Apparently Pat had tried every which way and failed."

Michael interjected, "That was more than a bit cheeky of Pat. You've only met her a few minutes before and she is asking you to spy for her."

"Gloria was soon back and I did not commit one way or the other, although my curiosity was piqued. You don't have a corner on the curiosity market buster." Annie's eyes sparkled.

"Never thought I did. So what happened?"

"Pat left and I steered the conversation to her husband John. Sounded like a fine, upstanding entrepreneur and family man."

"How disappointingly dull" Michael scoffed.

"Not so fast. He's a looker and apparently not too shabby in the bedroom. I pushed the envelope prying that out of her."

"Promising. Go on."

"She responded to my probing, somewhat to my surprise. They had a good relationship from a companionship point of view. He was attentive to her needs both emotionally, romantically and she admitted physically. Paraphrasing what she said I would call him a good fuck. Then out of the blue she asked me if I'd give her an opinion on a really delicate and personal matter."

"Even more interesting. Ooh, now we're getting warm."

"It appears they do some role playing. Nothing new there. But he has starting hinting, and getting bolder and bolder about having a threesome. Gloria does not know how to respond to this increasing suggestion. She asked for my advice. She says she really enjoyed sex with her husband, and had a few boyfriends when she was at college. But the idea of another woman really made her uncomfortable, yet curious."

Annie paused. She went to the sideboard and refilled her glass.

"Would you like a top up?" she asked.

"Forget the scotch. Don't keep me on tenderhooks. Continue."

"Ok, ok. She asked me if I'd ever had sex with a woman. Naturally, I said "yes" but, of course, I preferred men. She wanted to know what it was like. So I told her. "Delicious". She seemed genuinely confused so I assured her that being with a woman was quite pleasant although different from being with a man...more emotionally connected less penis-centric. I asked her if she'd like a sampler. A small kiss. She fidgeted in her chair. I put no pressure on her. Then, she sat bolt upright and said "yes". I kissed our impetuous Gloria.

"How was it?"

"The kiss? For me nothing special. For Gloria I think it was revelation. It was 'again' and 'one more' and then 'another?' – soon we were going at it with our mouths open and tongues fencing for space in the other's mouth. I was getting into it. I stroked her neck and shoulders, brought my hand down to her breast. I could feel her hardened nipple through several layers of clothing."

"So far so good."

"I could give you a blow by blow, but to summarize we entered into a linear progression of stripping each other naked and then proceeding to kiss every square inch of each other's bodies lingering on hot spots until we brought each other off spectacularly. At the end we confirmed my original assessment of delicious. I have a unexpected convert to bi-ism."

"Then what."

"Just to fill this out a bit, I discovered she had really dark areolas topped by long, long firm nipples when aroused. Her skin is pale. Quite a contrast. Gloria keeps her pussy well trimmed. She loved my slightly enhance breasts and she quickly acquired a good technique for stimulating them. Also I can tell you she has an educated tongue. She told me she had played the recorder as a teenager – I must try that."

Annie took another sip of her scotch. "We returned to Gloria's original issue – her husband's desire for a threesome. She asked me if I was interested. We talked about it and got a touch feminist and wicked about it."

"What do you mean?"

"We twisted the plot, so to speak. We came up with the idea John had not specified what type of threesome. Why do men always think threesomes involve two women? She came up with the idea that she would have another man to make up the threesome."

"You were sitting there naked with Gloria and she came up with that idea?"

"No we'd got dressed at this point. She knew a guy from her old college and saw him for coffee from time-to-time. He was gay and it so happens he was black. He was a performance artist and actor on hard times who took on jobs in the porno market. Gloria became determined to recruit him for the threesome. We sorted out a plan and the details. I would go over to dinner with them to introduce me to John the following night. 'My old teacher is coming over for dinner." I was directed to dress up with a touch of slutty about me for the dinner."

"That was the following day?"

"Yep. We were moving fast."

"How did that go?"

"Perfectly. The dinner was fine. I made eyes at him and Gloria. He couldn't have missed the signals. Gloria called me the following day. They pillow talked about the threesome. My name was proposed. Apparently I passed the audition. Gloria had nine intense orgasms from John's ministrations to her body that night. He had three so she says. The die was cast."

"What about the other guy?"

"His name is Guy." Annie chuckled. "He was free and ready to participate for his old friend. I think he was a little less gay than Gloria thought. I met him and Gloria for coffee. We plotted a wicked scheme."

"Tell me."

"You betcha. I was responsible for getting the restraints, blindfold and other equipment. Gloria was to get John naked in bed. She left a key under the mat for Guy to let himself in. The whole thing as planned down to the minutes for Saturday night."

"Gloria took the kids over to her mom for the night. John and Gloria went out for a fine dinner at the new upmarket restaurant down by the golf course, Gloria declared herself the designated driver. John drank freely. He was very excited. She got him to bed and made sure he was naked. I arrived and was ushered into the bedroom with my shopping bag. A quick glance at John told me he had shaved off all his bodily hair. He looked vaguely adolescent with his light musculature and no hair. Some unfulfilled thoughts of my students flashed through my mind."

Annie paused for a moment as her mind went elsewhere. She resumed, "I kissed Gloria on the lips and we got into it. We had to keep pushing John back. Eventually we feigned annoyance and told him to behave himself otherwise he would be punished. He giggled and thought that would be fun. Little did he know."

Annie stopped again for a moment and took another sip of scotch. Michael was sitting at the edge of his seat. Annie noticed he already sported a prominent anticipatory erection. She felt a pulse in her crotch and glanced away.

"Next time he shuffled down the bed to where we were beginning to undress each other. We stopped. I reached into my bag and we were on him. He laughed at first and then was amazed how we had restrained both his arms to the headboard with tough Velcro handcuffs. We used rope to secure his legs to the bottom bedposts. He was spread-eagled but there was sufficient slack in the rope so he could pull his knees up to his chest. We told him that he had been warned. We put a pillow under his head so he could see us continuing to undress each other at the end of the bed. By now John was sporting a great, I would guess, seven or eight inch erection."

"I get the picture. You are both serious teases."

"We continued. John's eyes almost popped out of his head when I pulled out of the bag a eight-inch strap on and attached it over my vagina. John was now puzzled. As planned we both thought it better that John not see the next development. So we put a full head blindfold over his head, having dabbed it with one of my more expensive French perfumes. John shuddered and started to demand we take all this stuff off and it was not what he had wanted. I removed the strap on."