Crossings
2. Dessert
Early in the morning, after a full night with Jess, by far the most incredible night of his young life, the first day of his year-and-a-day commitment, Mariano began feeling unwell. First queasy but rapidly worsening. Jess felt inside him and found his ward against the dark mage’s curse failing. She padded into the kitchen, barefoot, poured a little travel bottle of tequila into a glass, returned with it and had him drink half. Then she sat him on a towel on the edge of the bed, where her hands began working something that could only be described as magic. He got so hard.
“Feel your body warming, as if you’re in a sauna, feel your sweat begin to flow, good healthy, cleansing sweat. Feel what my hands are doing to you, feel my hot breath on your ear, on your cheek, on your neck, feel how hot that’s making you, feel how hot it’s making me.”
“You’ll cum when I tell you,” she whispered, stroking and squeezing, brought him to the edge, released him, to the edge again, released him, and again until he was whimpering unintelligibly, out of his mind with pleasure and desire.
“When you cum,” she said in one of those gaps between edgings, placing one of his hands on her bare, shaven mons and the other on her full breast, “all that evil will come out. You don’t get to move, except for right where I put your hands.” His hands moved on her, which was really good, but she guided him, making it better, just how she wanted it.
She reached for the glass, had a tiny sip herself, poured the rest over his bottom lip into his open mouth. Then she kissed him, tasting more.
“I’m going to bring you to the edge one more time, and I’m going to drape a washcloth over your big beautiful new perfect cock, and that cloth will feel like my hand on you, on your cock while I cup and squeeze your balls, and when I tell you to cum, you are going to jet into that washcloth so hard that it’ll jerk higher, and all that evil will leave your body.”
Jess felt intoxicated by her growing power, felt his hands doing a kind of magic of their own on her aroused body. She approached her own edge, draped the washcloth over his throbbing, straining cock, so much larger than it had ever been before this magical day and night, and as she came, she gasped “Come now, my beautiful boy.”
Mariano’s groan of release almost a bellow, Jess watched his geyser push up the washcloth, her hand slowly moving it away so nothing leaked back onto him, and when his spasms were finally done she removed it, pushed him onto his back, and walked into the laundry room to get a clean one. He could hear her rinsing it in the sink, singing something that sounded happy, such a welcome, welcoming sound, and when she returned she spread a new one, wet and warm, and cleaned him.
“Nasty stuff, that cursed cum,” she said. “Down the drain with it.” Then she dried him with a hand towel, kissed him, and levitated him back to his side of the bed and then the covers over him while she threw the second washcloth into the laundry room sink with the first. In bed beside him, her leg over his hip, she finally allowed his body to move again.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice weak from strain and emotion. “You saved my life. Again.”
“You’re mine to do with as I please, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes mistress,” he said.
“I choose to take good care of you, my beautiful boy,” she said, and embraced him, her full firm breasts like small warm pillows between them, kissing him again. “Now we sleep. We’ll see what the morning brings.”
That last morning together was a blur for Mariano. He was feeling well again, in bed with her, doing whatever she asked without thinking anytime she asked, like a puppet, and she made all of it feel so good. There was a lot he couldn’t remember, plus one part he knew he didn’t need to remember and then he got to enjoy floating—all he needed to remember was how good it felt to be with her, pleasing her as she pleased him, how much she desired him and loved their time together, how much she looked forward to more.
They didn’t see Kelsey and Stu until a mid-morning breakfast. Stu looked as shellshocked as Mariano had ever been.
That had been the craziest night of Stu’s life. He and Kelsey retired to their bedroom early, didn’t even know that Mariano was there and Dani wasn’t, and what happened between them was, well ... crazy. Even now it was hard to wrap his head around.
“Stu, I’ve been thinking,” she’d begun.
‘Uh oh,’ he thought to himself, because every other time anyone had ever said something like that to him, his life got weirder.
“I’m really kinda ticked at Bob,” she said. “I mean, I like him and all, and the truth is I like him a lot more than I thought I would, but ... he isn’t really my type, you know?”
Stu knew better than to answer, settling for an uncertain nod.
“Almost everything we’ve learned these past few months has been from this stupid hack he figured out, goddess knows how.”
Stu shrugged. Bob’s hack didn’t work for him ... anything he’d been able to learn had been the old-fashioned way, reading and studying, um ... hard. And it’d certainly been ... hard ... with all these wonderfully distracting women practicing their newfound capabilities on anyone they could, which so often meant ... him. But he had enough sense to know this was Kelsey’s monologue and he shouldn’t interrupt.
“I’m ticked at him, but there’s not much I can do about it, so ... you get to be his surrogate, but I want to change the rules to something I like more. Got me?”
Stu had a bad feeling about this but knew better than to do anything but nod. Because no matter what else happened, it would probably be fun.
“That thing I do, squeezing around you, I’ve only ever done with you before, but, well ... I did it with Bob today. I feel bad about that, I really do, like I’ve betrayed something we had together, just us two, something I liked very much to have shared with just you. I told Bob I loved him, that was hard for me because, well ... you know. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that at some level it was true. So I also need to say something to you,” and she took his head between her hands. “Stu, I love you more, and I want you to know that.”
Stu opened his mouth, uncertain whether he should say something, anything, in reply, because they’d been through so much together, all of it revolving around love of one kind or another, and he loved her in his way, too. But he didn’t get the chance.
“I want to change some things between us,” Kelsey told him. Stu just looked into her eyes.
She reached down to take his cock in her hand. He knew he had a big cock, knew he had a really big cock, knew how much Kelsey loved to have it inside, same as all the women at Newberry except Jess, who couldn’t fit more than his first few inches, and Callie, who’d seldom let him for the past month because she and Bob had become a couple and everyone knew that, and he respected that.
“Stu, honey, as much as I love your cock inside me, you fill me up like no one and no other thing ever has, I would prefer it if you were a woman,” Kelsey said. “There, I said it.”
Stu had no idea how to respond, and Kelsey was silent for a good two minutes after. He was starting to think about opening his mouth to say he-knew-not-what when Kelsey continued.
“I want you to be a woman, at least this once, at least tonight,” she said. “I know how to make that happen. But I also want your cock in me, filling me as only you can.”
Stu had even less an idea how to reply, this was simply off the map. Kelsey took his head between her hands again.
“If you don’t want this, tell me. It’ll be really good for you, I promise, and it’ll be so much better for me, and tomorrow we can be back to ... where we are now,” she said.
Stu took half a minute to respond, and in the end just nodded.
“I do love you, Stu,” she said. And then, his already somewhat hard cock in her hands, she played with him, this part of him that she liked more than any other, that she already knew so well, and it wasn’t long before he was ready to burst. But that wasn’t what she wanted, because she edged him twice more, until it felt like he was ready to burst at any moment, for minutes on end, Right. On. That. Edge.
“This, I like,” she said, her touch so light on the tip of his enormous cock, holding him right ... there, holding him ...
“Tonight, I will have this in me, and you will feel it there, but it will be mine to do with as I please and we’ll be closer than we’ve ever been before, and I am going to fuck your brains out while this one part of you is inside me, and you will feel what I feel, and with the body I give you, you’ll know exactly how I feel with you inside me while I am with a woman and we are fucking like the horniest weasels ... anyone ... has ever ... heard of.”
Kelsey was getting breathless. Stu was already half out of his mind.
Stu felt Kelsey mount him, felt his cock deep in her exquisite sex and she squeezed him and he saw stars and wondered as he always did what the hell could possibly be better than this, and then he felt her moving down and then felt something very different from anything he’d ever felt before even though he could still feel himself within her. Instead, Kelsey was licking him, and sucking, tonguing, and if it wasn’t the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt before, it was still pretty fucking amazing. He looked down at her, down his torso, past what should have been the hard-muscled chest and flat abs he’d worked so hard to build, but it was hard to see what she was doing because his vision was channeled between two prominent and highly distracting mounds where the much more modest swell of his pecs should’ve been. Those mounds had really big nipples. One of her hands came up to play with one, and holy shit, it was like that unexpected nipple attached to that huge mound where his chest had been was connected directly with his groin, with a particular place in his groin where his cock should have been but now it was ...
She was playing with him. Lips kissing, sucking, tongue teasing, lapping, licking, suction, he felt her fingers inside him, and he’d felt something like that with her before because she liked fucking him with a dildo so much even though it hadn’t brought her as much pleasure as ... something like ... this ... but oh fuck, this wasn’t like that at all, not like when Taylor had been inside him with a similar but differently shaped thing, or even that one time Dani had ...
“Oh ... fuck,” he said, the first words he’d been able to form since this began.
“Yes,” Kelsey said, “this is how it feels.” And she squeezed him but his cock was nowhere near where he could see that it ... wasn’t because what she was licking and sucking and fingering was a mound between his legs, as seen between two much bigger mounds, topped by hard pointed enormous nipples that Kelsey had one hand on and they were connected directly to his ... pussy, and her tongue hit his button like a guided missile.
Holy shit he came.
It was different than it’d ever been before, even when Taylor made him feel it through his whole body, it was just ... different. It went on longer, wasn’t so much a single climax as a roller coaster ride between smaller peaks with one bigger peak that made him feel all melty and buttery, even made him want to cry a little, it felt so good even as he felt the last spasms of his cock as he continued orgasming deep inside her, Kelsey squeezing to prolong the sensation as long as possible.
“That’s how,” Kelsey said, rising up between his enormous breasts, flicking one nipple and then the other, they’d been receding but now were doing something completely different.
“Your turn to perform now, my little fucktoy.”
She turned and lowered herself onto him, she was so wet, almost spurting into his mouth, and he felt her mouth on him, doing something he’d never felt anything like before, her fingers parting him and holding him open, more fingers exploring while her tongue pantomimed penetration and then slowly sensuously licked up or down one side or the other or right down the deep welcoming middle, and shit he was hard inside her again and she was squeezing him while her tongue played with a related but otherwise separate part of him and he was fucking gushing just as she was, because he’d been here before, the bottom of her 69, loving this with her so much, but some part of him withdrew, felt what she was doing to him, felt how great some of it felt while other parts weren’t as good, and he began applying this new awareness, Kelsey undulating like a magnificent proud prize courser above him, loving what he was doing to her even more just as he was loving what ... she was ... doing to ... him(?) and ... fuck he exploded, both of them coming together, on and on, and when he woke it was dawn and he was as intact as he’d ever been and she was in the shower, singing. Kelsey had a really nice voice. It felt like home.
We met Jess and Mariano late that morning behind the alehouse in Weed, everyone sad to see someone else go, so many embraces, all the women on tiptoes for one man or another, both us boys knowing how very fortunate we’d been to spend one more night with our love(s). Dani turned after a final kiss to return to the North Coast while Mariano stepped, Callie holding his unsteady arm, to Nevada City.
Callie had already made sure with the B&B owners that it would be OK if we left a little later than the posted checkout time. I was still putting my head together, so I was grateful. There was a nice diner in town ... breakfast at the B&B was attractive but not exactly sufficient. I still wasn’t sure whether caffeine was a good idea—I had hash browns and sausage. I honestly have no idea what anyone else was eating or thinking or even talking about just then, but that second breakfast was exactly what I needed. We stopped at an actual no-foolin’ general store and I bought a prepaid cellphone. Callie and Mariano gave me space. Goddess, I love Callie.
Joanna’s cellphone was out of service. Our landline was out of service. Craig’s and Aly’s cellphones were out of service. Even Rowan’s phones were out of service. This did not feel good.
Every half hour or so I tried someone I hadn’t thought of before. I’d never imagined that so many numbers could’ve all been put out of service in just a few months. In between, I read more from my grimoire and let things settle in as they would.
A few hours later, raking my memory for another phone number that might help, Mariano driving, I remembered Morgan. From the Christmas Eve Mass in L.A, which is where we were heading.
“Morgan,” I said when she picked up, “This is Bob. You left your number with me at the ...”
“I remember you,” she said, interrupting, her voice low and cool, collected, soft, controlled like no one else’s I’d ever heard.
“I’m on my way to L.A.,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “Will you stay the night?”
I almost dropped the phone. “It’s not like that,” I said.
“We have extra bedrooms,” she said. “My parents and brothers are here.”
Callie reached forward and muted the phone. “Have her meet us for dinner,” she said. We’d already picked a place that advertised fresh pulque and what seemed like some really fine barbecue. Callie unmuted the phone.
“We’re on our way to dinner, we should be there in, oh maybe two and a half hours,” I said. “Nothing fancy, very informal, but it should be good, maybe unique.”
“I’m intrigued,” Morgan said. “What’s the place? I’ll call back. Is this number good?”
“It should be,” I said. “I’ve never used it before, but I don’t see why not. I’ll call back if I don’t hear from you.” I named the restaurant.
She called back 15 minutes later. “Now I’m definitely intrigued,” she said. “Were you planning on the grasshoppers?”
I laughed out loud ... I hadn’t read far enough on their menu to see grasshoppers. “No ... we want the barbecue and the pulque.”
“This intrigues me more and more ... I haven’t heard of that, either. What is it?”
Mariano mouthed the words as I spoke them, remembering: “Metl. Maguey. Agave. Century Plant. Aguamiel.”
“Agave? Like tequila?”
“Yes, but different species, from a different part of the plant. I’m with two other people.”
“Mmmmmkay. What time?”
“Should be 7:00 or 7:30, depending on traffic.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
I didn’t need to ask whether she would remember what I looked like even though she might not with me de-aging almost 20 years since the last (and only) time we saw each other. Because I knew I would recognize her.
I stopped being able to concentrate on my grimoire as we approached the Grapevine. All the old stories, all the history, the Interstate straightened and absolutely flowing with cars and trucks struggling up the long, steep hill, remnants of the old road(s) still visible here and there. Then down the other side, a much gentler slope, until finally roller coasters and all the fucking cars of Los Angeles. It was a Thursday evening and inbound traffic wasn’t bad, though it started hanging up more as we neared downtown.
The restaurant was nondescript, like the Mom & Pop chicken teriyaki places back home plus a few simple Mexican design flourishes, but it smelled wonderful. Two tables came free as we arrived, and our pulque arrived soon after we sat down. Mariano and I each ordered a glass, with Callie wanting to sample mine before deciding if she wanted one of her own—she likes margaritas. She put her hand on Mariano’s before he took his first drink, wanting to feel his reaction, but none of us expected what happened: he immediately gasped, got a huge boner, started sweating profusely, excusing himself a moment later to go to the men’s room, and both of us could sense what happened next ... he barely had time to pull his pants down, his throbbing cock springing free, and grab a wad of toilet paper before he exploded into a huge orgasm that he did his best to mute. His fountain of cum would’ve splashed all over the stall door if he hadn’t had that wad of paper to intercept it. He hadn’t touched himself at all. Callie and I refrained from mentioning that we knew what happened when he returned, though of course we didn’t know the how or why.
“My life has gotten really strange,” he said.
“Do you think unfermented aguamiel would be better than pulque?” I asked.
Mariano shrugged.
“Not that I’m recommending it ... this is very different from anything I’ve tasted before, but I like it,” I said.
Morgan walked in. I felt the reaction before I turned to see ... the clatter and din of the restaurant damped in a wave that approached with her. Long straight copper hair, artfully clipped, a white frilly peasant blouse that left her delicate shoulders and an inch or two of her midriff bare, stretchy jeans tight around her slim hips and toned thighs but flaring at the knees and tastefully shredded in a gothic arch over her shapely calves and knees, platform sneakers with thick leather laces, open at the heel, a buckle prominent at the ankle, a slender bracelet decorated with lapis lazuli and turquoise that wound its way three times around her forearm, terminating in a silver bulb on each end. A playful yet notably fashionable look, but then Morgan could probably make anything look fashionable. She was scanning the room as she approached. I put my hand on Callie’s and rose, Callie possessively taking my arm and rising with me. I took two steps toward Morgan and she angled towards us, looking me over somewhat incredulously.
“Bob?” she said.
“Very nice to see you again, Morgan,” I said.
She offered her hand, raising it high as if expecting me to kiss it. I took her fingers over mine but didn’t kiss them. She leaned in, offering her cheek, and I bent to touch mine to hers. She smelled of subtle vanilla, almond, and orange, a most beguiling scent, her skin as soft and smooth as silk.
“Morgan, this is Callie,” I said. Morgan offered her hand to Callie the same way she offered it to me. Callie shook it decisively.
“This is Mariano,” I said. He was now standing next to me. Morgan offered her hand and then her cheek to him, just as she had to me.
“Very nice to meet you both,” Morgan said.
“Very nice to meet you, too,” Callie said. “Please join us?”
Callie was sitting next to me while Morgan sat next to Mariano, across the table from me.
“You look ... different,” Morgan said. “Different but good.”
“It’s been a very interesting year,” I said. “Wonderful and horrible, sometimes at the same time, lots of unexpected twists.”
“I want you to tell me all about it,” Morgan said, the corners of her mouth turning up into a small smile.
“We’re off to Mexico in the morning,” I said. “Mariano has some unfinished business there. Callie and I will help.”
A waitress arrived with our food. Mariano had ordered a small bowl of a dozen roasted grasshoppers on guacamole.
“I hope you don’t mind that we ordered for you ... really just extra of what we ordered for ourselves ... this seems to be one of the only places in the U.S. where you can get this kind of barbecue, but we also got beans and rice and some other things.”
“I don’t eat a lot of meat,” Morgan said, smiling, “but I’ll make an exception for this ... I’m completely intrigued. Is this the pulque you mentioned?” she asked, glancing to my glass.
“They serve it with other flavors, mostly fruit. This one is passion fruit. Mariano’s is unflavored.”
“May I?” Morgan asked me. “I love passion fruit.”
I knew she was still a few months shy of 21, but a sip wouldn’t hurt. I slid my glass toward her. She lifted it, her pinky held away, delicately sipped.
Her face gave away absolutely nothing. Mariano took another drink of his, fortunately minus any further extreme reactions.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes on mine. “I’m not sure I’ll make a habit of it. It’s nice but ... different.”
“I feel the same way,” Callie said. “I think I’d like a margarita,” she said to the waitress, who nodded, still setting out our plates. Morgan didn’t look away from me.
“Agua fresca for you?” I asked her, and she nodded slowly. She was almost impossibly beautiful ... it was difficult to look away, my eyes lost in the intense sky blue of hers.
“Strawberry,” she told the waitress without breaking my gaze.
Our plates filled the table. When Morgan finally looked away I found I could do the same, and the food looked incredible.
“It smells amazing,” Callie said, covering my hand with hers.
Corn tortillas in warmers, platters with lamb, pork, grilled quail, beans & rice, lettuce, cilantro, tomato, chilis, cotija, corn truffle, halved limes, lamb broth, tortilla soup, there was no way we would be able to eat all of this, and goddess, yes, it smelled incredible.
Morgan dipped her fork into the lamb, tasting a little, and spluttered, laughing out loud. “My Ga ... this is like the best thing I’ve ever tasted!”
Mariano was effusive when the waitress returned, the two of them trading rapid-fire Spanish, the rest of us just enjoying yet another of the best meals of my life. I asked Mariano for some of his grasshopper guacamole.
“Chapulines,” he said, smiling, and spooned some onto my plate. I took a deep breath, in, out, in, and had a bite. It reminded me of shrimp, but a little smoky.
“More please,” I said, and Mariano chuckled. Callie had a taste of the guacamole but couldn’t bring herself to taste an actual grasshopper, while Morgan just silently shook her head, her eyes on mine, her smile incredible.
I ordered a second pulque, this time unflavored like Mariano’s. I was liking it better and better, it seemed to enhance and complement the flavors of this amazing meal. It occurred to me for the first time that Mariano was not of legal drinking age, but no one was making a fuss about it, and aside from his unexpected initial reaction, I was glad he could have it ... it really did seem to be what he needed.
Any awkwardness from our meeting evaporated as we ate and talked, possibly abetted by pulque and margaritas. Morgan was animated, very bright, deeply charming, charismatic, witty, and very easy to talk with in addition to being one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. That initial coolness in her voice and demeanor was long gone, though a couple times I did catch her looking at me in a way that seemed distinctly appraising. Even Callie seemed to be warming to her, though they remained wary of each other. Morgan was on summer break before her junior year at Swarthmore where she was double-majoring in ancient and art history, subjects she seemed fascinated by, though she mentioned she was thinking of taking a semester off to focus on some of her own projects ... she’d designed all the clothes she was wearing and worked with a tailor to make them, and that tailor wanted to partner with her more, possibly starting a designer business together.
“They look fantastic on you,” I blurted, thinking she’d probably heard that many times before, but she blushed and stuttered, which seemed to surprise her even more than it did me, those few moments of vulnerability from her seeming to open a new channel of emotion within me, one that was going to be difficult to put away: I became conscious of how incredibly sexy she was. I felt Callie’s thigh move against mine; she felt it too, in me if not also in herself.
I found it odd that I couldn’t sense anything going on within Morgan, unlike Mariano who was an open book, and of course all the women and men of Newberry except Sati and Ingrid. And that raised an echo of a thought in me: Morgan somehow reminded me of Sati, not just because both of them were so inescapably gorgeous.
The restaurant was emptying—they would close at 9:00 PM and it was close to that now. The owner came out to talk, an extremely nice, deeply humble man who spoke good English but bantered with Mariano in Spanish far more quickly than I could’ve followed. Like Mariano, he came from Hidalgo, so they had a lot to talk about, and he was interested to know we were on our way there right now.
“You are very fortunate,” he said to Mariano and to me, “I do not recall ever seeing two such beautiful women in my restaurant before. I hope you will return.”
“I think this was the most delicious meal I’ve ever had,” Morgan said.
I looked at Callie, brought my fingers to my lips and she did the same, then we both looked at the owner, kissed our fingertips, opening them as they moved toward him.
“You are very kind,” he said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Tell your friends!”
Our waitress was boxing up our leftovers.
“Can I interest you in dessert?” he asked.
“I made dessert at home,” Morgan said, looking at me. “Chocolate truffles, my own special recipe. I hope you’ll join me.”
“The chocolate will be spicy, I hope,” the owner said.
Morgan smiled.
“With our compliments, flan to go with your lovely companion’s chocolate,” he said, and handed me an open pastry box with what looked like the best flan I would ever taste inside, drizzled in a caramel syrup. I turned it so everyone else could see.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “You are very kind.”
“Muchísimas gracias,” Mariano said.
We had three bags of leftovers to carry home, including the flan.
“You’ll have dessert with us and stay the night, I sincerely hope,” Morgan said as we walked outside. “I want you to meet my parents and brothers.”
I shared a look at Callie. She nodded. It wasn’t too late to make other plans, but we hadn’t, and our extended dinner with Morgan had been delightful.
“We can start with dessert and see how things go,” I said to Morgan.
She smiled, more broadly than I’d seen from her yet. She’d actually seemed a little nervous and now seemed immensely relieved as well as anxious for more. “Will you drive with me?” she asked. “I spent more time talking than I’m used to in the restaurant. I’d like to catch up with you, too.”
Callie made a sort of ‘what next?’ motion with her head, her eyes subtly rolling, but didn’t say no.
“I’d like that,” I said.
“Follow me,” she told Callie. “We’re 15 miles away, in Beverly Hills.”
Morgan drove a metallic light blue BMW 230i convertible. The paint matched her eyes in hue if not intensity, and it had a stick shift. The top was up. I opened her door for her, it just seemed the right thing to do. Be still my heart ... the hands and feet and bare legs of a beautiful woman putting a manual transmission through its paces remains one of the sexiest images I know. I was trying to be unobtrusive, but she must’ve noticed me glancing at her hand on the gearshift because she started overtly fondling it, another irreversible step for my consciousness of her sexual power, and it became obvious that she not only knew, she wanted it that way.
She was a really good driver, too, like she’d taken a class at a racing school or maybe the kind that teaches rich kids to evade kidnappers. Callie would have to do some fancy driving to keep up if Morgan wanted us to be more alone, but Morgan made sure we stayed together.
“I thought you were older,” she said. “Wasn’t that your son next to you at the Christmas Eve service? I thought he was almost my age.”
“Busted,” I said. “Yes, I’m more than twice your age.”
“You look really good, Bob, like you take great care of yourself.” She reached over to touch me on the leg, just lightly, briefly.
“Thank you, Morgan,” I said. “I hope I won’t get into trouble if I say that you look wonderful yourself.”
She shivered. I’d become used to feeling what a woman experienced without having to infer it, but for some reason I couldn’t with Morgan. However, from just what seemed to be happening from the outside, she was getting very aroused. We were on the freeway now and she reached to my leg again, this time leaving her hand there, just her fingertips touching, moving ever so slightly. She took a deep, unsteady breath.
“I thought you were married,” she said.
“I am,” I said. “I don’t actually know where Joanna is right now ... like I said at the restaurant, it’s been a crazy year.”
“It seems like you and Callie are a couple,” she said. “A really cute couple, I might add.” Her hand was moving on my leg now, lightly stroking while she drove one-handed. “My father’s in great shape, too,” she said. “He works hard at it, but I get the sense that yours is even better, like you’re solid muscle ... I can feel that in your leg.” She breathed out in a puff, seemed to shiver again.
I put my hand on hers, moved her hand back to the gearshift. I’d gotten pretty damn hard from what she was doing and didn’t want it going further. But then she was fondling the knob again, smiling impishly. So much for that.
“I get the sense that you’re also really athletic, like if you weren’t wearing a seatbelt you could jump out of this car ... in a single bound.” She smiled.
This was going a little too fast for me. I didn’t respond. She reached over and put her hand on mine. A soft, delicate hand, small gentle fingers like a child’s. Moved my hand to her bare knee, began moving it under the flare of her jeans.
“I’m a virgin, you know?” she said. “And I’m going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to please a man, very much, or a woman, or both at the same time like you wouldn’t believe, and to take my own pleasure. I’m also very kinky, you would not believe how kinky.”
I’d already withdrawn my hand by the time she finished her second sentence. Her leg was a revelation, as soft and smooth as silk or her cheek, even as toned as it was. I was pretty damned hard.
“I won’t try to take you away from Callie or take Callie away from you ... she’s a very beautiful woman and I would love to share you with her for as long as you’ll both have me.”
I had time for a few breaths, struggling to keep my breathing and the rest of myself under control. She was waiting for a reply.
“When I first met you,” I said, “you said I had something you wanted, something you needed. What did you mean?”
She was exiting the freeway, downshifting to surface streets, double-clutching. Yeah, this girl could drive. She seemed suddenly nervous, like this was a question she didn’t want to answer.
“Something about you felt ... out of balance,” she said, “like ... like ... well, I’ve never felt anything like it before, and I wanted to get to know you better, to learn more.”
I let that flow over me, around me, through me, like it was something I’d read in my grimoire and needed to let settle in before I could make sense of it. It felt honest and true, but also like it wasn’t the whole answer.
“Do you still feel that?” I asked.
Morgan shook her head, touched my leg for a few moments before downshifting for another red light. “What I feel in you now is something totally different, almost like ... like water running fast and deep under a still pond. I don’t understand how you could seem so much younger than the last time I saw you. Or why that makes me feel so ...” She reached for my hand again, placed it on her breast and moaned. “Oh ... Ga ...” she said, gasping.
I removed my hand as gently as I could, not without resistance. Her frilly peasant blouse revealed little of her form except her midriff and bare shoulders and most of her arms, and while all of that was lovely indeed, what she had under her blouse was only hinted at, but now I knew ... her breast was soft, and warm, and surprisingly full for such a slender frame, and while she wore a bra, it was there to conceal rather than display. Her nipple rose almost immediately to become as thick and long and meaty as any woman’s I’d ever felt.
She came at that stoplight, completely hands-free, an increasingly guttural moan for more than 10 seconds until she was breathless, her eyes mostly closed, her hands clutching the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles turned white. She sighed and tapped me on the leg, like I was a broiling hot pan and she didn’t want to get burned.
There were no more traffic lights. We were winding our way uphill, past a few stop signs, a Holmby Park sign and homes that kept getting larger, farther from the road, and farther apart. The driveway she finally turned into was 70 meters long, wound between two relatively modest homes and ended in a circular drive around a fountain with a mansion on the far side. It reminded me of the dark mage’s estate, but this one was stone while his had been wood, and this one was bigger. A man emerged from the front door and opened Morgan’s.
“Welcome home, young mistress,” he said, backing away, his eyes lowered.
“Thank you, James,” she replied. “Please let my parents know we’ll share dessert with our guests.”
He re-entered the house. I exited Morgan’s car to open Callie’s door, took her hand to help her out. Not that she needed it, but it felt like the right thing to do.
“Whoo,” I said to her softly, exhaling through puckered lips.
Morgan led us inside, her expression dreamy and satiated. Callie raised her eyebrows at me.
The entry was as large as my entire living room. Morgan removed her shoes and motioned that we should do the same. She handed Mariano and me nondescript pairs of grey-brown socks, but it took only a moment to realize that it was by far the most comfortable thing I’d ever put on my feet.
“Cashmere,” Morgan said, smiling, then handed me slippers that looked furry inside and had a bear logo on one side. “Outdoorsy like you. I think you’ll like them.” She leaned up to kiss me on the cheek, just a peck. Then she did the same with Mariano, who reddened.
Callie got two pairs to choose from. One was long and white, like a cableknit sweater, like leg warmers with feet, the other subtly diamond-patterned almost-sheer hose with a butterfly worked into the side of one and lace elastic tops that came to mid-thigh. And a garter. I could barely begin to imagine how spectacular my beautiful Callie would look in them, and I think Morgan noticed my breath catching, but Callie chose the white socks instead, Morgan handing her a pair of slippers that matched mine, then kissed her on the cheek, too, lingering longer than she had with us boys.
For herself, she chose stockings like those she’d offered Callie but only knee-high, sitting down to put them on, showing all of us a whole lot of shapely bare leg in the process, her eyes on me as she did, a little bite of her lower lip to make her message that much more unambiguous.
An older woman came out to greet us, resembling nothing so much as a sleeker, silvery version of Morgan. She also seemed familiar in at least one other way, which I would have to think about more to fully process. Her hair was silver-blonde, with silvery-white lipstick and fingernail polish, a finely wrought yin-yang pendant of lapis lazuli, turquoise, and silver around her neck, and a bracelet like Morgan’s winding around one forearm except where Morgan’s ended in simple bulbs of metal, this woman’s ended in a lion’s head on one end and a lioness’ on the other.
“Welcome to our home,” she said. “My name is Grace. Morgan is my daughter. I’m very pleased to meet you, Morgan was very excited to learn you would be coming.” She offered her hand to me the same way Morgan had, seeming to expect that I would kiss it, and this time I did. Then she came in closer and offered her cheek the same way Morgan had, and we air-kissed. She did the same with Callie and Mariano.
“Now then,” she said, smiling, “let’s say hello to the boys in my life,” and led us inside, except that a few paces later she slowed enough to take my hand and squeeze it. “I can understand why Morgan was so excited to see you again,” she whispered, and winked at me.
Two doorways later was a sitting room, high-ceilinged, a table and chairs in the middle, comfy sofas and chairs closer to the walls.
“Be a dear and help serve the flan,” Morgan told me. “I’ll get the truffles ready.” She offered her cheek again, but this time, as I bent down to touch mine to hers, she reached both hands behind me as if for a hug but instead clutched my head from behind, her fingers in my hair, squeezing hard as she brushed her lips against me. She stepped away, her eyes on mine, smiled impishly, her hands in fists at her side, then turned to walk into the kitchen.
Grace had left the three of us alone and Callie’s expression was as articulate, and even a little conflicted, as I’d ever seen. She took my hand and whispered into my ear.
“What happened?”
“She likes us,” I said. “She wants more.”
Mariano had the pastry box open on a sideboard, next to a stack of plates and a tray of immaculately polished silverware. Callie and I came over to help, slicing the flan into five larger pieces and three smaller ones after Callie said “I want a smaller piece. I’m feeling a little insecure,” but she smiled as she said it. I reached around her, gave her a big hug, kissed her neck and then on the lips.
“I love you, Calista,” I said, which made her smile into me.
A door on the far side of the room opened, a tall man my age holding it for Grace, two others behind, much younger. Or anyway, that older man seemed about the age I used to be—I was 20 years younger now. I’d seen their younger son at the Christmas Eve service, and he looked to be about 16. The elder was my height and absolutely looked the part of a future CEO. Their father was an inch taller, fit, clean-cut, distinguished, obviously intelligent, like he was already a CEO. He came over to shake my hand with a very strong grip that I matched, holding back the impulse to give something even stronger back.
“Bob, this is Michael, my husband,” Grace said.
“Call me Mike,” he said to me, trying to squeeze a little harder without being obvious, then gave up and withdrew. “I can see why Morgan thought so highly of you. Please join me in the study after I’ve met your companions, especially your lovely lady friend. These are my sons, Joe and Kevin. You would’ve seen Kevin at the Christmas Eve Mass, but Joe was away at school.”
Joe was the older one, the one who looked like he would take his Dad’s job someday. He shook my hand. “It was football,” he said. In peripheral vision I saw Mike kissing Callie’s hand the same way I’d kissed Grace’s.
“Football on Christmas Eve? Bowl game?”
Joe grimaced. “The national championship was a couple weeks later. We lost.”
“Joe was MVP of his team and his conference,” Grace said, patting his arm. “He played really well. It was a heartbreaker.”
“My oldest son plays high school ball,” I said. “Defensive end, all-league, but he’s more into lacrosse.”
“I did that until coach asked me to focus on football. We won the championship the year before.”
“Joe was MVP then, too,” Grace said, smiling.
“Have you graduated?” I asked.
“Yep, I’m out,” he said.
“NFL?”
“My agent said I would be a late-round draft pick, but honestly I’d rather be in business,” he said. “Football is a lot of work for what’ll probably be a short career and one injury after another, with a good chance that one of them will be permanent. I was lucky to get out in one piece.”
“You sound like a smart man,” I said.
“That’s my Joe,” Grace said.
“Very nice to meet you, Bob ... I hope I see you again,” he said, then backed away so he could greet Callie while Grace introduced me to her younger son.
“Bob, this is Kevin. He’ll be a junior at the same high school where you and Morgan met.”
“Very nice to meet you, Kevin,” I said. Kevin squeezed my hand as hard as he could, but he wasn’t fully grown and his father had squeezed harder. I squeezed back slightly less than he did.
“Nice to ... meet you, too ... Bob,” Kevin said, his breath coming short.
“It’s a good place, I know,” I said. I thought about mentioning that Joanna’s father and brothers also attended, which is why we’d been there on Christmas Eve, but that would just raise more questions. This had definitely become the strangest encounter of my life.
Kevin released my hand, flexed his shoulders, backed up a step, winked at me as if I were a girl he was trying to impress, then turned to follow Joe in greeting Callie. I turned to Mike, whose arm was linked in Grace’s.
“You have a wonderful family,” I said.
“Thank you,” Mike said. “We’re very fortunate.”
Joe walked over. “I think I’m in love with Callie, I kid you not,” he told me.
I ducked my head a little ... I was already head over heels, but saying so might be problematic. “Me too,” I said, as if I were half-joking. “She has that effect on people.”
“You kids all have a nice time,” Joe said. “I need to study.”
“He’s prepping for his first MBA year,” Grace said. “He’ll be at the University of Chicago. I’m so proud of him.”
“Gotta go,” Kevin said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Bob, Mariano, will you join me in my study?” Mike asked.
“Good, us girls need to get better acquainted,” Grace said, smiling at Callie.
Mike’s study was what you might expect in an old-fashioned downtown club where women were once unwelcome and are probably still scarce. Dark wood, leather furnishings, brass rails, a sideboard with liquor in one stoppered crystal decanter after another, a fully stocked bar behind.
“I’m a bourbon and cognac man,” Mike said, smiling. “Pappy, anyone?”
“I’ve never tried Pappy,” I said. “I’ve always been curious, but honestly I don’t usually go for bourbon ... I’m more about single malt. But cognac, I’ve had a few XO’s I liked very much.”
“Tequila for me, please,” Mariano said. I glanced over at him.
“Mike, for future reference, which way to the bathroom?” I asked.
Mike pointed behind him to a closed door that blended into the wall paneling so well it was almost unnoticeable. ‘His study has its own bathroom,’ I thought to myself.
“Thank you. You have a beautiful home,” I said.
“If you like a good XO, I have just the thing,” Mike said, unstopped a bottle with a golden spiral descending from its stopper, poured generous drams into balloon snifters that could only have been Reidel, or maybe Waterford, or ...
“The glass is Schott Zwiesel,” he said. “I like something heavier than a Reidel. The cognac is Frapin Cuvée 1888, not XO but you might like it even more.”
Truth is, XO is pretty rarified cognac for me, and I’m not sure I ever developed the taste to properly appreciate its subtleties, though the few times I’ve had it suggested strongly that additional study was warranted. As long as someone else was paying. How did he know exactly what I’d been wondering?
“Mariano, I don’t drink so much tequila, but Mexico and Ireland go back a long way together, much farther than most people think, and to an Irishman like me, any culture that puts as much love into its spirits as you do south of the border is a kindred. I have a few options.” He spread his arm to a section of his first shelf above the bar.
“Añejo, if you please,” Mariano said.
“May I suggest a Don Pilar Extra?,” Mike asked, and Mariano nodded agreeably. Like me, he’d probably never heard of what Mike was pouring for him. The bottle reminded me of Macallan.
Mike turned back to me, raising his glass to both of us. “In case you’re wondering, it’s my business to understand what other people are thinking. Sláinte.” He swirled his glass, had a good sniff, and then a healthy sip.
“Salud,” Mariano said, and mimicked what Mike had done.
“La reine,” I said, and buried my nose in the glass. I knew I was playing with fire, but given this crazy situation, I felt I could do no less. I could see Mike eyeing me, as I’m sure I will with one or more young men when Aly is a few years older and a situation anything like this ever comes up, but I was also fully involved in working through the mystery of this wonderful thing he’d poured for me. I had a sip a full minute later. My. Oh. My. Time seemed to slow, centered around a spot in my forehead, just above my eyebrows. I looked up.
“You’re Canadian, then?” Mike asked, a little on edge. My awareness caught up again.
“That is absolutely ... amazing,” I said. “Thank you very much for introducing me ... I’m now ruined for life, because ... nothing from my country is anything like that.” Then I nodded. “Guilty,” I said. “I am Canadian.”
Mariano was walking stiff-legged to the bathroom door. He disappeared inside. From here I knew exactly what was happening, the same thing as when he first tasted pulque at the restaurant.
“I’m intrigued by your ... relationship with my daughter,” Mike said. I could tell he was trying to be careful, like he was treading on ground more fragile than I could know. “Not everything about your situation adds up for me ... I understand you’re married, but you seem to have a relationship with Callie, and my daughter is absolutely ... perturbed by you, shall we say. This is very strange for me, and as her father I want to know more. I understand you’re a father, too.”
“My daughter is 13. Her name is Aly,” I said. “I love her very much and wish no harm ever comes to her.” He looked at me like he couldn’t believe I was old enough to have a 13-year-old daughter, much less a 17-year-old son.
“I’m with you there. It’s always hard to know,” he said. “Girls, and their ... whims, and ... well you’ve gotten to know Morgan a little bit ... and her ... whims ... are maybe a bit ... weightier ... than most.”
It sounded a little like he was warning me. Not about having a relationship with his daughter, but about his daughter being a force of nature all her own. I already had some sense of that, but ... yes this might’ve been the most uncomfortable evening of my life, but it was also pretty damned interesting.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I was really playing with fire now and I knew it.
Mike seemed to shrink, to descend, to ... well it didn’t matter how it seemed because he suddenly felt much more human to me, like if I’d wanted to I could send my awareness out and it would be child’s play to know what was going on inside him, the first time I’d felt that about anyone since coming here. But the weird thing was that I felt like doing so would be like stumbling into a tripwire.
Mike took a deep breath, a calming breath, like he’d pushed a ‘peace button’ inside himself.
Mariano emerged from the bathroom, loose-limbed, relieved ... unsettled.
There was a knock at the door to the hallway. It opened, but only a crack. “Boys,” I heard a woman’s voice, Grace’s voice, call. “Dessert.”
Morgan had changed clothes. Gone were the shredded jeans and the knee-high lace-top stockings, though she still wore her peasant blouse. She and Grace stood side by side, Grace maybe two inches taller but Morgan more than making up for it with barely-there three-inch heels, straps crossing halfway up her shapely slender calves and tassels at the tie-ends, a mid-thigh skirt. Her bare legs looked like they went on forever, and her bottom, oh, her bottom ... even if Callie didn’t have the best ass in the entire world I was thinking what I saw of Morgan’s right then would’ve put her in the top 5. Both still wore their almost-matching forearm bracelets, and Grace still wore her yin-yang ...
“Grace,” I said, “your pendant is beyond lovely. Where did you find it, or did your daughter—I nodded to Morgan—make that, too?”
Morgan blushed as furiously as I’ve ever seen anyone blush in my life.
Grace noticed, but focused her attention on me. “My maiden name was Leonhardt,” she said. “’Lion heart’ for those who speak English as a second language, like most of us do, if you know languages.” Joe rolled his eyes, I could tell that Mike knew better, but Mariano smiled.
“This is older than Morgan,” Grace said. ”Much older.“
Morgan was behind Grace by then, unfastened the pendant from Grace’s neck. She brought it to me, the chain suspended from her fingers, swaying with her hips, a motion that hinted at the deeply hypnotic. It was surprisingly warm when it brushed the back of my hand. The lioness above the lion, silver and somewhat hawk-headed with the beak penetrating the lion’s neck from behind, the spikes of his mane penetrating the lioness’ body from below, both eye dots teardrop-shaped, everything as finely wrought as finely wrought could be.
“Stunning,” I said, holding it out for Callie and Mariano before returning it to Morgan, who refastened it behind her mother’s neck.
Grace seated each of us at the table. Joe was with us but Kevin wasn’t so we were seven, a number that seemed auspicious. Callie had no one sitting across from her in the middle of the table. The lights were lower and there were candles lit near the walls around the room. Seven large candles, evenly spaced, on tall sturdy wrought-iron stands almost as tall as me. Callie sat next to me, Morgan and Grace brought the plates, two truffles on each along with the flan and some orange-peel garnish like origami in the shape of flowers, each one different. If I were an art person I would’ve doubtless thought them even more amazing than I already did. Morgan brought mine. Grace looked to Mike.
“I hope you’ll stay the night,” Mike said.
“We have guest bedrooms and two guest houses,” Grace said. “We might have recommendations, but you’re welcome to whatever you fancy.”
I put my arm around Callie’s waist. “Whatever’s easiest for you,” I said. “We need to leave in the morning.”
“May I come with you?” Morgan asked.
Mike and Grace exchanged a glance. “Not past the border,” Mike said. I was sitting to his right, across from Morgan, but the table was small and no one was far from anyone else. I raised my glass of superb cognac.
“May those you love bring love back to you, and all the wishes you wish come true,” I said, and Mike exhaled in a way that suggested I’d said the exact right thing. He grinned and raised his glass.
“Beautiful,” Grace said.
“Well said,” said Joe.
“Amigos,” Mariano said.
“To love,” Callie said.
“To love,” said Morgan, smiling.
I nibbled one of Morgan’s truffles. It tasted of orange and almond, vanilla and cayenne and caramel. It was absolutely head-spinningly delicious, and that is not a sensation I usually associate with chocolate, though a few women I’ve known over the years, and especially this year, may differ. A fork of flan joining all that other wonderfulness in my mouth was just icing ... on the ... cake.
I’m not kidding when I said my head was spinning. It was like, seriously, spinning. A bite of chocolate had never done anything like this to me before. Callie took my hand, held it tight.
“You OK?” she whispered.
“Buh,” I said, which at that moment was the most coherent response I could muster.
“You made the chocolate spicy,” Mariano said. A question but not.
“Oh yes,” Morgan replied.
“Muy delicioso,” Mariano said.
I recovered, mostly, though it took a couple minutes—Mariano hadn’t been the only person tonight to experience something like what he ... I ... had(?). Grace and Morgan shared an inscrutable glance.
Morgan’s truffles and the flan disappeared at almost exactly the same rate—the flan was outstanding.
Joe rose, taking his plate. “Thank you for a truly wonderful dessert,” he said, nodding to Morgan, to Mariano, and to Callie and me.
I was focused on my breathing. My headspins were slowing and I wanted them to stop, wanted that really very much, but that final elusive quantum of spin was intransigent. After goodnights and compliments and thankyous to Grace and Mike for their hospitality, I walked between Morgan and Callie to one of the guest houses, Callie’s hand and Morgan’s arm in mine. It was a lovely Southern California night, somewhere just right between warm and cool, the scent of eucalyptus and jacaranda perfuming the air. Not a lot of stars, but there seldom are here. Morgan walked us inside, stopping in the living room. This guest house was bigger than my house in BC and seemed even older, like it dated from Hacienda times, but it was immaculate.
“The bedrooms are upstairs,” Morgan said, pointing at the wooden stair but keeping her eyes on mine. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.” She came close, offering a cheek. “But only this once,” she whispered into my ear as I bent to her. She took my head between her hands and kissed me hard, on the lips, a lover’s kiss that provoked a reaction within me as powerful as anything Callie or Dani ever had. Then she kissed Callie in a way that was only slightly more restrained, and Mariano much more chastely. She walked us back to the door, one of her hands squeezing mine, the other lightly resting on the upper slope of Callie’s bottom.
“See you in the morning,” she said. “Sleep well.” And she winked.
In the early morning, Callie holding me in sleep, I woke to the sun streaming in through the window of what my extrasense reminded me was a guest house, my head still buzzing. I tried to think back to the last thing I remembered before the headspins began but it wasn’t easy ... I kept thinking of Morgan, of driving with her, of being with her, of her coming after she’d held my hand to her breast for maybe 5 seconds in her car, of wanting to be with her again.
Callie stirred, felt me holding her, sighed, and held me closer. I slept.