Encore

This is a follow-up to the very first story I submitted here, “Carnival.” Yes, it’s a story, with conversation in between the orgasms and everything. Stroke purists just need to be patient. There’s plenty of good stuff and you will come to it. At least, I hope you do.

So here it was Saturday night, and I was sitting in a church I don’t go to, listening to music I don’t listen to, wishing I was anywhere else.

I really didn’t know why I let Sid talk me into these situations.

I’d mentioned to her that I needed to find a quiet place to hang out in over the weekend because they were doing structural work on the building my condo was in. I had a presentation to put together, and I did not need to do this to the sound of power drills, saws and nail guns.

“Hey, we’re all going up to Koenigsburg this weekend,” Sidonie said. “Why don’t you follow us up there? You can stay in the guest room. Nobody will bother you. The kids will be running around outside in the fresh air or trying to help my dad in the nursery. Besides, I’ve hardly seen you since spring. We’re all so busy we can’t seem to stay in touch even when we’re both in town. Maybe you can take time off from your big important project and we can go for a nice hike in the countryside or drive around and hunt for antiques.”

“Can I plug in my laptop in that room?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, you can do that. There’s even a phone connection and second line, if you need to get on line.”

Well, I’d stayed up there before, although not since we were all on the computer all the time, so I said OK and packed up my things and followed them—them being Sid and Gavin, their daughter-in-law Graciela and grandkid Corbin who were spending time with them because Branden was stationed in some bastion of misogyny in the Middle East—up to the farm.

However, the same random effects generator that had driven me out of my home seemed to be operating there, too. The guest room Sid had as good as promised me was being pre-empted by one of her cousins who had decided to separate from her husband the same weekend her parents were painting the interior of their house. Blood was thicker than water. Koenigsburg’s best motel had a vacancy so I drove into town and checked in. I’d have had to be somewhere, and if I’d found lodgings in Houston it would have cost me more money.

More unexpected stuff followed. I met the mother of Connie, the cousin who had bumped me out of the guest room. That turned out to be Lisa Scarpetti, who, upon being introduced to me said, “I’ve heard so

much

about you,” and withdrew the hand I had shaken as if she was sorry she wasn’t wearing an apron she could wipe it on. “Did you tell her I met Drew? And how much detail did you go into?” I demanded, when we went out onto the porch to enjoy the dusk for a few minutes before the bugs drove us back into the house.

“Esmé, I’m sorry,” Sidonie said. “I did not tell her a thing. It was Aunt Zandra I mentioned it to, and boy did that turn out to be a mistake.”

Sidonie’s aunt was pushing eighty. I would not like to say that her memory is failing her, because she is still very sharp; she still occasionally practices veterinary medicine, though she has turned her clinic over to her kids; she looks after her own finances, and she remembers all sorts of things. Just not an injunction to keep something a secret. She cannot keep a good story to herself, (which evidently runs in the family) even if you’ve told her it must go no further. It’s gotten to where the family lives in fear what she’ll tell on whom next.

“I didn’t know how much she’d gotten like that,” added Sidonie.

“Well didn’t you tell her I haven’t seen him since?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Sidonie began, but then Connie and her kids and Graciela and Corbin came out on the porch and she didn’t get to explain.

The next day, since the Texas Star Motel did not have an eatery attached to it, I got a couple of donuts and coffee from the Krispy Kreme store, and spent the morning working on my presentation. I got so much of it done that if I didn’t do a thing more with it, there was nothing I could not handle when I got home Sunday night.

After lunch Sidonie’s dad press-ganged her into helping to move rosebushes in his nursery, and I helped her do that, and by the time we were done it was too late to follow up the ad about the pie safe we’d seen in the newspaper because there was no telephone number, only an address outside of town that we didn’t want to go looking for in the dark. Then Connie and Graciela said they’d heard about a Christian rock concert at the Methodist church and they wanted to go and us to go along. Probably to help with kid wrangling.

I don’t listen to Christian rock. Every time I encounter it on the radio, usually while traveling and scanning for a signal, it spooks me—I hear bass and drums and guitar riffs, and keep expecting the music to be something I’m familiar with, and of course it’s not; and then it’s like finding oneself in a foreign country. Sidonie told me that if I’d listen to The Promise and radio stations like that some, then the music

would

be familiar to me, and I wouldn’t feel like that. No, thanks.

The concert had started, and since it was a small church, it was packed to the walls and SRO when we arrived. Once we got in we were all so occupied with trying to avoid stepping on people’s feet and finding a place to be that it was several minutes before I even got around to looking up at the band.

“Shit!” And here I was in church. It just came out. I mouthed at Sidonie,

What’s he doing here?

Sidonie shrugged. I read her lips.

Subbing, I guess.

Yes, it was Drew—I had no idea what he was doing playing in a Christian band instead of the southern rock band I’d seen him in last spring, but there he was. His thick black hair was cut startlingly short, and he’d grown one of these close-cropped Van Dykes with pencil-thin sides that I haven’t decided whether I like or not. He must have approved of what he was playing; I remembered the way he moved as if his whole body were happy, when he was playing something he liked.

I listened to the music; I clapped and even sang along, because most of the tunes were pleasant and predictable and easy to sing along with, but it was strange being in that setting, looking at Drew and remembering what I remembered about him. I forced myself to look at the rest of the band. There was a lead singer and guitarist with red-fox coloring, a keyboardist who looked like Shaggy, and a teenage drummer with a shaven head. I couldn’t help it—my eyes kept going back to Drew, just as they had the first time I’d ever seen him.

The music dimmed, reduced to its impact on the air that surrounded me. I was back in that hotel room in New Orleans, feeling the slight shiver of his skin beneath my hands as I ran them over his naked body, the salty taste and steel-and-silk texture of his cock in my mouth. His compact, muscular body in my arms, between my legs. I remembered the shape of his mouth, the way he’d sounded, at the moment when he’d spilled his seed into my cunt.

I looked away.

That was what was wrong with Christian rock, when I was the only person in the whole house who would be thinking about fucking someone in the band.

The mystery of what he was doing there was partially solved when, at the end of the concert, the leader of the band announced everyone, and said, “And be sure to give a big hand to our guest bassist—one of Koenigsburg’s native sons! Andrew Scarpetti!” Everybody did, of course, including me. He looked out at the audience and grinned. He still had one of the best smiles I’d ever seen. I thought he saw me; in the midst of his smile, his eyes widened, and his smile stayed on his face. But he was so far away. I wouldn’t have bet on it.

The lights in the church came up, and people started jostling and pressing their way to the narthex and the front door. I joined Sidonie, Connie and Graciela in making sure that the kids weren’t separated from us or squashed. Gavin had exited early and brought the van around. The kids were loaded into it and the adults went in after them.

“We’re going to the Chophouse to eat dinner,” Sidonie said. “Follow us there? It’s not hard to find.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not very hungry. I might get a cheeseburger or something and eat it in my room.”

Sidonie raised her eyebrows. “Well, OK. But don’t wait too long—remember even on Saturday, this town rolls up its sidewalks earlier than what you’re used to.”

I picked up a grilled cheese sandwich and a cherry limeade at the Sonic and took them to my hotel room instead of eating them at the drive-in, as I was supposed to. I had a Hershey bar with almonds in my purse and I ate that for dessert. I hung up my clothes and slipped into a mid-thigh-length, tailored silk nightshirt. I had a little seashell-shaped candle holder, into which one could put a tea light—I’d bought it at one of these candle parties. It was especially for traveling with. It was supposed to be for creating a romantic ambience. Romance or no, it was also good for combating the stench of soaked-in stale tobacco that you often found in motel rooms, especially old and inexpensive ones. Cinnamon apple or bayberry covers a multitude of sins.

I lit the little candle and put it on the nightstand, trying not to think about much of anything, but certainly aware that the room had that usual old-motel-room fug. I sat down on the bed, arranging the pillows high behind me to be comfortable, and plugged in the laptop. I worked some more on my presentation, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt restless and horny, knowing that I had no right or reason to expect to see this guy again, but the memories would not quit warming my body. I had a toy or two with me and I knew that later that night, they’d see some use.

What weird confluence of events had put him and me in Koenigsburg at the same time? We’d parted very amicably in New Orleans. After Sidonie had recovered from the initial shock of discovering her young cousin in my bed, she’d laughed uproariously and said she’d see us at breakfast—perhaps. Well, she didn’t. We ordered breakfast from Room Service and had it right there. That wasn’t all we had. I grinned as I recalled Drew pouring a teaspoon of pancake syrup onto my clit and labia, licking it off very thoroughly, and then telling me he liked it better plain. Things got even better from there, until about eleven that day, when a cell phone rang from one of the many pockets of the cargo pants he’d left in front of the settee, and he had to get back to work. I got with Sid and Gavin for lunch. Just as well. By then, I was sore.

We’d had a good time, but the fact remained, I was twice Drew’s age, if not more. There was nowhere this could go. And when something was over, I expected it to stay over; and I didn’t need to be in the same town with him, imagining him hooking up with any of several Barbie-slim, navel-studded young things that he could no doubt choose from if he felt so inclined.

I could go on line, I thought. Well, no—I followed the phone line to where it went into the wall, and found an old-fashioned jack. And no modern connection next to it. No Internet access, then. Sheeit.

I turned on the TV and was surfing through the Texas Star’s slender selection of cable channels when there was a knock on the door.

Probably Sidonie, I thought, come to tell me to quit being so antisocial and come out to the house for a while. I’d known her for a hundred years so I didn’t bother with putting a robe on over my nightshirt. I turned off the TV and opened the door.

It was Drew, wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, carrying a medium sized brown paper bag. My body reacted before any of the rest of me could. Partly an adrenaline rush, I thought. I felt the spurt of heat between my legs and my nipples tautened, pointing through the silk of my nightshirt, so abruptly that they tingled.

His eyes smiled. “I think you’re glad to see me,” he said. At the sound of his warm, dark voice, my nipples tautened some more and a rush of goose bumps fanned out over my skin. “You got an ice bucket in there? I need some ice.”

I turned back into the room and got the ice bucket off the dresser, not much of an effort in a room hardly big enough to swing a cat in.

“I’ll come with you,” I said, picking up the key that was lying next to it. He raised one calligraphy-slash eyebrow at my outfit. “Hey, I used to wear dresses shorter than this,” I added. Next to my car there was a black and silver V6 pickup truck that hadn’t been there when I checked in, which I figured was his. We walked half the length of the unit to where the ice was, and I dug the bucket in and filled it up. An errant breeze bellied up under my shirt and flipped up the tail, exposing more of me than I’d planned and cooling the moisture already seeping from my pussy. I heard a breath of laughter as Drew moved in closer to me, shielding me from any eyes watching me in the dark, but not making any move to pull it down. The shirt dropped of its own accord, and we went back to my room.

What he had in the sack was a bottle of Cook’s brut champagne and a four-pack of plastic champagne glasses.

“I hope this is OK,” he said. “For Dom Perignon I’d have had to drive to San Antone.”

“This is fine,” I said, and it was. Up here, I was lucky not to get Andre. I plunked the bottle into the ice and turned to Drew, and we went into each other’s arms. He seemed a little taller than the last time I’d held him; not because he’d grown, but I was barefoot; we were of similar heights. He held me tightly, as if he were simply glad to see me. Well, he must have been. He was here.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I’d wanted to talk to you. I was going to call Sid and ask her to give me your number or your e-mail address. You’ve saved me the trouble.”

“Are you OK?” I asked. “And where’s your stuff? Do you need to bring your guitar in or anything like that?”

“It’s in my truck box. Hey, this is Koenigsburg. No one’ll mess with it.”

He pulled his head back so he could fit his mouth to mine and give me a full-bodied, totally-involved kiss. I grooved on the sensation of his sweet, restless tongue dancing and sparring with mine. His teeth occasionally grazed my lips. The end of his nose was slightly cool and his beard rasped against my face. I opened my eyes just in time for to see him open his. He deliberately crossed his eyes, and we laughed. He pushed me off balance and tumped me onto the bed, falling with me, and we were all over each other, uttering happy, sensual little murmurs, kissing, touching, rubbing. I squeezed his shoulders and ran my hands down his tapering, muscular back to his narrow waist and firm butt. He nibbled at the flanges of my ears. His fingertips whispered against the thin silk of my nightshirt and snagged slightly on the material, as he found my nipples and made them rise. His mouth, startlingly warm, fastened on one of them, right through the cloth; I groaned outright as I felt another rush of heat in my pussy and my clit seemed to rise and point like a spear. He unbuttoned my shirt and pushed it aside. My breasts flattened out when I lay down, but when he took them in his hands they just filled them. My nipples poked up through the circles described by his thumbs and forefingers. He flicked them with his tongue and pulled at them lightly, let them spring back.

“Gonna make you hot, Esmé,” he muttered around my nipples. He gave me another voracious kiss that filled my mouth and stopped my breathing, said against my lips, “I want to make you

so hot…

”

And I was hot already; I was shamelessly rubbing my pussy against the front of his shorts, humping the thigh that he had between mine. I had my hands up under his shirt, trying to get him to strip it off; I wanted to swipe my tongue across his nipples and draw them between my lips and make him gasp and whimper like I was starting to do. I got my hand on his severely hard cock for a few seconds; it was nuzzling enthusiastically into my palm one minute and driving the cloth of my nightshirt deep into the folds of my sex the next, before he shifted his body away.

“Let me look at you, darlin’,” I said. He knelt up and pulled his shirt off over his head. He looked like he’d gotten some sun since the last time I’d seen him. When I touched his chest his nipples pointed beneath my hands. I ran a fingertip down the narrow trail of fur that ran down the center of his belly and disappeared beneath the waistband of his shorts. There was a click next to my head. Our rolling about on the bed had caused the laptop to tilt and fall shut. Drew reached over me, picked it up and laid it on the floor. He smelled intriguing—clean skin with no smoke this time, overlaid with deodorant and the traces of his musky cologne. Despite this, male pheromones wafted from the tufts of dark hair in his pits. His right armpit passed over me as he came up from putting the laptop down, and I rubbed my face into it and ran my tongue along the ridge of his thick pectoral sinew down to a pebbly nipple. I squeezed it between my tongue and upper lip. He let me do this for all too short a time; then with a groan, he straightened up, leaving me with my mouth still longing for something to taste. His cock strained the front of his shorts, which were streaked with a round spot of pre-cum and my juices where he’d pressed against me.

I unsnapped the waistband of his shorts. “Get ‘em off,” I told him, my very voice sounding engorged and thick. “Gotta taste that pretty fuckstick of yours again.” His cock lurched at my words, and he tugged down his shorts and jocks and sprang it loose. It was as nice to look at and hard and lively as the first time I’d seen it emerge, and I had it in my fist and in my mouth instantly, flicking my tongue up and down from the slit to the frenulum, swirling it around the beveled edges of the head. I tasted the tear-like saltiness of precum, and as I licked as far down the underside as I could, I felt it twitch and swell in my mouth.

“C’mon, Es, let me get comfortable,” he said. I let him go and he lay down next to me and took his shorts the rest of the way off. His steely, smooth-skinned cock slapped against his belly and I wanted to grab it again, but he once more held me down and closed his hands on my breasts. I felt his warm mouth and the prickly edges of his precisely trimmed beard brushing against my nipples, and then his hands and mouth moved down the length of my body and down my legs. By now I was so horny and frantic for the feel of anything touching my cunt that I was rubbing it against any part of him that came in contact with it, or if nothing did, obeying the primitive demands of my spine, my pelvic muscles, and thrusting against empty air.

“Move up,” he said, sliding his warm, hard hands under my ass and nudging it up and back for emphasis. I scooted up, reclining on some of the pillows I’d piled up at the head of the bed earlier. He reached up and grabbed one. I knew what he wanted to do from last time; I rose up so he could stick it under me. Lying between my legs, he pressed my thighs apart. His Madeira-brown eyes gleamed in the light of the small bedside lamp and his fine Italian mouth smiled charmingly at me over the arch of my pubis and the narrow strip of hair that was all I permitted to grow there. The smell of fresh, raw desire was coming off my open sex in waves. He inhaled, strongly. “I’ve missed the smell and taste of home cooking since I’ve been up here,” he said.

“I’ve had it heating up ever since I saw you tonight,” I said. “Eat up, honey, it’s all yours…”

He curled his tongue over my clit. “Like that?”

Unbidden, certainly irreverently, a song I’d heard during the concert popped into my head, only with somewhat different lyrics…

yes Drew

I sighed with happiness, it felt so good. He zigzagged his tongue all the way from my perineum back up to my clit again

yes Drew

and pointed it and thrust it into the muscular gate of my vagina

yes yes Drew

which closed reflexively around it, but of course I couldn’t keep a hold on it and he brought it up to run it in circles around my clit again

yes Drew

and I moved around trying to match its irregular filigree pattern

yes Drew

and he stuck one finger, then a second, up inside me

yes yes Drew

and began to stroke my interior where he’d found that crinkly dimply spot on the upper side…