A Little Yearning

Jim Donne came awake with a start to the sound of the back screen door banging closed. He had fallen asleep at his desk chair with his dusty running shoes propped up on a stack of student papers. The cursor on his computer was blinking beside the bold declaration: CHAPTER TWO, just where it had been yesterday and days before.

He had gone for a run at dusk, a long one, and then after coming home and throwing on a dry shirt had pulled up the chair to his desk, energized, and started correcting papers. The first one had put him to sleep. He drained a tepid glass of water that had sweated over another poor student's essay, rendering the first paragraph illegible, and called, "Katie? You home?"

He heard the bathroom door close and then the shower turn on. He picked up a paper and a red pen. "The Ambilavence of Othello," the title read. He drew a circle aound "Ambilavence" and marked the paper with a big F-. It was one of the more common downloads off the web. He knew them all. Sometimes, if the student bothered to change the title and the first few sentences, he would let them slide by with a D, but this one was rote. He looked at the name: Dwayne Studemeyer. One of the jocks--it figured. Fifteen minutes later he was starting to doze off again when he heard her in the kitchen.

"Did you get something to eat?" he called. He heard the clatter of plates and running water. She was doing the dishes, without prompting. That's odd, he thought. He was half way through marking another paper when she appeared in the door of the study. She had on a bathrobe and her hair was done up in a towel.

"Did Mom come home yet?" she asked.

"She called earlier. They're still bogged down with inventory. She said she'd be back tomorrow afternoon." He stifled a yawn. "Want me to fix you a bite to eat?"

"I'm not hungry. I did the dishes." She came and sat down on the rug beside his chair, folding her legs under her. "Will you brush my hair for me?"

Turning, he took the brush she proffered, unwound the towel and starting gentling unknotting her long chestnut hair. "I haven't done this for a while," he remarked. They passed about five minutes in comfortable silence. "You're quite the young woman now, Katie."

She stiffened at this remark and then it seemed she stifled a sob.

"Katie?" He took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him, "What's wrong?" He lifted her chin up. Tears glimmered in the corners of her dark brown eyes.

"Oh, Poppi," she cried, leaning forward to put her arms around his middle and nestling her face against his stomach.

"Katie?" When she still didn't answer, he suggested helpfully, "Would you like to call your Mom? I have the number of her hotel."

"She wouldn't understand!"

Katie's mother, Carmen Prado, was a successful Vice President of Sales for a large fashion retailer. Katie was the child of her first marriage--her father had abandoned them while Katie was still in diapers. Jim Donne, who taught English at Gusher, had met Carmen while she was taking night classes for her MBA. Since they had married, some eight years previously, Carmen had risen rapidly through the corporate ranks. She was frequently gone on business trips that took her throughout the country and occasionally abroad. This often left Jim, as Katie's stepfather, to deal with the tribulations of her teenage years. Carmen was a driven executive and had high expectations of Katie. As Katie matured there had been increasing friction between them, and Jim was often called into play as the peacemaker.

Whereas Carmen was ambitious, high-strung and temperamental, Jim was more deliberate and soft-spoken. Carmen was still in her mid-thirties and he was almost ten years older. In contrast to her rapid rise, his was a history of diminished expectations. He had taught at larger and more prestigious schools, but he had not fulfilled his academic promise, and had left more than one of them under a cloud. He had a hard time saying no, and with his curly hair and spaniel's eyes, it had been all too easy to yield to the temptations of eager coeds and bored faculty wives, leaving behind a detritus of broken hearts, hastily-arraigned abortions and marriages run off the tracks.

He stroked Katie's hair with his hand. "Boy trouble?"

She nodded.

"You can tell me, Katie."

She raised her head and looked at him. "You won't tell Mom?"

He raised his eyebrows. "As serious as that, is it?" he smiled. "A little yearning is a dangerous thing."

She stared at him, unblinking. Sometimes, she could be just as tough as her mother.

"Cross my heart," he said. "It'll be our secret."

She bit her lip. "After practice, I met this guy behind the gym. . ."

"Who?"

"Just this guy, O.K? And he. . . He. . ."

Jim stiffened, sitting up straight, suddenly understanding.

"Katie," he said softly. "Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head.

"Did he have sex with you, Katie?"

She nodded. "No! I mean he. . ."

"Perhaps we should call your Mom."

"No! You promised! Please, Poppi, you don't understand." Clutching him tightly about the waist she buried her face in his midsection. "I think he. . .I thought he loved me." And he could feel the tears wetting his shirt as she choked out, in fits and starts, the story of what had happened behind the gym earlier that night.

Jim went though a tumult of emotions as she sobbed out her story. At first he was bewildered, then angry, frustrated, saddened, hurt, and angry again. Then, to his growing dismay, he felt his cock start to harden.

Tears sometimes had that effect on him. It had started long ago with his first girlfriend, Mauna. Like Carmen, she had a been an irresistible force of nature: beautiful, vivacious, flirtatious, sexually-charged. But she was also tempestuous, jealous, vengeful. They would fight; they would break up, and then inevitably, they would make up. Then there would be tears and make-up sex. Incredible make-up sex. "Jimmy," she would whisper, her breath damp and warm in his ear, "I want you to fuck my mouth." And then she'd go down on him like a tornado. Or, "Jimmy, I want you to tear off my panties--with your teeth." Or, "Jimmy, hold me down and take my ass."

Now he shifted uncomfortably as his erection grew uncontrollably, right where Katie's firm young breasts were pressed into his lap.

"It'll be all right," he said soothingly. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he pushed her back off his lap, and as he did so, her robe fell open, the oblique light of the desk lamp limning the perfect contours of her creamy breasts. He caught his breath. He couldn't take his eyes off them. He could feel the wetness at the tip of his penis seeping through the thin material of his running shorts.

She looked up into his eyes, making no effort to cover up. She bit her lower lip. Slowly, her left arm came around and her hand settled on his penis. With a feather touch she traced its contour where it tented his shorts. They stayed like that for a moment while, mutely, while his eyes questioned and hers pleaded. . .or maybe it was the other way around.

Abruptly, he rose to his feet, pushing the desk chair back. "Show me what you did," he said hoarsely. She didn't hesitate. Reaching up, she drew his shorts down. His cock sprang out between them, crimson at the tip and already so hard it almost vibrated.

"Ooh, it's big." She mouthed the words without saying them, taking it gently in hand. She angled her head away, examining it out of the corner of her eye. "You won't squirt on me?"

"Show me," he insisted.

Bending forward she trapped it between her breasts and lowered her head to gently rub the tip between her parted lips. Opening her mouth a little wider, she traced the apple shape of the underside of the glans with the tip of her tongue. Slowly she engulfed it. Then she drew her head back and held it up to look at it, the purple-red knob glistening in the soft light from the desk lamp. She traced the thick vein on the bottom of the shaft with her fingers, then drew the skin back again. An involuntary groan parted his lips. She took it in her mouth, deeper now, feeling a connection more intimate than anything she had ever experienced. In the stillness she could hear his breathing deepen and where her breasts pressed against him, feel the muscles in his legs and abdomen tighten as he rocked forward on the balls of his feet.

Her right hand traced its way down her belly to cup her mound and gently probe at the moist lips of her pussy. Her face flushed as she sucked harder on his cock, pressing on the underside with the flat of her tongue, and she moved her head in an unconscious rhythm as their breathing became synchronized, rising and falling.

Jim licked his dry lips, his ragged exhalations whistling through his nose. He cupped her head in his palms. "Stop," he said, "Stop, Katie."

Slowly she released him, looking up, her lips wet, her eyes questioning.

"My God, you're beautiful," he said. "If you do that any more, I won't be able to control myself."

"I know," she smiled.

In slow motion, she took him in her mouth again. She felt his legs start to quiver. She stroked him with her left hand while with her right she lightly cupped his balls, sliding her forefinger up the slick crease between his clenched thighs to press on the bud of his asshole.

Usually, Jim could see it coming out on the horizon: that wave that crested higher than the others. And like any savvy surfer, he would kick off and ride it in, savoring every moment of that slow-building crescendo. But this time, there was no warning; when she touched him there he grabbed onto her hair like it was a rope thrown to a drowning man. Every muscle in his body stood out in stark relief as he gave an incoherent cry and came like he'd been flung across the room. She pressed her hands against his belly to keep him from ramming his cock any deeper and gulped as her mouth filled with his cum.

He fell to his knees beside her, taking her in his arms.

"Wow, Poppi, that was like. . ."

He closed her lips gently with a kiss. Talking during sex had always seemed somehow inappropriate to him, like talking in church. At any rate, sex wasn't like anything else. You could only compare it by pointing out the dissimilarities--it was an exercise in absurdity. Sex was like golf except that you always hit a hole in one. Sex was like a gourmet meal except that you always ate the same dish. Sex was like racing except that you always strove to come in last, and everybody won.

He lay her down on the crumpled bathrobe, admiring the way the light played across her long curves. Most women look better with a little clothing, even if it's only a bikini, to add a certain allure. But no fashion could improve upon the adornments which nature had bestowed upon Katie. What immortal hand or eye could frame that fearful symmetry, indeed.

He molded her breasts, teasing her nipples erect, then smoothed his hands down her lithe waist to the swell of her hips. Gently he urged her legs apart. Lying down between them he admired the jewel of her sex, her mound flushed and plump, the light downy triangle of hair matted with moisture. Placing his thumbs on either side, he parted the glistening lips. She pressed urgently up against his hands. He kissed her there, running his tongue up and down, then probing with it as she moaned. He eased one finger inside her, pressing gently until he met the hymen. She was hot and tight. His tongue found the stiff little button of her clit and he sucked it into his mouth. She started to drum her feet on the carpet as she bucked under him. Biting down on her hand, she stifled her inarticulate cries.

Katie had almost come earlier in the evening, during those frantic minutes behind the gym. And she thought she might have come with him just then when her stepfather erupted in her mouth, but now as she crested on her own swelling wave, she realized that those earlier sensations were just glimmerings of the real thing, the rosy fingers of dawn, a mere prelude to the day.

And now here came the sun.

She thrashed under him, arching her back as he held her down with difficulty--Christ, but she was strong!-- his mouth pressed unrelentingly to her shuddering pussy. Her eyes were wide open, but she wasn't seeing. Katie screamed but she didn't hear herself. Her whole world seemed to collapse in upon itself, focused on that point of contact, and time held its breath as one tidal wave, then another and another thundered through her.

Finally, when she was still, Jim released her. He kissed her sex lightly, then her tummy and her breasts, then the back of her neck as he drew her to him, spoon-wise. She nestled her head on his arm. "You won't ever leave me, Poppi," she murmured. He couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement. Then she gave a sigh and without further ado fell instantly asleep.

For him, sleep would not come so easily. First came the guilt, of course. But this was not the first time he had given in to impulse, and he knew himself well enough to know it wouldn't be the last. He had learned to be fatalistic about relationships. Whatever control you fancied you had over them was momentary and illusory. Baudelaire said it best: "Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?" (Avalanche, would you take me in your slide?)

His eyes roamed idly about the room till they came to rest on the screen of computer, where the cursor still blinked after CHAPTER TWO. Seeing it, seemingly every time she came into the room, Carmen had asked him once why he didn't use his screen saver. "That is my screen saver," he'd said ruefully. He had a good Chapter One; he knew he did. But for over a month now he'd been blocked, and he just couldn't seem to push past it.

Now, unexpectedly and without even trying, it came to him: the first sentence of Chapter Two. He thought about it for a moment, turning it around in his head. It was good, and he could see where it went. Like a flash of dry lightning, he could suddenly see it all, and the next line fell into place, and the next. Lazily then, as drifted in and out of sleep, he wrote the rest of it in his head.