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The Tabard Chronicles

It took him a month to get back to the Airstream. He stayed around Brownsville for two weeks, hoping to see her again, the heat for her burning inside him but every time she came into his mind it was with her arms crossed, with distance in her eyes.

He rode up and down the river finding towns and bars, pool halls and girls all of them anonymous all with lives crossing for minutes, hours, days.

"You're not the settling down kind, Harry. I need settling down."

His dreams filled up with those words and slowly he was able to look in the mirror, look in his own eyes and see more than the road.

There was a dream to find that began with a job, then he picked up his existing credits in school and found that there were other roads to ride, in his mind, roads that led to settling down. Over the months he found that he could travel those roads and look at a future that didn't involve drifting. He even phoned his Mom - and didn't ask for money.

Then there was Chloe. She was a business major - now despite him reigning in his hopes and dreams he wondered for the first few weeks why was he dating a business major. The answer was simple; he was falling in love. Of course her body and her promise to work through the Karma Sutra with him helped but she also began to teach him French; "so you can speak it to me as we make love," she said before swallowing his hard cock on the September night in the tent with the storm raging around them. Really it was so he would go to French films with her.

He took her down the Rio Grande on his bike and they called into the drifter's bars and he didn't feel he had to leave her, to move on down the road - instead, he wanted to be with her. It was in diner's and in bars, after lectures and under the stars that he told her about Billie. Once the story was out of his soul, once she pieced together all the fractures in his life - from drunken dad to runaway love, she kissed him on his mouth for the longest time. They made the best love either of them had ever had that night.

She never said it, despite her pragmatism, she never said to him, "what are you going to do with a philosophy degree?" This was his road now, a road in the mind. She got her job in the accountancy firm after graduation and Joe got one - in advertising.

"Philosophy makes you think round corners, adverts make you want what you don't need. They both make you wonder about the truth," he grinned in a pensive moment as his hands ran over her black bra while she sipped chardonney and indulged him his reasoning, "and uncover it..." his hands slid under the bra.

Marriage, house, child all came along in their allotted time and Joe hardly dreamed of Billie any more. He kept the bike but he was more likely to be driving the minivan and picking up local kids for school than riding it; his job didn't have regular hours so he could be the house-husband for those chores.

Times were good; the year Juliet was five, intelligent and inquisitive they decided on a vacation at Mount Rushmore. Joe Harrison had settled down.
 
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4.

Dave encouraged Billie to go back to school, get a degree. Harry wouldn't be a baby forever, he said... You'll want to do something with your time while he's in school. Besides, you're much too smart to be "just a waitress". Hesitant at first, she hemmed and hawed, doubting her abilities as well as being reluctant to leave Harry to a babysitter, but when Dave enlisted Selma's help, Billie could find no further arguments to keep her from it.

She graduated with a degree in education the spring before Harry started kindergarten, securing a position in a small school not far from his. Billie had wanted to teach in the same place that Harry would be attending, but Dave finally dissuaded her using the hovering mother syndrome as a deterrent. Like he didn't hover, she'd giggled as they lay in bed, replete after lovemaking. There were times when she believed Dave was even more doting on their son than she was.

They never had another child. Not for lack of trying so much as it being the result of several thoughtful and reflective conversations over time. A large family would have been nice, but Selma seemed to be popping out babes quicker than they could blink and they served to fill the gap when either of them got in a "nesting" frame of mind. In the meantime, they didn't have to scrimp on presents come birthdays or Christmas and Harry did without little. It also gave them plenty of time for each other.

Billie still thought about Joe on occasion, especially when Harry said or did something that was so totally "his father" that it jarred her. The way he smiled, or squinted one eye closed as he looked at her. The way he fell asleep when he lay in her lap, her fingers tracing the outer edge of his perfectly shaped ear. And when he sang... loud, loud and with gusto, oftentimes begging both Dave and herself for a guitar. Of course they obliged, buying him a boy-sized version made of ruby red colored plastic, replacing the strings that snapped under vigorous use. This year he'd get a real one.

When Harry turned seven, Billie decided to attend the annual Teacher's Convention in Dallas for the first time. Dave, Selma and even Harry himself assuring her that they'd be just fine for the three days she'd be out of town.

It was wind-down time and she'd declined several invitations from colleagues to go out to the local for some drinks, deciding instead to stay in at the hotel and pack up her things for an early start in the morning. She'd made her "nightnight, sweet dreams" phone call to Harry and spoken for a bit with Dave already, but was feeling restless and decided to find her way to an all night diner she'd seen the day she'd arrived.

Walking in, a weary looking waitress seated her at a table, invoking recollections of long ago when their positions had been reversed. Times when...

Billie glanced up over the top of her glasses as some other late-nighters walked in, commiserating with Mary as she poured out a steaming hot cup of coffee and delivered her English Muffin with a pot of strawberry preserves on the side. "Truckers," she'd said, shrugging. "They come through all the time."

They weren't together, it seemed, though they greeted each other as though they were. Birds of a feather, Billie thought, smiling. Not unlike the sodality she shared with fellow teachers. Always a people watcher, she checked them out as they took stools at the counter, greeting Mary and flirting outrageously as she made fresh coffee and took their orders.

"Turkey on rye with tomato and lettuce," she heard someone order. "Spicy mustard... No mayo, thanks."

The order itself wasn't what caught her attention, it was the voice. But it couldn't be... Could it? What were the odds after all this time?
 
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"Turkey on rye with tomato and lettuce, spicy mustard... No mayo, thanks. And an orange juice?"

Joe Harrison turned away from Luis the driver out of Juarez he was travelling with and leaned against the chrome metal rail that ran the length of the diner's retro yellow formica bar. The truckers hubbub had started up and he moved away towards the window seats and pulled out his cell phone.

"Juliet," he smiled, "so how was the museum, sweetheart? A real dinosaur? Great! Put Mommy on would you? Yes, I'll say goodnight..."

Chloe's voice made him smile and they shared their days, shared the "missing you's" and "see you soon." He promised Juliet the bed bugs would have no chance to bite and closed the phone with a sigh and a look outside into the gleam of the parking lot lights reflecting off the wet blacktop.

He turned to head back to the truckers and stopped. She had stood up but not moved away from her seat. He gave his crooked grin as they just stared at one another for long moments that stood outside of time. Clumsily, they moved towards one another. There was no doubt in either of them despite the intervening years who they were stumbling towards.

She held a napkin and twisted it in her fingers, her smile inscrutable to him. "Joe," she said in a low voice.

"Billie." He stood and looked down in her eyes and then smiled broadly and took her in his arms and hugged her. Memories began to flow in his mind; the girl with the folded arms in Selma's garden dissolved. He was back in the arms of the carefree girl he had wanted her to be back then, back in the Airstream, sleeping till noon with her by his side. She rested her face against the front of the leather biker jacket that he wore, her hands running round him, palms patting his back.

They both stood back and laughed at the fates that had brought their paths back across each other here, in another diner.

"Just like the first time," she said, "Well, not quite. I guess." She nodded nervously. "Been a long time."

He took a seat opposite her as the waitress came over with his sandwich and drink and she winked at Billie; she hadn't figured the business woman was such a fast worker - or liked drifters and truckers. Each to their own. Billie smiled at the back of the retreating waitress, correctly unravelling the woman's thoughts. But no, Billie Moore had grown into Billie Moore Chappelle long ago - she wasn't to be seduced by drifters any more.

She sipped her coffee and looked Joe Harrison up and down; part of her was gratified by what she saw - she had been right to be firm, right to let him go. Her first question shattered that illusion.

"Still on the road, Joe?" she let him see her run her eyes over his clothes and then to the crowd of truckers.

He smiled and sipped his drink. "Research," he said.

She spread the preserve on the muffin and looked into his eyes a questioning tilt of her head encouraging him to go on.

He ran a hand through his hair and told her he was in advertising. "Transport company wanted a campaign and the guys in my company said since I'd been on the road I should be the one to get out here and get a feel for things. Sorta nice to be on the road again for a day or two - but it's not the same now I have a family. I miss them."

She blinked and put down her knife. " Family - and my company as in - "

He nodded and grinned "CEO. Well, ok there's just 4 of us and we work out of two rooms but yeah, my company." He also got his wallet out and showed her the pictures of wife and daughter. His voice occasionally got lost in her ears as he told her anecdotes of his family.

She found herself in a reverie as Luis said he was going to stay the night in the adjacent motel and Joe said he'd see him in the morning. The diner grew quiet, one drunk trying to sober up with coffee before going home. Joe looked at her as she stared at the dog eared pictures in his wallet and then lifted her eyes and smiled at him.

"And you?" he asked, simply.

For long moments she looked in his eyes then drew a deep breath.

"Harry - sorry - Joe -" she stopped and picked up her bag with the pictures of David and -

He smiled. "Harry," he said, "Harry's fine."
 
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5.

It seemed as though time had stopped almost completely as she let her eyes drift up into his, her voice a mere whisper as the memories came flooding back.

They talked for hours. Well, he talked, she mostly listened. He told her about Chloe and Juliet and Billie mentioned Dave but not Harry -- at least not by name -- letting Joe assume he was named after his father, which, of course, in a way, he was. They showed each other photographs and they smiled, a song called "Down the Rio Grande" playing quietly on the jukebox.

When he said he had to get back on the road, she wasn't sure if she was sad or relieved. She touched his hand. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. She held back the tears that threatened to drown her until he was gone from her sight.

Then, and only then, did she pick up her cel and dial, a sleepy voice answering. "Hmmllo?"

"It's me, Dave. I love you."

"Mmm... and I love you, too. With all my heart."

"I just wanted to tell you I'm leaving now to come home."

"What time is it?" She could hear Dave yawning as he stretched, picturing him as he leaned toward the clock on the bedside table. "Four ayem. Awful early, darlin'. You sure you want to head out at this hour?"

"I'm sure. I'm so very, very sure."

******​

"Did he ever find out? About Harry, I mean," someone asked the storyteller who shrugged. "Dunno."

"I hope not," Rebecca. "Billie sure wouldn't have told. She loved him too much to disrupt his new life." It was her turn to shrug this time as she placed another drink in front of him, her eyes glancing down at the photograph that had come out of his pocket along with his cash. A man and a woman, sat on a bike outside a diner.

"On the house."

TEXAS TUMBLEWEED

Ingredients:
3 scoops Vanilla ice-cream
1 shot Kahlua
1 shot Vodka
1 shot Creme de Cacao
Add Half-and-half to taste

Mixing instructions:
Blend until smooth.​

"So who's next?"
 
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1.

"Next?" a woman asked as she slipped in the door of the Tabard. "I was just passing... " She gestured vaguely and saw the lights. "Were you expecting me?"

Rebecca grinned. "We're never really expecting anyone in particular... But sometimes... Make yourself comfortable. First drink's got a price tag of a story."

"Now that sounds intriguing," the woman said as she slid onto a stool at the bar. "All I have to do is tell a story?"

"Uh huh. Whatcha havin'?"

"Hmm... let's see," she said glancing around at the folks who were obviously listening to the conversation. "How bout a Golddigger? Can you manage one of those?"

Someone laughed. "Rebecca can manage anything as long as you can manage the tale to go with it."

"I see... Then let me spin one for you. How does late eighteenth century sound? London? New York? Paris?"

"All of it," someone chimed in.

"Sounds good to me, too."

"Go for it."

The woman smiled, nodding a thanks to Rebecca as she set her drink on a napkin in front of her. "It all began during the spring of 1884 in the village of Parhomovka, situated between Kiev and Kursk... "

******​

Sophia Rafalovich packed herself, her young daughter, Effie, and all their belongings up. The recent death of her husband had placed them in dire straits and they would both now be dependent on the charity of relatives who lived half a world away in London, England.

As her daughter neared coming of age, Sophia's benefactor, a cantor, raised some concerns. In order to marry her off properly, a dowry would be needed and with his own overlarge family, he could ill afford to pay. There was an alternative, however. Having heard the young girl singing, albeit by accident, he suggested that they send her to work straight away. He knew someone who was a friend of a friend of a friend who knew Jacob Adler who had opened a Yiddish theater on Princes Street off Brick Lane.

Popular drama with a little comedy, a little melodrama, and a little song and dance to make everyone in the theater happy, Effie Rafalovich was a hit. She fit perfectly into favored plot devices, including the ever-popular Yeshiva boy who turns out to be, in the last act show stopper, a girl!

Her success in London was shortlived, however, when a false alarm caused a panic resulting in the deaths of seventeen members of the audience and the theater was closed down. It was time to move on.

******​

"What will you do now," Effie's mother and the cantor asked, fearful of losing that extra bit she had been contributing for the past two years. "I've had another offer," she replied, not terribly amazed by their cupidity. They'd done well by her, though she had begun to want more. Want better. She wanted the fancy gowns and jewels and the notoriety that was not hers to be had within the Jewish community. She had the voice and the body to achieve both, but not performing for the moyshe in the Yiddish theater. "I'm going to Paris."

Her decision met with tearful wailing from her mother and not-so-subtly veiled threats from the cantor, but Effie paid them little mind. Of age at last, there was really nothing they could do to stop her -- not if they expected her to throw them an occasional bone and a chicken or two.

Adler was off to America to start over, but he'd given her a letter to take to someone in Paris. Someone who would give her a leg up in the theatrical world -- a world of glitz and glamor, fame and fortune that she so craved.

******​

"Monsieur Joubert?"

He looked up at the diminutive girl with the tiny waist and large brown eyes that seemed to display every emotion, one after another, flashing like images in the Kinetoscope he'd seen in New York this past summer. His immediate thought was of the money she would earn him working with the other flowers in his club, but he soon came to find out that wasn't exactly what she had in mind. "Yes, Mademoiselle... ?"

"Angélique," she replied quickly. A new life deserved a new name. Effie Rafalovich might have been okay in London, but here... "Angélique Charbonneau."

Joubert nodded, trying not to smile. Beneath the contrived French, her accent was clearly European, though a mélange of sorts. Russe perhaps and maybe a touch of hmm... Anglais? "What can I do for you, Mlle. Charbonneau," he asked.

"I am here to sing," she replied, drawing herself up to her full five foot two inches as she handed him the letter from Adler.

Her audacity amused him. "I see. There are many women who would love to sing for me... both in my bed and out of it. Tell me what makes you different?"

"You won't forget me," was her simple reply as she began to sing.
 
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Joubert watched as "Angélique" or whatever her real name was talked to the piano player who sat at the bar drinking coffee and eating a pastry. The cleaners were sweeping up around the tables as she managed to charm Alain to accompany her for her audition. She dug out some music from her bag and walked back to Joubert.

"Look after my things," she smiled leaving her coat and bag beside him. He watched the wasp-waisted young girl sashay towards the stage. Alain played the introduction and Angélique began to sway, eroticism immediately blending with her fresh faced smile.

Joubert was impressed as he half sat, half leaned on a table. He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling in white sinuous waves up into the darkness. Nearby the cleaners stopped to watch the girl; one of them, a small oriental woman looked over at the club owner and nodded. Joubert smiled but didn't make any other indication as to what he thought.

The song finshed and the cleaners and Alain applauded; the piano player turned around and smiled at Joubert, who was waiting for Angelique to get back to him.

"You played in Adler's theatre in London?" He studied her fine bones, seeing the Jewish blood - but Joubert was no bigot - this was Montmartre the Bohemian quarter. All kinds and creeds rubbed shoulders in an easy, if largely poverty stricken, sense of community. Joubert enjoyed that - but had always avoided poverty. By giving her a job he would be sure of an audience with an eye for a pretty girl and a good voice. He his his thoughts from her - or so he hoped.

"You have a presence," he said, nonchalently, "I could offer you a place in the chorus - do you dance?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Very well, return this afternoon and meet the other girls to rehearse. The costumier will be here also. You have rooms nearby? If not they can be organised..." Joubert was brought to a halt as the young woman, already bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet with pleasure, came over and hugged him. He didn't object as his arms surrounded her lithe young body.

His judgement proved accurate as usual. He gave her a cameo part one night and she stole the show. Still he didn't want to upstage his main act and Angelique grew frustrated with waiting for her break.

One warm spring day not much later, there was laughter outside the club and a young man ran is looking for Joubert. His cheeks were flushed and his expression goggle eyed.
"Monsieur -" he panted and pointed outside where there was a honking of a horn on one of the new motor cars.

"They have been driving - all around Paris!"

Joubert put down his coffee and walked to the door of his club. He broke into a broad grin seeing the rickety framed vehicle, driven by Alain and with Angelique atop it in a fur coat.

"We have been advertising, M. Joubert," called the piano player, pointing to the back of the car. A large sheet, decorated with a drawing of a dark red lipstick kiss hung at the back and the address of the club.

"And to make sure people took notice..." Angélique stood up and opened the coat, showing her naked body beneath. The small crowd laughed, cheered and clapped. Joubert couldn't supress his smile and tilted his head to the young lady and joined in the applause.

****

As she had hoped, that night Joubert approached her before the show.

"You're a very enterprising young woman," he began and she smiled and with a demure air dropped her gaze but he saw her grin.

"I cannot displace my main act and time does not permit you a spot of your own on stage here." Seeing her disappointed look he went on, "however, upstairs there is the casino - the gamblers, the card players - they appreciate some entertainment."

She nodded slowly. "That would be...good of you," she said with a slow smile.

"You would use a different style - more - intimate than the main stage. Cabaret, perhaps. The accompanyment is limited - a piano, perhaps some muted brass. You would like to try?"
 
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2.

Angélique was an overnight sensation, earning twice and even three times as much as many of the other singers in cafés in Paris. She was bold and brassy and as proud of her body and her eighteen inch waist as she was of her voice, offering both in a sensual display of sight and sound that was unrivalled in the circles she moved in.

Her costumes were risqué; strategically placed pearls, rhinestones or appliqués, barely concealing the treasures she proffered to those who offered the most... and the best. The finest champagne, jewels, furs would buy some fortunate a ticket to paradise for the evening, or at least a portion of it.

Even so, it was not enough for Angélique Charbonneau. Fast becoming more infamous for her escapades than for singing, she began to speculate on what she really wanted, really needed. Fame or notoriety? Sitting at her dressing room table before this evening's performance, she waggled her hand back and forth as she considered the options of both. Men were putty in her hands, as hard and immaleable as marble between her legs; but her voice was her meal ticket. Joubert had given her a step up the ladder, it was true, but she wanted to reach the topmost rung. Only the biggest prize would make her content and allow her to be truly self-sufficient.

Putting the finishing touches on her makeup, Angélique admired herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. There was a high stakes game tonight in one of the private rooms, and although she wouldn't be entertaining them, she was sure to meet one or two when they came up for air. One never knew when opportunity was going to knock. Or where.

Slinking onto the small stage, Alain bowed and tinkled the keys of his piano as she was introduced. The lights came up, the music began and Angélique began to sing...

"I'm so blue
I don't know what to do.
All day through I'm pining just for you
I did wrong when I let you go away.
For now I grieve about you night and day.
I'm unhappy and dissatisfied,
But I'd be happy if I had you by my side... "

They were going wild and Angélique stepped down onto the main floor, weaving her way among the players, stopping here and there to touch an arm, caress a face, slip into a lap. All the time singing...

"If I could be with you I'd love you strong,
If I could be with you I'd love you long,
I want you to know I wouldn't go,
Until I told you, honey, why I love you so

If I could be with you one hour tonight,
If I was free to do the things i might,
I'm telling you true,
I'd be anything but blue,
If I could be with you."

The lyrics to this song, as well as her others, were full of innuendo, arousing the audience as much as herself. By the end of the set, she'd brushed against more than one erection and had already turned down propositions from both men and women, though she wasn't burning her bridges.

Returning to her dressing room to change, Angélique's eyes widened when she opened the door. There were roses, from floor to ceiling, covering every surface; and where they didn't fit, they were piled, one upon the other barely leaving room to walk. "Alain!" she hissed, sticking her head around the corner to call him. "Vite!"

Alain tilted his head, this way and that, closing one eye against the swirl of smoke from his cigarette as he took a deep drag. "It's either a funeral or you have an admirer, Ange. And since there was hardly a limp cock or a dry pussy in the room, I'd go with admirer," he winked. "So who is it?"

"I don't know!" she exclaimed, tossing various cards that she'd gleaned from the flowers at him.

"You are exquisite," Alain read aloud. "Your voice is flawless, your body... " Alain shook his hand, jumping as she squealed.

"Ohh... Alain... " Angélique was holding a long box in her hand. "It was... buried," she whispered breathlessly.

"What is it? Show! Show!"

She did.

Alain sucked air through his teeth when he saw what it held. A necklace, from which hung hundreds of tiny emerald leaves, so intricately carved that they appeared real, its polestar a piece of amber with a damselfly embedded as though it had been captured in flight.

"Help me put it on, Alain!" she exclaimed. "It's... "

"Exquisite."

They both turned to see who had spoken, though Alain, seeing this as his cue to leave, wasted no time. Angélique, however, stood transfixed, the necklace dangling from her fingers like tinsel from a branch of a Christmas tree. "Did you?" she gestured around the room, finally holding her hand out toward the man who nearly filled the doorway of her dressingroom.

He nodded. "Please," he said. "Allow me." Stepping into the room, he took the necklace from her hand and placed it around her neck, fastening the clasp from behind. "Rafael Delgado," he whispered into the nape of her neck, turning her slowly into his arms.
 
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Rafael entered the dressing room with a graceful cat like gait. He smiled as he took the necklace from her fingers and stood behind her facing the mirror. He watched her face as his fingers fastened the jewellery in place. Her fingers reached up to touch the emeralds as they shimmered against her skin and his hands slipped to her bare shoulders. He stood close to her feeling the heat of her body against him.

He had noticed her a couple of days before as he idly played roulette. His game was poker and there were few people prepared to play for high stakes that night. The singer passed among the gamblers, stopping with some, laughing, singing, encouraging them to play for more, to line Joubert's pockets. He smiled at her and decided he wanted her.

The result was the flowers, the necklace - and his hands already on his prize. Slowly she turned around next to him and smiled.

"Does it suit me?" she asked cocquettishly.

"I knew it would," he said, the slight Latin American tinge to his Spanish accented French. His fingers came to her jaw and down her neck and played with the jewels around her throat and down further as the amber hung against her cleavage. The lightest touch between her breasts and his fingers came back to her chin and held it as he leaned closer to kiss her.

She didn't object; she knew that he expected a bar room singer to have little or no reputation to protect, especially after having been flattered by flowers and bought with emeralds. The moment she put it on she expected to sleep with him - and find out how useful he might be to her.

She let Rafael kiss her and her hand slipped into the dark hair at the back of his head. The kiss was openmouthed, needy; his hand ran into her hair the other gliding down her back seeking the firm curve of her ass under the long stage dress.

They broke the kiss both now wide eyed and breathing heavier with lust.

"Here? Now?" He breathed.

She nodded and went to lock the door as he cleared roses from the couch. When she returned to his side she turned around. "I hope you're as good at opening my dress as you were fastening the necklace."

He smiled and his hands deftly undid buttons and hooks and eyes until he exposed her creamy skin to his gaze and his lips found the nape of her neck.

She turned around, the dress hanging around her hips her breasts open to his gaze his hands and his mouth. She moaned as he suckled her nipples, one then the other as he hands pushed off the dark jacket he wore. She mewled with need to open his shirt, tugging it from his pants and slipping the mother of pearl buttons open one after the other. He stood and smiled and watched her wrapt attention on exposing his skin to her nails and her kisses before pulling her to the couch where they sat beside one another.

He kissed her mouth and she ran her tongue inside his, exploring him and was emboldened enough to run her hands down over his stomach to the dark pants to the bulge that she had made grow there. Soon she wanted to see more, to touch more. Now she moved closer and their naked skin touched and they writhed as if electrically charged hands running across their bodies until they needed to strip more.

She slid out of the dress and underwear and encouraged him out of his trousers. She smiled as she looked down at the erection that sprang free her fingers circling in the dark hair at its base before grasping him firmly and running her tight grip up and down the solid shaft.

Lust had overcome them and he knew already his fingers would be wettened by her when they dipped between the heat of her thighs. Angélique moaned as he parted her lips and slipped his middle finger into her tight waiting sex. Their eyes met as they touched one another and their bodies adjusted themselves as they lay on the couch. She parted her legs invitingly and he slid over her his cock intent on finding her sex. The motion was fluid and he slipped inside her and lay still for long moments.

She grinned and her hips rose up against him encouraging him to move over her, in her. Rafel's mouth covered hers and she slipped her ankles over his puling him tighter to her body with her legs and her hands on his firm ass as it rose and fell in a slow steady rhythm against her fingers. He moved up to press her sex with his pubic bone and ground out small circles and spirals against her flesh making her chuckle throatily with pleasure. Her pussy clenched him and her hips moved against his.

"Harder," she breathed and he obliged, driving into her wetness with more abandon burying the length of his cock inside her. His mouth suckled her breasts, her nipples, wetness from his tongue running over the cool emeralds against his lips.

They couldn't speak; they writhed their bodies in unison as, first, his hot seed erupted inside her; he seemed to offer a prayer or oath in Spanish as he came, as it sent her over the edge, spasming in orgasm under him.

In the heat of the afterglow he sat up and she played her hand through the dark hairs on his chest. "You and I - we are now lovers," he said in broken French. She nodded.

"You are my girl," he said, plainly, without a smile.

She gave a soft grin. "Yes baby," she said and pulled him down to kiss him. She wanted to know this gambler better. Over the next few weeks, she would.
 
3.

Rafael Delgado lifted his head, looking at Angélique's flushed face across the flat plains of her belly and the soft peaks of her breasts and smiled. She was already reaching for him, pleading for him to bury his cock inside of her still spasming pussy. "Codicioso," he murmured as he raised himself, moving upward. "So greedy."

"Uh huh." Angélique grinned lewdly, her hips arching expectantly, her legs bent to cradle his body. "Just... fuck me." She groaned gutterally as he entered her, thrusting deeply, possessively.

Over the past weeks, she'd become a fixture on the swarthy gambler's arm as well as in his bed where he'd taught her how to fuck, not just make love. He had infused a passion into her life which was reflected in her singing making her more desirable, more called upon, more...

"Now, Rafe... Now!!" She cried out, writhing salaciously beneath him as he brought her to orgasm, the undulating muscles of her cunt coaxing him, urging him, demanding his own shuddering release.

A half hour later, looking freshly and well fucked, Angélique dressed for her nightly performance at Le Baiser Foncé, the diaphanous material of her veil-like gown displaying the delights of her body that were now Rafael's alone though it excited him to know that others wanted. The voyeur in him had both embraced and enhanced her exhibitionist tendencies.

The gentle tinkling sound that Alain's fingers made on the keys of his piano signalled that it was time for her to go on stage. Angélique smiled, thinking that soon it would be New York and possibly even Ziegfield's Follies. Meeting Rafael Delgado had been her ticket to success on every level, and she was holding on tight.

"I want to be seduced
I want a man to take me out to dinner
I like to see his eyes getting moody
Thinking 'bout the thought of what flirtin's gonna do

I want him to be real cool
I want him to think about gettin' me right into bed... "

As Angélique played the crowd, she noted that the small audience made up of wagerers and their pretty women had grown since she first started singing upstairs for Joubert. The die-hard gamblers still thronged around the tables, but there were others now. Those who had witnessed or heard of her public escapades in and around Paris with Rafael and came out of curiosity but stayed for her voice. It was for them that she sang tonight.

"I might demure politely,
But very slightly
If he tries to fondle my knee
But I'm relatively certain
I'll compromise if I know me

...But I wouldn't mind a man
Who wouldn't mind seducing
Right from the minute that we'd been introduced
I wouldn't mind a man
Who wouldn't mind seducing me."

******​

"So... did he ever take her to New York?"

"But of course," the woman telling the tale replied. "You see, something unexpected came up. Angélique found herself pregnant!"

"No way!"

"Way," she chuckled.

"So he dumped her?"

"Of course not!"

"Then what??"

"All in due time. All in due time."

******​

When they learned of her pregnancy, Rafael had taken a suite at The Ritz; a showcase, he said, for his most valuable possession -- Angélique Charbonneau -- where he catered to her whims and fancies as much as she did his. The gowns she wore "at home" left little to the imagination, filmy, sheer, gossamer materials that hid nothing from the view of his guests on special evenings. Tonight was one of those.

His hand roamed the fullness of Angélique's gravid belly as she perched on his leg, her hand snaking between their bodies to caress his erection as conversations flowed mellifluously around them. The topic was their impending marriage. She'd finished her catechism not a moment too soon. A proper Catholic now, Rafael had found a priest who would perform the ceremony with less than a month before the birth... and then they would leave for New York.

Angélique squirmed as Rafael's hand cupped her breast. He would bring her to orgasm several times before their guests departed, but he, himself, would hold off until they were alone. Orgasms, they'd heard, would ease her childbirth and, he said, she was most beautiful when she was coming. Who was she to argue? Certainly their guests did not.
 
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He enjoyed showing her off, pregnant, sitting beside him at private parties or in the casinos. More often than not he won and the night would stretch out and greet the dawn in some apartment somewhere with racous tunes blaring from a gramaphone, the air full of smoke the beds full of men and women.

She would make love with him and her growing belly was a novelty for them, an amusement. Even as she grew he would mount her from behind his hands caressing her round abdomen beneath her and her firm, growing breasts. Then, she began to grow tired. She was not able to work and she complained of backache and indigestion. He began to look on her condition as something like a disease; he was not alone - she began to curse the unborn child for what it was doing to her.

"I must regain my figure when this devil spawn is expelled from me," she cursed one day, sitting trying to get comfortable and drinking gin.

Rafael stood in front of the mirror brushing his slick black hair. He ran a moistened finger tip over his eyebrow. He nodded; she had to and to get back to work; he needed her money. This run of bad luck had to come to an end soon, he thought.

The baby came in an early morning; the nurses pinched faces echoing the disapproval of both parents smelling of drink and fellow revellers in the tiled corridors trying unsuccessfully to be quiet while waiting for news of their friends. The birth was not easy for Angeliqué and as she was given the baby girl she looked on her child with apathy.

They waited for the day they could make love again but when it came they were too exhausted from looking after their new girl, Liane, and Angeliqué trying to find work. They thought of hiring a nanny but funds were too low; they began to bicker. She would have to begin to work - already Rafael had asked for money to pay a debt.

It wasn't long though before she had flirted her way into a nightclub or two and she smiled broadly when she could again accentuate her tiny waist. They celebrated by coupling against the door of their bedroom, her legs locked around his waist, her hands in his hair as he sucked milk from her breasts and they laughed. The baby cried.

Eventually they employed an old woman to watch the child, to give them time together, to give Angeliqué time to work. That, though, didn't last long. The old woman, full of gin, was found asleep as Liane cried; Rafael picked the baby up and Angeliqué threw the old woman out.

It was the following day they stood around the cot looking at the pink smiling child.

"This cannot continue," said Angeliqué.

Rafael looked at the baby and nodded.

"I will take her to the orphanage. The nuns will look after her. I can act the part of a penniless child who needs to give her baby to a good home."

Rafael looked at her and they smiled at one another over the cot and held hands.

"More time for us," he said as they leaned towards each other and kissed.
 
4.

With Liane "out of sight out of mind", Rafael and Angélique resumed their hedonistic lifestyle with a vengeance. Her breasts had grown fuller with the pregnancy and Rafael found that he enjoyed wrapping them around his cock, fucking her while she suckled at its tip. His public gropings had become more licentious, even bringing her to orgasm in front of others. If there was a seventh heaven, this was it, Angélique thought. Save for one thing...

"Rafe, you've got to slow down with the gambling," she cajoled one morning as she sat propped against the pillows on their bed. "I'm just not making the kind of money that I was before. You seem to be losing more than you are bringing in."

"Yes. Yes," he replied absentmindedly as he kissed his way up her inner thigh. "Perhaps it is time for... " His thumbs parted her nether lips as he gazed at the glistening pink petals of her sex. "New York," he said.

Rafael's breath hot on her cunt, his tongue flickered out to lap at her juices as he turned his nagging wife's attention toward being pleasured and the thought of her wildest dream coming true while drawing it away from his "dry spell". Between his mouth and the things she imagined would happen in New York, Angélique came harder than she ever had in her life.

******​

Within a month they were debarking in America. Joubert had given her some names of people to contact and the wasp-waisted brunette with the voice of an angel and eyes that spoke to men and women's souls (and their libidos) was tingling with excitement as Rafael hailed a cab to take them to the hotel.

"I can't believe I'm finally here!" she enthused as the cab began to move. "I'm so excited!" Visions of bright lights and adoring audiences (not to mention the money she would be making) filled Angélique's head as she leaned over to unfasten Rafael's trousers.

"Mmm... " she murmured, grinning as her small fingers encircled his cock. "It seems you are excited as well."

Rafael moaned, bucking his hips toward Angélique's delectably crimsoned lips. Her tongue flickered over his cockhead before her mouth slithered downward, ravenously engulfing his erection. "Ahh, mi corazón," he moaned . "Pull your dress up and touch yourself." And to the driver, who was having a difficult time of looking both forward and behind, he grinned. "Remember her name. She's going to be a star. Angélique," Rafael grinned lewdly, fucking her mouth with vigor. "Angelique Charbonneau. Now... Take the long way, my good man. Take the long way."

******​

Angélique's first job was at a small theater just over the Brooklyn Bridge. She'd been there about a week when she noticed a large crowd standing outside upon her arrival. Memories of the fire in London leaped immediately to mind. She'd only just started and she was going to be out of work already!

"What's going on?" she finally managed to ask.

"There's a woman who sings here... " a gentleman replied. "Angélique Charbonneau." They were there to buy tickets, he explained.

Angélique was beside herself. Elbowing her way through the crowd, she finally managed to reach the door and headed straight for the office where she demanded a two dollar raise. He gave her four. She was a hit!
 
They took the photograph in Times Square; she sat astride the horse, her brightest smile on her face, her wasp waist accentuated by her clothes. The provocative pose - not even side saddle - was deliberate. People would come to see this risque woman.

"Send them to all the papers - even the snooty ones will want to print it eventually when they realise what a star she has become!"

Dan Milbanks, the club owner, helped her down, his hands going around her waist easily; their eyes met as she slid to the ground beside him.

"You're a star," he said, not letting go of his top of the bill act. She grinned, her hands sliding up his arms. "You've been good to me," she purred.

The theatre owner pushed back the homburg hat on his head. "You'll go far...with the right management." They began walking back to the cab that was waiting to take them back to the club.

"My - husband..." she began.

"Angie, I've heard the arguments through your dressing room door - he's bleeding you dry. He's no professional gambler - he doesn't know when to quit. He's an addict." He fell silent until they were in the cab heading back towards Brooklyn.

"Am I right or..." he urged as he sat beside her.

She shrugged and looked out of the window.

"You can go far, in the right hands." She looked around knowing he would be grinning at the duble entendre and she smirked herself. Things had been going from bad to worse with Raphael and she slid a couple of inches closer on the seat, lifted his hand and put it in her lap.

"Is this the right hand?"

He left his fingers feel the firmness of her dancer's leg through the layers of cotton and smiled with a slow nod.

****

They went to bed that afternoon; she enjoyed his languid lovemaking, his care to bring her to her peak before he finished - something Raphael was increasingly lax about. It was the first of their adventures.

She let him send his men round to "talk" to her husband; to let him know it was over. It was but still for months he hung around, his shadowy form at the end of roads as she was taken to parties, as she appeared in more and more high class venues. His clothes were tattered, his debtors pressing him for payment. Occasionally she felt a twinge of guilt as her fame spread, as she appeared on Braodway. Occasionally she paid some of Raphael's debts off - for old times sake...until - like a disappearing mist, he wasn't there any more.

****
The work was hard, the hours were long but the time passed with a slow, steady rise in her fame. The snooty papers did print her picture - many times over.

"Now, baby, it's your time," said Dan, one summer, leafing through the requests to book his star act as they took time off in the Catskills. It was an elegant affair, full of many important names in vaudeville. But, as with all such affairs, deals were sealed by kisses, by hands up skirts, by who fucked who.

Dan was fond of her - he would have liked to be the one she slept with all the time but they both knew that wasn't possible; her body was her passport to greater venues, to more money.

Here - this weekend - she had her chance to fuck her way to the top.
 
5.

Angélique examined herself in the full length mirror, turning this way and that as Dan watched. Her chestnut hair was drawn up and then left to cascade in curls that caressed the middle of her back; her make-up exquisite. She batted her lashes, forming a provocative moue with her crimsoned lips and turned around to display her gown -- a sheer silk peplos, completely open on one side and fastened at the waist by a thin golden chain that matched the fancywork on its edged. "I won't be able to sit," she mused.

"Why not?" her manager asked, standing.

"I'm so... wet," she giggled. "I'm sure to leave a puddle if I do."

Dan shook his head. "When aren't you, Angie?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes I'm not," she replied huskily, her expressive eyes belying her words. He laughed as she took his arm. "Let's go get me something to scratch my itch."

The banquet hall that he had procured was elaborately festooned and decorated in the style of the Ancient Greeks. There were lounges and single chairs, tables laden with food and beverages, alcoholic and not - all manner of comforts for those so inclined and even for those who preferred to just... observe. The invitation list looked like the Who's Who of Moving on Up in the Theatrical World, though truth be told, it was an erotic tableau of Angélique Charbonneau and all she had to offer.

******​

Angélique sang. She danced. She caressed faces and breasts and cocks as she wove her way through the throng of guests. Hands cupped her ass, brushed against her mons, tweaked her nipples. Her face was flushed with desire, her pussy wet and aching to be filled. The musky scent of her passion swirled around her like the finest perfume. Her voice was dusky, hot-blooded, lascivious.

A voice in her ear, breath hot against her skin and a possessive hand on her waist. "I want you," he whispered. Dan's nod from across the room told her that this one could offer her something more than the orgasm she was craving.

Obviously someone who was used to getting what he wanted, he had already guided her toward one of the lounges, indicating that she should make herself comfortable. Angélique nodded, too aroused to speak as he unzipped and stood before her, his engorged cock in his hand. "Suck me." Her eyes closed for a moment as he rubbed his cockhead against her lips.

She laved him with her tongue, caressed his shaft with her hands, engulfed him in the warmth of her mouth. Sucking. Her crimsoned lips slithering back and forth as he fucked them. More hands. Cocks. Mouths on her body as she pleasured the grand director. Moans and cries of release as others were emboldened to seek their own satisfaction, singly or with others, rang out like a symphony to her ears...

Angélique moaned lustfully as he emptied, drinking up every drop and missing none as another took his place, sinking to her knees between Angie's thighs. An influential columnist, she knew. It was her turn to say it as the director moved behind her, whispering promises of fame and bright lights. "Suck me... "

The woman needed no second invitation as she spread Angélique's pussy and buried her face in the honeyed liquor within. She came fast and hard, but she still needed fucking... her smoky voice singing out as another gentleman approached.

Her eyes scanned the room in amazement, unsure how they managed to maintain such a genteel air about themselves as they stood watching, sucking, fucking, masturbating openly -- fully clothed with all eyes on her.

"Excuse my impertinence," a voice murmured against her ear as she rode a magnificent cock. "I would have a word. Privately."

Through the hazy red mist of her passion, Angélique leaned back, her head turning toward the speaker as he guided her upward. She mewled petulantly, barely able to catch her breath as he stole her orgasm from her.

"No worries," he whispered as he led her from the room. "I will give you others... and more. I won't share your cunt, but your voice and your eyes will be for everyone."

There was something in his voice that told her it was true, though he didn't properly introduce himself until the next morning when he was certain she had been properly and well fucked and licked and was ready for an intermission.

"Florenz," her murmured lifting his glistening face away from her pussy. "Florenz Ziegfeld. Welcome to Broadway."
 
It had taken quite a while - at first it was rumours. Your mother - she's a singer...the children took up the chorus first, set off by some vindictive member of staff at the orphanage, who thought it wasn't true but wanted to torment the girl.

At first Liane was too young to understand but somehow she always had this image of her mother as a singer and for the young girl it was glamorous. Not only was she a singer but she had been on Broadway. Not only on Broadway but in the Ziegfeld productions.

The little French girl kept a scrapbook of the person people kept saying was her real mother; as the years came and went, as potential step-parents came and went and didn't pick her, she clung to the pictures. The nurses, the doctors, everyone - they would buy her the magazines she craved, those with the pictures of her "mother" in them.

Years passed and she turned into a gangly teenager, still in the orphanage in Paris. Still, the scrapbooks filled up.

Sister Ursula of the orphanage was Liane's friend; she, too, helped her get pictures and she was happy to talk about the stage in New York - she was as devout as could be but still she craved the excitement of the lights of the shows. She encouraged Liane to write to Angélique. Of course there was never a reply. Sister Ursula always knew though. Someone had kept the notes of that day when Angélique had handed her over. Someone knew when Liane had been surrendered, all those years ago. So Ursula hoped, one day, Angélique would return to France, return to her daughter.

And, of course, Angélique did return to France - the special trip that promoted Ziegfeld and his productions, his involvement in the films.

"She's coming, she's really coming?" Liane hugged the newspaper to her breast and Sister Ursula nodded, smiling.

"Now don't forget, there could be all sorts of reasons why she hasn't been in touch. You have to plan carefully."

Liane nodded happily; at last - she would see her real mother and they would be together again.

****

Sister Ursula didn't complain that Liane had put on make up. This was such an important day. Of course, Ursula had tried to get in touch with the Ziegfeld tour in advance to try and see what the reaction might be to Liane turning up but it was no use - no one returned her letters or was in at the office of the Paris end of the organisation when she called. Ursula was apprehensive.

It took a little time to even get Liane backstage at the opening night - everyone wanted to see Angélique. But a nun and a teenager - the doorman let them through.

Ursula smiled at Liane. "Now, off you go, you see your Mama."

The young girl set off down the dressing rooms until she saw a star. Saw the name of Angélique. She swallowed and nodded to herself. She knocked on the door.

It was a while before it opened and there stood her mother.

Liane's throat dried up and she held out the small bouquet of violets.

"Mama," was the word she tried to say. Angélique looked at her and frowned at the word she heard so clearly. Her face began to cloud over, to assemble words of dismissal to this creature she had forgotten, had left behind so many years ago. It was over - this spawn of gambler and hopeful singer - now turned star. Then around the door appeared the face of a man.

"So kind," said Angélique, suddenly, prentending it was just a fan, to her latest one night stand. Angélique put her finger to her lips and then extending her hand, she pressed it to the rosebud lips of her daughter who she was ignoring, nor would ever see again.

The door closed. Liane stood and touched her lips, feeling the pressed kiss and listened to the sounds in the dressing room...laughter and the - she did not know what it was - but the bodies of her mother and her latest beau pressed against the door as they fucked.

She walked back to Sister Ursuline. She put her arms around the shoulders of the teenager and they walked into the swirling river of anonymous history.
 
Some of the patrons were grumbling, indignant at the way the girl had been treated (or not) by her golddigger of a mother. Rebecca shook her head sadly and sighed. "Maybe she was better off. Liane, I mean. Me... I just don't get it. But you," she said to the storyteller, "You get another drink. On the house."

GOLDDIGGER

Ingredients:
1/2 oz Jack Daniels
1/2 oz Goldschlager

Mixing instructions:
Pour in shot glass,and pray for the best.​

"Anybody have something a little more cheerful to share?" she asked, sending the drink over to the woman who had told the last tale. "Not that it matters, but... "
 
He had heard the end of the story as he was taking off his coat.

"That's sad," said the middle aged man as he sat at the bar.

Rebecca nodded and looked enquiringly at him. "Got a story?"

He smiled. "I'll take a First Love and tell you it."

****

Bill leaned on the blue door of the Volkwagen and listened to the clanking and swearing coming from the pit underneath. He grinned and sipped his coffee.

"Damn...Kraut..." the words echoed from the pit then the sound of a spanner not being used as a spanner should be used followed.

"Having trouble Matt?" Bill called out. Another salvo from the spanner followed.

"That got it! Ah!" Matt crowed in delight as he managed to release the exhaust.

Bill shook his head; Matt was the most impatient mechanic he'd employed as his assistant - but despite his "unorthodox" methods, he managed to get the job done. Bill walked over to the bench and put his coffee mug down, wiping grime from his large hands before running his fingers through his dark hair before going back to refurbishing an alternator. For old Sam Butler. He would ask anything to be repaired - the alternator had probably been back in the shop three times now but he still wouldn't buy a new one.

The phone rang and he sighed and answered it.

"Bill's car repair, how can I help you?"

There was a girlish squeal on the line. "I knew it would be you - I just knew it. I got into town just last night to visit my parents and I asked about you and they said look him up in the phone book and I did and well!"

The rapid fire stopped for a moment, then there was a giggle.

"You don't recognise me?"

"Ummm, sorry -"

"It's Louise! from High School - we went out just after we both left and before I went to college."

"Louise!" Bill had a clear recollection of her body under him - over him - doing just about everything together five years before.

"Uh uh. I'm in town visiting - like to catch up?"

"Love to," Bill said. They arranged to meet at a bar that Bill knew did good food.

"Not bringing your wife I hope..." Louise giggled again.

"No wife. No girl friend right now."

"Awww, poor baby. See you tonight honey - we have lots to talk about."

Matt stuck his head out of the pit and gave a big grin, his white teeth gleaming against his ebony skin.

"That didn't sound like someone booking in their SUV."

"No - no it wasn't it - "

There was a honk from the road out front and Bill looked out to see the bookmobile parked on the shallow hill and Emma getting out, waving to him.

Bill waved back and Emma came in, her floral pattern dress swirling around, seeming to bring the early spring weather in the workshop with her.

"Hi Bill - got that book for you," she held out the book on an obscure period in the civil war and he grinned and was about to take it then showed her his hands.

"See if you can find some place clean for it will you?"

Emma nodded and waved to Matt under the car.

Matt grinned and asked her, "find out what Bill's up to with this telephone call, will ya?"

Bill sighed as Emma asked, "Telephone call?"

He nodded and said, "Remember Louise Fletcher?"

Emma furrowed her brow then nodded, "the girl you - liked - went out with?"

Bill nodded again. "Apparently she's in town," he said, "wants to play catch up so I'm meeting her tonight down the Watering Hole."

Emma nodded a little. "Hope you have a nice time," she said.

Matt laughed, "I'll tell you how big his grin is in the morning, Em."

Emma and Bill had known each other longer than he'd known Louise. Their parents were fellow lodge members and met up - Bill and Emma had grown up together. They just hadn't ever been - close, Bill thought to himself. By which he meant in bed together.

Emma smiled. "well, I'll better get going, more stops to make downtown. You have a good time tonight - no point remembering me to her, wasn't she on the cheerleading team?"

Bill nodded. And Emma had been - bookish even then.

"That's why she got the football player to go out with," she said and smiled at Bill both of them remembering the years on the team. He'd kept his broad shouldered physique; he even jogged past her house some mornings. Emma might have been bookish but she enjoyed the games and had seen him play often enough.

"I'll stop by later in the week," she called back over her shoulder. "Let me know how the book is."
 
1.

Talk wasn't really what Louise Fletcher had on her mind when she'd phoned Bill Sheldrake, although catching up was. But not in the way most people referred to it. Her sister, Betty, had already told her that Bill was "unattached" and well, now so was she. Thirty seven hours and sixteen minutes free, to be exact.

She'd gotten knocked up right out of high school and married the dumb putz who'd done it, three more rugrats following the first. What had she been thinking?!? He barely managed in the sack and she swore he was attached at the mouth to his neverending cans of beer. But now. Now it was her turn to party hearty and Bill had always been great for a good time. In and out of bed.

"There!" Louis said, puckering up and blowing a kiss toward her image in the bathroom mirror. She'd done a quick touch up on her roots that afternoon and her makeup was perfect. So was her outfit. Cupping her boobs, she hoiked them up so that they bulged a bit more from the restraints of her lacy bra -- a girl could never have too much cleavage.

"You're going out like that?" her mother gasped, sticking her head into the room.

"And what's wrong with this?" she retorted, swirling around with her arms spread.

"Well, for one thing," the older woman shook her head sadly. "Your skirt is bigger than most dustcloths I use and your shirt... What will people say?"

"I'm a grown woman, mama. I can dress any way I want. And who cares what people say? It's none of their business." Checking the seam line on her fish nets to make sure it was straight, Louise grabbed her purse and walked past her mother. "I've got a date. Don't wait up. I might not be home."

******​

Emma Gardner pulled the Newell Bookmobile into its oversized parking spot and cut off the engine. It had been a long day and her duties as "Book Lady" were far from over.

In the two hundred years since Newell had been founded, its population had grown by leaps and bounds, extending into four counties with six school districts and seven townships within the city limits. Even so, it had always been and always would be a farming community and the folks in its furtherest reaches depended on her weekly runs into their area with the latest in books and magazines as well as a good selection of classical literature and reference materials for assisting with homework assignments. She'd even started a video exchange.

"Hey, Emma!" She glanced up and smiled at the library's jack-of-all-trades, Mike Albright, who was steadily approaching, vacuum cleaner in tow. "How goes it?"

"Not bad, Mike. I've got a bunch of swapouts tonight and some requests that I have to fill, too. More than usual, I'm afraid," she added, pointing to the stack of notes in one of the cubbies as he climbed the steps to join her.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, tilting his head, the way he did when he was going to say something monumental. "You're practically married to this thing and your job. You don't have to work half as hard at this as you do."

Pushing back a stray wisp of her dirty blonde hair, Emma grumbled. "Now you sound like my dad, Mike. And only half his age."

"Smart man, your dad," he said with a sage nod. "You oughta listen to him more."

******​

By ten she was on her bicycle and headed for home. Driving the bookmobile all day, Emma didn't get much exercise otherwise and rode her bike to and from home, in good and bad weather alike. "It does me good," was her ready response to anyone who commented. In truth, it did. She was only a size larger now than she'd been in high school and she was pretty fit for her age. Not that it mattered, but...

"It's me, dad," she called out as she walked into their small house.

"You're late. I really wish you wouldn't... "

"Hush! I've had enough lecturing for one day. Did you eat?"

"Yup. There's plenty left. Chili con carne," he replied, pointing toward the pot on the stove.

"Sounds good. Coffee fresh?"

"As a baby's... "

"Dad!" Emma feigned shock as she kicked off her pumps and leaned over to scoop them up. "I'm just gonna get out of my clothes and I'll be right back. I'm starvin'!"

Padding into her room, she unzipped her dress and slid it off her shoulders and over her hips, letting it ripple to the floor before picking it up to hang it in the closet. Emma really wanted a bath but she'd wait until after she ate then relax with a book. The irony made her giggle. All day with books then half the night again. If her luck held, her dad would be nudging her to find herself a date before the evening was out.

"Speaking of dates," she said, forestalling her father's remark as she walked back into the kitchen dressed in a pink chenille robe. "Remember Louise Fletcher? Well, it seems she's back in town and has one of those things."

"Who with?" her father asked, his brows furrowing as though to say it could have been Emma on that selfsame outing.

"Bill."

"Bill?"

"Yeah. You know. Bill Sheldrake. They dated in high school."

Muttering something under his breath, he retired to the living room and turned on the television to watch the news before bed. In a way Emma was relieved that he'd dropped the subject.
 
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Was it for him to complain Louise had decided to slake her lust on him? Bill wasn't complaining after she made it obvious over the first course what she wanted and they started flirting straight away. One fish-netted foot was soon sliding up his ankle under the table and he was grinning like a loon for most of the meal.

Outside in the parking lot the early spring night was cool and their breath fogged more and more heavily as they breathed into each others kisses against the back wall of the restaurant. He drove her to his apartment and they had more dessert - first each other, then fruit eaten off each other then more of themselves again.

They woke up sticky, wine glasses and a beer bottle on the bed. Louid giggled as she turned on her side, letting his hand lazily stroke up and down the naked curve of her hip and waist before they found themselves in the shower together.

He wasn't quite sure how but she was bringing more of her clothes over, staying longer. He forgot to return the library book for so long that Emma eventually called his house - she hadn't been able to catch him at work since often he was out - snatching moments of lust with Louise. It was she who answered the phone.

"Oh, hi Louise," Emma said, knowing who it must be on Bill's phone, replying with studied equanimity. "Is Bill around?"

Louise clanked down a coffee cup. "What for? And do I know you?"

"No, you probably don't remember me from high school. Emma Gardner..."

"No, I don't. What you want with Bill?"

"I'm the librarian - he has a book out that's overdue..."

Louise giggled, suddenly remembering bookish Emma who had once helped her with some physics homework and Louise had delivered her a jock in payment who she guaranteed to Emma would "rock her world." He had the physique but his conversation was...limited. Emma did remember kissing him as they stood on the porch before evading his pawing and hurriedly saying good night.

"I'll be sure to tell him, Emily," she said, "bye now."

Emma sighed and put the phone down, picking up the keys of the bookmobile.

****

Bill returned the book as spring warmed up and handed over his fine; she was going to let him off but he shook his head.

"I did the crime now I gotta do the time."

She grinned and gave him change from $10. "You're a bad man, mister."

"Me, I'm the head of the family," he did a Brando voice and the glances to the side. "I take responsibility."

She suppressed a grin. "You're going down big time, Corleone," she said, holding his hands and mimed putting on the cuffs and they grinned at each other. Her small hand slid against the hard skin of his fingers, calloused by his work and she dropped her eyes to the books in front of her.

"How's Louise?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"She's...fine..." Bill answered, letting her fingers go. He didn't tell her that they'd agreed she would move in and that she was trying out for a job in the garage answering phones, book-keeping.

****

Emma had alway known Seth Austin. Well, that's what it seemed to her. He'd hung around the library a lot when he was working as an accountant and now he had semi-retired he stayed more out in the sticks and visited the bookmobile. He was - interesting; thin, bespectacled a passion for the Roman Empire. They had shared some website addresses about Rome and somehow ended up, one night in some roleplay. A very detailed roleplay. There was Latin involved and they both got complimented by other online players about their roles in the orgy scene.

Afterwards, Emma muttered to herself as she cleared up her wine glass and bottleand shook her head. What had she done?

Getting the book back from Seth about Tacitus and the histories proved tricky, there was a lot of embarrassed mumbling and it ended up on the floor of the bookmobile twice.

Eventually they laughed about it - they just had active imaginations, that was all. Yes, that was all. Then a few days later Emma saw Bill and Louise walking down the main street arm in arm as she walked up to the shops. She ducked in the nearest doorway.
 
2.

Emma felt foolish, unsure whether she was avoiding Bill or Louise, or maybe both. She knew she should be happy for him, but she just couldn't muster up one more fake smile or a false word of encouragement. Why couldn't he see that Louise Fletcher was all wrong for him?

Dad was digging into her about those two a little too often for her taste. That, on top of his constant nagging about how she should be out dating instead of burying her nose in a book when she did that all day was really beginning to rankle. Frankly, she told him, no one gave her a second glance anyhow. She was just the mousy librarian who drove the Bookmobile.

She found herself gravitating to that site where she and Seth had... But even he seemed to have paired off with someone else now. Emma watched the scenes in the chatroom with a mixture of horror and fascination and not a small amoount of despair. Emma couldn't even get a cyber-lover.

What she read there was hot and sexy and she found her hand straying between her legs more often than not. Even so, it wasn't enough. She kept seeing Bill Sheldrake's face as she brought herself to orgasm. This was madness!

A few days later it was bruited around Newell that Louise and Bill were living together, even talking about getting married. Dad, of course, rubbed it in every chance he got. "Time to stop hybernating, little girl," he'd said. "Get yourself out there and catch a real man." His words stung, but they also galvanized Emma into action. She didn't need a man to validate herself, but she also wasn't ready to take up the role of the county spinster now that Mildred Comstock had passed away at ninety-seven and still a maiden lady.

Folks always say that love comes along when you least expect it and not because you're on the lookout. Sometimes, "they" said, it was right under your nose. But Emma Gardner didn't put much stock in things credited to those omniscient ignes fatui. Well, not until...

******​

"Crap!" Emma lowered her foot to the ground and skiddered to a halt as a bolt of lightning illuminated the surrounds and confirmed her worst fear. She had a flat. "Well, 'they' do say when it rains, it pours," she muttered, slipping to the ground and almost losing her balance on the slick grass of the roadside's berm.

As if to prove "their" point, the heavens chose that moment to redouble their efforts at replenishing the local water supply by transforming what was just a normal summer squall into something torrential. Tightening the drawstring on her rain poncho, Emma cursed her luck as she propped the bicycle up on its kickstand and pulled the repair kit from the pouch hooked behind the seat.

"It'll only take a minute," she reassured herself, blowing away the runnels of water cascading off the brim of the poncho's hood like a waterfall onto her face. "It'll only take... " She peered at the long, jagged slash in the tire. " ...a frigging miracle."

Standing up, Emma put the tools away and took a deep breath, wiping the Niagara from her eyes as she blinked. There wasn't much she could do about this except to get her butt in gear and walk the bicycle home. "Deep breath, Emma Gardner," she muttered. "This is your life."

Mother Nature didn't let up and Emma Gardner didn't give in as she cursed herself for not having a cel. She laughed at the thought. It wasn't like she had anyone she could phone. Dad was out of town all week with his buddies on their once-a-year-you-shoulda-seen-the-one-that-got-away fishing trip and there really wasn't anyone else she could think of at any rate. What would she say, anyhow? "Hi, it's Emma. I've got a flat about four miles from home. Can you come out of your warm, dry house in the middle of this hellacious storm to give me a ride?"

She'd finally sung herself down to fifty eight bottles of beer on the wall when she heard the roar of a truck's engine approaching, its headlights framing her in the darkness like a spotlight on the bad guy in one of those old noir movies she loved so much. "I'll talk! I swear I'll talk!" she muttered, waving her arms as she turned to face the oncoming vehicle. "Just stop. Please, just... stop!"

Emma breathed a sigh of relief as the pickup pulled to a halt and the driver leaned over to push the door open.
 
"Mike" Emma peered in the open door of the pick up, rain streaming over the hood of her poncho.

"Got room for another in the ark?"

Mike Albright quickly helped her put the bike in the bed of the pick up and they drove to the main road. She was grateful for the lift and was comfortable chatting about the library, the comfort zone that she and he both inhabited.

"We're passing my place," he said, "want to stop by - save you cooking tonight?"

He could see her hesitate as a passing car's headlight glow starkly illuminated her face.

"I got that first edition of David Hume you always say you'd like to look at."

She looked over to him and her excuses were ready as usual in her mind. Her Dad. Long day. She sniffed and drew a breath letting the knot in her stomach undo; no cooking sounded good. Mike was a good cook too, she remembered the barbeque the previous year.

"Sure, why not," she said a bit nervously.

****

Emma called her Dad so he didn't worry and he sounded remarkably cheery that she wouldn't be home for a while. "Stay as long as you like," he said.

"G'night Dad," she put the phone down and rolled her eyes before he had a chance to do any hinting about her love life.

Mike was a good cook. The book was interesting, as they stood close and looked at the volume from the eighteenth century and she lapsed into how it always made her woder about the people who had held such ancient works. Mike smiled and knew what she meant.

He also had wine too and he said the right thing about the way her toweled dry hair looked sexy after they had nearly finished the bottle.

He looked at his empty glass and offered to get her a cab - "I don't think I'd better drive," he said waving the glass. She pushed back her hair over her ear and tucked her leg up under her as she leaned back on the couch.

She didn't go home that night.

****

People said they made a good couple as the months wore on and Emma did enjoy his company; it was comfortable. She'd seen less of Bill of late even though she still drove the bookmobile; he seemed to be doing less reading since Louise had moved in with him and started to work at the garage.

As summer began to wane into fall she met Matt and they shared a coffee and news.

"You still seeing Mike the library guy?"

She nodded and blushed a little; it was unusual for her still to be the focus of discussion when it came to relationships.

Matt looked down into the white coffee mug and Annie frowned.

"What?"

Matt glanced up. "Nuttin," he mumbled. She made her "right, sure," face and he shrugged.

"I always thought you had a thing for Bill."

"No. No, no." She stacattoed out the too quick denial. "We were - are - good friends."

Matt nodded and didn't pick at it and Annie comfortably recalled her rationalisations of her feelings for Bill. Just good friends. They'd never even kissed aprt from air kisses and cool lips to cool cheeks. She'd stopped the voices of that part of her mind that had reminded her of the fun they'd shared and their quirky sense of humours meshing.

Over the months she'd slipped into an easy life with Mike, so when she became pregnant "by mistake" they found an excuse for getting married. She stood in front of the bedroom mirror when her stomach rounded and caressed her skin where the baby was growing. She shook her head at the twists her life was taking. "Who'd a thunk it?" she said to herself.

She was still working and yes, she'd insisted to Mike who had suddenly become very traditional, she was coming back to work after the baby was born. One her way past Bill's garage when she was only to weeks off giving birth she stopped on a whim and called in. She grinned to herself at the familiar sound of Mech in the pit hitting a recalcitrant car. She was relieved that Louise wasn't there and saw Bill's broad back in the office.

"Hey," she stuck her head around the door.

"Hey!" Bill turned and grinned at her.

He asked how she was and she cut back the grousing but did tell her the craving she'd had to eat coal. Bill nodded seriously. "I might have had to protest at another fossil fuel guzzler in the state."

She sniffed at him but then giggled. "Anyhooow, I was wondering if you wanted to come to the Christening? Mike has this big Catholic family and he has friends he promised they'd be godparents." She shrugged. "Only if you'd like. Good excuse for a party. Bring Louise."

Bill nodded and thanked her and they stood awkwardly before Bill bent and gave her a cool lipped kiss to her cheek. They grinned at one another. Annie pushed back her hair over her ears and grinned again. "Mike's so bookish..."

Bill's eyes widened as he thought pots and kettles. She shrugged as if she knew what he was thinking but carried on. "He wanted to call the baby Marcel. It's a boy," she went on explaining.

"Marcel?" Bill's eyes widened.

"After Marcel Proust." She bit her top lip to stop herself giggling. "I told her I didn't think he'd thank his Dad for it when he went to school."

Bill gave her his lop sided grin. "So what is it now? Rudyard?"

She covered her mouth and blushed as she couldn't help laughing. "No, I managed to get him to agree to Mark."

****

So Mark was born to parents who were comfortable with one another and he grew up with friends and didn't get teased about his name as the years saw him into his first school.
 
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3.

Bill Sheldrake pushed his hair back, the brown salted with gray, and sighed. Matt, as usual, was swearing as he worked on a car -- this time the complaint seemed to be about folks waiting so damned long to get a fix when it would have been a two hour job early on instead of a whole day affair.

Although business was good, it was never good enough for Louise and her champagne tastes on a beer pocketbook. She'd maxed out the credit cards within the first two years of their marriage and was putting a good sized dent in the bank account, too, but Bill rarely complained, instead he'd taken to working longer hours and was considering a 24 hour tow service that would extend into the surrounding counties.

"Sheldrake's Auto Repair," he said, answering the jangling phone. Louise had talked him into changing the name when they'd first moved in together, saying it sounded more 'professional'. The person on the other end was Louise, of course. He could hear the kids hollering and the baby screaming in the background. "What's up?" he asked, already having a good idea. It never seemed to vary much.

"They're driving me nuts, Bill. When are you coming home? I gotta get out."

He nodded and sighed again. Louise had insisted that she'd had her tubes cut, tied and burned (her words), but Sammy was proof positive that she had not. To avoid another such accident, he'd gotten a vasectomy, and, no, he hadn't told her. She was pregnant again.

"Call Ginnie Provost," he suggested, knowing the teenager had a knack for calming all of them. "I'll pay her when I get home. Bingo again?"

Louise laughed. "You know me so well. I'll call her now."

Yeah he knew her all right. And so did the P.I. he'd hired three months ago to find out where she really went instead. He'd already contacted a local lawyer to start divorce proceedings -- and to file custody for the kids. Somehow he didn't think she'd give him much trouble over that last little bit if he made the "git" sweet enough. Sure, four of the five weren't his, but their biological father was a deadbeat and Louise -- well, she just wanted a meal ticket for them when she'd hooked him round her... Bill laughed sardonically... Pecker. She'd always called it "HER Pecker. Now she had someone else's to amuse herself with.

******​

Emma read quietly as the "regulars" at this stop climbed in and out of the bookmobile, returning books and taking out new ones, making requests for others that weren't on these particular shelves. Every week she posted the bestseller list from the NY Times and she was mid-discussion with someone about Dean Koontz's latest, The Husband, and how it had, remarkably, entered the list two weeks ago at number one without so much as a how do you do when her cel phone rang.

It was one of the first gifts Mitch had ever bought after he'd rescued her from the deluge like a modern-day Noah. He loved her too much, he said, to risk having her broken down somewhere with no one to call ever again. "Hello?"

"Emma? It's Molly." Molly Anderson was the head librarian at Newell Public Library and they'd been close friends for many, many years.

"Hiya, Molly. What's up?"

There was a pause on the line followed by a choked out, "There's been an accident, Emma."

"Mark? My God! How badly is he hurt??" Emma's hand flew to her throat as if to throat as if to keep her heart from bursting up and out of her body.

"It's not Mark. Mark is fine. It's... "

Emma crumpled where she stood.

The next few days passed in a blur. Mike hadn't felt a thing, the doctor told her. Of course not, Emma rationalized. He was dead. Dead people never feel anything. And so it seemed, neither did she.

Dry eyed and stoic, she stood beside the grave as they lowered the casket, her son's small hand tucked securely in her own. There had been no public viewing and the memorial had been private. Mike had friends, yes, but this wasn't something Emma had wanted to share with anyone but immediate family. Or maybe it was just the fact that she couldn't bring herself to cry.

As she turned to walk away she saw Bill Sheldrake approaching and even though Louise was nowhere in sight, Emma neither acknowledged his presence nor slowed to let him catch up. She simply got into her car with her son and drove away.
 
Bill got caught up in his divorce for a while after Mike died. His reading faded away, so he didn't see Emma much either.

Then he threw himself into being a full time single parent - of five children - and he didn't tell four of them thay he wasn't their biological father. For now, they needed security, after their mother left with no concern for seeing them, it seemed, ever again.

He got them some day care and what with that and paying off the money Louise had spent, he wasn't exactly able to be carefree.

It took his time up and he actually found it more enjoyable than he thought he might. They managed trips to national parks, camping and the children grew up with no more or less sibling rivalry than most. Year by year they followed each other to the first year of school and Bill found he met some of their women teachers who were interested enough in him but made excuses. They couldn't date while his children were at the school - since it was the only school for the small town that made it - difficult. He wondered if his ready made family wasn't a more important factor in them turning him down.

He became even more absorbed in the children; there was no sense in which he blamed them for cutting down his social life though often he worried himself that somehow he wasn't doing his best for them and that he was taking it out on them.

Matt kept up his support for his now business partner in motor repair and towing that was snaking out a franchise across the state. Matt had married and had children of his own and invited Bill and the children round as often as he could.

"We're raising a football team between us," he joked at one barbeque noting the predominance of boys between them. Bill grinned.

Slowly, the debts eased as the business flourished; Matt had discovered he was a pretty good salesman as well as a dab hand with a wrench to hammer on a car's underbelly. They moved into used cars.

Bill got more time and took up reading again, more into novels now than his old interest in the civil war.

He pulled his car onto the forecourt of his used car showroom and saw the bookmobile growl to a stop over the road. He thought about Emma and how little they had spoken over - he realised guiltily it must be two years. He got out and crossed the road and stepped aboard the bus. He grinned to himself. Emma sat at the counter, her head bent over a book.

"Hey, got any James Ellroy," he called. She swivelled her head and grinned.

"Hi stranger," she said. He came inside as she pointed out the well thumbed thrillers in their alcove. He looked down at what she was reading; the colourful photographs caught his eyes and she turned the book - Michael Wood's In Search of Myths and Heroes - round to him. They soon got fascinated in the tales of Shangri-La, King Arthur and the Queen of Sheba. They read fragments from the book and lost themselves in the mysteries of the past, dreaming about myths and what lay behind them.

It was as if they were waking up, not noticing how much time had passed when they finally looked at one another and slipped into every day catch-up talk - mostly about the children.

As they did so, Bill kept looking at her slyly, remembering how they had both drifted away on some magic carpet of myth, forgetting how easy it had been with her to slide into stories in the past. He remembered a fragment - how she cuffed him for the library fine that time. He found himself wanting to feel her hands on his wrists again. On his skin.

She waved a hand in front of his face. "Bookmobile to carman, come in please?" He looked at her and slipped out of his reverie and grinned and then remembered something.

"Hey - you know what? Matt won a competition the other week - some local dealership salesman thing."

She nodded, a question in her face.

"He said it's no use to him." He took a deep breath and hurried on. "He said a klutz like him could never do it - well. It was a free salsa lesson, down at the community hall. Do you fancy - I mean, if we could get us some babysitting - want to give it a try?"
 
4.

"I'm not running a kindergarten here, you know, Missy," Hank Gardner grumped to his daughter. "If this wasn't a date, I'd... "

"How many times do I have to tell you it's not a date, dad. We're using the dance lesson that Matt won. Besides, you know you love kids -- especially your favorite grandson."

"Mark is my only grandson, but yeah, I like em. Baked, broiled or fried."

Emma cut him off. "Great! So that's a yes. We'll drop them off tomorrow night around six. The class is only an hour. I love you."

She set the phone back in its cradle and leaned back in her chair, wondering how she'd gotten herself into this deal anyhow. Imagine taking dance lessons at her age!!

******​

Bill picked Emma up at quarter til, his minivan filled with his boisterous family, though they quickly made room enough for her and Mark. "Where are we going again, daddy?" the youngest asked as he drove toward the outskirts of town. "Do they have a bathroom?"

Emma laughed. "You're going to my father's house," she answered. "And yes, there's a bathroom there."

Bill tried to explain but she waved him off, saying it was just a stage that all kids go through. "My dad can break down a toilet and unclog it in minutes," she giggled, pointing vaguely in Mark's direction. "No worries, okay?"

Her father was sitting on the porch waiting when they pulled up, a rather grim look on his face as he scrutinized each of the Sheldrake children and Mark in turn. "I'm the boss here, you understand," Hank grumbled as they stood before him, shuffling their feet nervously -- he could look quite imposing at times.

Taking the diaper bag from Bill, Emma handed it to him. "Bottles, diapers, wipes," she said. "If it's not there, you don't need it. And don't phone, we're not going to be gone that long."

"Poppa," Mark said with a grin. "Can we have ice cream now?"

Hank muttered something under his breath and stood, the youngest Sheldrake in his arms where Emma had plopped her. "You're spoiling my bad guy act, Markie. Yeah, I suppose we could find something like that in the kitchen. C'mon you rugrats, let's see what we've got. But don't you go making a mess, you hear?"

Bill looked askance at Emma who only shrugged and commented that they'd best get a move on. "He'll live."

******​

They parked in the municipal lot behind the community hall, both of them a little quiet as they walked inside. It wasn't the dancing, though Emma thought she had two left feet, it was the "touching". There seemed to be an electric tingling in the air between them that she just couldn't seem to get shed of. Then again, did she want to be?

"Good evening," a thin, wiry woman with a hawkish nose and sequin studded eyeglasses reminiscent of the sixties said as they walked in. "I'm Amelia Greeley and you are?"

"This is Emma Gar... Albright," Bill said, quickly correcting his mistake. "I'm Bill. Bill Sheldrake." He didn't recognize Ms. Greeley but Emma seemed to as they were exchanging air kisses to each others cheeks.

"That's Edna Harding's sister. She has a studio in the city but has been thinking of retiring back here in Newell and maybe setting up some classes a couple days a week to keep herself... " she explained as they made their way to some chairs that had been set up around the room.

"How do you know all this stuff?" Bill asked in wonderment. He barely knew the date and day of the week most times.

"I'm a librarian. We know everything," was her terse reply.

After a few minutes, Amelia made her way into the middle of the room. "I'm assuming some of you already have partners chosen and for those of you who don't, we'll get you one, don't worry. Now then. If you're all ready... "

The people gathered in the middle of the room as she indicated, facing their dance partners. "The way you stand is almost as important as the way you dance," Amelia said, approaching Bill and Emma. "He will hold the lady's right hand with his left."

Bill and Emma raised and lowered the wrong ones a couple of times until they got it right and the next bit wasn't easier. "Now put your hand on her back. No, no. Not that high. Lower." Bill flushed, but managed somehow. "Now," Amelia directed, "The lady's right hand on the gentleman's shoulder." Emma's heart was pounding. This surely wasn't... "Closer, please." They did. "Very nice," she commented once satisfied. "Now look into each other's eyes."

It was Emma's turn to blush as she raised her eyes to his, their bodies almost touching -- at least her breasts were grazing against Bill's chest. Dancing, she chided herself. We're meant to be dancing!

"I'll explain briefly," Amelia said, walking over to a boombox sitting on a table. "but you'll best learn by practice. The music is... " She flipped it on, "Tito Puentes. Pa Los Rumberos."

"Gentlemen, you will guide the ladies. Ladies, you will follow your man. And... With the beat." She raised one hand and positioned the other in front of her belly as if she were holding someone. "Quick step, forward left. Rock back, right. Step back, left. Shift. Step back right. Rock forward, left. Step forward, right. Shift right. Repeat... Begin!"

Emma giggled nervously when she stepped on his toes, but Bill was a regular Fred Astaire, giving her little tugs and pushes and checks to indicate what she was meant to do. Truth, even without them she (eventually) would have been able to follow him any where, any way. If only she didn't have to keep looking into his eyes... Or maybe it should have been that she wouldn't ever have to look away.

Just when Emma thought she'd finally "got it" the class was over, but her heart was still pounding to the beat of the music and Bill was feeling more than a bit flushed.

"Emma," he said her name quietly, pulling her suddenly closer, kissing her gently. "Can we? Do you think... "

He didn't have to say the words, Emma could feel them in their all too brief kiss. "I'll call dad," she said. "We can pick the children up in the morning."
 
They had almost been silent all the way back in the car, both nervous until they reached the garden. Stil quiet she said how she'd enjoyed the dancing and he had taken her in his arms again and moved against her in a parody of what they had learned. She laughed, a deeper sound than he had expected and he grinned, liking the sound of it.

As they stood on the porch that needed painting they inhaled the fragrance of the flowers around them and he kissed her again. It was quiet again.

They managed to get inside the house, into the shadows cast by the streetlights through the windows before their kisses deepened, became open mouthed. He was walking backwards up the stairs before he stood on one of the children's skates and hastily sat down. Again she laughed before putting her hand to her mouth to try and stop, which made it worse and she giggled.

He reached out and took her hips in his strong hands and pulled her towards him; she put her hands on the stair either side of his shoulders and let her hair hang forward as she leaned in to kiss him again this time exploring his chin and his neck as she felt his hands run up her thighs, under the loose dress she had worn for dancing.

She had lost the dress by the time they reached the bedroom and his shirt had followed it. They lay on the bed and didn't count the time they spent kissing and undressing one another, learning about each other's bodies until she drew him over her and in the pale moonlight she let him enter her for the first time.

****

It wasn't the last, neither that night or in the weeks that followed.

Emma grinned to herself to see how her Dad's self satified smirk grew wider by the day especially when he found that Bill enjoyed sports almost as much as he did.

Emma also saw new sides to Bill's children and pointed them out to him, things he had missed even though he loved them so much. Every time she showed him something new about them, about books, about himself - and herself - he felt himself becoming more and more entangled in her life. And he loved it.

They were round at Matt's in the early spring and he was - yet again - telling them how they should be grateful for him, bringing them together with the dance lesson. Bill and Emma rolled their eyes in unison and Matt laughed.

"See - you're already like a married couple. When's it gonna be?"

Matt's wife laughed and tried to shush him but the big black man laughed and broke off the ring pull from his beer.

"See - we even got a ring!"

Outside in the garden, the children laughed and played together. Bill and Emma looked at one another.
 
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5.

Truth be told, neither Bill nor Emma remembered who proposed to whom. Maybe it was Mitch who had done it. Either way, or any way, they found themselves facing each other beneath an arbor of flowers in Mitch's backyard on a beautiful summer day in June.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here... " The minister droned in a voice not unlike the humming of bees.

"Okay, okay," Bill murmured close to her ear. "Let's get on with it so we can... "

Emma's eyes sparkled, her blush just slightly deeper than the mauve gown she wore or the enormous pink lilies that made up her bouquet. It was almost too pretty to toss to the unmarried women and girls who would hope to make the catch and ensure their own happy endings. As for the garter thing, the look in Bill's eyes told her that if they weren't surrounded by family and friends he'd be up to some delicious mischief. Her blush deepened.

"Hssst!"

The elderly minister looked up at them both and frowned, lowering his eyes back to the book in his hands. "I'll try," he whispered, winking (surprisingly enough) at Emma instead of Bill. They both giggled.

A few minutes later it was time for anyone who had objections. They both held their breath despite the fact that there was no one among them that would do such a thing. They thought.

"I... " A strange man whom neither of them recognized hurried forward. Eleanor Compton, the old librarian, fainted dead away, her father was hot on the man's heels, and Bill was unbuttoning his jacket. Emma blinked and blinked again. What was this madness??

The minister spluttered as Mitch grabbed the stranger, his teeth glaring white like fangs as he snarled, asking what in the hell he thought he was doing.

"I... " The man held up a carved teak box and squeaked. "I don't mean to stop the wedding, exactly. I... " Bill's fist was inches from his nose. The diminutive man thrust an elaborately carved teakwood box past the would-be-groom and handed it to Emma, causing a delay in the inevitable donnybrook.

"What's this?" she asked, turning it round and round in her hands. "It's... "

"Locked. Yes," the man said quietly, finishing her sentence and looking toward Bill. "He has the key."

"I do?"

The man nodded.

Bill dug into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, looking at them curiously. There were several he had long forgotten the use of, but he was never able to bring himself to dispose of them. Eyeing the man, he riffled through them, the various metals making a faint tinkling sound over the impossible hush of the guests.

"That one." Emma pointed, not knowing how she knew. An old-timey key, nothing like the ones used nowadays. It seemed to be made of brass.

Bill's forehead wrinkled. He didn't remember this one. Where had it come from?

"Give it?" Emma asked, her hand extended, palm up, watching as he freed it from the o-ring that held it.

She held it poised in front of the small box, her eyes glued to the stranger's. "But what is it?"

He nodded. "People find ways of making short cuts to things. Long walks become shorter and shorter until there are no longer any walks at all. Reading on horseback gave way to riding in motorcars and thus the reading went forgotten. Inkpots to fountain pens to ball points then typewriters and computers. All in the name of saving time."

His words made no sense to anyone, least of all Bill or Mitch, but somehow Emma began to understand. Or at least she thought. "So people save time and in the end lose things that are sometimes more important?"

The gray cobwebbed haired man grinned, his bright blue eyes twinkling. "This," he said, "is my wedding gift to both of you. Saved time," he continued. "Time lost."

A crack of lightning and a boom of thunder illuminated the still clear sky. Emma and Bill blinked and the minister yawned. No trace remained of the box or of the curious man who had disrupted their wedding.

Smiling into each other's eyes, they held each other's hands as the minister concluded the ceremony; the scattered rhinestones on her white gown sparkling as the sun reflected off of them.

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Sheldrake," the minister grinned as the young couple kissed and turned to meet their guests in her father's back yard.

"Okay, that was just weird."

"Are you saying they were young again?"

"What the... "

The man who had told the story smiled and shrugged. "Think whatever you like," he said. "In the meantime, I think I'll have another... First Love."

"Coming right up," Rebecca said, quickly mixing the drink. This had to be one of the strangest stories yet. "Next??"

******

FIRST LOVE

Ingredients:
2/3 oz. Champagne
1/3 oz. Gin
1 tsp. Sugar
2 dashes of Cherry Heering

Mixing directions:
Shake with ice and strain into a highball glass.​
 
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